Real? American? Hero?
An Autoethnography About
Playing Creatively and Catharticallywith G.I. Joe•
Justin B. Hopkins

In what the author calls an autoethnography, he examines two aspects of
his love of a favorite childhood toy: G.I. Joe. First, because the author is acontingent pacificist and this military figure—a fundamentally violent toy—
played so important a role in his life, he now seeks to reconcile his aversion
to (real life) violence with his enjoyment of G.I. Joe. Second, he explores how
his experience as a Third Culture Kid (TCK)—born in the United States,
but growing up in Africa—was affected by his enjoyment of G.I. Joe. He
combines research, reflection, analysis, and narrative in an account of how
his experiences with G.I. Joe may have been manifested in his creativity andhow they provided a therapeutic catharsis following his exposure to actual
violent conflict. Hopkins also argues for the future use of autoethnography
in play studies. Key words: action figures; autoethnography; cathartic play;contingent pacifism; creative play; G.I. Joe; TCK (Third Culture Kid); toysoldiers; violent toy playO

n May 7, 1989, I received my first G.I. Joe action figure—a gift from anolder boy named Michael. I know the exact date because my mom filmed ahome video and documented my excitement at my new acquisition. It may be
my imagination, but I fancy I can hear in her voice that she is less pleased thanI am about “a real G.I. Joe.”
I do know that my parents shared the concern of many adults from thattime that playing with violence-associated toys might make children become
more violent people (Carlsson-Paige and Levin 1990; Best 1998; Chudacoff
2007). G.I. Joes like mine—one from a series of 3.75-inch military-themed
action figures and their accessories and play sets manufactured from 1982 to
1994 by toy company Hasbro and marketed as A Real American Hero—werea frequent target of such concern, a concern that might seem understandable
given the potential impact of play in one’s life. Thomas Henricks (2014) sug277
American Journal of Play, volume 14, number 3 © 2022 by The Strong
Contact Justin B. Hopkins at Jhopkins@fandm.edu

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the personal standings they can achieve within that world” (197). We play tounderstand ourselves and our surroundings. Even without knowing Henricks’stheory, parents could reasonably wonder how this military action figure mightform a child’s belief about the character of the world and the best way to behave
in it. And, in the case of their children playing with G.I. Joe, they might ask what
the youngsters are learning about being a hero—or an American, for that matter.
Both worries were relevant to my experience—the first, particularly, given
my adult aversion to violence; the latter, especially, given my growing up in
Senegal, West Africa, as a Third Culture Kid (TCK). In this autoethnography,
therefore, I explore the effects of my experience playing with G.I. Joe. Specifically,
I show how being a TCK may have contributed to my playing creatively with
G.I. Joe and how that play might have provided a sense of therapeutic catharsis
following exposure to violent conflict during childhood.
Ironically, given the toy’s Real American Hero moniker, my first G.I. Joe wasneither American, nor a hero. The character’s codename is Taurus, according to
the file card—the brief biographical dossier included in the packaging of eachfigure. The file card identifies Taurus as Turkish, an ex-Interpol agent, fluent ina dozen languages, and a circus acrobat, with a specialization in demolitions:Figure 1. Justin’s first G.I. Joe. Still photograph captured from home video taken by author’s
mother on May 7, 1989. Video available to view on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/597450335

Real? American? Hero?

“He stops hockey-pucks with his forehead and opens bottles with his nostrils”(Hama 1987). Taurus was part of a three-person G.I. Joe subteam called Slaughter’s Renegades. Not officially part of the U.S. military, Taurus and his maverickmates reported to Sergeant Slaughter, the pro wrestler turned G.I. Joe teamtrainer. Slaughter’s Renegades operated off the books and “were paid througha special fund earmarked for ‘Pentagon Pest Control’” (Hama 1987)—hardly aheroic designation.
Taurus was originally packaged with two accessories, a backpack and a gun.
Michael gave me a backpack, but not the gun. I suspect my mom told Michael
I couldn’t have a gun, not even such a tiny toy gun. Like many parents reluctant
to allow their children to engage in violent play, my mom tried for years to keep
me and my younger brother from owning toy guns or other war toys, toys like
G.I. Joe (Mechling 2008; Carlsson-Paige and Levin 1990). She says eventually shejust gave up, acknowledging a truth that may be nearly universal: “Boys would
make guns out of Lego blocks, sticks, plastic ‘7s’ and ‘Ls,’ and their bare hands.
Boys would chew sandwiches into the shape of guns” (Mechling 2008, 202). I
can remember making guns of sticks and fingers, yes, definitely, and while I
can not remember pretending a sandwich was a gun, I do not doubt some do.
Lacking Taurus’s gun, how would I have played with my first G.I. Joe, following the video recording? Perhaps something like this:The boy leans against the rock. The rock is taller than he by half his heightand many times the weight. The rock is volcanic in origin. Once it was lava.
The surface of the rock is pock-marked, dotted with cavities caused by gas
bubbling out of the cooling magma.
In his hand, the boy holds a toy soldier with a bright yellow shirt andbright red beard. The boy holds the toy half way up and against the rock.
The soldier’s arms are spread wide, his grip clinging, his knees bent to press
into the tiny pits in the rock.
The boy uses his forefinger and thumb to shift the toy, twisting the soldier’s bald head to the side and back to look up the rock. The boy imagines
sweat pouring down the soldier’s face, just as the boy himself sweats. The boy
is shaded from the tropical sun only partially by the frangipani tree standing
nearby.
The boy murmurs, attempting to roughen his voice like he thinks thesoldier would sound, “Still a long way to go,” and then: “And who will be
waiting at the top?”
The boy again shifts the toy, so the soldier’s forehead rests against therock, gathering strength for the rest of the climb.
The boy rotates the soldier’s right arm, angling over the shoulder, then

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his weekly soft drink allowance, and he anticipates the tart, fizzy tang of theorange Fanta.
The boy hears the sound of industrial equipment operating in a nearby
warehouse complex—a crane, a forklift, a drill, a power saw. The boy imagines the soldier listening to the construction of some horrific weapon on topof the mountain.
The boy again shifts the toy, imagining the soldier gathering strength forthe rest of the climb and the inevitable fight at the mountaintop.
The boy swings the toy’s right arm up to grab at a chip in the rock surface.
The soldier reaches for a handhold, and a foothold, finds both, and continues
the mission. . . .

The episode described above is an example of what Vivian Paley (2004)
calls fantasy, or pretend play. Throughout her career, Paley championed the valueof fantasy play: “From the earliest ‘pretend I’m the mama and you’re the baby,’
play is the model for the life-long practice of trying out new ideas. Pretendingis the most open-ended of all activities, providing the opportunity to escape thelimitations of established rituals” (92). Fantasy play, then, is imaginative actionin which the distinctions between the self (subject) and the toy (object) may
appear blurred to outsiders, but clear to the players themselves. It enables theplayer to experiment with different identities and actions.
Asserting the value of playing with toys—even violent toys—Brian SuttonSmith (1992) offers a deconstructive perspective, deploying Derridean theory ofsignification in a semiotic analysis of the paradox of, for example, a child playing
with a baby doll: “The ludic (play) sign is inherently negative (it communicatesthat it is not what it says it is) and distortive (because it uses a variety of false
materials, appearances, and cues that leave no doubt that it is a variant signifier)and yet is also positive because it is, after all, called a ‘baby’” (8). That is, the childknows that the baby (doll) is not a real baby (person); the satisfaction is in thepretense, the fantasy constructed.
From such a perspective, I might wonder, when I was playing with G.I. Joe,to what extent was I identifying with the action figures, animating them with myown personality and adopting theirs. Did I take on the character of Taurus the
Turkish Renegade who stopped hockey pucks with his forehead, or did Taurus
represent me, the TCK who had never even seen hockey played and who was
not allowed to own a toy gun? Both? Neither? Henricks (2014) asserts, “WhenReal? American? Hero?

people play, they realize themselves through activity in the world” (203). But isthat realization more a recognition or a reconstruction?
Now, thirty-some years later, I do not identify with Taurus. I consider
myself not quite an absolute pacifist, but rather a contingent pacificist (Fiala2021). That is, real life violence appalls me, but I believe sometimes violenceis necessary to protect a greater good. I have never marched in protest against
a war, and I hope and believe I would fight to protect my loved ones from an
immediate threat but not for much else. Yet I spent much of my childhood playing with these toy warriors, and even as an adult I continue to collect, display,and occasionally play with G.I. Joes. I also regularly read comic books, listen
to podcasts, and watch movies and TV shows and YouTube productions about
Joe’s heroic (and usually violent) exploits. I think of certain G.I. Joes as heroes,
as models of humanity, and I aspire to (some of) their attributes—courage,commitment to one’s comrades, consummate performance of one’s duties. Herethen, is a paradox, leading to the first focus of this essay. How do I reconcile myaversion to (real life) violence with my enjoyment of G.I. Joe?
Another area of apparent tension, if not contradiction, in my relationshipwith G.I. Joe relates to my cultural and national identity. I was born on the fourthof July in New Jersey—does not get much more Yankee Doodle Dandy than
that—but I grew up a Third Culture Kid, mostly in Senegal, West Africa, as theson of missionary linguists. As a child, I considered myself basically American.
My racial and cultural and socioeconomic difference from my Senegalese playmates was obvious. They owned few toys, and even in our games of soccer, I had
to provide the ball. While I could not then articulate the concept, my privilege
was evident. Henricks (2014) notes the significance of privilege in play, “whenpeople feel themselves to be (relatively) in control of their circumstances” (204).
The manifestation of my racial, cultural, and socioeconomic privilege in playwould make for an interesting future study in itself.
Later, in adolescence, and then in young adulthood, as I returned to livein the United States, I realized how very different I also was from many of thepeople with whom I share a nationality. I adapted, uneasily at times, to U.S.
American life, but my childhood in Africa contributed to a complex cultural
identity, further complicated by years spent studying in Europe during collegeand graduate school. Even now, having resided in the United States for over a
decade, I consider myself an adult Third Culture Kid, or Third Culture Individual(TCI) (Lyttle, Barker, and Cornwell 2011; Melles and Schwartz 2013; Hopkins
2015). Although I appreciate and admire many aspects of my passport country,

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P L AYI shudder at the white, religious, often violent nationalism and jingoism that far
too many now pass off as patriotism in the United States.
Yet, again, for years, and to this day, I have enjoyed toys that can be considered representations of U.S. American neocolonialism from the Reagan andfirst Bush era. So, another paradox, leading to this essay’s second point of focus:
How has my experience of being a TCK affected my enjoyment of G.I. Joe?
Given the breadth of G.I. Joe’s global penetration, I am probably not the
only person who grapples with these issues. G.I. Joe—along with a slew of othermore or less violent toy and transmedia franchises (e.g., Mattel’s He-Man: Masters of the Universe; Playmates’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Bandai’s Mighty
Morphin’ Power Rangers)—did indeed help define heroism for generations ofchildren around the world born in or after the late 1970s (The Toys that MadeUs 2017; Eberle 2009; Cross 1997). Given the scale of this impact, the socialand cultural ramifications of my questions are far greater than my individual
experience. Hence this autoethnography.

Genre and Methodology
Still a relatively recently established genre, autoethnography may require some
general description, as well as some specific explanation of how this unique formof scholarship can contribute to the field of play studies.
Essentially, autoethnographers study their personal experiences, connecting those experiences with larger social and cultural contexts (Adams, Holman
Jones, and Ellis 2015; Bochner and Ellis 2016, Hopkins 2020a). Approaches toautoethnography vary widely, but several elements are usually present in thegenre. First, autoethnographers embrace subjectivity. Personal perspectives andbiases are not to be ignored but examined and explicated. Second, autoethnography should be accessible not only to scholars, but also to audiences outside
the academy. Most often, such accessibility comes from some artistic, usually
narrative component. Third, although the principal data in autoethnographies
are the life experiences of the author, autoethnographic research should also
include reference to other scholarly sources. Finally, autoethnographers typically do not seek the kinds of direct answers to questions or broadly applicableconclusions sought in more traditional research. Instead, autoethnographers
share their accounts hoping they resonate with readers, perhaps prompting
further research, reflection, or action.

Real? American? Hero?

The genre of autoethnography can offer unusual information and insights
to scholars of play. The phenomenon of human play is both deeply personal
and also significant in a broader social and cultural context, as Henricks (2014)
articulates: “Play occurs in cultural, social, psychological, bodily, and environmental settings. . . . Like self-experience, play is intensely particular. Players livein the moment. . . . Yet, and also like self-experience, these momentary participations draw energy from—and are given meaning by—ongoing formations that
instigate and support these activities” (203). Autoethnographers seek such meaning in self-experience as framed by ongoing formations of society and culture.
Scholars of play could find the genre of autoethnography an especially useful
tool to study the intensely particular and momentous aspects of their own play.
Some studies of play have already employed autoethnography. For example,
Wei-Hsu Lu’s (2017) autoethnography about playing the game go explores theserious leisure perspective (Stebbins 2007) through the lens of the Confucianconcept of self-transformation. Lu highlights the benefits of autoethnography
by mixing both analytical and evocative writing, alternating between narratives about playing go and philosophical commentary on the game. Other more
traditional play scholarship may still include autoethnographic components.
For example, Cathy Thomas (2021), in her recent ethnographic study of Blackfemme cosplay, includes photographs and descriptions of herself cosplaying
to help contextualize her participant observer methodology. These references,arguably autoethnographic in nature, are engaging, informative, and importantdemonstrations of Thomas’s researcher positioning, though they are not themain focus of her work.
Focusing research primarily on the experiences of others, as in an ethnography or case study, does not generally allow the kind of self-representation andreflection required by autoethnography. (I must emphasize that I do not suggest
one approach is better than another, only that they are different, each offering its
own advantages and disadvantages.) For example, one could conduct a series ofsurveys and interviews of individuals who played with G.I. Joe, questioning them
about their childhood play patterns and their subsequent attitudes towards real-life
violence. Such a study could result in a broad portrait of this demographic, but the
researcher would likely try to bracket, at least, their own experience as separate
from that portrait. Similarly, one could perform a critical analysis of themes in G.I.
Joe media, providing theoretical insight into its portrayal of violence, but researchers would likely limit, at least, references to their own memories of reading comic
books or watching television. More traditional scholarship rightly requires some

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P L AYdegree of distancing from the subject of study for the sake of objectivity. However,since play is so personal, studying one’s own play through autoethnography canbenefit from the closeness of the subject, the self.
Further, since play is a fundamentally enjoyable experience and a widely
if not universally experienced activity, it seems an ideal subject for autoethnographers, who value vivid, artistic writing alongside rigorous analysis. Theremay be the risk of, as Gary Fine (1981) admits in his ethnography of role-playing
games, “alchemically transforming that which is inherently fascinating into something as dull as survey research computer tapes” (xi). But the risk can serve as achallenge to autoethnographic scholars, who strive for accessibility and wide dissemination of their research and writing rather than limiting their audience to asmall cohort of specialists (Adams, Holman Jones, and Ellis 2015). The potential
benefit for researchers is that sharing experiences of play from a personal perspective, artfully framed, might prove resonant to nonacademic readers who are otherwise disinclined or unable to participate in more traditional scholarly discourse.
Finally, educators might consider using play-focused autoethnography intheir pedagogy to motivate and empower students to do meaningful research(Hanauer 2012). Given the subject of autoethnographic study, students who
might otherwise be reluctant to engage in research may find themselves eager
to investigate the social and cultural context of their own experiences of play. Sofar, practicing autoethnography has been the province primarily of professionaland graduate-level scholars, but more teachers at the undergraduate level areincorporating the genre into their pedagogy (Tombro 2016, Hopkins 2020a).
It would be worth exploring how students at the secondary, and possibly evenprimary, level might use autoethnography to examine their experiences of play.
Using autoethnography, could sixth-graders study their experience of Little
League baseball or could high-school sophomores examine their experiences
playing Fortnite? Obviously, there would be limitations to the extent of researchand reflection one could expect from such young students. On the other hand,studying such personally relevant topics might inspire surprisingly insightful
and engaging work.
Autoethnographers may use a wide range of methodological approaches,but for most autoethnographers, data collection and analysis involve remembering and reflecting on past personal experiences. The memories are the data,
and reflection assigns them meaning (Adams, Holman Jones, and Ellis 2015).
For this autoethnography, as I have in the past, I began my data collection
using Tessa Muncey’s concept of snapshots (Muncey 2010, Hopkins 2020b).

Real? American? Hero?

According to Muncey, snapshots “capture episodes of life like stills in a film; they
convey the skeleton of a life without the flesh and consciousness of the being”(57). Videos, photographs, and other records or objects prompt memories forthe researcher to use as data and to represent their lived experience. Reading aninterview with Steven Mintz about his study of American childhood and play, I
was reminded of Muncey’s snapshots: “memories, along with artifacts and photographs, can help us recover a lost world of childhood and, to a certain extent,also reconstruct the meanings that children invested in play” (Mintz 2010, 145).
For the sake of such recovery and reconstruction, I wish I could travel back intime to record snapshots of much more of my play as a child, both for my own
sake and for the readers. As it is, I can provide a variety of snapshots as data. In
addition to the video depicting my excitement at receiving my first G.I. Joe, I
also include a scan of a childhood drawing, excerpts from a story I wrote, andsome still photographs of my playtimes.
Alongside data collection, I reviewed scholarship on play and on toys,
which sparked other memories and helped make connections between my own
experience and the experiences of others. Those connections led to more reading—and more remembering. Such recursive reflection and analysis are typical of
autoethnographic research and writing (Adams, Holman Jones, and Ellis 2015).

Third Culture Identity
Because autoethnographers embrace subjectivity, it is important for me to articulate the positional, relevant experience from which my perspective derives. As
have my previous autoethnographies, this article explores my experience as a
Third Culture Kid (TCK). Ruth Van Reken, David C. Pollock, and Michael V.
Pollock (2017) popularized the abbreviation “TCK” and provided an enduring
definition: “A person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental
years outside the parents’ culture . . . build[ing] relationships to all of the cultures,
while not having full ownership in any” (Pollock and Van Reken 2009, 13). I
was a TCK because my parents are U.S. citizens, but their careers brought thefamily to Senegal, West Africa, where I spent most of my childhood years. For
many years, I lived in the Casamance, a rural, southern region of Senegal. Whenseparatist fighters in the Casamance began a violent and prolonged conflict with
the national government, my family moved to Senegal’s capital city, Dakar.
As Van Reken and Pollock (2009) note, most TCKs eventually return to

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live in their passport countries. However, TCKs often struggle to adapt to life intheir passport countries (Purnell and Hoban 2014; Smith and Kearney 2016). If
TCKs have spent their crucial formative years abroad, when they finally return“home,” that place may not feel familiar or comfortable, especially if they do notunderstand the common cultural references—like music, television, movies, andperhaps toys—shared by their peers (Priest 2003).
After graduating high school, I did return to the United States to attend
college. Although my reentry was challenging in some ways, it was not as difficult as for others, perhaps partially because of my childhood investment in
aspects of U.S. American culture, including G.I. Joe. My experience playing with
G.I. Joe served as a kind of cultural capital, an intangible but also invaluableasset helping me navigate a society that otherwise might have proved even lessrecognizable to me. Granted, my closest U.S. American friends preferred Star
Wars and Transformers, but at least they knew what I was talking about when
I mentioned G.I. Joe.

A Real American Background
G.I. Joe itself may not manifest positionality, but for those unfamiliar with thetoy, some history may be helpful to understand how the action figure has influenced my perspective. In 1964 Hasbro Toy Company coined the term “action
figure” for the original twelve-inch soldier (The Toys That Made Us 2017; Eberle
2009; Cross 1997). Emphatically not a doll, G.I. Joe nevertheless followed thesame marketing strategy as Mattel’s Barbie, both borrowing from Gillette shaving. Sell the base product (razor, doll, action figure) for a low price, then customers will keep returning to purchase more blades, dresses, and accessories(The Toys That Made Us 2017; Cross 1997). Specifically, children could accessorize—arm—G.I. Joe with a wide variety of weaponry, uniforms, and gear (soldseparately, of course) and deploy the toy for their own militaristic recreation.
From the beginning, Hasbro explicitly invoked American heroism in G.I.
Joe. The company sagely capitalized on the patriotism of the Greatest Generationand counted on these survivors of World War II to instill similar values in theiroffspring. As Eberle (2009) recounts one collector of G.I. Joe recalling, “Backin those days [the mid-to-late 1960s], most of our fathers were WWII veterans(some Korean War), and we looked up to them and reveled in the glory of theiraccomplishments and heroism. Now we had a perfect image of that ideal, one

Real? American? Hero?

with which we could reenact our fantasies and our dreams” (177). Millions ofunits were purchased, and during the next twelve years, G.I. Joe brought Hasbro
national and global recognition and riches, making the company a leader in the
toy industry (Miller 1999; Cross 1997).
Unfortunately for Hasbro, the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War stifled
enthusiasm for military toys, and international oil shortages rendered the manufacture and distribution of the plastic action figures prohibitively expensive (TheToys That Made Us 2017). In 1976, G.I. Joe was retired . . . or, rather, placed on
temporary reserve.
Several years later, observing the resurgence of patriotic and militaristic
fervor following the election of Ronald Reagan, as well as the lowering oil prices,
Hasbro reintroduced G.I. Joe in 1982 (The Toys That Made Us 2017). However,
the action figure had shrunk in stature to a new, smaller scale: three and threequarter inches. Officially branded A Real American Hero, these shorter action
figures proved even more commercially potent than their twelve-inch predecessors. Part of that success must be due to the political atmosphere of the early
1980s. As documented by Patrick Regan (1994), even as real-life U.S. militarization experienced a “sharp increase” under the Reagan administration, the salesof war toys soared from 3.5 percent of overall sales in 1975 to 9.5 percent in 1985
(54). By the early 1980s, many of the owners of the original twelve-inch G.I. Joes
had children of their own. Perhaps the nostalgia for their own childhood toy
soldiers outweighed any distaste lingering from the Vietnam War.
More definitely and directly instrumental to Joe’s success, however, was theinnovative marketing of the action figure through media licensing—coincidentally, another result of Reaganite policies. In 1984 the Federal Communications
Commission significantly deregulated children’s television, permitting much
more aggressive advertising of toys (Cross 1997; Chudacoff 2007). Accompanying the G.I. Joe action figures were animated commercials, a cartoon televisionseries, and a comic book, making the Real American Hero one of the first among
many brands to employ such a variety and volume of media in its marketingstrategy. This use of transmedia intertextuality (Kinder 1991), or transmedia
storytelling (Jenkins 2006), is more common in toy marketing now. Indeed,arguably, it has become more a norm for toys to be sold in conjunction with analready (or, at least, likely to be) popular film or television or book series (Gulden
2016). With these licenses bolstering sales, G.I. Joe enjoyed an uninterrupted
dozen-year-long run from 1982 to 1994—my peak playing years—dominating
the market for many of these years.

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Perhaps partly to push back against the image or reality of peddling war toys
via mass media marketing, Hasbro worked hard to present its products as sociallyconscious and progressive. Despite the fundamental function of a soldier—tofight—Hasbro sought to temper the portrayal of violent conflict in the marketingof G.I. Joe. Model soldiers have been sold as toys in both Europe and the UnitedStates since the nineteenth century, so there is nothing new about children enacting miniaturized war (Carlsson-Paige and Levin 1990; Brown 1990; Chudacoff
2007). However, according to G. Wayne Miller, the makers of G.I. Joe took pains
to contextualize—some might say sanitize—the violence in the toy’s marketing.
Once more, the financial motivation for such sanitization must be noted—Hasbro
certainly did not want to alienate parents or other potential consumers of its product by making it appear gratuitously violent. Furthermore, killing characters whose
corresponding action figures might still occupy toy store shelves was not likely
to encourage their purchase (The Toys That Made Us 2017). Here, the transmedia
marketing may have been especially useful, since, as Miller (1999) notes: “[HasbroCEO] Stephen [Hassenfeld] sanctioned violence but strictly forbade depiction of
its consequences” (37). The cartoon series was infamous for portraying no casualties in any of the many battles occurring in each episode (The Toys That Made Us2017). Rather than bullets, guns shot lasers that had a tendency only to wound,or to miss their targets outright.
On the other hand, comic book writer (and U.S. Army veteran) Larry Hama
refused the Hasbro edict for a bloodless version of combat, calling it morallybankrupt (The Toys That Made Us 2017). Somehow evading the Hassenfeld
dictates, Hama insisted on depicting casualties—on both sides of battles—toshow the reality of war. Although the stories Hama wrote certainly represented
G.I. Joe as heroic, these narratives were also more complicated and realistic than
the television shows, and Hama did not shy away from portraying the devastating cost of violence. Depending on which media portrayal of G.I. Joe children
encountered or preferred, they might develop radically differing perspectives
on violent conflict. Still, whether children were watching the television series orreading the comics, or both, or neither, the toys themselves remained open tointerpretation by each person who played with them. Or did they?

How Violent Play Works
Having shared my own identity as a TCK and described the development of theReal? American? Hero?

G.I. Joe brand, I turn now to the works of play scholars to help me address theparadoxes that prompt my research. How do I reconcile my aversion to (reallife) violence with my enjoyment of G.I. Joe? How has my experience of beinga TCK affected my enjoyment of G.I. Joe?
First, I should address the obvious question of whether violent play, withor without toys, causes children to act violently. Can violent toys and play belinked, causally, to real-life violence? Probably not, according to an entry in
The Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development, in which Jennifer Hart andMichelle Tannock (2013) review scholarship on play fighting and playing withviolence-associated toys. Distinguishing carefully between playful aggression
and actually aggressive behavior, Hart and Tannock assert that research shows
how play fighting can be valuable, even essential to social development in earlychildhood.
To begin with, much research has explored pretend person-to-person fighting, particularly the physically vigorous rough-and-tumble play. Studies of thiskind of play have shown benefits both physical and social (Fehr and Russ 2013;
Logue and Detour 2011; Tannock 2008; Holland 2003; Reed and Brown 2000;
Bauer and Dettore 1997; Humphreys and Smith 1987). Again, and importantly,
the value of rough-and-tumble play depends on children understanding the difference between pretend fighting and real fighting. Studies have demonstrated
that children do understand that difference, including children from a varietyof cultural backgrounds (Rao, Fink, and Gibson 2021; P. K. Smith, Smees, andPellegrini 2004; Holland 2003; Schafer and Smith 1996; Costabile et al. 1991).
That children understand the difference between pretend and real fighting
in rough-and-tumble play might suggest that children can also differentiate between real-life violence and play violence with war toys, including toy
soldiers like G.I. Joe.
However, as Hart and Tannock note, not everyone agrees that children canmake such crucial distinctions. Some assert the contrary, though these studies
also demonstrate the difficulty in evaluating the impact of violence-associatedtoys, given the many complex factors involved (Dunn and Hughes 2001; Watson and Peng 1992; Turner and Goldsmith 1976). Hellendoorn and Harnick(1997) attempted to parse several such factors, observing the preferences offifty-four Dutch, male, and female four-to seven-year-old children for war
toys (including G.I. Joes) over more neutral toys (such as a tea set or farm andzoo animals). They also noted that “make believe and other playful behaviors
dominated, while real aggression was rare” (351). Similarly, Gisela Wegener-

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Spöhring (2004) studied German, male, and female nine- to twelve-year-old
children’s attitudes toward playing with war toys. She conducted studies in1985 (429 participants) and again in 2002 (634 participants)—coincidentally
spanning the years during which I did most of my playing with G.I. Joe. In
1985 Wegener-Spöhring found that children maintained “balanced aggressiveness” in playing with war toys: “aggressive actions are restricted to the levelof pretense, thus enabling all participants involved in the play to cope with its
aggressive and alarming elements”(19). But by 2002, Wegener-Spöhring (2004)
observed, this notion of balance had “visibly begun to falter,” reporting thatchildren were less able to distinguish between reality and pretend and alsoless aware of the reality of violent conflict in general (30). Wegener-Spöhring
speculates that the increased exposure of children to real-life violence throughentertainment and news media may be responsible for the faltering balance,
but whatever the reason, the trend is troubling.
It is a trend frequently noted by Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Diane Levin,
who for decades have distinguished between children imitating violence inmedia and children playing creatively with violence-associated toys (Levin andCarlsson-Paige 2006; Carlsson-Paige and Levin 1990). Carlsson-Paige and Levin
have also acknowledged the difficulty, or even apparent futility of banning war
play, whether in classrooms or homes, and they have focused on offering creative approaches to playing with violence-associated toys. For example, adults
can actively engage with children in their play. They can provide simple materials—everyday household objects—to complicate war play and lead the play in
new and surprising directions. They can ask questions or make comments to
help children process the significance of their actions and consider alternatives:“I wonder if there’s a way to capture the bad guy without killing him” (Levin
and Carlsson-Paige 2006, 69). Adults can establish basic limits and prioritize asense of safety—physical and emotional—in play areas and play times, so thatchildren feel free to express themselves within the appropriate boundaries. Suchfacilitation may have a positive impact on children’s development through playing with violence-associated toys. At least, it may be more effective than trying
to stop such play altogether.
Given the scholarship addressing violence-associated toys and rough-andtumble play, I feel comfortable proceeding under the assumption that it should
not be surprising that I am a violence-averse person, despite playing with G.I.
Joe. Instead, of more interest to me is what effects, instead, such play did haveon me and how might these effects be connected with my TCK experience.

Real? American? Hero?

Two such effects, I suggest, are the fostering of creativity and the opportunity
for emotional catharsis.

Creative Divergence
Once again, a common, crucial element in arguments made by defenders andsome doubters of the potential value of violent play is the claim that children
can distinguish between play and real life (Rao, Fink, and Gibson 2021; Levin
and Carlsson-Paige 2006; P. K. Smith, Smees, and Pellegrini 2004; Schafer andSmith 1996; Costabile et al. 1991). Such a distinction also seems a fundamental
component of play, especially the pretend, or fantasy play, described earlier(Henricks 2014; Paley 2004; Sutton-Smith 1992).
Further, it may seem intuitive that play, especially fantasy play, correspondswith creativity. Sandra Russ and Claire Wallace (2013) certainly believe so, stating unequivocally: “Pretend play is a creative act” (136). But Russ and Wallace
also acknowledge that creativity is difficult to define or to demonstrate in empirical terms. One element of creativity, they propose, is divergent thinking: “theability to produce many ideas . . . and to think flexibly” (137). In playing withtoys, divergent thinking may occur when, rather than simply following instructions or suggestions that accompany or frame toys, children find different ways
to play. As I have noted, even critics of violence-associated toys acknowledge
the potential value of such divergent thinking: “Children can use the content
of war play to work on the developmental tasks of their stage…[but] children
need to be involved in an active process over which they are in control—theymust determine the script” (Levin and Carlsson-Paige 2006, 30). That is, children
must be able to tell their own stories.
Can I find evidence of divergent thinking in my own pretend play, my own
stories? Did my G.I. Joes manifest or motivate creative flexibility? Well, my G.I.
Joes didn’t just fight battles. I remember spending a lot of time setting up myaction figures and the stories they would enact. This phenomenon is not rare,apparently, according to Joel Best (1998).
Moreover, when children do play with toys, they seem to spend much of
their time in what analysts may mistakenly consider peripheral activities. For
example, my casual observations of my sons’ play—and my recollections of
my own play as a boy—suggest the importance of what we might call “foreplay”—making preparations to play. One reason that Barbie and G.I. Joe are

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or weapons or whatever. Children seem to spend a very large share of theirplaytime with these toys setting things up, getting organized, getting Barbie
or Joe ready to do whatever is going to be done. (205)

I can relate to Best’s description of these peripheral activities. A major part of
my own G.I. Joe play pattern was the process of assembling, arming, and equipping
the troops; establishing environments; and building bases. It could be contended
that these preparatory actions should be considered at least adjacent to the violent
conflicts they must have preceded. Yet I would argue there remains a difference
between constructing a fort out of mud, rocks, and tree branches, then positioning sentries around the perimeter and performing the actual assault on that base.
Then there was the lead-in to each adventure, which, for me, typicallyinvolved groups of figures talking a lot, either planning or simply socializing.
These social interactions, beyond any narrative function, contributed to theestablishment and evolution of characters who, in my play over time, developed
strong bonds with each other. For example, here is an excerpt from a story I wrote
around the age of thirteen: “O Christmas Tree!” The story conveys the typical
pattern that I followed while playing G.I. Joe at that time. The jovial scene playedout among the G.I. Joes after a similar conversation between members of Cobra,
the enemy who had planned an attack on what it expected to be a solitary Joeon holiday. (I have made minor changes to the text for clarity, and I accompany
the narrative with some bracketed and italicized explanatory commentary.)
Meanwhile, fifty miles away, in the clearing where Snake Eyes’s cabin rested,
there was a cheery bonfire roasting. And boy was Cobra in for a surprise. All
of Snake Eyes’s team, and some, were gathered around it singing Christmas
carols. Storm Shadow, Dusty, Gung Ho, and more had all come up from the
Pit to spend Christmas with Snake Eyes in the high Sierras. . . .
[Snake Eyes is perhaps the most iconic G.I. Joe figure: a masked and blackclad ninja commando of improbable prowess and a constant Cobra target.
Storm Shadow is Snake Eyes’s ninja sword brother. Dusty is a desert warfare
specialist. Gung Ho is a marine. The Pit is the G.I. Joe headquarters.]
After “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bells!” and other favorites, the Joes started
eating goodies.
That’s when Mutt discovered Airtight was eating the last of his corn chips.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” he screamed. “You yellow-bellied, bug-eyed weirdo. You ate
my corn chips!”“MMM. Brilliant observation!” said Airtight, wiping his mouth on his
sleeve. . . .

Real? American? Hero?

[Mutt is a K-9 specialist who likes dogs more than people. Airtight is achemical weapons specialist. Mutt’s insult is technically accurate, given Airtight’s protective headgear and hazmat suit.]
Snake Eyes observed the many familiar faces around the fire and smiled
to himself as he saw all the usual routines going on between the friends.
Sergeant Slaughter was following Jinx around like a lovesick puppy until
she finally got mad at him and kicked him. Dusty was shivering and complaining about the weather. Gung Ho, Rock ’n Roll, Blowtorch, and Han Solowere playing a card game. As usual, Han was winning.
Scoop was trying to interview several people but finally gave up and began
taking still pictures of the fire and the group of friends. Lifeline was snoringaway. . . .
“Hey, Snake Eyes, wanna test my new recipe for Crawdad Stew?” Roadblock, the former gourmet chef asked.
[Sergeant Slaughter, mentioned earlier in this article, is a professional
wrestler turned military trainer. Jinx is a female ninja. Rock ’n Roll is a heavymachine gunner. Blowtorch is, despite the Geneva Convention, a flamethrower
specialist. Some Star Wars characters showed up alongside the G.I. Joes, including Han Solo. Scoop is a battlefield journalist. Lifeline is a medic. Roadblockis an even heavier machine gunner than Rock ’n Roll.]

The most violent action during this portion of the story is Jinx evading andeventually ending the sergeant’s unwanted attention. The rest is purely socializing. Although I don’t want to go too far by claiming that these elements weremy favorite parts of the stories, they are certainly among the parts that remainmost vividly in my memory. I contend, then, that evidence of divergent thinking is present in this example from my play. Henricks (2014) writes, “Play is an
exploration of powers and predicaments. We play to find out what we can—andcannot—do and to see if we can extend our capabilities” (203). My action figures
could do anything I wanted them to do, not just fight. They could go on friendly
picnics as well as deadly missions. As the story shows, my Joes did not go hungry.
It is possible that my specific experience as a TCK contributed to my creativity in playing with G.I. Joe or at least helped me avoid certain blocks to divergent thinking. Doris Bergen (2016) notes a common phenomenon considered
an obstacle to creativity.
Today’s children use themes from popular culture to a great extent as theyplay, but if they are not totally immersed in that culture, their play tends tostart with one of those themes and then diverge into their own experiences.
The problem is that these themes are now so pervasive that it is almost
impossible to escape from them. . . . In my studies, I have observed that some

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children do override the themes or expand them; for example, making thesuperhero go home for supper or go to bed. Only some children are able todo this and, if they are constantly exposed to the themes the figures portray,
it becomes harder to override those themes. (153)

I believe I was among the children whose play did not conform to popular
culture themes. I think that was, at least partly, because I was a TCK, experiencing little exposure to the transmedia marketing of G.I. Joe.
Tore Gulden (2016) reports that children play less creatively, or in a more
limited way with toys that carry heavy transmedia storytelling, which “reduces
variability and possible eventualities, risk-taking, cognitive and practical experimentation, and imagining as stimuli and facets of a quest for the creation of
their own experiences” (89). Given my growing up in Senegal, I did not watch
the television series or read the comic books that framed G.I. Joe for many
children, perhaps to my creative advantage since I did not need to escape fromthe pervasive themes Bergen laments. Instead, I told my own stories—including
home and supper. I used my divergent thinking to determine my own scripts, as
Levin and Carlsson indicate is necessary for war play to have a positive impact
rather than perpetuate real-life aggression and conflict.

Cathartic Conflict
Yet my stories did contain conflict. Doubtless, my parents encouraged the kindof social, nonviolent play illustrated in the story above. I even have a birthday
card from my grandparents in which they point out that the G.I. Joes they havegifted me are not just fighters, but helpers (Scoop, the battlefield journalist) andeven healers (Lifeline, the medic). Sure. But, on the other hand, neither Scoop
nor Lifeline were ever the center of my stories. As you can probably tell evenfrom the excerpt I included, they were peripheral and most often obnoxious
comic relief. Also, in addition to Scoop’s video camera and Lifeline’s medical
case, both characters carried guns.
Arguably, the fundamental purpose of a toy soldier with a gun (or any
other weapon) is to act violently, to shoot (or stab, slice, slash, bash) someone
or something else. To ignore the basic functions of these accessories would beto reject the function of the action figure at an essential level. I did not rejectthat function. After all the setting up and the character interaction, my G.I. Joes
fought Cobra, and they fought hard. Plenty of evidence of violent play exists inReal? American? Hero?

the story “O Christmas Tree!” When Cobra attacks Snake Eyes’s cabin, here’s
what happens:
The Crimson Guards started to close on the cabin and . . . were blown topieces by land mines.
Crimson Guards are literal red-shirted, faceless cannon fodder.]The forest erupted. Cobra Commander and the other leaders were suddenly ambushed by dozens of G.I. Joes, who were perched in all the trees.
Grenades flew and machine guns chattered in the cold dark.
“Hey Cobra Commander!” called Gung Ho. “Here’s a present! Merry
Christmas!” He lobbed the grenade at Cobra Commander’s vehicle. Cobra
Commander just barely got out of the truck in time. . . .
[After some back and forth, and the G.I. Joe’s strategic retreating]
Suddenly hundreds of lights went on in the trees. Except these lights
were not ordinary lights. They were so bright that the Cobras were blinded
momentarily. This allowed the G.I. Joe to scramble away.
“What’s going on?” shouted Destro, trying to shield his eyes
“I don’t know tin-face!” shouted Dr. Mindbender.
[Destro is an arms dealer who wears a metal mask. Mindbender is a former
dentist turned mad scientist and interrogation expert.]“Nightlight!” said Snake Eyes.
All the lights on the trees exploded, killing dozens and wounding more.

These dozens and more casualties were nameless Cobra bad guys—to myadolescent mind, villains through and through. But still, that’s a hell of a bodycount. If I thought about it, which I definitely did not at the time, those are representations of people who were alive and then were not. My stomach turns a
bit just typing that sentence. It also does not rest comfortably at the sight of mytoy soldiers fighting each other, carefully posed and photographed around thesame time that I wrote the story excerpted above. (See figures 2 and 3.)
From these violent confrontations, there must be casualties—bodies rippedapart by bullets or blades or broken from fists and feet. If I did not think about itat the time, why not? Henricks (2014) writes: “Play is a commitment to the act oftransformation and to the forms of self-awareness that arise during this process.
Consciousness is contained or consumed by these moments of making” (208).
What was I making in these moments of play, and what kind of consciousness
was I containing or consuming? How was I such a bloodthirsty teenager, so
callous to pain and death, even in pretense and plastic?
Further, I cannot confine the record of my callousness or my bloodthirst to
my later childhood or early adolescent play. In a picture dated April 1991—I was

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Figures 2 and 3. Photographs of G.I. Joe versus Cobra combat. Taken by the author in the
mid-to-late 1990s. Figure 2. Left to right: Dusty, Roadblock, Gung Ho, Rock ’n Roll, Blowtorch(actually a figure called Mercer whom I substituted for Blowtorch), Range Viper, Iron
Grenadier, Destro, Cobra Commander (actually a figure called Duke whom I helmeted andturned into the enemy leader). Figure 3. Clockwise, starting with the fellow missing a shirt:
Quick Kick, Jinx, nameless enemy ninja, Snake Eyes, Zanzibar, Night Creeper.

Real? American? Hero?

almost nine—I drew “G-I + Cobra” (figure 4). The “+” clearly meant “against”
since the picture features nine Joes confronting six Cobras in violent conflict. In
the picture, two Cobras are firing their weapons at a Joe who is parachuting andshooting back. The lines of fire suggest that the Joe is safe, but a Cobra (carrying a sword) is about to buy the farm. No, I will not hide behind a euphemism.
A human being is about to die. Intriguingly, the Cobras appear to be trying to
rescue a comrade (drawn in a barred jail cell in the upper right corner of the Joebase)—a mission that might more traditionally belong to the good guys than thebad guys. Also worth noting, although the majority of the scene is violent, one
Joe can be seen reclining and reading in the base—off duty, I suppose, though
I wonder if they can hear the alarm that must be announcing the impending
assault. I wonder what they are reading, too.
I also wonder if the violence I enacted in play was a way of coping withthe violence that I witnessed in my life as a TCK. That violence included the
beginnings of a political rebellion in the Casamance, which Momar Diop (2003)

Figure 4. G.I. Joe + Cobra. Drawing by author, April 1991.

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longest-running civil conflict” and “one of the world’s forgotten wars.” Witnessing soldiers and military vehicles entering the village where we lived—incidentally, not long before the time I drew “G.I. Joe + Cobra”—felt quite intense, as
did our consequent, hasty departure to avoid the government shelling of theforest behind our home where separatists supposedly encamped. For years,
according to my mom, sudden and loud noises resembling explosions put me
on edge, and on one occasion they caused me to jump into a bush, dragging my
younger brother with me, as if to take cover from some kind of attack. I confess
I do not remember this, but I do know I still do not much care for fireworks.
However, witnessing war did not prevent me from playing with plastic
troops and tanks for years after. Perhaps my play was a way to process the violence I had encountered. For example, I remember when my brother acquired
the G.I. Joe figure named Lightfoot, an expert in removing explosive ordnance.
I distinctly recall making the mental connection with the land mines that had
rendered the roads to and from the village where we lived too dangerous totravel (Evans 2002). Was making this connection therapeutic, somehow? Were
my action figure adventures some kind of coping mechanism? Lois Kuznets(1994) writes: “When an adult or child picks up a toy soldier, which is typically
two to four inches tall, and holds it in the palm of his or her hand, gazing at
its little face and the details of its uniform, I suspect that a near-universal urge
manifests itself to project upon it hopes, fears, joys, bad dreams, indigestion,and guilty desires. Above all, the holder imagines its feelings of powerlessness,
its dependence even as a combatant not only upon its imagined commander
but upon the god that holds it and creates its character and story” (79–80). Was
I projecting onto my G.I. Joes my own fears and feelings of vulnerability in thehands of higher powers? If so, did such projection help?
There is significant debate about the therapeutic value of aggressive, evenviolent play. According to Kay Trotter and Garry Landreth (2003), “Aggressivetype toys also provide the necessary distance from a particularly difficult issue
for the child, and therefore allow the child the ability to display feelings about
the situation or conflict” (122). Charles Schaefer and Deborah Mattei disagree,
directly rebutting Trotter and Landreth: “A consistent finding from controlled
research studies is that when adults permit and encourage children’s release ofaggression in play, the children are likely to maintain this behavior at its originallevel or actually increase it” (Schaefer and Mattei 2005, 107). (Schaefer and Mattei
do acknowledge that most of the studies to which they refer are far from recent:Real? American? Hero?

e.g., Feshbach 1956.) Sutton-Smith (2008) writes that play—specifically violent
play—could be considered an important exercise in both creativity and catharsis:“imitative representations both as a way of emulating serious conflicts and as away to avoid engaging in them” (115). That is, rather than motivating real violence,violent play may actually help children healthily process real violence.
In my own case, I believe that playing with G.I. Joe helped, at least morethan it hurt. While not invoking either of the terms “therapeutic” or “cathartic,”
Henricks (2014) makes the case for the potential of play to meet emotional needs:“When we play, we also seek feelings of control, security, and mastery” (197). I
think enacting violence provided me some measure of these feelings of control
and security, as if I were reassuring myself that I was safe, even if my plastic
toys were vulnerable. Of course, there is always the risk of imitative violence—
however cathartic or therapeutic—turning to actual antisocial behavior (Levin
and Carlsson-Paige 2006; Carlsson-Paige and Levin 1990). But in my case, andmaybe in many others’ (since I do not wish to suggest that only TCKs suffer
exposure to real-life violence), perhaps playing war allowed me to assert somesense of agency in the wake of difficult events beyond my control.

The Next Generation
A Real American Hero may have helped me process some difficult experiences
as a Third Culture Kid, even as being a TCK may have helped me more creatively
enjoy G.I. Joe. Perhaps my description and interpretation of my experience with
G.I. Joe contributes to an answer to Hart and Tannock’s (2013) call to fill a gap
in scholarship about violent play: “Research is needed to develop a cohesive terminology that clearly identifies various types of aggressive sociodramatic play,targets the developmental benefits of each type, and distinguishes various toys andactions characteristic of aggressively representative play” (2). I would be glad if myarticulation of creativity and catharsis could serve as examples of developmental
benefits of this kind of aggressively representative sociodramatic toy play.
Beyond any academic significance, however, this autoethnography has
made me consider not just my personal past with G.I. Joe, but also my present
and my future as a parent, a father to a son. Right now, my son is a toddler. Will
his image of heroism, to say nothing of Americanism, conform to the violent
masculinity on display in my childhood favorite? Will I allow that? Can I prevent
it? I have given him some G.I. Joes, and he poses them, crouching, legs spread,

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P L AYand he repeats a favorite phrase from his day care yoga: “Strong like a mountain!” Then he pretends to change their diapers, hugs them, pats their heads,
and puts them on pillows and under blankets to nap. I find such innocenceutterly charming, but as he ages, how will he play? What toys will he choose forhimself, and what will he do with them? How will they shape his world view?
He will not likely grow up a TCK, and the United States of his childhood is andwill likely continue to be a place where firearms are the leading cause of deathin children (Owens 2022).
As I reflect on my life with G.I. Joe so far, I return often to the concern mymother expressed about my play with violent toys—a concern I now share. Brian
Sutton-Smith (2008) might have tried to reassure my mother, as he wished hecould have his own mother, near the end of his career: “Perhaps I had spent a
lifetime studying all this play stuff in effect to convince my long-dead mother
we were really fine, absolutely normal, even when we were engaging in all thatrough stuff. In short, I have been saying here and everywhere only this: niceboys are allowed to act quite horribly as long as they are playing” (123). Despite
his expertise, I doubt Sutton-Smith’s words would reassure his mother or mine.
Despite my own experience, Sutton-Smith’s emphatic “really fine, absolutely
normal” do not completely calm my own anxiety. As a parent, I sympathize withmy mother and with Sutton-Smith’s.
When I take my son to the babysitter, he happily plays with tanks andfighter jets boasting the Stars and Stripes, zooming them through the air orover the floor. I feel the need to contextualize these toys with a discourse on
the history of violence and nationalism, but of course I cannot. He would notunderstand, yet. Besides, he will find his own ways to play and his own meanings to make, as have I.

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