For those of you that don?t know, this is an election year in the US. Actually, I am sure you knew that, but for the sake of this argument let?s pretend that there is someone out there with an internet connection that doesn?t get US politics shoved down their throat everyday. As it is an election year certain fluff issues come up. I say fluff because these are the topics that candidates can get behind and offend only people who don?t fall under the term ?constituent.? It is then easy to neglect said issues as soon as they?ve proven that they are much more morally pure than the other candidate.
This year the fluff d?jour is violence in media and how it affects our children. This debate is as old as salt and it seems to be wonderful fodder for the hungry cannons of the right-wing media giant known as Fox News.
Take the Mass Effect debacle. What was supposed to be "an angry man-child gets in a nerd-fight with the intelligent best-selling authors over something that interests everyone." The argument centers around a game they made up before the interview with the only resemblance to the actual game is the name. Fox News invented a game they would like to see so they could have something to talk about. The truth about Mass Effect is that it is a significant and important evolution in games. If Fox really wanted to win this argument they should have waited for someone to release ?Custer?s Revenge II? for Wii.
Fox had expected some ?man-child? to show up and he didn?t. In fact the debate was so one-sidedly in favor of the ?controversial game? that they resorted simply to cutting down the pro-game comments to sound bytes and letting the author talk at length to make her seem like she wasn?t floundering. In the end that ended up being her undoing as she dug herself into a deeply misinformed grave. I fear that in the eyes of most of the American numbskulls who actually watch Fox news it must have seemed like a win for hypochondriac middle-aged soccer-moms everywhere.
One thing I think keeps fueling this debate is simply that some adults cannot wrap their head around calling something a ?game? without being infantile. Adults sometimes like to use the word ?game? in an adult way also. That makes it all seem a little naughty. Let?s take another word that gets used in a both the adult and children?s world. If you imagine the word ?toy? you think of jack-in-the-boxes, yo-yos or, toy cars. But if you hyphenate it to ?adult-toy? you have something certainly not for children. If you do the same for game, i.e. adult-game you have something that not only seems sexual/violent but also aimed at children. We don?t call R-rated movies ?adult-movies? do we? We reserve that title for porn. Do we label anything not having to do with sex or violence as ?adult?? By default simply combining the word ?adult? with ?game? means you?re mislabeling the trend in games to cover more adult situations as ?games with fucking.?
I guess I am conflicted; I am all for protecting our children. My friend a few years ago sent me a link to a video. As I do with all links on chat I asked specifically ?what is this?? He told me ?It?s this American who gets his head chopped off by radical Muslims, but the machete was so dull they kind of sawed it off instead.? I would at all costs protect my children from those images. I knew that there were these things on the internet, but I imagined there was some invisible wall created by Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy to protect me from growing up. After clicking my heels together three times I was back to my happy place. I never watched the video, but it made me wonder if we had really crossed the line with this internet thing. When did the internet become a place to circulate snuff films like twenty-something tourists pass the clap in Thailand? What is the line we have to cross before games simply are too repulsive for anyone? What can we do to change the perspective of games as one giant snuff playground? I say stop using the word "adult" to rate them, or call them something altogether different. Then we can truly know which games to avoid, and which games are simply rated R. I would say ?interactive-entertainment? is a good new word but not only is that a mouthful, it sounds dangerously boring and reminds me of the postage stamp sized videos featured in the first graphical Zork games. I am sure we?ll get there sooner or later. I?d happily change my vocabulary to get games out of the pillory.
Sources:
Fox News on Mass Effect
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/163925.html
Custer?s Revenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer's_Revenge
Return to Zork
http://youtube.com/watch?v=S3lRFRTrtuQ
This year the fluff d?jour is violence in media and how it affects our children. This debate is as old as salt and it seems to be wonderful fodder for the hungry cannons of the right-wing media giant known as Fox News.
Take the Mass Effect debacle. What was supposed to be "an angry man-child gets in a nerd-fight with the intelligent best-selling authors over something that interests everyone." The argument centers around a game they made up before the interview with the only resemblance to the actual game is the name. Fox News invented a game they would like to see so they could have something to talk about. The truth about Mass Effect is that it is a significant and important evolution in games. If Fox really wanted to win this argument they should have waited for someone to release ?Custer?s Revenge II? for Wii.
Fox had expected some ?man-child? to show up and he didn?t. In fact the debate was so one-sidedly in favor of the ?controversial game? that they resorted simply to cutting down the pro-game comments to sound bytes and letting the author talk at length to make her seem like she wasn?t floundering. In the end that ended up being her undoing as she dug herself into a deeply misinformed grave. I fear that in the eyes of most of the American numbskulls who actually watch Fox news it must have seemed like a win for hypochondriac middle-aged soccer-moms everywhere.
One thing I think keeps fueling this debate is simply that some adults cannot wrap their head around calling something a ?game? without being infantile. Adults sometimes like to use the word ?game? in an adult way also. That makes it all seem a little naughty. Let?s take another word that gets used in a both the adult and children?s world. If you imagine the word ?toy? you think of jack-in-the-boxes, yo-yos or, toy cars. But if you hyphenate it to ?adult-toy? you have something certainly not for children. If you do the same for game, i.e. adult-game you have something that not only seems sexual/violent but also aimed at children. We don?t call R-rated movies ?adult-movies? do we? We reserve that title for porn. Do we label anything not having to do with sex or violence as ?adult?? By default simply combining the word ?adult? with ?game? means you?re mislabeling the trend in games to cover more adult situations as ?games with fucking.?
I guess I am conflicted; I am all for protecting our children. My friend a few years ago sent me a link to a video. As I do with all links on chat I asked specifically ?what is this?? He told me ?It?s this American who gets his head chopped off by radical Muslims, but the machete was so dull they kind of sawed it off instead.? I would at all costs protect my children from those images. I knew that there were these things on the internet, but I imagined there was some invisible wall created by Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy to protect me from growing up. After clicking my heels together three times I was back to my happy place. I never watched the video, but it made me wonder if we had really crossed the line with this internet thing. When did the internet become a place to circulate snuff films like twenty-something tourists pass the clap in Thailand? What is the line we have to cross before games simply are too repulsive for anyone? What can we do to change the perspective of games as one giant snuff playground? I say stop using the word "adult" to rate them, or call them something altogether different. Then we can truly know which games to avoid, and which games are simply rated R. I would say ?interactive-entertainment? is a good new word but not only is that a mouthful, it sounds dangerously boring and reminds me of the postage stamp sized videos featured in the first graphical Zork games. I am sure we?ll get there sooner or later. I?d happily change my vocabulary to get games out of the pillory.
Sources:
Fox News on Mass Effect
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/163925.html
Custer?s Revenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer's_Revenge
Return to Zork
http://youtube.com/watch?v=S3lRFRTrtuQ