Representations of Looting and Bad Practices as Entertainment

Author(s): L. Meghan Dennis

Year: 2015

Summary

Representations of archaeology in films and television have been historically problematic, frequently emphasizing bad practices, shoddy scholarship and ethically questionable professional behavior. In video games, however, there is an additional dimension of experience as the user in effect commits the acts actively instead of viewing them passively. By looking critically at the modern "adventure" game, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, examples of encouragement of looting, creating a false object pedigree, and participating in a black market in antiquities will be examined for their role in creating interactive experiences about how archaeology and archaeologists function.

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Cite this Record

Representations of Looting and Bad Practices as Entertainment. L. Meghan Dennis. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 398218)

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