Leslie did an impressive breakdown of all the ways that the advertising for Grand Theft Auto 4 is offensive. But she missed one little thing…
Count her fingers. But hey, I hear the extra-digital are seriously underrepresented since The Princess Bride. Perhaps GTA was just trying to be more inclusive with their hookers. In addition to paying them for sex, you could learn to cherish them for their uniqueness! Or just run them over until they’re a human skid mark on the soul of humanity. Take note children, this is what happens when you play too much with your “joystick” and not enough with real people.
An interesting factoid: I was first introduced to the bodily fluid-soaked spectacle that is Grand Theft Auto by one of my high school students in Seattle. A girl I’ll call Lolita (obv. not her real name). Lolita came into my care after getting taken out of her regular chemistry class because – and she told me this herself – she had accused her teacher of trying to rape her after he refused to bump up her grade to an A when she deserved an F-. Her parents – who also told me this themselves – knew that Lolita was lying but didn’t want to ruin her chances of going Ivy League so they went along with her charade and threatened to sue the school. The school placated all the aggrieved parties by giving her to me to teach one-on-one. Needless to say, I always left the door open.
Our bi-weekly tutoring sessions lasted for more than 2 years and while I’m almost positive that she learned nothing, I learned a lot about the microcosm that is the higher echelons of rich prep-school girls. It put Gossip Girls to shame.
What do you get when you put a bunch of gorgeous-yet-morally bankrupt teenage girls in with a bunch of horny-and-ethically retarded teenage boys and then throw buckets of money at them? You get Grand Theft Auto in real life. It was no wonder it was their favorite game.
Lolita proudly showed me all the codes she’d cracked in the game on her hand-held PlayStation. She’d toiled for hours to be able to make strippers flash her and hookers have kinky sex with her. Then she’d kill them in a horrific manner and be on to the next thing – usually taking embarrassing camera pics of kids she deemed too ugly to have feelings and then sending them to all of her cronies who would laugh loudly as they posted them to MySpace.
“Doesn’t it bother you at all that all the people you are abusing in this game are women?” I asked her.
“They’re not women, they’re whores,” she replied without even looking up. She was too busy texting her boyfriend about about the menage-a-tois she was arranging him for his birthday. One that he would end up missing, incidentally, because that weekend he would take a hockey stick to a kid’s face for no apparent reason and his parents would decide that he needed therapy every Friday. Good thing he had his PlayStation Portable so he wouldn’t get bored in the waiting room.
Photo Credit: Photshop Disasters
Im compelled to use that played out trio of leters:
O
M
G
“They’re not women, they’re whores,”
Mizfit I have another one to use –
W
T
F
????
I don’t even know what to say! Granted it’s been almost ten years since I was in high school, and girls were mean then, but it seems like they get worse and worse…and that kids in general get worse. Makes me worried for my own (unborn) babies!
This is why I will be found teaching at the undergrad and graduate level. Sure, the kids may not be any more mature than high schoolers, but it’s easier to kick ’em out of your class!
You may want to read the comments on Leslie’s article.
She seems to be working under a lot of outdated stereotypes.
Having played the game, it would be just as good without the strippers and streetwalkers. I think they just add those “features” to draw publicity.
As for the rest of your post. I’m very grateful I didn’t go to that school!
Cheers
Gena – I taught at the collegiate level for close to seven years. I loved teaching there but realized after having to spend the first 3 weeks every semester covering basic math in my computer programming classes that it would be better for all if I could catch the kiddos younger & make sure they could do math BEFORE college:)
Incidentally, I really adored teaching high schoolers and the majority of my students were not like Lolita.
Ben – thanks for your comment (and being much nicer about it than the commenters over at HuffPo). I do understand that the target audience for the game is the 20+ crowd and not necessarily the teens. However, teens def. do play the game and most adults that play it started it as teens. I am a few years younger than Leslie and many of my friends play this game – I’ve seen it in action. You’re right in that it is a very complex and well-done game with an intriguing plot line and some semblance of consequences. But I have to disagree that the hookers/gore/violence are merely publicity stunts. People wouldn’t be interested in the game without them.
That is SO depressing.
I think one of the most horrifying parts of the story is it sounds like there were no repercussions for this girl making up a rape that could end a teacher’s career or put him in jail for decades.
I don’t know if these games contribute to sociopathy or if they just normalize it, but either way I think they are BAD NEWS.
Now off to HuffPo..
Having seen too much real trauma, I wish there was much less of it in our video world. I don’t know what the main causes are for our apparent need for violence, but I wish society would rein it in, in every area it can.
Dr. J
Games are like movies, don’t go to romantic comedy expecting a running gun battle.
GTA4 is a mature rated game, it’s up to the parents to control what their children play or watch.
Not to give you the impression I’m defending those aspects of the game that offend you. In addition to being a bad thing in principal. I could do without the female in game stereotypes it makes it hard to get my girlfriend interested in playing.
Enjoy your blog, found it through Mark’s Daily Apple.
Cheers.
Ben- that’s part of the problem. Parents aren’t being responsible. Also, it seems that people at younger ages are growing up faster and faster (and I’m sure that a large reason for that is because of the huge amount of media exposure in regards to how women *should* look like, ie. models).
Oh the stories I could tell of my boarding school daze…crazy, scary, jaw-dropping. I know I shouldn’t generalize (and that things can happen anywhere), but my daughter will NOT be going to boarding school.
I went to inner-city public schools (and went through metal detectors every day) and it’s no better, there… mostly because my classmates and their parents actually lived in a real-life GTA.
No comment needed. This sad story speaks volumes and volumes all by itself.