There have also been many controversial video games released in the last decade. Personally, I would say the worst of the bunch would be GTA (Grand Theft Auto), one I own and have had many fun filled hours playing on. This game is particularly violent, so much so that my uninformed mother calls me a “psychopath” to remain undisturbed by it. The loading screen mainly consists of crisp cartoon style drawings of gangsters wielding big guns. The cartoony feel to it seems to manage and not make them seem scary, but powerful and idealistic. Instantly this sends us the message – guns bring power. The interactive part (the game play) just gets worse. You control a respected black gangster, who fights for power, respect and justice by doing honourable things, like slaughtering drug dealers, mowing down drug pushing rival gangs with big guns, and murdering crooked cops for your innocent brothers’ freedom. The explicit violence is terrible, and seems to have endless limits. You are able to chase people, torment them with guns, or beat them to death with other weapons such as baseball bats (or you can just boot and stamp them to death), and to top it off, you are able to beat their mangled corpse in a disturbingly glamorous and arty way. Strangely, the story of the game is a decent one – a fight for justice. The irony is, is that in between fighting for justice you are able to do the exact opposite, like “using” prostitutes, then kill them afterwards to get your “paper” back, or just beating random innocent people for the sake of it. Worst of all, although the person playing the game is fully aware of what they are doing, they don’t feel disgusted by it. Being in control of a cool, powerful character, who almost makes shooting people look exiting and fun, manages to make the player feel respectable, and in general, good about themselves. It’s undeniably an amazing game, one of the top playstation2 games in the world in fact, and anyone who has played the game will agree that it is great fun. Even though I am convinced I remain un-affected from this deeply disturbing game, I would defiantly agree this is sending out very, very bad and twisted messages about the use of guns - as in the game, scenes of shoot outs manage to look exiting and glamorous instead of looking disturbingly terrible. I would not be surprised if there is a few out there who have been influenced by this game to do some terrible things. This is yet another prime example of the ways media glamorise guns, and the crimes related to them.
On the other hand, the media can do the exact opposite – as in the film, “Bullet Boy”. This film is a good example of how a media text can present the horrific face of gun crime rather than glamorizing it.
I studied the chapter “In the Wrong Hands” from the film “Bullet Boy”. The whole chapter is about two children around the age of 13 who manage to get hold of a gun. Everything about this chapter (including the name which tells us guns aren’t for kids) shows us how guns are terrible, dangerous things. It starts off with the two children playing around with an empty gun. The gun seems to appear abnormally large and heavy, making it seem too powerful and deadly for such innocent people. They end up playing hide and seek, with the now loaded gun. At this point we are fully aware of what happens next. This scene is made almost unbearably tense with the use of no music and close up shots of the actor. This adds to the feeling of danger that this gun brings to these harmless kids. Predictably, one of them is accidentally shot, and almost killed. It is a very shocking and frightening scene (which made me jump with shock), seeing an innocent child being in such a life threatening situation. This is a prime example of how the media does not glamorize guns. At the end of the film we are left distraught, as the main character (almost at the end of his search for peace) and his friend end up dead. We are left in no doubt that guns are evil, and that you should never involve yourself with them in any way.
Many people feel that children’s minds are being poisoned violent computer games, images and films. Personally I feel that there may be a very few out there, mentally weak, mentally disturbed, or with some sort of mental problems might get ideas from some of these images and games, but for the vast majority, I would defiantly say that all these virtual games are doing, is simply broadening children’s awareness of their surroundings and improving their reflexes (as this is how it affects me). In most cases, children’s views on guns are not something they expect to use in real life. This is because computer games portray guns as unreal and fictional. As for films, we all know they are good fun - mixtures of fiction and reality which broaden our minds. And hey, after all, these games and films do come with an appropriate age limit. We all need some fantasy in our lives, even if it is the violent type.
