I’ve never played (or, even, considered playing) GTA, despite the fact that it’s the highest grossing videogame in world history. I wanted to figure out why I had never had the urge to play GTA, so I turned to Rockstar Game’s branding of GTA5 to see who, exactly, they were marketing to. What I found was that they were, clearly, marketing to men. In every official GTA5 trailer, women were either excluded or included only insofar as they fit a hyper-sexualized, hyper-critical stereotype of what women embody.

Although the videogame, undoubtedly, dismisses and dehumanizes all women, the ways in which it does this seemed to differ along racial (and economic) lines. Wealthier, whiter women were featured in “bickering” scenes where they embodied the hysterical, needy/nagging wife stereotype. In one trailer a white, woman screams, “I hate you” at Michael and, in another scene the frivolity of her hatred is illustrated by the fact that she screams “Stop it. You’re ruining my yoga” (7:54), as if her anger about his verbal and physical abuse is actually only a silly, superficial argument about interfering with her low-key problematic, leisure activities.

Both similarly and dissimilarly, Black women filled stereotypes like the ABM (“angry black woman”) that were distinctly tied to their Black femininity. They were primarily portrayed stripping and emasculating Black men, like Franklin, by screaming things like, “You ain’t changing,” an accusation that is easily (mis)read as “overreacting” by viewers and players who are, naturally, attuned to the emotions of their avatar (Franklin). Since the game is centered around three, quote-un-quote “diverse” men (Michael, Franklin, and Trevor) the viewer/player is always encouraged, like the camera, to take their point-of-view. As a player you inhabit, or adopt, the body and personality of your avatar, acting vicariously or – as the trailer puts it “voyeuristically” – through their body. This can be seen as both a freedom and an unfreedom because, in an open-world game you, hypothetically, choose what you and your avatar do, but you’re also constrained to the hyper-masculine personality and male-presenting body that GTA provides you. Although these men are seen hitting and assaulting the women of San Andres, we – as viewers and players – are primed to downplay the implications of these actions, because WE are the ones doing the hitting and assaulting, and it is our story/personality, not the story or personality of these secondary characters, that we see and are, thereby, primed to relate to.

Interestingly, although the game features two white, male leads, the racial and cultural coding of Los Santos (and the fact that they work in the underbelly of the city) make their actions seem more connected to inner-city, immigrant communities, than their own overwhelmingly white residencies. Los Santos is an obvious allusion to Los Angeles, a connection that is made even more explicit through the Vinewood (read Hollywood) sign we see in this “imaginary” city. This allusion automatically connects the violence associated with Los Santos to Latinx/Spanish-speaking communities, even as we see that violence enacted by Franklin and the two, white male leads.

This implicit racism and classism is also embedded in the set-up and soundtrack of the movie. The backstory for GTA5 is that Michael (the former, singular protagonist of the franchise) wants to “retire” from a life of crime to – as he puts it – be a good man, a family man. Naturally, Michael doesn’t succeed because the game requires that players engage in illicit, even, immoral activities. But, it’s interesting that the two new characters, Franklin and Trevor, are the ones who, ostensibly, drag Michael back to the streets. Franklin, a lower-class Black man, and Trevor, a lower-class white man, are both less privileged than Michael. So, it seems that, while we might believe that Michael is “redeemable” (after all he tried to be a “good guy”), the game argues that Franklin and Trevor will always be “bad guys” and may even suck unwitting wealthier, whiter men into their unsavory activities.

Their connection to the world of crime always seems like an individual choice – as opposed to a consequence of their respective race and class status. This is a theme that runs throughout the trailers for GTA5. For example, in one trailer we see a homeless man holding a sign that reads, “Need money for beer,” a statement that reinforces the classist (and often racist) assumption that people experience poverty because of their own “poor” life-choices (i.e. spending money on alcohol instead of more “sensible” things). This refusal to acknowledge the structural nature of poverty goes hand-in-hand with GTA5’s problematic presentation of “the city.” Urban decay is juxtaposed with the sublime beauty and majesty of nature (7:18). This positions the inner-city as a place that needs escaping, rather than fixing, in much the same way that GTA5 labels the low-income, people of color (those who primarily inhabit the inner-city) – as irredeemable “tragedies,” rather than the natural outgrowth of an unequal, unsustainable system that could be reimagined. In Franklin’s trailer, we see one Black man deride him for “choosing” a life of gangbangin, while another Black man argues that “Gangbangin’s all we got. That’s our heritage.” (4:40). But, both statements seem to miss the mark, either suggesting that gangbangin is an individual choice or an unavoidable, outgrowth of the fact that Black communities are totally deprived of role models. This leaves me wondering where all of the legendary Black freedom fighters, protesters, thinkers, singers, writers, and dreamers went. This second Black, man’s assertion suggests that Blackness is solely defined by so-called “black-on-black crime,” rather than illustrating that this violence is only part of the story. When we define a whole people by one aspect of their struggle, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues in her TedTalk, we deny Franklin (and Black men like him) the multiple histories and heritages that he has to choose from, again contributing to a narrative of Black “irredeemability.”

Race is deeply essentialized in GTA5 and signified, most prominently, through the soundscape of the game. “Hood Gone Love It” plays during Franklin’s trailer, and, despite the fact that “freedom of choice” is a major selling point for GTA5, Franklin seems bound to a particular type of “urban” branding. He is seen choosing between several, streetwear-style jackets as the narrator speaks about the ability to customize your character. But, it seems that, although the viewer can, allegedly, say whatever they want and buy whatever they want, the way that they say what they say and the style of the thing that they buy is relatively fixed. In other words, Franklin will always speak in the street slang typically associated with the particular brand of urban, blackness that he is supposed to embody. Similarly, the soundscape serves to racially, economically, and geographically code Michael and Trevor’s characters. Michael’s trailer is accompanied by the familiar soundtrack of Queen, jiving well with the “rich,” white, cosmopolitan man he is portrayed to be, whereas Trevor’s country soundtrack: “Are You Sure Hank Done It this Way,” screams uneducated, unsophisticated “hillbilly,” a stereotype of lower-class “white trash” that is reflected in his vulgar speech (6:13).

Last, but not least, I would argue that the very premise of the game is problematic in that it posits that “ghetto life” is a game, something that white, wealthy players can turn on and/or off. This, too, is achieved sonically. The upbeat soundtrack in all of the trailers reinforces the idea that the violence some people (mostly low-income, people of color) face involuntarily is a game – a pleasurable activity that can be voluntarily played by people who will never have to experience the very real PTSD that accompanies living in a space where you are constantly safeguarding your body and your property.