“It’s tougher than I thought, sitting home alone unemployed. Maybe we should finally buy ourselves a Playstation?”
“Cool. Good idea. You should go get one today. And could you take Call of Duty 3 with you as well?”
Wuhaaat?! My heart skips a beat. I hate, hate, hate (did I mention hate?) violence, even if it’s fake. Like hello, somebody I know has just been aimlessly killed (true, I hadn’t told you yet, because it has only happened this week) and I can still feel him dying and now my boyfriend wants me to buy him a game in which the pure aim is to kill? That’s so not gonna happen…
That was my first reaction; I was really quite upset. I didn’t even really know why, considering I’m quite blunt and have been called inconsiderate by people more than a million times. I’m a tough girl. But I simply cannot deal with virtual violence, including other people who can deal with it very well, in fact actually enjoying it. I find those people mentally ill and I hate to find out my boyfriend to be one of them.
Anyhow, we had a little quarrel, which doesn’t really matter now, because all is well again. But what does matter is the concept of virtual violence: is it to dig or not to dig?
Let’s analyse the different reasons and motives somebody could have to approve or disapprove of violence in video games, films and other audio visual pleasures.
The cons are fairly easy to explain, because I have my parents to illustrate them. My mother is probably a so-called Highly Sensitive Person, somebody who easily gets out of balance by external stimuli. My father is a doctor and has always claimed he has seen and heard his share of real violence and its consequences in his profession. Both therefore dislike virtual violence. I guess having their genes and growing up amongst them explains my own point of view.
However, the most popular view to disapprove of such violence is the one that states it may provoke real violence. And indeed, research shows that some people who have just seen a violent film feel more violent and aggressive themselves afterwards. Furthermore, virtual violence shows you yet unknown methods. I would definitely not have been creative enough to have been able to come up with all the methods to kill or torture another living being I’ve seen so far on television. It’s common knowledge that certain kinds of violence can turn into a temporary hype once they have been exposed in the media. Think ritual slaughtering and happy slapping and many more.
So now we have a list of several reasons to disapprove of virtual violence. And if all people would react violently on seeing violence, it would be quite easy: make it illegal. But it isn’t that easy. There is another group, probably bigger than the first one: a group of people for whom watching violence works as a way to focus their own aggressive feelings and actually let those feelings flow away. Their aggressiveness gets tempered by putting those emotions into watching a violent film or playing a violent video game.
In my opinion the people that turn violent through seeing violence are the scary ones. But let’s not forget that the people that let their aggression be tempered are the ones that are made less scary than they potentially were. Would you risk letting their potential danger flourish?
All these motives and reasons make the discussion about exposing yourself, others and especially children so difficult and complex. For every single person that shoots down his classmates or slaughters his girlfriend because he (or she) is influenced by virtual violence, there could be hundreds of people that refrain from real violence just because of the same virtual violence. So what do you do? Prohibit violent games and films?
In any case I think it’s a necessity to be aware of your own points of view and reactions towards violence in videogames and films. This way you can protect yourself and, who knows, maybe others. I already know I’m way too sensitive for too much virtual violence. I asked Matt, and he, although he never thought of it before, assumes he uses watching violence to temper his own aggression; to let go of any stress and anger.
How about you? Are you aware of why you enjoy or detest watching violence? I’m curious: which group do you think you belong to and why?
In the meantime Matt and I eventually did buy a Playstation. No violent games though. Yet. However, while I was in the game store I got quite psyched up by all the different titles, screenshots and demos. Some of them could even be quite good. And if my man needs a certain game to temper any aggressiveness he may have inside, than I’d better let him, shouldn’t I?
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I generally don’t care much for violent video games. The people around me who play them are, I know, totally able to make the difference between real and virtual.
But I actually enjoyed once taking part in a violent video game (Resident Evil I-don’t-remember-which-number). It was at a small party and one of the guy plugged his Wii into the TV and directed another one (who is not much of a gamer) in playing this game. So he was playing and we were 4 or 5 around him, watching. And pretty soon we became all very engrossed in the game, screaming “shoot him!” and “behind you! shoot!” and all these kind of things. (It turns out that it’s a game where apparently you have to shoot everybody; the one time he didn’t shot the old lady she killed him with a hatchet). And it was fun. Because it had nothing to do with reality. Because you weren’t suppressing lives, just pixels. Nothing more than (furiously) crossing off words on a draft…
Left by Chloé on Thursday, September 6th, 2007