VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE Myth, parental paranoia, or the hard truth?
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iolence in video games has been a decadeslong conversation since the rise of graphic imagery, such as in the original Mortal Kombat, in 1992. Some parents believe their child’s sudden interest in games is accompanied by an increase in aggression and violence. Others think games are planting violent thoughts into the brains of the players to inspire real life violence. Tag is asking: do video games cause violence or not?
Identifying with the aggressor?
According to a study in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, violent video games can be more harmful than violent movies or television as it “forces the player to identify with the aggressor” and “interact with the violence instead of just watching”. One of their studies measured 227 college students’ aggressive traits and compared it to the
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amount of time playing violence games and it found that the more violent games students subjected themselves to, the more frenzied behaviours they showed. So it seems that video violence can cause some sort of trigger, right? Well maybe not. Some believe the claim is a form of political propaganda as politicians often use this to back a campaign they’re running. One politician, Samuel Alito, described in detail the violence that was being shown in games and even went as far to say that there are games where you are allowed to commit rapes. He also said there is a game that allowed you to re-enact the Columbine High School shooting; however these claims were disputed and some of these games do not exist and if they did, they wouldn’t be available to the public. The late Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Antonio Scalia, scoffed at Alito’s claims. Antonio claimed that “They show at best some correlation between exposure
to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a non-violent game”.
Male and female aggression
Another issue with video game violence is the depiction of male aggression. Most games feature male leads, such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, which allow or force the player to commit acts of torture, terrorism and violence to finish the game, whereas the violence that comes from female leads is justified by whatever context the game applies. For example, Lara Croft uses violence in self defence, Jill Valentine fights zombies and Samus is saving the world. However, The Last of Us, Part 2 has a more controversial approach to its female lead Ellie by promoting revenge and enabling violence for personal reasons. Ellie
Luca Manley Design: George Walker
goes camp to camp looking for ‘justice’ after her father figure is killed, however the game then forces the player to play as the suspect in the killing and we learn that she was also acting on revenge. The game also includes material about sexual assault and LGBT, creating uproar in the creative community, allegedly inspiring female players to act out violently against their aggressors in an act of revenge. So it seems while most violent games that include unjustified violence are male led, there are games that feature violent female characters too. And is someone less likely to go out and cause violence after playing a hero than if they had just finished blowing up an airport that glorifies your actions? As with life, unlike with games, this question may not yet have a definitive answer in which all the loose threads are tied together.
