[Staff] Playing with Sadism
Games are both the products of culture, and the shapers of it. Play has always been used as a way for individuals to model real scenarios and practice life skills. The types of play that society approves of, therefore, indicate the types of activities and social roles of which it approves. The ways people play tells us the values of a society, which behaviors are “normal” and desirable.
Obviously, a society is not monolithic, and thus different groups within it will favor some values (and their corresponding activities and games) while other groups will promote contrary values. Children playing house are modeling the socially acceptable heterosexual nuclear family. Little boys playing war and fighting Nazis, commies, or now terrorists, reflect our militaristic culture and fear of foreign enemies.
What social values, then, do we see when people are playing Manhunt 2—a gritty exploration of sadism set in a mix of S&M clubs, torture chambers and filthy, nightmarish hospital rooms? The game’s protagonist alternately flees from and tries to exact revenge upon a gang hunting him for sport. Players strangle their opponents with phone cords, severe heads, and stab eyes with hypodermic needles. In order to reduce the rating from Adults Only to Mature, however, the game’s producer—Rockstar—did remove the ability to use pliers to torture enemies.
In contrast, the killing in America’s Army, which is distributed for free by the US Army, is clean and bloodless. Unlike Manhunt 2, it has no restrictions on who can play it, and so tweens and teens are welcome to run around gleefully shooting terrorists. They even have an ad campaign showing young men playing the game and then being encouraged by an on screen character to join the army.
We have all heard the complaints that video games are sexist and violent. This is, for the most part, true. But the same criticism applies to books, and magazines, and movies, TV, and advertisements. The values inherent in video games reflect (and reinforce) the values of our society. In Manhunt 2, the player fights in a desperate situation and the sadism he uses against his enemies is a reaction to the sadism his enemies try to use against him. This is the same logic the US government uses to justify torturing terrorism suspects.
Enemies in America’s Army are dehumanized while real soldiers in Iraq are increasingly distanced from the battlefield—killing with remote operated Predator Drones or joystick-operated CROWS machine guns. We are comfortable with war, as long as the victims are wearing exotic garb and our view of them mediated and our soldiers are well protected. Call them terrorists or enemy combatants or collateral damage, but never people. Don’t worry about accurate casualty counts. Objectify the other with carefully chosen words and camera angles. Remember the beautiful night vision footage of smart bombs penetrating smoke stacks in the first Gulf War? The explosions almost looked digital.
Videogames are full of nubile women with porn star proportions because that is the type of woman our beauty-obsessed, celebrity-crazy, reality-isn’t-real-enough culture desires. Women are, by and large, victims or tramps (or both) in videogames. The question is not, “Are video games teaching young men to be sexist?” but “Is society training young men to enjoy sexist games?”
What we play is a reflection of what we believe, what we idolize, and what we demonize. At Playing 4 Keeps we’re trying to help kids understand the full potential of video games as an artistic medium, but even more, we’re trying to help them understand the full spectrum of messages society presents to them, and their full potential to define their own values.
Comments
Well said Jay. I wonder, though, about the content as well as the process of games. There's no question that America's Army potentially trains people to kill through dehumanization by lack of blood, or that games with scantily clad women send a negative message to young people by continuing a misogynist narrative that began with cave painting and bards and now thrives in movies, advertisement and television.
Keeping that in mind, I wonder how even these kinds of games are changing culture and society through their very medium. Much of what Jim Gee mentions in his work has to do with gaming culture and practice - learning through experimentation and play, shifting one's identity to step outside comfort zones, engaging in collaborate challenges, problem solving through finding the people or tools that can do the job you need done, etc. - potentially exist equally in misogynist and violence laden games as in ones addressing issues like global warming or world hunger.
I don't know that as a culture we're going to succeed in changing the prevailing message, call me a cynic if you like. But I wonder if by changing the medium we can bring about a positive shift regardless.
Posted by: Rafi Santo | October 31, 2007 10:37 PM