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“You Are a True Progressive”: Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Depiction and Reception of Progressive Era Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2020

Hilary Jane Locke Open the ORCID record for Hilary Jane Locke [Opens in a new window]  and
Thomas Ashley Mackay
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Abstract

Since its release in October 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 has generated considerable controversy. Redemption 2, Rockstar Games’ highly popular video game set in a sprawling open world that resembles America’s southern and western states at the turn of the twentieth century, has attracted criticism from players who have disliked the perceived political messages the game presents. With numerous interactions with people of color, Native Americans, and feminist (suffragette) characters, the game prompts players to engage with the ongoing effects of colonialism, sexism, and racism, as well as the rising problems of an industrial and financial capitalist society. As such, the game’s depiction of Gilded Age and Progressive Era politics has resulted in a large amount of online criticism from a group of traditionally white, male, right-wing players. This article argues that Redemption 2 utilizes the Progressive Era as a vehicle to capture and speak to the current political climate, and that it is the game’s dual relationship with the past and the present that has aroused animosity from part of the game’s audience. Ultimately, it demonstrates how contemporary mainstream progressive politics can be interpreted within and projected upon the politics of the Progressive Era.

Keywords

American historyProgressive Eravideo gamesRed Dead RedemptionRockstar Gameshistorical fictionreceptionwesternspopular culturecapitalism studies
Type
Notes from the Field
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 174 - 193
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE)

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References

Notes

1 The authors would like to thank the anonymous readers for their useful suggestions and the editors for their work. Thanks also go to Stephanie Russo, Marina Gerzic, Mark Neuendorf, Steven Anderson, Elijah Winters, and Connor Douglas for reading and providing valuable feedback on early drafts of this article; and to Logan Niblock and Yvette Wijnandts for their support and assistance.

2 Kate Lyons, “Red Dead Redemption 2: Game Criticised Over Killing of Suffragette,” Guardian, Nov. 7 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/nov/07/red-dead-redemption-2-game-criticised-over-killing-of-suffragette

3 Shirrako, “Red Dead Redemption 2: Beating Up Annoying Feminist,” YouTube, Oct. 28, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPYAM 9AfRHo

4 “Feminist” was a niche term in the United States until the 1960s. While the term has been used to describe advocates of women’s rights since at least the 1880s, American activists at the turn of the twentieth century primarily saw themselves as suffragettes. The term became widespread upon the advent of second-wave feminism in the 1960s. See Cott, Nancy, “What’s in a Name?: The Limits of ‘Social Feminism’; Or, Expanding the Vocabulary of Women’s History,” Journal of American History 76:3 (1989): 809–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Moses, Claire Goldberg, “‘What’s in a Name?’: On Writing the History of Feminism,” Feminist Studies 38:3 (2012): 757–79Google Scholar, esp. 760–63.

5 Rockstar Games Inc., Red Dead Redemption 2, 2018, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

6 It is worth noting that both games are “spiritual successors” to Red Dead Revolver, a 2004 game set in the 1880s. The game was far less successful in terms of sales and popularity compared to Redemption and Redemption 2 and it is rarely considered alongside the two latter games. Tom Nicholson has stated that the game is “nearly forgotten now.” This article thus will not refer to the game any further. See Tom Nicholson, “Remembering the Red Dead Redemption Prequel You Probably Never Played,” Esquire, Oct. 14, 2018, https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a23590641/remembering-the-red-dead-redemption-2-prequel-you-probably-never-played/

7 Dan Houser quoted in Harold Goldberg, “How the West Was Digitized: The Making of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2,” Vulture, Oct. 14, 2018, https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/the-making-of-rockstar-games-red-dead-redemption-2.html

8 “Identity politics” refers to an approach to politics that prioritizes or focuses upon the interests and issues of particular groups of people, typically organized around racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation lines. In the past, identity politics was associated with movements that sought to attain equality and justice for minorities and marginalized people. More recently, it has come to refer to conflicts over social and national ownership, belonging, and control, and encompasses those in hegemonic and nonhegemonic groups. It is important to note that this article does not dismiss the idea that identity politics played an important role in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. We simply wish to explore the importance of how the game’s players have responded to such issues, and how the game represents such identity politics. For more, see Alcoff, Linda Martin and Mohanty, Satya P., “Reconsidering Identity Politics: An Introduction” in Identity Politics Reconsidered, eds. Alcoff, Linda Martin, Hames-Garcia, Michael, Mohanty, Satya P., and Moya, Paula M. L. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 1–9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jardina, Ashley, White Identity Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 1–20 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Carr, E.H., What Is History? (1961; Camberwell: Penguin Australia, 2008), 30 Google Scholar. This phenomenon is not limited to video games. Scholars have explored how cultural memories are embedded within all sorts of artifacts and media. For more, see Erll, Astrid, “Cultural Memory Studies: An Introduction” in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds. Erll, Astrid, Nünning, Ansgar, Young, Sara, and Nünning, Ansgar (Berlin: De Gruyter, Inc., 2008), 1–16 Google Scholar; and Erll, Astrid, Memory in Culture (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See Chapman, Adam, Digital Games as History: How Videogames Represent the Past and Offer Access to Historical Practice (New York: Routledge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elliot, Andrew B. R. and Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm, “Introduction: To Build a Past that Will “Stand the Test of Time”—Discovering Historical Facts, Assembling Historical Narratives” in Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History eds. Elliot, Andrew B. R. and Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 1–30 Google Scholar; The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies eds. Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron (New York: Routledge, 2014).

11 Spring, Dawn, “Gaming History: Computer and Video Games as Historical Scholarship,” Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 19:2 (2015): 208 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 We opt to use “far-right” rather than “Alt-right” as the latter now refers to a specific branch of contemporary far-right thought. Andrew Marantz has highlighted that although the “Alt-right” label was once used as an umbrella term to describe a broad range of far-right organizations and individuals that saw themselves as a “movement,” particularly during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they have since been divided between racial- and cultural-nationalists. The former is now identified as the “Alt-right” and the latter the “Alt-light.” As such, we use “far-right” as an umbrella term. See Andrew Marantz, “The Alt-Right Branding War Has Torn the Movement in Two,” New Yorker, July 6, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-alt-right-branding-war-has-torn-the-movement-in-two

13 Humphreys, Sara, “Rejuvenation “Eternal Inequality” on the Digital Frontiers of Red Dead Redemption ,” Western American Literature 47:2 (2012): 200–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Esther Wright, “Current PhD Students: Esther Wright,” University of Warwick History Department, last revised May 3 2019, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/eportfolios/u1555369/

15 Esther Wright, “Red Dead Redemption 2, L.A. Noire, and Battlefield V: The Real History Behind 3 Popular Video Games,” HistoryExtra, Nov. 20, 2018, https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/red-dead-redemption-l-a-noire-and-battlefield-v-the-real-history-behind-3-popular-video-games/?fbclid=IwAR0rdOzB0zgQYhlHkQ_6deCviZykEyGh0gycEIpnRh68KsSasOaySuy6vRQ

16 See Stephanson, Anders, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1996)Google Scholar.

17 For surveys of the era, see Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (New York: Vintage Books, 1955)Google Scholar; Lears, Jackson, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (New York: Harper Collins, 2009)Google Scholar; McGerr, Michael E., A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Painter, Nell Irvin, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989)Google Scholar; and Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967)Google Scholar.

18 Rockstar Games Inc., “The Gilded Cage,” Chapter 4, in Red Dead Redemption 2.

19 Reflecting the considerable overlap between the two, Rebecca Edwards has gone so far as to suggest abolishing the term “Gilded Age” altogether due to the presence of progressivism prior to the 1890s. Edwards, Rebecca, “Politics, Social Movements, and the Periodization of American History,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8:4 (2010): 461–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Lears, Rebirth of a Nation.

21 See Johnston, Robert, “Re-Democratizing the Progressive Era: The Politics of Progressive Era Politics,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 1:1 (2002): 68–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Hofstadter, The Age of Reform and Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order.

23 Johnston, Robert, “The Possibilities of Politics: Democracy in America, 1877–1917” in American History Now, eds. Foner, Eric and McGirr, Lisa (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 117 Google Scholar.

24 Johnston, “The Possibilities of Politics,” 96–124. Johnston argued in 2002 that the Progressive Era needed to be “re-democratized” and advised historians to again focus upon the era’s achievements as well as its problems. Johnston, “Re-Democratizing the Progressive Era,” 68–92.

25 See Fraser, Steve, The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power (New York: Basic Books, 2016)Google Scholar, esp. 3–13 and 207–425; Postel, Charles, “If They Repeal the Progressive Era, Should We Care?,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 13:3 (2014): 400–410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Johnston, “Re-Democratizing the Progressive Era,” 68–70. Also see Paul Glastris, “Why a Second Progressive Era Is Emerging, and How Not to Blow It,” Washington Monthly, Jan./Feb. 2015, https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janfeb-2015/why-a-second-progressive-era-is-emerging-and-how-not-to-blow-it//; Derek Paulhus, “Why the United States Needs a New Progressive Movement,” Harvard Political Review, Oct. 14, 2016, https://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/united-states-needs-new-progressive-movement/; and Jeffrey D. Sacks, “The New Progressive Movement,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-new-progressive-movement.html.

26 See O’Connor, John E. and Rollins, Peter C., “Introduction: The West, Westerns, and American Character” in Hollywood’s West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History eds. O’Connor, John E. and Rollins, Peter E. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005), 1–34 Google Scholar.

27 It should be noted that Red Dead Redemption, the first game, was geared toward the traditional, Hollywood-esque, cowboy experience, an environment where white men dominated the frontier landscape. Redemption 2, as this article suggests, shifts away from white men as the only voice in the history and narrative of this period of history.

28 See Salter, Anastasia and Blodgett, Bridget, Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media: Sexism, Trolling and Identity Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in particular Chapter Four, “Come Get Some: Damsels in Distress and the Male Default Avatar in Video Games,” 73–100. This chapter explores in-depth the ongoing relationship between alt-right gamers and the toxic masculinity present in the wider gaming community, particularly when it comes to representations of women in games, and interactions with the female gamers.

29 Malkowski, Jennifer and Russoworm, TreaAndrea M., “Introduction: Identity, Representation, and Video Game Studies beyond the Politics of Image” in Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games eds. Malkowski, Jennifer and Russworm, Treaandrea M. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), 3 Google Scholar.

30 Matt Lees, “What Gamergate Should Have Taught Us about the ‘Alt-Right,’” The Guardian, Dec. 1, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/01/gamergate-alt-right-hate-trump

31 Gray, Kishonna L. and Leonard, David J., “Introduction: Not a Post-Racism and Post-Misogyny Promised Land: Video Games as Instruments of (In)Justice” in Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), 6 Google Scholar.

32 Gray and Leonard, “Introduction,” 6.

33 Elston, M. Melissa, “Allegorical Confrontation Meets Gaming System: Rhetoric and Trauma within Red Dead Redemption/Undead Nightmare ” in Undead in the West II: They Just Keep Coming, eds. Miller, Cynthia J. and Van Riper, A. Bowdoin, (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2013), 150 Google Scholar.

34 Elston, “Allegorical Confrontation,” 143.

35 Elston, “Allegorical Confrontation,” 156.

36 Jonathan S. Jones, “Red Dead Redemption 2 Confronts the U.S.’s Racist Past and Lets You Do Something About It,” Slate, Feb. 4, 2019, https://slate.com/culture/2019/02/red-dead-redemption-2-racism-civil-war-rockstar.html

37 To view the full conversation, see Video Games Sources, “Red Dead Redemption 2—Arthur Meets & Listens to Eugenics Proponent (Racist White Supremacists) 2018,” YouTube, Nov. 8, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMiXczq1H5w

38 Algontuk, “Red Dead 2 is Propaganda” post on Debate the Alt-Right Sub-Reddit, Reddit, Dec. 15, 2018, https://np.reddit.com/r/DebateAltRight/duplicates/a6akbu/red_dead_2_is_propaganda/; Having a sub-reddit “Quarantined” is a term to describe the process of blocking readers from accidentally seeing posts from a forum that contains offensive or disturbing content.

39 To view the full mission, see GTA Series Videos, “Red Dead Redemption 2 Stranger Mission—The Iniquities of History,” YouTube, Jan. 25, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9Bl4LDEgI&t=6s

40 Jonas, “Red Dead Redemption 2.”

41 Skill Up, “Red Dead Redemption 2—The Review (2018),” YouTube, Nov. 12, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JRikiQyzLA

42 Red Dead Redemption 2, (2018, New York: Rockstar Games). See Zanar Aesthetics, ‘Red Dead Redemption 2—Native Americans Dutch Gang vs U.S. Army,’ YouTube, Nov. 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvtAObqeBnk.

43 See Berry, Brewton, “The Myth of the Vanishing Indian,” Phylon 21:1 (1960): 51–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 BeckTheHeck, “Red Dead Redemption Are SJW Garabage ‘Cus Women,” Gamingcirclejerk Sub-Reddit, Reddit, Oct. 27, 2018, https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamingcirclejerk/comments/9rms5o/red_dead_redemption_are_sjw_garbage_cus_women/

45 See RutheSuperJew comment on TheQuartering, “Shame On You for Playing Red Dead Redemption 2!,” YouTube, Oct. 29, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9AOil4Tb_A

46 Larry420, ‘Game Too Politically Correct?’, Red Dead Wiki, Jan. 17, 2019, https://reddead.fandom.com/f/p/3114360318722152166

47 For the full mission, see Blueroze, “Red Dead Redemption 2 Womens Rights,” YouTube, Oct. 28, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvUt27JweU

48 Video Games Source, “Red Dead Redemption 2—Saint Denis Special Characters: Arthur Meets Dorothea The Suffragette (2018),” Youtube, Nov. 7, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6W-CQFxLo

49 Matt Christiansen, “On Red Dead Redemption 2: In-Game Violence Against Women Triggers Virtual Feminists,” YouTube, Nov. 15, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M6LeoWUaBc&t=367s

50 Emanuel Maiberg, ‘“Red Dead Redemption 2’ Players Are Excited to Attack and Kill Feminists in the Game,” Vice, Nov. 2018, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3gmm/red-dead-redemption-2-players-are-excited-to-attack-and-kill-feminists-in-the-game

51 American Krogan, “Red Dead Redemption 2: Elliptical Politics,” YouTube, Apr. 8, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM6L3-5tQug

52 Krogan, “Redemption 2.”

53 Globgogabgalab comment on “Elliptical Politics.”

54 Baby Dog of Justice comment on “Elliptical Politics.”

55 Ertzun comment on “Elliptical Politics.”

56 Humphreys, “Rejuvenating ‘Eternal Inequality,’” 205.

57 Rockstar Games, Inc., Chapter 5, Red Dead Redemption 2.

58 Rockstar Games, Inc., “A Rage Unleashed,” “Archaeology for Beginners,” “Honor, Among Thieves,” “The Fine Art of Conversation,” “Favored Sons,” and “The King’s Son,” Chapter 6, Red Dead Redemption 2.

59 Matthew Josephson popularized the term Robber Barons. See Josephson, Matthew, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1934)Google Scholar. For contemporary critiques of J.P. Morgan, see Brandeis, Louis, Other People’s Money: And How the Bankers Use It (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1914)Google Scholar; and Sinclair, Upton, The Moneychangers (New York: B. W. Dodge and Company, 1908)Google Scholar. For John D. Rockefeller, see Tarbell, Ida, The History of the Standard Oil Company (New York: McClure, Phillips, and Co., 1904)Google Scholar.

60 See Postel, Charles, The Populist Vision (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar, 150–53, Ritter, Gretchen, Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of American Finance, 1865–1896 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 52–58 Google Scholar, 66–73, 90–104, and 194–200; and Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, Anna, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 113–19. Interestingly, the game also includes a side mission that involves bounty hunting an embezzling banker who has fled from New York. Bank embezzlement was a popular issue at the turn of the century. See Mackay, Thomas A., “‘Bank Wreckers, Defaulters, and Embezzlers’: America’s Popular Fear and Fascination with the Misappropriation of Bank Deposits during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” Enterprise and Society 19:1 (2018): 58–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 See Lamoreaux, Naomi, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chandler, Alfred, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. Also see Ritter, Goldbugs and Greenbacks and Lipartito, Kenneth, “The Antimonopoly Tradition,” University of St. Thomas Law Journal 10:4 (2013): 991–1012 Google Scholar.

62 Rockstar Games Inc, “Just a Social Call,” Chapter 4, Red Dead Redemption 2.

63 For recent interpretations of these movements, see Postel, The Populist Vision and Ritter, Goldbugs and Greenbacks.

64 See Kazin, Michael, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (1995; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 13–14 Google Scholar; and Rosanne Currarino, The Labor Question in America: Economic Democracy in the Gilded Age (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011), 12–14.

65 Turner, Frederick Jackson, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in American Historical Association, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894), 197–298 Google Scholar. See also Carpenter, Ronald H., “Frederick Jackson Turner and the Rhetorical Impact of the Frontier Thesis,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1977): 117–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Massip, Nathalie, “The Role of the West in the Construction of American Identity: From Frontier to Crossroads,” Caliban 31 (2012): 239–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nash, Gerald D., “The Frontier Thesis: A Historical Perspective,” Journal of the West 34:4 (1995): 7–15 Google Scholar. Sarah Humphreys explores the original game’s connection to the Frontier Thesis in extensive detail. See Humphreys, “Rejuvenating ‘Eternal Inequality,’” 200–15.

66 Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1943; London: Routledge, 2003), 81–86 Google Scholar.

67 The Monroe Doctrine originally stipulated that the United States had a duty to “protect’ the Americas from “Old World” or European colonialism. For more on the evolving nature of the Doctrine, see Sexton, Jay, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 199–240 Google Scholar.

68 Rockstar Games Inc., Epilogue, Part 1 and Epilogue, Part 2, Red Dead Redemption 2.

69 Claudio J. Katz has argued that it is not. See , Katz, “Thomas Jefferson’s Liberal Anticapitalism,” American Journal of Political Science 47:1 (2003): 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Brandeis, “A Curse of Bigness” in Other People’s Money, 162–88.

71 For instance, a strike is mentioned just before van der Linde kills Cornwall. Rockstar Games, Inc., “Just a Social Call,” Chapter 4, Red Dead Redemption 2.

72 See Currarino, The Labor Question in America; Dray, Phillip, There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America (New York: Doubleday, 2010)Google Scholar; Montgomery, David, Workers’ Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and Painter, Standing at Armageddon.

73 This is a reference to Jacob Riis’s famous photo book that exposed middle-class audiences to the lived experiences of impoverished people living in New York City’s dense and squalid tenements. Riis, Jacob, How the Other Half Live: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 See Rockstar Games Inc, “Money Lending and Other Sins VI,” Chapter 6; and “Money Lending and Other Sins VII,” Chapter 6, Red Dead Redemption 2.

75 See Hyman, Louis, Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011)Google Scholar, esp. 220–80.

76 See Bremner, Robert, From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 1956), 123–259 Google Scholar; Goodwin, Joanna L., “Progressive Era and the 1920s” in Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, and Policy, Vol. 1 A–K, eds. Mink, Gwendolyn and O’Connor, Alice (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 19–25 Google Scholar; and O’Conner, Alice, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth Century US History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 25–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are other Progressive Era causes that the game does not devote much attention to. The Prohibition movement, for instance, is largely, if not entirely absent, notwithstanding Colin Campbell’s observation that the game critiques “macho booze culture.” Instead, Prohibition is addressed in the previous game. There are no doubt other major causes that have not been explored. Our focus in this section, however, is upon political economy. Colin Campbell, “Red Dead Redemption 2 Takes a Serious Look at Sad, Macho Booze Culture,” Polygon, Nov. 7, 2018, https://www.polygon.com/red-dead-redemption/2018/11/7/18040190/red-dead-redemption-2-alcohol-a-quiet-time, and Rockstar Games Inc, “The Prohibitionist,” Red Dead Redemption, 2010, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

77 This is not to suggest that discussion is entirely absent. However, it is few and far between. For examples, see Francis Cook, “Unhappy Trails: Red Dead Redemption’s Naïve Narrative,” RNZ, Jan. 2, 2019, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/379314/unhappy-trails-red-dead-redemption-s-naive-narrative; and Jared Petty, “How Historically Accurate Is Red Dead Redemption 2?,” IGN, Dec. 24, 2019, https://au.ign.com/articles/2018/12/24/how-historically-accurate-is-red-dead-redemption-2.

78 Jason Schreier, “Inside Rockstar Games’ Culture of Crunch,” Kotaku, Oct. 24, 2018, https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/10/rockstar-games-red-dead-redemption-2-culture-of-crunch/. See also Owen S. Good, “Red Dead Redemption 2’s Labor Controversy, Explained,” Polygon, Oct. 27, 2018, https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/27/18029154/red-dead-redemption-2-working-conditions-rockstar-games-overtime-labor.

79 See “List of Best Selling Video Games,” Wikipedia, June 15, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#cite_note-44.

80 Fisher, Mark, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester: Zero Books, 2009), 12–15 Google Scholar.