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TechnoratiUnsuitable for children
If some video games are too violent to be suitable for kids, what exactly makes them suitable for adults?
Every Christmas season, along with a glut of turkey and apple pie, there is a glut of lamentation over violent video games. Columnists weep over the fact that department stores are selling these openly to young teenage boys. What’s happening to Gen X, or Y or Z (which is it, exactly?) Don’t politicians care about our kids? Why don’t they pass a law to ban these products?
Well, as a professional hacker with time on his hands over the holidays, after surfing the internet for ages, I discovered the password to the database of politicians’ secret motivations. I peered inside and I am about to disclose why violent video games for kids are not going to be banned. Ever.
Ready?
It’s simple, really simple. It’s because adults like playing them, too.
Take Grand Theft Auto. The game in the series Grant Theft Auto: San Andreas stirred up controversy because a software modification allows players to enter a graphic sex mini-game. Once the sex mini-game was discovered, some retailers took the game off the shelf and the game’s "Mature" rating was raised to "Adults Only". I am certainly no fan of pornography, but I was puzzled by the change.
In the normal game of Grand Theft Auto, you play a criminal and street thug. Part of the fun is causing general mayhem by stealing cars, running over pedestrians, stabbing women in the street and killing police officers. Many of the "missions" in the game involve these activities. Exactly why does a little simulated sex merit an "Adults-only" rating, when cutting up prostitutes for fun is just "Mature"?
It is easy to complain about Grand Theft Auto because the series was designed to push the limits of what video games can get away with. But it is far from the only game like this – and not the worst, either. Last Christmas, several games were released which include such gems as jailers urinating on prisoners. The graphic violence is getting more detailed and realistic as video game controllers become more powerful and sophisticated. Who knows what delectable scenes lie in the future?
Lawmakers are fond of saying that these games "will never be suitable for children". I agree. But these weasel words evade the real issue: what makes these games suitable for adults? After all, the tastes of adults are linked to the tastes of teenagers. If parents or older brothers regard violent games with blood splashing all around as "no big deal", why would they keep it out of the reach of children? And why is it that a little foreplay upsets people but not the butchery that the entire game is based on?
This reminds me of Janet Jackson’s famous "wardrobe malfunction". She was singing a song with lyrics like "I'm gonna get you naked by the end of this song"; why was America offended when she delivered on her promise? Why is it OK for entertainers to talk about graphic sex but the pillars of Western Civilisation crumble if Janet’s breast is visible? Am I missing something or is this inconsistent?
The fact is that adult entertainment has debased children’s entertainment. What is "unsuited for children" is not often suited for adults either. Is it emotionally healthy to fantasise about urinating on prisoners and to chuckle as blood spurts from the bodies of the pedestrians who got in the way of your car?
People may fault video game manufacturers for supplying debased entertainment, but they are simply supplying a demand. America was shocked by the obscene and sadistic images of its soldiers tormenting prisoners in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. But the dirty secret is that people across the developed world are gloating over material substantially similar -- but calling it private entertainment.
Groups abound which do research on the effects of media on children. The National Institute on Media and the Family, for instance, does a sterling job. But where are the groups which protest the effect of bad media on "consenting adults"? Folks got hot and bothered by allegations that the Harry Potter series was propaganda for witchcraft. Isn’t Grand Auto Theft propaganda for the vilest forms of criminality?
Choosing inhuman entertainment simply assists in the process of creating an inhuman society. We congratulate ourselves on how far we have travelled from the horrors of Roman Coliseum. But if we choose to simulate those horrors on a videoscreen, have we really become more civilised?
John Bambenek is a freelance columnist and blogger at Part-Time Pundit. He also writes for several other popular websites such as BC Magazine and the Internet Storm Center.
If you want some blood and gore and wall to violence and a snuff movie all rolled in to one why not show your children truly horrifying The Passion of Christ by mel Gibson
As if parents haven’t already gort enough to worry about , I find out that there are even worse games than the ones my sons play. And I thought Grand Theft auto was about a male obsession with cars!
You’ve raised a good point Mr. Bambenek. It’s not really, however, a “chicken vs. egg argument” were looking into here lest we have a problem without a solution.
What makes these ultra-violent video games so attractive and lucrative is that they use as a bait one of the strongest and most basic forces to lure man, children and adults alike. I’m talking about man’s most basic instinct: the will to survive or conserve one’s life.
With the promotion of violence, the will to survive is perverted, abused and taken to the extreme. Surviving now has nothing do with just self-nourishment and protection from natural elements and would be predators. Violence, ultra-violent video games in this case, has degenerated self-conservation to killing and mutilating others, blood thirst, aggression, power-tripping, abuse of authority, machismo, and dominion.
To make things clearer, let me point out that the same thing actually happens with pornography. Man’s instinct to perpetuate his species (thus, the presence of sexual attraction) has been degraded to nothing more but a “come-on” or commodity.
I won’t delve into all the different types of pornographic material and media that has been produced to precisely pervert man’s sexual instinct. I guess it’s not difficult to enumerate the number of ways and cite different examples how sexuality has been gratuitously used in movies, literature and pop culture.
Now then, a “moral deficiency” per se in humans does not exist. Rather, what we have are immoral individuals or groups who exploit man’s most basic instincts for economic gain or whatever reasons. They are the shrewd and malicious who know where the weak and less educated will bite and unscrupulously make money out of it.
Good day!
It’s a chicken vs. egg argument?
Have video games changed our behavior or have we simply socialized our behavior into a fantasy world? And sure, no one dies, but is it any more human? Do violent video games make you “less human” or does a moral deficiency already exist which makes these games attractive?
John, your totally off the mark with your article. The reason why violent video games are acceptable is for one reason and one reason only: to satisfy the perverse violent nature of humans. I mean look at us. We kill, we maim, we fight wars, we crave blood. The video game industry provides us with a more “hands-on” outlet than that of the movie industry. Watch any horror film, especially the likes of “Saw”, the “Hostel”, “House of 1000 Corpses”, those movies are meant to scare, right? WRONG! Those movies not only don’t scare, but are to gross out, to show the very evil that resides in humans, the very animalistic side. Ask yourself then John, how can a human being (ie director) come up with such sick scenes? how is the mind capable of creating these tortures of the beings? It’s capable because it’s there, it’s the basic instinct, and with Freud in mind, we satisfy the “id”, the very basic and the very very animalistic. Subconciously we all crave the blood, the killing, and the excitement that we can control lives. Video games, I guess are just the best outlet that is preventative in nature.
@Gabino, I’m not sure if it can be said that “[enter film or game here] has not changed our behaviour”. I think it’s like saying “[this or that] tv commercial has not affected my behaviour”. Commercials have proven effect in our values and attitudes, which in turn dictate (to some extent) our behaviour. Maybe “just fun” (of games and movies) is only more discreet a way?
John Thomas, are you pushing a nanny state?
Videogames is just fun. OK, some contents are not suitable for kids, but that is the same with a lot of films (for adults) “Urinating on prisioners” sounds terrible, but it’s only a videogame! Many things equal or even more terrible are habitual in films. Everyone has fun with the Godfather series, but if you think careful, some enjoyable scenes are much worse than the previous mentionated. They have changed our way of behaviour? Of course not. Just fun. If someones is affected more than that for a videogame or a film he/she had a problem previously.
Whatever makes John Bambenek (or anyone else) think we have travelled any great distance from the Roman Colloseum? The Romans (and also the Nazis) just got on and did it - whereas we think up fancy arguments to justify what we do, with appeals to “freedom of Information, action, expression ...” etc., “opposition to all forms of censorship”, scorn poured on “the Nanny State” - etc. - and the worst of all: Liberation/establishment of Human Freedom. When you hear “Liberation” “Rights” etc., then you know something really bad is about to happen - but all justified, rationalised, normalised, of course ... in society’s best interests ... blah, blah, blah ...
There are limits to how far a game can go, but they are few and far between. One game made a few years ago was essentialy a cgi-snuff film, and although it sold reasonably well, it’s sequel was since been canned due to mounting concern from parents and the gaming industry that wants those parents to buy their games. It seems that as long as the violence and mayhem is cartoonish, then it’s simply part of the tradition of irreverant and crude humour made popular by films like Fritz the Cat and Heavy Metal, and hence OK.
You make a good point. The “Mature” and “Adults Only” ratings seem in some cases to imply that purity is something one grows out of. This exaggeration of the difference between children and adults, as though they were radically different sorts of creature, can’t be good for the continuity of civilization.
I’m not convinced, however, that enjoying simulated carnage is as barbaric as watching the real thing. I imagine that most people have friends who enjoy horror films or other bloody fare, but would recoil in disgust if they learned that they were watching “snuff” films.
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