Buffoons, Goons, and Pixelated Minstrels

As racial projects, video games legitimize white masculinity and hegemonic ideology through the ‘othering’ process. This is performed via pixelated minstrelsy by depicting Black and Brown bodies as objects to be destroyed and women as bodies to be dominated. The mediated story of Black characters is limited and situated within buffoonery (comedy) or crime and gaming is not exempt. Media outlets have created essentialist notions about Blackness and what it means to have an ‘authentic’ Black experience. And because there are limited counter-narratives, this singular story only confirms hegemonic notions of what it means to be Black.