As the title suggests, no, I have not gone on a massive rampage and killed everyone I hold near and dear to my heart. Nor have I walked in to the town centre in the middle of the day and started spraying everyone and everything I see with an M16. Trying to save the world from German invasion. And yes, I play violent video games and I watch horror movies, where the main plot is to kill as many people in the most horrid ways possible.
So how come I have not turned in to a raging psychopath? Who’s mind has been warped and become delusional? And the realms between the video gaming world and the real world, have blurred to create one big confusing crime spree of stealing cars, killing prostitutes and robbing banks with nothing more than an extremely large purple dildo. (If you got the game references, brownie points for you!)
Since the creation of film and TV, dating back to the early 20’s, people have blamed film for the downfall of humanities morality.
A few examples follow.
- In the early 1920s, there was such a thing called ‘A penny gaff’ a place where the working class could go and watch a eight or nine two minuet films that were looped constantly throughout the day., These films usually involved some sort of ‘violent’ spectacle or an aspect of mischief. The middle and higher classes; as they do to such an annoying extent today, blamed these films for the rising crime rates and the somewhat brash behaviour they ‘may’ have experienced, at some point in their life’s.
- Fast forward to the 1930s, although there were now films with a narrative, people still blamed the films for crimes that did not relate at all the films themselves, and then again in the 1940s, where some people blamed ‘violent’ scenes depicting images from WW1, for the start of WW2. (Which we all know is utter rubbish!)
This continued throughout the years, but not to the extent as we see today. Eg. Mine craft promotes vandalism, Call of Duty can corrupts young children, Saints Row The theird glorifies gang violence.
Another example of the world and media blaming film for violent behaviour is as follows.
In 1993, a despicable murder took place in England. It all involved three young boys, this was the shocking murder, of James Bulger. For those of you who don’t know, James Bulger was a young three year old boy that was kidnapped from a shopping mall by two ten year old boys. He was than tortured and murdered, his body left at the train tracks a few mile from Liverpool, discarded, like nothing more than trash. The two ten year old boys were Jon Venables , and Robert Tompson.
The next paragraph is just one of the reasons to explain why the boys did it.
The two boys, who ‘apparently’ watched the movie Chucky, decided to go and kidnap, beat and murder a younger boy, than leave him at the train tracks to die. Now, I have watched a lot of horror films, including all of the Chucky films, all the saw films and all the hostel films; I have yet to brutally murder anyone.
But, why was Chucky blamed?
Simply, because the police on the case happened to find the ‘Child’s play 3’ video in one of the boys houses at the time of the murder, despite the fact the boys had a long history of violent, anti-social behaviour and a violent upbringing.
Chucky, the murderous doll
Jon Venables was released, from a life sentence and given a new identity in 2002, but returned to jail two years later, after he was found with child pornography. he was than realised again earlier last year. Kudos to our justice system!
Last but not least, the most recent news story in my mind, the attempted murder of Mr and Mrs Petric’s, all because they would not let their son play Halo.
A boy shot his parents, after they would not let him play Hallo, locking the game away in the gun cabinet (Bad move on their part, honestly who locks anything away in a gun cabinet other than a gun?)
The boy had somehow broken in to said gun cabinet than proceed to put a shotgun shell in each of his parents. They had later discovered that the boy had mental problems in the past, as well as a history of violence both physical and mental, but he had a happy family life. But what did the media blame it on? You guessed it. HALO!
The main hero from Halo.
A game where you run around as a futuristic space solider with the name of master chief, saving the world (not necessarily our world) from huge blue aliens that resemble very muscular deformed gorillas and other aliens that are more like a mutated inbred version of a multicoloured crab tortoises.
Either this young boy misinterpreted the game with dreadful consequences, or( at the risk of sounding horribly blunt and uncompassionate) he was crazy in the first place…
And last but not least, guess what the media think was the sole cause of the London riots? Was it because of Social and economic inequality? Crimes of opportunity? Or, the high rates of youth unemployment to blame?
Those are just, some of the examples, the other, less logical and media favourite…Grand Theft Auto.
I admit, the game is a violent representation of glorified crimes such as murder, prostitution, stealing cars and robbing banks. The favourite crime, being picking up prostitutes, doing the deed, then beating them to death with a baseball bat, just to get your money back.
But to blame the London riots on a game?
To put it simply, the London riots was caused by a domino effect; which started because of the seemingly ‘unlawful’ death of a drug dealer called Mark Duggan (No loss there.) A minority of people stated to kick off which got the attention of those other people who just like to cause trouble, throw the unemployment rates and money problems into the mix, this gives the idiots an excuse to go around and break into shops, stealing merchandise that does not belong to them to get back at the government for not taking better care of the ‘poor’ and to stick a middle finger up at the police force knowing that they would not be able to do anything about it because ‘human rights’ has taken away all or most of their power to punish criminals. (Takes deep breath)
The only reason any game would have caused the riots, is if someone specifically looted a game console to play the games on.
A picture of the London riots and quote from London Evening Standard paper.
Now that, that’s all cleared up, in a summery that could have been summed up in one or two paragraphs,( but then it would not be a ramble would it?) everyone can sleep better, knowing that games to not cause bad people to do bad things. It is the people themselves and the downfall of human morality that causes all these things….Sleep well!
Related articles
- TV blamed for triple family murder (rcarvell25.wordpress.com)
- Video gaming in culture (aaronfisherblog.wordpress.com)
- London Riots: Against the spectacle (305mediacluster.wordpress.com)
Angry Ash 