Videogames Made Me A Terrorist
The TV was on the other night, and someone - some evil, unknown force - tied us to the sofa with unpleasant equipment on our heads to keep our eyes pinned open like in A Clockwork Orange and made us watch Nanny 911 - the show in which an American couple who have spawned some irritating squealing brats get a visit from an improbably dressed British "nanny" who helps them get their kids under control. It's awful and makes me feel dirty, but it's terribly compulsive. I particularly like the bit where this week's parents blankly refuse to admit there's something wrong - "So my kids beat the shit out of each other. Boys will be boys! Who is she to tell me how to raise my kids?" - when they've gone and bloody invited a nanny into their house in the first place. It's almost as if the producers give each family the same script to recite to camera every week in order to give the final moments of the show, where order is restored in their household and they have to admit that the nanny knows her stuff, more emotional impact. Anyway, it's shite car-crash reality TV that invites the viewer to sneer and feel superior to its subjects, and I can help but love it.
In this particular episode, it was clear that the parents were using video games to babysit their kids. For hours every day they were dumped in front of an XBox or Gamecube while mum got on with a nebulous "running of the house" (Dad, of course, was out working a gruelling "35-40 hours a week." Poor lamb.), and even in the car they were handed Gameboys to keep them quiet. Naturally, whenever they weren't playing games they were little terrors, having screaming tantrums and beating each other, and the family dog, black-and-blue.
All throughout this, I could sense R glaring at me as if to say "is this what our kids are going to be like?" I didn't care much, though, 'cos I was in the middle of a game of Advance Wars on the GBA.
An example of terribly bad, negligent parenting, then, but all throughout the show statements like "these videogames are responsible for your child's bad behaviour" kept cropping up, and the implication that gaming is inherently evil and will turn your children into violent psychopaths was a constant throughout. Which, frankly, got on my tits and made me want to camp outside the headquarters of the company that made this show with a high-powered sniper-rifle and take out as many employees as possible in a fit of rage.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that too much of anything is a bad thing (that's why they call it too much, see?) , which doesn't make videogames any more evil than movies, books, or cheesecake. Interestingly, it was never made clear exactly what games the little tykes in that household were playing. For what are presumably reasons of copyright, TV screens were blurred out whenever they were in shot, and suspiciously generic-sounding "gunfire-and-death" noises dubbed on. They could have been playing fucking Tetris for all I know, but obviously, if you let your 8-year old play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, an violent game with "adults only" warnings all over the box, the game is not to blame for any effect it has on your child - you are.
Videogames are getting a rough time in the media just now, thanks in part to morality crusaders like Jack Thompson. In the eyes of the anti-gaming brigade, there is no difference between GTA and Animal Crossing. Being of the same medium taints one with the negative connotations of the other simply because it's a young medium that is poorly understood. This is highly troubling to those of us who love games, but we should take heart. This is not something to be feared, but a sign of an art-form coming of age - when it is prevalent enough for its most extreme artifacts to get up the noses of the establishment.
Anyway, the point of my little rant is that there is an excellent wee article over on Wired about how new forms of media have traditionally elicited knee-jerk reactions from society's self-appointed watchdogs, including comic books, the telephone, and that evil corrupter of morals, the waltz.
Labels: games, links, television
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2 Comments:
I've seen her, she ain't a patch on SuperNanny.
Who, for a reason I can't quite fathom, sets my pulse racing. Odd that..
Yes Miss!!
By
Gordon, at 12:30 PM
Have you seen "It's Me Or The Dog?" It's basically Supernanny for mutts, only the dog trainer lady goes one step further with the dominatrix thing, down to wearing boots and carrying a riding crop. Barbara Woodhouse she ain't.
By
Alex M, at 12:47 PM
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