Violence in Media

Let us stop portraying the media consumed by a murderers as the cause for their crimes.

I was sitting in my family room with my Dad, discussing the Newtown mass shooting. I brought up the rampant scapegoating being condoned by the mainstream media with my father and he agreed, while adding "except that one game... what's it called?"

I guessed "Grand Theft Auto". That and Mortal Kombat are the two games that have been getting panned by the media for years for allegedly creating psychotic killers despite the fact that millions of people play them and they are just fine.

He said "Yes. That's the one where you shoot cops and rape prostitutes, right?" My Dad has never played the game, and based on what the media has communicated to him about the game, that's literally what he believes the game is about.

To set the record straight, the Grand Theft Auto series consists of loosely connected open-world games set against a sprawling story in the criminal underworld, more easily compared to Goodfellas than "raping prostitutes". You are given the ability to explore the game's world, always a parody of a major American city, at your leisure. If you want, yes, you can shoot a police officer with a bazooka. But where the media seems to stem away from the truth is that you are not rewarded by this or given "points" (I heard that once). Rockstar, the game's developer and publisher, spends millions of dollars making the best story they can tell in these games, all of which are critically lauded for their intricacy, plot, and humor. But my Dad, because of the media, believed it was about "shooting cops and raping prostitutes".

Likewise, since the culprit of the 2011 Norway mass shooting, Anders Brevik, mentioned that he prepared by playing Call of Duty, the media exploded, condemning its existence and essentially identifying it as a motivation in the cases of other murders.

The Call of Duty franchise is one of the highest sold video game properties of all time, with millions upon millions playing. Out of all of those people, literally a handful of people end up being mass murderers. I believe that you could find a different commonality between the murderers that actually identifies with a smaller demographic that could prove as an even better scapegoat. Maybe they all belong to yacht clubs, and only 6 million U.S. citizens belong to yacht clubs. YACHT CLUBS CAUSE MURDER!

It comes down to personal responsibility. If there is a violent game, it may desensitize your child a bit. I admit that I am somewhat desensitized to violence. But my parents did not neglect me growing up, and took the time to explain to me, I don't know, morality.