Children’s games and global politics: Masculinity, militarism, and the warrior hero
July 22, 2026
The role of popular culture in the reproduction, negotiation, and contestation of global political life has long been an issue. Drawing, specifically, on the Heroes of History card game in the Top Trumps franchise, Dr Lee Jarvis argues that children’s games contribute to the everyday (re)production of international relations through the contingent storying of global politics. More specifically, he argues that the Heroes of History’s narrative, visual organisation, and gameplay mechanics construct world politics as an unchanging realm of conflict through their shared reproduction of a valorised, masculinised figure of the warrior hero. He goes on to argue that this construction does important political work in insulating young players from the realities and generative structures of violence.
Understanding how constructions of masculinity and militarism in children's video games contribute to everyday reproductions of global politics shows how important robust and holistic mechanisms are to changing hyper-masculine military cultures, which in turn reproduce gendered harms.
To read the full article, see here
July 22, 2026
Children’s games and global politics: Masculinity, militarism, and the warrior hero
July 22, 2026
The role of popular culture in the reproduction, negotiation, and contestation of global political life has long been an issue. Drawing, specifically, on the Heroes of History card game in the Top Trumps franchise, Dr Lee Jarvis argues that children’s games contribute to the everyday (re)production of international relations through the contingent storying of global politics. More specifically, he argues that the Heroes of History’s narrative, visual organisation, and gameplay mechanics construct world politics as an unchanging realm of conflict through their shared reproduction of a valorised, masculinised figure of the warrior hero. He goes on to argue that this construction does important political work in insulating young players from the realities and generative structures of violence.
Understanding how constructions of masculinity and militarism in children's video games contribute to everyday reproductions of global politics shows how important robust and holistic mechanisms are to changing hyper-masculine military cultures, which in turn reproduce gendered harms.
To read the full article, see here
