Tonight, Penn and Teller took on the issue of video game violence in their Showtime series, “Bullshit!”. Now, admittedly, I love these guys and as a result I’m a tad biased to begin with but this episode made so many potent points (alliteration, FTW!) that I just can’t help myself.
As Lynsey mentioned in our introductory post, I am currently pursing my Master’s degree in Applied Sociology with my concentration being in sex, gender, and media. Yup, I’m a not just a girl gamer, I’m a sociologist girl gamer. Which basically means I’m no fun at parties . . . or I’m the life of the party, depending on how nerdy you are.
Regardless, nothing gets me fired up faster then people who spew “facts” about the media and its affect on contemporary society without taking time to do some research beforehand. No, watching Nancy Grace does not count.
It seems like video games are the scapegoat du jour these days. For a while it was Marilyn Manson but nowadays it seems as though every time some horrible act of violence involving teenagers occurs we blame video games – and why not? It’s easy. People like Jack Tompson - who was in tonight’s episode - espouse that games like Grand Theft Auto are “the worst assault on children since polio” and claim that countless, scientific studies prove his theory. Remember what I said in my previous post about girl gamers? That bit about the majority of statistics being made up or manipulated to reflect a certain agenda? Yeah.
The fact is . . . there are no facts. There is no conclusive evidence that suggests video games act as a catalyst to violent behavior. As one woman in tonight’s episode said, sure, school shooter "John Doe" may have an Xbox 360 in his home but he may also have toothpaste and Twinkies. Just because someone plays games doesn’t mean it’s the cause of their violence.
Yet everyone likes to point the finger. Another man featured in tonight’s episode apparently walked around E3 this year with a flyer he made warning people of the dangers of FPS games. He believes that if you play hours of Call of Duty and Gears of War you will become so desensitized to violence that you can walk into your nearest library/school/whatever, gun down everyone there, and not feel a thing.
Desensitization seems to be the primary concern on this issue. This argument truly astounds me. Do the people of this country really think that our youth don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy? Like . . . really? If that’s true, why aren’t people blaming violent books or movies with the same passion? The fact that people truly think that video games and video games alone can cause people to go on homicidal rampages just boggles my mind. If that were the case most of you reading this would probably be dead right now. Or in jail.
There were a couple more key moments in tonight’s episode that I want to point out before this entry rambles on for too much longer. One, that guy who walked around E3 talking about how first-person shooters are terrible and making our children violent, is an avid gun collector himself - and I do mean avid. He’s got guns to take down raptors and he’s proud of it. Loves it. And you know what? That’s fine. Just don’t turn around and say that fake guns are evil and real guns are awesome. I find that argument most illogical.
Penn also made a fantastic – fantastic – point about acceptable violence in contemporary society. Violent video games have such a stigma attached to them and yet over 600 people have died as a result of football related injuries. Society wholly endorses a real life violent sport that causes real injuries – even death – but it’s fantasy violence that gets the bad rap.
The final issue I want to mention dealt with a nine-year-old boy who professes his favorite games to be Call of Duty and violent games like it. As an experiment, Penn and Teller took this kid to a gun range and, under the wing of a veteran recently returned from Iraq, and let him fire off one round from a rifle. The idea is that if playing violent games truly triggers violent behavior then this kid should, at the very least, have fun shooting the real gun. So what happened? The kid shot once and stopped. When asked if he wanted to shoot again he said “no”. Then he started crying.
Yeah. Video games will turn you into a cold-blooded killer.
But you all probably know all this already. Let’s just help spread the word. Grab your friends and go kill some zombies in the name of peace and love.
