Film critic Mark Kermode wrote a very interesting article recently comparing the recent scares and controversies surrounding videogames to the similar scares and controversies that surrounded horror movies back in the 1980s. The Guardian, by way of reactionary columnist Jaqueline Hunt, has responded to the article, missing the point entirely and bringing up the long-dead RapeLay controversy.
In her article, "These videogames aren't art, they're extreme pornography," Hunt focuses entirely on one game, RapeLay, to make her point, totally ignoring the existence of truly artistic games and choosing instead to vilify an entire medium based on this single anomalous title.
"If games such as RapeLay can now be classified as art, maybe the popular media promotion of sexual violence against women is so normalized that we don't even pay attention any more," supposes Hunt. "Does 'killing' a prostituted woman in Grand Theft Auto just reconfirm to a gamer the "lesser value" of women in prostitution generally?"
As Negative Gamer points out, what Hunt has done is akin to her attacking the entire medium of film because child pornography exists. Singling out a videogame and using it to say that somebody defending games as art is wrong comes across as really quite pathetic, and exposes Hunt's complete ignorance and inability to form a real argument. Videogames are bad because one videogame I saw is bad -- that's her argument.
The Guardian is usually quite intelligent and fair with its videogame coverage -- it's sad and disappointing that the publication gave this woman a soapbox upon which to miss the point entirely.
Contest:
12:20 PM on 12.17.2009
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But please, don't try and stop the Japanese from making perverted games. It's part of their culture, god damnit.
Eat it, Anthony Burch.
her, then.
that's a massive "IF". the "games as art" idea has been around for a long time, but i believe this is the first time i have seen anyone suggest that it should be applied to rapelay. it seems as if these idiot journalists give that game far more credit than anyone within the gaming community has.
This is like declaring that all films are pornography just because offensive porn exists.
I guess first someone has to step up and stop reporting them.
WTF GUYS C'MON, STAY ON TOP OF THIS SHIT!!!!!!
LOLOLOLOL Women journalists, go bake a cake.
Someone want to point this chick in the direction of, oh, I don't know, Flower? Or Okami? Or Odins Sphere, Muramasa, Braid, Ico, Shadow of the Collossus, or any of the other hundreds of games out there, that prove that the medium is an art form? I agree with whoever said that her opinion is like saying the film genre is garbage because child porn exists. People need to gaing 100 IQ points, and re-enlist in High School before they make stupid articles like this.
By het logic Dora the Explorer is pornography because Cinemax exists. What an ignorant joke of a human being.
Her article states, "Our international campaign called on the Japanese government to ban games that promote sexual violence against women and girls."
When she writes "These Games" it's pretty clear she's talking about *certain* video games, not all of them.
I hope that despite what the postmodernist English professors tell you from within their cloistered microcosms of false-reality, your realize that such an argument is both dangerous and self-destructing. It's dangerous because it can legitimize wonderful practices like female genital mutilation, and it's self-destructing because simultaneously our culture holds that such a practice is wrong. So who gets to be right? The bigger group? Or the minority by virtue of being a minority?
Nobody's going to stop Japanese people from making crap like that but the Japanese themselves.
Incidentally, the individual responsible for the now widely quoted “doing the 13-year-old was best” quip was a Sankaku Complex reader who privately admitted he was merely trolling – a complete ignorance of even the basics of Internet culture on the part of Equality Now (perhaps not surprising considering their inability to accept any culture other than that of their own moral hysteria) seems to have caused them a great deal of trouble recently when they were caught lying about misquoted Sankaku Complex comments.
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/18/equality-now-games-are-extreme-pornography/
That being said: Support Anthony Burch and his well thought out criticisms!
Brooker has the right idea, as usual.
Did the editor take a week off or something?
This woman to make it as far as she has, has to at a bare minimum understand that it is just a single hit in a huge market. It could also be the fact that she is a woman and takes harshly to these kinds of things, which is silly for us but obviously for her of grave danger and importance. I rather have a game like Rapelay though than a guy taking this fetish into the real world and actually harming a real woman that isn't comprised of pixels and procedural text.
Pretty soon we are all going to be jacked into the matrix where we will convicted of thought crimes. Because obviously having fantasies in the sanctity of our own home to no harm of anyone is a serious threat to the world.
At the same time, if you mis-treat or look lower on a woman you have more problems than just fantasies and gaming addictions. You have problems which society has been trying to fight against for many years, and is a real crutch to our advancement of being an evolved life form.
In The Guardian's defence, this was clearly shown to be an opinion piece, and it is perhaps worth observing that there are still plenty of people out there who narrowly view our innocuous little hobby as sick, fetishistic and masturbatory. It gives a clear indication that we still have a fair way to go before videogames get the mainstream recognition they deserve.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/The_White_Slave_statue.jpg
I guess THAT isn't art, just because it depicts human trafficking.
Simple case of someone who should be working for the Daily Mail instead.
Writing is the Medium (Action of Reading)
Novels, Poems and fanfictions are some of the subclasses.
Novels and Poems are art, and I'm pretty damn sure that haphazzardly written fanfictions do not constitute art (in most cases)
Film is the Medium (Action of Vision)
Movies, Documentaries and pornography are some of the subclasses.
Which can be further subclassed into different genre of movies, documentaries and pornography. Which is art, is subjective and is certainly not broadly applied to the medium of film based on the example of one outlier.
Which brings us to Videogames (Action of interaction); can also be viewed a subset of interactive media which is a subset of interactive activity
Video games can be broken into their various genres which can be further broken down into subsets of those various genres. The Videogame is the medium, games like Rapelay, and others, are far from art. They represent a subset genre that uses instant gratification and oversexualization as well as fetish as their main characteristics. These traits in themselves do not commonly constitute what could be considered art, and certainly are not defining characteristics of the medium. More aptly put, this type of game belongs to the medium of Video Games but carries themes more aptly aligned with the Film/Writing/Other Medium's equivalent of pornography.
To say that videogames are not art because one outlier represents another genre is like saying one man's/women's inability to perform a certain task precludes the entire gender from performing that task. It's just lazy statistics and would expect better from someone in charge of an organization that preaches equality and values fair representation and equity.