It's 2:00 a.m. and little Johnny and his brother are up on a school night glaring at the tv in their room, trying to be careful and not wake their parents. Their eyes are fixed on the screen knowing what they were doing is wrong. Surely, only this type of action, this type of language, this type of enjoyment was reserved for adults -not kids with Sponge Bob on their butts. Johnny and his brother finally understood why grown men would pay for this kind of entertainment.
All of a sudden, mom pops in and their hearts race because they have been caught red-handed. They don't want her to see whats on that television. They don't want her to see the debauchery her sons have delved into. It's too late and mom is mortified. She thought her innocent boys were now forever sullied by such grotesque filth.
Alas, late night video games had struck again.
Video games have a had a polarizing effect on society. Some view them as recreational devices to relax away on that hot summer day. Some see them as glorified wastes of time that turn your brain to mangled mush. There are other perspectives on video games but I believe the rest of them fall into the two categories I stated above.
No matter where one may fall on the issue, there is no disputing this. The Supreme Court sees them as protected.
In the case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the highest court in the land, in a 7-2 decision, ruled that video games are protected free speech under the 1st Amendment. Move over Harry Potter and eat your heart out Gandalf the Grey, Super Mario has showed up to the party and he brought Wii Sports with him. And a mushroom keg.
In what many are calling a resounding victory for the gaming industry, others are lamenting on what this means for society. Thats right, gamers have just as much a right to sit in basements eating stale Doritos and bicker over who stole who's kill on Call of Duty as polite Southern bells have in pouring amaretto sours at their delightful book clubs. Video games are on the same level as books and movies. And it was the right move to make.
In his opinion, our favorite witty, Quaker Oats-look-a-like Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that video games contain just as much violence as some childrens books, specifically citing Grimm's Fairy Tales. He went on in saying that video games are essentially another form of literature and that there wasn't a compelling link between violence in video games and kids. Scalia reasoned that you can't ban access to a form of media because of uncertain effects it would have on people.
This decision was correct in the sense that video games needed the recogniztion they deserved. They aren't just simply flashing lights dancing around on the screen anymore. They're complex works with deep detail, elongated scripts, and imaginative stories. When certain video games have been transformed into movies and books, like everyone's favorite deathfest Mortal Kombat, its apparent the series has trascended the four corners of a console.
Some video game franchises have been firmly established in American lore because they have become so popular. There are more people out there who know about the exploits of Master Chief than those who remember Atticus Finch. Heck, contemporary video games like Madden will have a greater legacy than James Stewart. I barely know who James Stewart is, truthfully. Google is my friend.
Books, movies and video games are now all intertwined. Video games represent the new kid on the block and with the Supreme Court ruling, have finally earned their stripes.
Remember, at one point in history books, reading really, was seen as blasphemous except for a priviliedged few. Still, you had to use your mind to explore the real depths of the words. Then movies came and gave reading a run for its money. They put things on the screen the masses thought were marvelous, and in the same breath, lacking of value and moral. But, art was art and movies become common nature entertainment.
Now video games have had their feet put to the fire and seemingly walked away without burn. The problem that people like Leland Yee, the California politician who drafted the law, have with video games is that they take it a step further. A step movies and books find themselves often trying to imitate.
Video games give you direct control of your own imaginative perception.
You don't have to come along for the ride anymore. You drive the bus.
We're becoming a more interactive world and video games is an off-shoot of that. Why debate over the meaning of what Madam Bovary's mental issues were while we can just play the game and make it more interesting, if not simpler? There has been a conscious shift in the younger generation to step away from the rigourous thought process that is investing your imagination into something and instead going to buy a gift-wrapped electronic melodrama deliver one for you. Movies did it to books, and now its seems video games are doing it to movies.
While books and movies will never go out of style, like Abe Vigoda, their dominance as favorites in what I'm calling "art imitating life" category is fading quickly. Movies offer more of the same these days as Hollywood and is lost in its own glitz and greed. A little boy down at the courthouse had this to say the other day. He quipped, "I don't read books, I play Wii." That pretty much sums it up on the status of books.
Video games give unparalled control of the story and plot when compared to books and movies. The problem is that most video games push the very boundaries of what is realistic fantasy and what is sheer nonsense. Books have limitless potential in imagination, but utter lack of visual stimulus. Movies create stunning, epic visuals, but limit your interpretation of the plot in most instances. Video games have both in spades.
And that's the real problem.
Video games are becoming almost reckless in allowing what the player is allowed to do. Combine that with jaw-dropping visuals, advanced technology and a decent enough dialogue and you can relegate the library as that place where hobos go to use the bathroom. Video games are becoming more violent, sexual and overall mischievious. While marketed to towards kids initially, don't get it twisted. Video games are made for adults.
I mean, there was even a game created for the purpose of the player just getting to view digital fake boobs. Not even real life fake breats, digital ones.
Not all video games are the well-crafted pieces of dedication like I make them seem like. There are those that society would be better without, that kids specifically would be better without. But, that doesn't mean its the developers fault that Johnny and his brother got ahold of "Murder Militia Monsters 4". Parenting and the stores which the games are sold at should be barriers enough.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and specific store policies seem to do a fine job as it is. Sorry dude, you're under 18, no purchase for you. But, if the adult purchases the game and thinks he/she is picking up something more similar to Asteroid, than have they got another thing coming. Games today are fundamentally different and its up to the parents to recognize this. They've got to do the research and take culpability over what their kid is getting into to. No law can cover that up for you.
And that's why the Supreme Court ruled the way it did. While there is a discrepency between giving kids the right to purchase violent video games and not pornography as Justice Samuel Alito pointed out, there is no denying that video games are a form of speech. We frown upon kids getting invovled with certain books and movies,but it is still their right to have access, not full access, but access to those items. Video games belong in that category.
We'll see where the road goes from here, but as the generation shifts, and with video games being used more and more for things besides entertainment such as education, they will become more accepted. My lone regret is that video games stymie the youth from creating their own imagination, but thats another conversation. Video games are just as addictive as any book and any movie but the key is to remain balance in partaking any one of them. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony still deserve the same protection that is afforded to Twilight and any Tyler Perry film. The Supreme Court did the right thing and its only when we stop acknowledging the artisitic, intellectual movement of society that one thing becomes apparent.
Game over.
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