Character Creation and Italian Marxists: Cultural Hegemony Reflected

The familiar, whimsical tune of Nintendo’s Mii Maker was an all too familiar sound to those

growing up in the late 2000s. Glancing at a plaza full of colorful homemade characters, those

hopeful of creating a new Mii could select the option on the lefthand menu.

After clicking through a series of interfaces, a user would finally be met with their canvas: the

default Mii character. Clad in red shirt and black pants, this default character wore a bored

look.

They were also white.

Of course, Nintendo provided players with an array of skin tones to choose from when further

customizing their character – but the default race was always the same.

To the unconcerned user, regardless of their political orientation, this default whiteness would

raise no eyebrows. Switch up the equation, though – let’s say the Mii’s starting race was black,

perhaps – and this choice would be more conspicuous.

It may seem innocuous, but it’s part of an old discourse of defaultness. It’s the same reason

descriptors of a person of color’s appearance often specifically mention race, while a white

individual’s race is more or less invisible.

To Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, this is cultural hegemony. Originally used by

Gramsci in the 1930s to describe patterns of the bourgeoisie imposing a capitalist perspective

on the proletariat, it has come to be expanded to all manner of sociological areas. As in the

case of the Mii Maker, hegemony imposes racial power. The use of he, him, and his as default

pronouns imposes gendered power. These impositions need not be conscious; in fact, they are

at their most powerful when they go entirely unseen to their user.

In another reflection of cultural hegemony that remains nearly invisible, the uniquely occidental

phenomenon of the flag has been spread throughout the world to be adopted by collectives at

the nation state, provincial, and local levels. In the case that a minority group seeks autonomy,

like the Kurds now do in the Middle East, adopting a flag is one manner in which they might

increase their visibility. The westernizing administrations of China, Ethiopia, or the Ottoman

Empire each adopted a flag, seal, and anthem as part of their efforts to enter the world stage

legitimately. Participating into this occidental framework of statecraft represented a deference

to western aesthetics and iconography. This was but another way for western powers to

mediate their dominance.

The structure of cultural hegemony was best articulated by British Prime Minister Margaret

Thatcher in the 1980s. A famous slogan of Thatcher’s, “there is no alternative,” became a

rallying cry for advocates of the market economy across the world. TINA, as it is often

shortened, bluntly summarizes the discursive societal effects of hegemony.

By portraying the dominant ideology as the default or even the sole option, those in power –

purposefully or not – facilitate the expansion of their control. From seemingly innocuous

character creation engines to westernizing nations the world over, Gramsci’s original

conceptualization of a sociological pattern is incredibly helpful for understanding the way

power functions today.