From Cold Wars to the War on Terror: North Korea, Racial Morphing, and Gendered Parodies inDie Another DayandTeam America: World Police

The Russian political elite and power image constructing peculiarities in contemporary video games (on the Metro Exodus materials)

“…As Shepherd argues (2008: 213), the WoT was routinely communicated using visual signifiers, and in tandem with Grayson, Davies and Philpott's (2009) discussion of the interconnection between popular culture and politics, the overlaps between gaming and other forms of representation can offer a more rounded understanding of the ways in which North Korea is represented in a paradoxical way. Kim (2015;127-8) Productions 1964). In Die Another Day, the villains deliberately destabilize a straightforward reading of their Otherness by problematizing race as a threat: the chief antagonist in the film is Gustav Graves, a British billionaire who is also the gene-edited North Korean General who imprisons Bond at the start of the film.…”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Procedural Rhetoric and the Military-Entertainment Complex: Two Case Studies from the War on Terror

“…As Shepherd argues (2008: 213), the WoT was routinely communicated using visual signifiers, and in tandem with Grayson, Davies and Philpott's (2009) discussion of the interconnection between popular culture and politics, the overlaps between gaming and other forms of representation can offer a more rounded understanding of the ways in which North Korea is represented in a paradoxical way. Kim (2015;127-8) Gow (2006) has suggested that this sort of parody reinforces American exceptionalism by showing the reflexive nature, and therefore moral superiority, of contemporary military intervention it can also be argued that the film prods at US selfrighteousness. The conclusion of the film fundamentally undermines North Korea as a threat, when the ultimate enemy is revealed not to be a stereotypical dictator, but a gigantic cockroach that escapes in a spaceship.…”

“…Kim (2015: 127–128) suggests that, during the WoT, established film franchises – where Western dominance is increasingly destabilized – required a new enemy and, as part of the Axis of Evil, North Korea might replace the earlier threat posed by the USSR. This is exemplified in two films released around the same time as Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon 2 , namely Die Another Day (Eon Productions, 2002) and Team America: World Police (Paramount Pictures, 2004).…”

“…As a franchise, Kim (2015: 127) argues, Bond has routinely Othered Asian characters, from Dr. No (Eon Productions, 1962) as a ‘tragic mulatto figure’, through to the demonization of Oddjob, the unfeeling Korean henchmen par excellence in Goldfinger (Eon Productions, 1964). In Die Another Day , the villains deliberately destabilize a straightforward reading of their Otherness by problematizing race as a threat: the chief antagonist in the film is Gustav Graves, a British billionaire who is also the gene-edited North Korean General who imprisons Bond at the start of the film.…”

“…The point is, in both instances, as with Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon 2 , North Korea is shown as strong – a nuclear power, run by an ‘uber terrorist leader’ (Kim, 2015: 134), hell-bent on destruction – and weak, when undermined by the extra-military intervention of specialist personnel who can, for example, infiltrate a missile battery single-handedly. This article has sought to demonstrate, using selective examples of video games that were developed and played at the height of the WoT, the ways in which North Korea has been constructed paradoxically.…”