Production 7: ""There ain't ever going to be another Dr. King or Bobby Kennedy. But there's always gonna be another Lincoln Clay": Anti-Racism, Stereotypes and Colonial Legacies in 'Mafia III'
Introduction
In November 2018, two years after the game's release, journalists reported that Mafia III developer Hangar 13 originally planned a radically different opening sequence than the one that shipped with the title. According to a Eurogamer (2018) report, the scene in question depicted the game's protagonist, Lincoln Clay, killing a police officer and murdering numerous others. "We went back at the eleventh hour and added a cold-open to the game that was a really violent prologue which basically shows Lincoln and a couple of his friends getting ambushed by the mob," the game's director, Haden Blackman, said. "It's super-violent and Lincoln has to resort to violence to escape. However, Blackman said, "it felt exploitative...so we ended up cutting it," despite having championed its "sensitive" subject matter: race, police brutality, and crime. The section was so violent, so "controversial" and "shocking", that Hangar 13 even erased it from its servers. It no longer exists.
This last-minute change to the game adds yet another layer to Mafia III’s intriguing depiction of racism and American history. Mafia III places players in the shoes of Clay, a Black-presenting Vietnam veteran, as he takes control of late-1960s New Bordeaux, a recreation of New Orleans, all the while tackling racism and the legacy of colonialism and slavery. Mafia III's honest and detailed representation of a racist, postcolonial or colonial society opens it to many angles of cultural analysis. Following Brock's (2011) treatise on race in games and Mukherjee's (2018) writings on postcolonial games, this production will examine how Mafia III interacts with these theories, often in conflicting ways. It will argue that, although the game's narrative and diegesis does encourage players to confront racism and see the world as a subaltern, postcolonial subject, its design positions Black men as violent criminals and complies with commonly held stereotypes, all the while reinforcing colonial attitudes towards land and empire.
"You didn't kill me because I said no; you kill me because you thought you owned me": Perspectives, History, and Race
Mafia III is a unique text, especially considering its AAA production background. Situating players in the Deep South at the height of the civil rights movement, New Bordeaux is remarkably detailed and, by extension, flush with inequalities. White and Black areas of the map are highly segregated, with Black families mostly living in the poorer neighborhood and swamps of the city's south-side, while White elites dominate the pristine downtown and the mansions of the north-end. The police are complicit in this issue. As a Black man, Lincoln is continually harassed by the police: if spotted when driving a car, the police will suspect him of a crime, and sometimes can be called if he steps foot in a Whites-only area. Likewise, the game's mechanics reinforce this dichotomy. When someone calls the police to a White area, they respond immediately. But when they one summons them to a Black area, they respond sluggishly or do not appear at all. Put differently, Mafia III is flush with reflections on the legacy of racism and segregation.
To that end, the game's perspective is constructive. When playing as Clay, one comes to "empathize" with what it is like to live as a racialized subject in a racist society. For example, in many of the game's missions, Clay must enter the turf of the Dixie mafia. Here, he overhears numerous conversations of its members, who often refer to Blacks as "niggers" and "animals". When listening to the radio, one can hear Remy Duvall, a local construction magnate, decry Blacks for their predisposition to violence. Even when he walks on the street, Whites will insult Clay with racial slurs. By placing players, regardless of race or gender, in the position of a Black person, players must endure racism in the game world just as he does. The game's process of identification earned it significant attention from critics. The game was widely praised by media on its release for its blunt portrayal of race and inequality. Tauriq Moosa (2016) posits that the game's treatment of history, one that exposes prejudice and encourages players to identify with victims of bigotry, is "cathartic" for Black players like him. Correspondingly, The Washington Post (2016) called it a "cultural milestone" for its well-rounded cast of Black characters, and critic Yusuf Cole (2018) praised the game for its nuanced understanding of radical Black politics. Mafia III's attention-to-detail led one critic (Gerardi, 2016) to call it a "simulation" of racism. Thus, one can say that Mafia III’s treatment of intolerance can be highly progressive, and can educate users about the subject.
Conversely, and as Brock notes, video game representations of race go beyond the surface and into the mechanics of play themselves (431). And these representations, "[trade] upon stereotypes and these stereotypes are essential to players’ understanding of the game," stereotypes that are made believable by mechanics, interfaces, and narrative (430). Although Mafia III’s narrative seems to counter racist notions, the game's mechanics paint Clay as a criminal and a brute. The game's mission structure is the same across its entire runtime: Clay must infiltrate the territory of a rival mob boss, kill the enemies in said territory, destroy some kind of contraband, or interrogate a capo. Granted, it is possible to play some of these levels non-violently by sneaking out of sight, but more often than not, enemies will spot Clay and gun-battles ensue, with Clay shooting, stabbing, impaling and running over a multitude of opponents (see Note #1). Writer Jed Pressgrove (2016) summarizes this problem well when he proposes, "the problem is that Mafia III...portrays droves of darker-skinned people as inherently violent rather than recognizable human beings. Before Clay is betrayed, he is shown and described as a natural killer."
In one particularly violent level, Clay must assault a mob lieutenant in his base, a railroad roundhouse. After sneaking up to the lieutenant's office with out firing a shot, my Clay was spotted, killed five or six men in quick succession, and accosted the lieutenant. Clay subdued him, made a quick joke, and slit the man's throat. Furthermore, this mission type is extremely repetitive, occurring dozens of times throughout the game's 30 hour story. Mafia III’s mechanics and design, where Clay must commit heinous acts to secure resources and power in the game world, positions him firmly as a Black male "delinquent". Its design tells the player that Clay cannot take power just by his intellect, his charm, or his ability to manipulate people, but rather his bare strength and ability to kill and destroy. And as Brock states, appearances matter, too. Sheva's design in Resident Evil 5, for instance, objectifies her as a purely sexual being. Similarly, Clay's appearance as hyper-masculine, muscular and broad affirms his brutish likeness.
The stereotype of the angry Black criminal is a common one in American media. As Kelly Welch (2007) notes, "throughout American history, Blacks have been consistently stereotyped as criminals...the evolving criminal image of Blacks appears to be of a more threatening nature." Ronald Jackson (2006) agrees, positing, "racialized images of Black men presented by the media are synonymous with poverty, crime, and a number of other social ills." This is not a new phenomenon in video games, either. Melinda Burgess et. al (2011) explain that Black men in games are, "overrepresented as thugs, using extreme guns," and that this representation can, "[confirm] the culturally held stereotype of the Black male criminal." (91) By implementing narrative and gameplay design that features a Black man murdering men and women over and over again, often without remorse, mercy or self-reflection, Mafia III becomes complicit with this trend of representation.
Moreover, echoing Brock's analysis, Mafia III routinely denies players non-conflicting engagements with enemies (434, see Note #2): its fluid and responsive controls make the player feel strong and tough. These factors, along with the game's artificial intelligence characters, who are easy to manipulate and trick, situate Clay as a powerful predator who preys on his unsuspecting and hapless foes. In all, then, though Mafia III’s use of simulation and perspective that confront racist ideas is commendable, its design plays into stereotypes about Black men as criminals, much like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Brock, 433). One critic,The Verges Chris Plante (2016), subscribes with this interpretation, postulating that, "the game makes a number of points about the indignity and brutality of policing in black communities, but asks you to play as a man who steals cars to travel a couple blocks — and when someone spots you, you’re directed to choke the witness out, or just run them over." Still, others, including Dustin Seibert (2016), propound that Clay's "bad" side is what makes him more than a simple "black savior", declaring, "he’s our hero, but he’s a complex character and not exactly a good guy."
"If all you look for is evil, that's all you're ever gonna see": Postcolonialism and Identity
Per Mukherjee, games that respond to colonialism in its multitude of forms are postcolonial texts (518). Taking place in a location with a rich history of colonialism and slavery, Mafia III fits this mold. Its world is a colonial world. In the bayou area of the map, the player can explore abandoned colonial plantations. Clay even uses one of these plantations as a safehouse for him and his underlings. New Bordeaux contains a French Quarter akin to New Orleans', chock-full of colonial-era architecture and signs. Additionally, as discussed earlier, colonial ideas of race and class persist into the game's current day. Being a postcolonial text, Mafia III intersects with Mukherjee's ideas of subalternity and identity: Clay and his Black allies are intrinsically subaltern characters. The subaltern, Mukherjee says, is the attempt to view history from "below" (505). Instead of putting users into the shoes of a rich White person, Mafia III interacts with the subaltern because it tries to re-tell history from a marginalized subject's point-of-view. Clay is, after all, a man who comes from abject poverty, and lives in the underbelly of society.
On the other hand, Clay fits Mukherjee's notion of the "postcolonial subject" because he endures a, "negotiation between his identity as the subaltern as well as one complicit in the activities of the elite." (515) As the story progresses, Clay becomes more and more powerful and creates alliances with numerous powerful Whites. In the same way, Clay works with a CIA agent, Donovan, who helps him destroy his mob enemies. At a basic level, too, Clay is half-white and half-Black, and hence struggles with his racial identity. Therefore, Mafia III’s engages with colonialism because, as with the Punjabi character in Far Cry 2, "the player too struggles to figure out his or her identity," when playing as Clay. (515)
Mukherjee believes that a significant postcolonial aspect of games is their capacity for creating alternate histories. He submits, "the video game...is also a space where alternative history(ies) are made possible. Here, it is possible to reverse the colonial process and conquer the erstwhile imperial powers." (509) Mafia III generates these possibilities because of its sandbox, open-world design. Put differently, because the game allows players to do what they please in its world, it is ripe for subversion. Players do not have to suffer under racism: they can fight back against racist police officers, react to racist slurs in whatever way they please, or generate income to support the Black communities of Cassandra, the leader of the Haitian mob. These alternate histories exist in the game's linear missions as well. In one quest, Clay must sneak his way through an abandoned amusement park to find a capo. When he catches him, he ties him to a noose and hangs him, directly recalling images of Black lynchings at the hands of white men. Yet this time, the relationship is reversed, proposing a different kind of history. To use Mukherjee's terms, Mafia III becomes a "thirdspace" where struggle and protest against colonial ideas can take place (509-10).
More fascinatingly, Mafia III’s treatment of space is colonial in nature, and at odds with its capacity for protest. Mukherjee argues that, "speaking of maps, cartography has always been a key element in the colonial construction of space." (507) Colonial empires mapped, renamed, and redefined space as something to be conquered. Mafia III, like so many games, reinforces this ideology. In the game, as with the Grand Theft Auto games, maps are tools that the player uses to navigate their way through New Bordeaux. However, as Clay takes out mob bosses and captures turf, the map reflects this fact: the "dark", unclaimed areas of the map become his territory. When Clay takes one of these areas, it changes colour, denoting his control. Therefore, just as colonial maps did, Mafia III’s cartography contextualizes spaces as "empty" and spaces to be conquered, and colonized, by the player and their cronies. Unsurprisingly, the game's official website describes how one can build a "criminal empire" with "muscle and firepower".
Conclusion
In sum, then, Mafia III is a game of contradictions, and Blackman's decision to cut the controversial opening demonstrates that its treatment of history and current affairs is complex. Its narrative and sandbox encourage players to gain a better understanding of, and resist, racism and inequalities. Meanwhile, its design often reproduces stereotypes and confirms colonial attitudes. Yet, as Mukherjee notes, these contradictions are inherent to games. He suggests that, "the video game medium offers the simultaneous possibilities of subalternity, protest, elitism, and hegemony." (515) Mafia III does just that. It is a mix of ideas operating alongside one another, ideas that are constructive, destructive, and both at the same time. Regardless of its issues, Mafia III is a rich text, from its erased cinematics to its end, and many questions persist: what role does sound play in the game's representations? How does the game present its other Black characters, including Father James and Sammy Robinson? How does the game deal with Irish-ness and Italian-ness and their intersections with the working classes? What is the role of gender, and class more broadly, in the diegesis? How does the game's ending, in which Lincoln can give up his power or keep it, complicate the game's message? Why are AAA developers so resistant to tackle racism in their games, making Mafia III a one-of-a-kind text?
Notes
Note #1: It should be noted that the reason that Clay embarks on his destructive spree is in response to a racially-motivated crime, the killing of his surrogate father Sammy Robinson, complicating the issue even more. By the same token, the player can opt to meet with Father James, Clay's priest. James chastises Clay for his use of violence and encourages him to use non-violent means. Clay ultimately ignores his warnings and continues his vengeful pursuit.
Note #2: Later in my research, I did find that the game does allow for non-lethal stealth, but, strangely, as an option one can select within a menu. The game does not prompt the player that this is a possibility. This article explains the choice in more detail. Even if one chooses this option, there are numerous missions where Lincoln commits immeasurable violent acts, sometimes automatically.
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