utopia and dystopia in war

we should all agree that war is a dystopia even though i agree that there are some people fit better into a war economy than they do in civilian life, the reason war is a dystopia is because of the constant death and unstable living conditions.

i will be using the game call of duty world at war as an example to get my points of a dystopia and utopia across, first i will convince you that war is a dystopia.

differentiation of dystopia:
"An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror." 
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dystopia

in call of duty world at war there is an achievement called snakes in the grass, to get this trophy  you have to burn all the Japanese soldiers hiding in the grass to death with a flame thrower.
a flame thrower is a weapon that shoot a stream of flammable liquid forward a few metres in front of the weapon while its ignited, these weapons that cause a overly painful death were banned by the Geneva convention in 1978, my point is that weapons like this were being used in the setting of this game (world war two) and as these weapons cause terror among those that they are used against i would say this is a dystopia.

on the other hand there are areas of utopia within war, these are just for brief moments when the fighting stops.
a good example of this would be during the first world war when on Christmas both the British and German sides stopped fighting to play football out in no mans land ( A report in the Guardian on Boxing Day 1914 described how in one region "every acre of meadow under any sort of cover in the rear of the lines was taken possession of for football". In their letters home, British soldiers told of shaking hands with their German counterparts and swapping cigarettes. )

a example of this in the game call of duty world at war would be at the end of the game where the main Russian character plants the USSR flag on the final German position, in this moment the fighting stops and there is a scene of relief.

modern lara croft is she just for show

when compared to lara crofts original design the modern design has been toned down sexually, one clear indication of this is the fact she is now wearing allot more clothing changing though short shorts for a pair of long trousers.

even though her design has been toned down especially in the chest area she is still appealing mainly to a male hex-asexual audience, my argument and evidence to support this comes from one point of her design that never changes, this is the fact that she has no physical flaws.
you could argue that she would have to be in peak physical condition to do the job she does however there are no large scares or evidence of any injures that deform her perfectly sculpted face.

now that i have put my views on lara crofts physical form i will now compare her against mulvey's claim that the female is only there to be looked at and re-enforce the males role.

"What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the

slightest importance."

i would not go as far as saying lara is not important to the sorry however in the most resent game (reborn) lara is portrayed as being weakened instead of her main objective being to find treasure her main goal is just to survive and yes it is possible that this story could have been told with another character as it doesn't tie in with the tomb raider staples.

however even though she has been weakened and there for put in a more stereotyped female for this game rather than the one girl army that she is portrayed in other games, this doesn't mean that she is just to be viewed though as there is a character arc which makes lara a much stronger character than she is at the start of the game.

i would say that in removing the strong characteristics that make lara a large overpowering character the designers have not made her less attractive to the hexusexual male they have just made her a different kind of attractive the kind that a male could see him self being able to help.

ideology of war and video games

war is self escalating, even though most people might think that there was a just reason to go to war after awhile this reason is faded out and forgotten replaced by hate and the unwillingness to except that so may lives have been lost for nothing other than land gained or lost.
the idea that war is exciting and allot of fun is not the reality at all however people joined the army on mass at the start of the first world war expecting honor and glory but all they found was death and the constant fear of mutilation both from gas and shelling.

modern video games put across the idea that war is fun a place where you can run though a hail of bullets and survive, and even enemies with years of combat experience are out done by you a raw recruit fresh out of selection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcckHAYCxGk&list=PL35FE5C4B157509C9&index=28

the link about is a research and a conclusion of the rules of war in video games by Matthew Patrick, in this video he describes how the game call of duty contains many cases of war crimes that the player was not being punished for these crimes, this added on from an investigation that the red cross did on modern war games. 

even though the player is en-fact being punished accurately because of victors justice that doesn't mean that the video games should reward these actions with positive feedback.  

on other other hand if these games didn't give positive feed back for committing certain actions they wouldn't feel as rewarding, a good example of this idea being turned on its head is Spec Ops the line  which shows the horrors of war while mixing sections of fast fun action.

power point dystopia