Big Game Hunters

So I woke up this fine Sunday morning and decided, like I usually do on every day I wake up, to check my web comics. People like to start their day off right with a smile, many times brought on by a Sausage Biscuit and coffee from McDonald's or maybe a Venti Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. Whatever their pleasure, they can have it. I like my comics. Well, this morning I read a little comic which lampooned an article written by Bill Croke, a writer for the online journal "The American Spectator". In this article, he cites two researchers and attempts to correlate video game violence to poaching. "Since it's apparent that a small percentage of kids can actually suffer psychological problems from playing these games, an empathy deficit if you will, I think it might be an easy jump to get up from a computer game, go out and pull the trigger on an elk or a deer, and then walk away with a laugh. After all, it's only a game." Really? An easy jump to get up and go kill things after playing a video game on a computer? Yet the next thing on his page is that hunting numbers are actually DOWN by 8%! So tell me Bill, how is it that if video game violence is inducing people to kill animals and the like, why are hunting numbers down? In the scientific community, when two variables act independently of one another in test after test, they are not considered co-dependent.

But I'll bite Bill Croke, I'll bite. So let's look at media violence throughout the ages and see, just what sort of problems the media causes.

The year? 1778. Pierre Beaumarchais finishes a fantastically witty comedy "Crazy Day", also known by its complete title, The Marriage of Figaro - Crazy Day. From 1778 to 1784 it was banned by the aristocracy in many places, including Vienna. And in only 11 years, the principles of denouncing noble privilege would be carried over into the French Revolution as the entire European world was embroiled in approximately 25 years of barely ceasing conflict from 1789 to 1815. Did Pierre Beaumarchais himself go out and kill Louis XVI? or Marie Antoinette, the proclaimed "Austrian Bitch" (the French really loved her)? Probably not. Did people in the crowd after its censor was removed in 1784 go out and participate in the Revolution? Sure. I guess the Marriage of Figaro is responsible for the French Revolution then, according to the same logic. I mean after all, it's an easy jump from watching a comedic play where no one really gets hurt, on a stage with colorful costumes, to getting up and starting a revolution based on the ideals expressed in the play.

OK so one example from history, big whoop. Well how about another one? Stravinsky's Rite of Spring! A beautiful selection of music, Le Sacre du Printemps, the Ballet follows an ancient pagan ritual to reawaken the spirit of Spring, including a highly erotic dance by a beautiful young ballerina. In 1913, the Paris theater where the ballet premiered erupted into violence. First starting with cat calls and whistles at the provocative music and dancing, then degenerating into a riot that even the Paris police could not fully quell. Stravinsky fled the theater in shame. Classical music, a ballet, something we in our modern Western society oftentimes associate with high society and the ultra wealthy, caused a riot. And it wasn't the first time music had done something so provocative. Strauss, the composer for The Blue Danube among others, composed the operas Salome (A biblical story), and Elektra (from Greek drama of antiquity), both of which caused riots when they were premiered. Salome had to be closed after just one night. Ballet Mecanique, by American composer George Antheil caused riots at the very same theater as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in 1913!

But these media outlets are all live action! Opera, Ballet, Symphonic music, and Theater all have living people acting things out! So let's move to a more virtual world, one of special effects, visual illusions, and makeup. TV and Movies! The year? 1956. The person? None other than the King himself, Elvis Presley. 1956 saw a rock and roll legend standing next to old stone face himself, Ed Sullivan. So what? A Rock and Roll icon who sang about blue suede shoes, jailhouse rock, and hound dogs. When the New York Daily News reported on Elvis in 1956, they had this to say: "gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos" followed up by the San Francisco Chronicle, which deemed that Elvis' performances were: "in appalling taste". Ed Sullivan realized the ratings increase from Elvis being on his show, but also realized that controversy could hurt his show in the long run. Elvis was shown from the tummy up for the first segment, and in the second, in a full body. The second segment caught everyone's attention and caused the scandal Ed Sullivan wished to avoid. Did Elvis shaking his pelvis on TV make millions of people world wide go out and have sex? Not hardly. But let's look to movie violence!

This report, conducted by researchers at University of California Berkeley, and University of California at San Diego draws an interesting conclusion. Movie violence actually reduces violence and even alcoholism in society by providing a substitute to these more dangerous activities. Surprised? You shouldn't be. The Ancient Romans knew just how important that visual violence was to the people. Why do you think gladiatorial games, races at the Circus Maximus, and other blood sports were so popular? It fulfilled a basic human craving for blood without masses of people committing the crime. It gave us our 'thrill kill' as Bill Croke likes to coin the term, without us doing the killing. We saw the blood. We heard the crying screams. We even smelled it on those really hot days when the bodies were dumped after being killed or eviscerated. But people really DID die.

Movies and TV? Special Effects. Opera, Ballet, and Theater? Tricks of lighting, dramatic acting, and bodily motion. Literature? Simile and Metaphor. Video games? Pixels, ragdoll physics, and video card capacity. Does video game violence cause real life violence? Especially in illegal hunting? No. Especially since the vast majority of illegal hunting is done in the 3rd world of Indo-China and Africa, places where people can barely find food and water, much less get the latest copy of Grand Theft Auto. Sorry Bill, but you're way off base here. Better get back to criticizing human nature, since we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as a predatory omnivorous species and clawed our way to the top of the food chain. Cavemen hunted critters to extinction, yet I don't think cavemen knew who Turok the Dinosaur Hunter was.

It seems to me from all this that, like the critics of old, Bill Croke is just one sad little man in a long line of critics ready to journalistically stalk, pounce, and eviscerate their prey of the latest media sensation. Just like Parisian and Viennese papers did to Figaro, NYC's papers did to Salome and Elvis Presley, Bill Croke and the rest of the video game onslaught are attempting to drive a stake through the heart of the video game industry with the attitude of "Video games are mindless, as are the parents who let their kids play them." I'm certain someone said the same thing about Elvis, Stravinsky, Nabokov, Strauss, Cagney (James Cagney that is), and others who have helped propogate their respective genres of expression and art into the next century. All said and done though? Bad parents shouldn't blame childhood behavior on the media. Ignore your children at their own peril ladies and gentlemen, but please don't blame Super Mario Bros. because you were never there for your child and didn't pay attention.