Tuesday of this week, the Supreme Court argued a case that is important to the video game industry. Most people who follow the industry know about this one. You can learn more about the situation by reading all sorts of blogs all over the internet – Gamepolitics.com has a pretty broad set of articles and links. Rather than rehash that, I’d like to instead talk about my reaction… not so much to the articles that people have written about this topic, but to the comments on those articles generally written by gamers.
The California law, in brief, is designed to make it illegal for retailers to sell certain violent games to minors. The definition of a “minor” is “anyone under 18,” in this case. That’s fairly clear, but what amount of violence counts as egregious enough to warrant the restriction of sales is somewhat vague, which is a matter returned to quite a bit during the Supreme Court’s discussion of the bill in question. The general wording of laws like this only specify violence against human beings, which means that, for example, if you put pointed ears on someone and say it is horrible violence against elves, you’re suddenly in the clear to do whatever you like.
So to me it’s obvious that a law like this has problems.
However, there’s a common gamer response I see in rebuttal to this law that doesn’t quite work for me as it’s typically phrased, and, it goes like this: “It’s the responsibility of the parents to keep the kids from playing these games.”
It’s a reasoned argument, and one I’ve used myself – I’m pretty sure even on a call-in talk radio show at some point in my life. (I call radio shows about this topic. It’s important to me.) But the way this is argument is typically stated makes it seem like the commenter in question is not only definitely not a parent, but, perhaps, has never even been a child at any point in his/her life, either. I think my actual feeling on this matter can’t be phrased that way; my opinion is a little more subtle and probably more controversial as well.
See, I had a pretty cool childhood really. I was allowed to watch scary movies as soon as I was old enough to handle them without having screaming nightmares. I had a few anyway, but what kid doesn’t? Sometimes it’s totally unpredictable what will scare a kid; I remember the Snow White ride at Disney World, or seeing the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz, to be extremely scary even though that’s acceptable kids’ stuff. I was also, however, allowed to read the “real” versions of fairy tales – as pointed out in the Supreme Court brief, the classic stories are scary and violent. The Little Mermaid dies at the end and was the Red Queen really serious about chopping off Alice’s head?
Moving in to middle school I watched cartoons a lot more often than most other girls. I also read a lot of fantasy novels. I chewed through the Lord of the Rings, and tried out some Pern and some Piers Anthony. (The latter two, in case you didn’t know, are sort of porny.) My mom also encouraged me to read some of her favorite books, which were technically for adults and contained both sex and violence, but that’s okay because grown-up books sometimes have pretty good stories.
Do you remember Mortal Monday? If you don’t remember, that’s the day that Mortal Kombat was released for home consoles. I remember it – I was 13 years old. (Feel free to extrapolate my current age from this example; the internet is a public place now.) At that point I had totally already played Mortal Kombat in the arcade and I knew I wanted it at home. The real version, with the blood, so, we have to buy a Sega now because the SNES version is gimped. And even then you have to enter a code. ABACABB.
And Doom: that was the best. Also 1993. If you liked games, you played it.
The controversy of violent video games began to become a source of national debate, leading to the creation of the ESRB, and a warning system designed to keep games like Mortal Kombat and Doom out of the hands of 13-year-olds.
(By the way, if you are a parent, you probably should not label any icon on your PC desktop with the flag “ADULTS ONLY.” I’m just saying – I was a pretty smart cookie and answering trivia questions about Calvin Klein and Captain Kangaroo was really not much of a problem. And I had already destroyed the Kings’ Quest series and needed something else to play. And... let’s face it, a teenager has to learn about what a condom is someday. It may as well be with a hilarious video game death that will stick in your head forever and ever. That’s a powerful statement.)
A lot of 13-year-olds were playing Doom and Mortal Kombat in 1993. We did not grow up to be psychos. We did not all shoot up Columbine High School. Many of us were pretty content with just virtually fragging our friends, and a few of us took some interest in the level editor.
“Kids know the difference between fantasy and reality” is not exactly a correct statement. A lot of times, they don’t, especially younger kids, or bored pre-teens given to fan-fic writing and elaborate flights of fancy. However, learning the difference between fantasy and reality is part of what growing up is about. It’s difficult to learn that if you aren’t exposed to fantasy. It’s in fact pretty damn difficult to learn about the real world at all if you aren’t exposed to the bad, naughty, grown-up stuff.
To sum up:
1. Kids are going to be drawn to consume media – actively or passively – that interests them, without considering whether that is “appropriate” exposure for them.
2. That’s okay.
So my point isn’t “it’s up to the parents to keep these games out of the hands of their kids.” My point is, instead, “it’s up to the parents to choose what is developmentally appropriate for their kids, and while I’m mentioning it, they should lighten the hell up because it’s probably more okay than you think.”
For some reason it seems like every generation thinks the younger generation deserves more protection than they did when they were young. This is the age of all-nerf playgrounds and parental controls. However it’s also the age of text messaging and readily available internet porn, so the fact that the world is changing and technology is changing may make these things scary to some. As adults we need to be willing to embrace change and technology. And we have to be willing to use technology and the media to teach children, not just cover their eyes and scream LA LA LA until they are eighteen years old, when, magically, consuming certain things becomes suddenly all right.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent. If I do end up having a child later on down the line, it’s possible the game will change and I’ll suddenly be terrified of letting him or her see all the cool stuff mommy is in to. But I certainly hope not. Because if I do have a kid I’d really like to teach him or her how to play Mortal Kombat. I’ll just be sure to keep the kitchen knives, sais, and bladed coolie hats out of reach.
Until they’re older.
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