video games & violence

Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock and roll.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto

video games & violence !  Video games are abundant in households, arcades, on the internet, and have become a feature of PDA s, cell phones, iPods, and cable TV packages. !  Nolan Bushnell founded Atari, the first widely popular video game system, in 1972. !  In 1980, Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, introducing the story driven game.

Tennis-like sports game PONG

Mario evading barrels in Donkey Kong

video games & violence !  The first third-person perspective game, in which the player could move the characters through the game world, was released in 1984. !  In the early 1990 s, first-person shooter games arrived, which allowed the player to occupy the subjectivity of the main character. The image cannot be displayed. Your computer may not have enough memory to open the image, or the image may have been corrupted. Restart your computer, and then open the file again. If the red x still appears, you may have to delete the image and then insert it again.

Opening scene from King s Quest

Shooting demonic monsters in DOOM

video games & violence !  Contemporary video games have become increasingly interactive as technology has advanced.

Interactivity of the Wii console

Broadcasting Call of Duty 4

!  Games can be played with and against players all over the world, and players can also broadcast their game sessions for others to watch, interact with, etc.

video games & violence !  Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG’s) are games set in virtual worlds that require users to play through an avatar of their own design.

Custom avatars in Second Life

Yahoo! Fantasy football

!  Online fantasy sports players assemble teams, and use actual sports results to determine scores in their online games.

video games & violence !  As with any popular media form, video games are artifacts that express the ideological norms of the culture in which they were produced.

Patriarchal values and the “Horatio Alger Myth” in the Super Mario Bros. series

!  The most common video game image is the active, aggressive, hypermasculinized male protagonist. !  Women’s roles are typically relegated to that of the damsel in distress or the femme fatale; secondary characters who wait for men to rescue them, or overtly sexualized objects on display for male consumption.

video games & violence !  As with any popular media form, video games are artifacts that express the ideological norms of the culture in which they were produced.

Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series

WWE 2K14 commercial

!  The most common video game image is the active, aggressive, hypermasculinized male protagonist. !  Women’s roles are typically relegated to that of the damsel in distress or the femme fatale; secondary characters who wait for men to rescue them, or overtly sexualized objects on display for male consumption.

video games & violence !  As with any popular media form, video games are artifacts that express the ideological norms of the culture in which they were produced.

Nintendo s Mario 64

Juliet from Lollipop Chainsaw

!  The most common video game image is the active, aggressive, hypermasculinized male protagonist. !  Women’s roles are typically relegated to that of the damsel in distress or the femme fatale; secondary characters who wait for men to rescue them, or overtly sexualized objects on display for male consumption.

video games & violence !  Excessive sex and violence become normalized in video games. !  Why is it then, that we attempt to escape from our own lives by “playing” the excessively violent/sexual lives of others?

Violence in the Grand Theft Auto series

God of War sex mini-game

!  The experience of playing video games (and other excessive media forms) places the gamer into a confrontation with what Julia Kristeva calls the abject; that which simultaneously fascinates and repulses. !  This experience challenges the notion of “proper” forms of identification, and forces discussion about the lines that separate high and low culture, taste and taboo, and the things culture deems “too extreme”.

video games & violence

The Mean World Syndrome Written & Directed by Jeremy Earp Media Education Foundation (2010) 51 mins.