New York senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton has launched an attack on violent videogames, singling out Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto titles as a “major threat” to morality.
“Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them,” she said in a statement on the issue. “This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it’s OK to diss people because they are a woman, they’re a different colour or they’re from a different place.”
You know, I find the “Think of the Children! Think of the CHILDREN!!” stance particularily annoying. Why? Because its being applied to adult contexts. Grand Theft Auto has an M rating from the ESRB. That means that you have to be an adult in order to purchase the game. So why keep applying these games to the context of children? Only in videogames is the system so absurd!
Think of it like movies. The movie “Hostage” just came out featuring Bruce Willis and much violence and gore. Yet you don’t see senators wishing to restrict/ban the movie, because it isn’t applying itself to a context of children. It’s an R rated movie: not for kids.
So are the senators thus saying that in this world in which the elder videogame players are now in their 20s-30s, that they aren’t allowed to have any adult-oriented games? Are they saying that every game should be published “thinking of the children”? It’s a pretty scary thought.
Such are the injustices of the digital world. See, if Mrs. Clinton were to say that about an adult book, or R-Rated movie, there would be an outcry. But because she’s saying it about an M-Rated game, everyone automatically removes any layer of common sense they once had and filters their views.
But that’s just one of the things that bothers me about the comments. The other thing that bothers me is that they explicitly focus on what’s the worst one can do with a game. The beauty of GTA is that you can do whatever you want. You want to drive there? Fine. You want to play golf? Fine. You want to race? Fine. You want to go to the beach and watch the sunset? Fine. Want to protect an old lady crossing the street? Fine. You can do all these non-violent activities in GTA! But because it is such a freeform game, it means that people can do whatever they want, including the immoral activities. And the media, exclusively focuses on the worst they can pull off. You can run over people with a car. What else is a realistic game supposed to do when you go through a red with a speeding car? People do carry money. Again, realistic. Its all up to the player.
Now if the media producer making a piece on GTA wants to run over prostitutes, that’s his choice. It only reflects how sick that dude is, not the rest of the players. The other players just play the game like normal people. But it does bother me that people who have never even played the game pick up on the ignorance of the media producers out there and say threats.
Think of it this way: how legitimate is someone if they say “this movie is HORRIBLE!” if they haven’t even seen the movie?! So why do people think that Clinton’s statements are legit?
The beauty of the digital world, eh?