Christchurch Massacre and Islamophobic Violent Videogames as Performative Artaudian Cruelty | ||
| Cairo Studies in English | ||
| Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 10 November 2025 | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/cse.2025.402945.1240 | ||
| Author | ||
| Mona Al-Shaikh* | ||
| English Department, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Abstract: This study contends that the horrendous 2019 Christchurch massacre committed against Muslim worshippers, inside their Masjid, in New Zealand, has been theatricalized as an Artaudian theatre of cruelty with sophisticated theatrical techniques, to produce a violent Aristotelian tragedy, arousing pity and terror. The white-supremacist terrorist who committed the attacks, in addition to being an Islamophobe, is a violent videogames addict. Artistically, this brings attention to the role played by violent videogames in theatricalizing violence, spreading fascist ideologies, such as white-supremacism, and propagating Islamophobia. It also brings attention to the artistic role of the Avant-garde violent theatrical theories, such as Antonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, and how they are applied in the design and industry of violent videogames. The study concludes that violent videogames play an axial role in breeding Islamophobic theatricalized terrorism and spreading white supremacism. This owes to the fact that the videogame industry does not only breed violence, but also applies theatrical theories and techniques to celebrate and theatricalize this violence; empowering terrorists into creating theatricalized terror-spectacles, spreading psychological traumas, fears and terrors worldwide. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Theatricalized Terrorism; White Supremacism; New-Zealand; Muslims; Brenton Tarrant | ||
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