What Yellowface Hides: Video Games, Whiteness, and the American Racial Order

Shiu investigates the racial stakes of first-person perspective video games: Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. As such, both Duke Nukem 3D's and Shadow Warrior's speculations concerning white subjectivity and "yellowface" performance call for an investigation into the value of performing as a racial other for the sake of game play. The problems and dynamics of "yellowface" emerge in the narratives of Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. The two games present futures that redeploy and reinvest in the concept of race via a general strategy of disidentification.