A note for posterity..... And a good old fashioned rant.
Penny Arcade, one of my favourite online haunts, currently has a rather aroused reaction in progess after a political cartoonist has been caught in the act of "fellating the status quo" regarding the "threat to young minds" inherent in all videogames..... The argument presented by residents Gabe and Tycho (Mike and Jerry), however, perturbs me in how the subject matter could be almost anything at all in todays "don't fucking blame ME for my own incompetence" world. An excerpt follows:
... So why don’t people lend the same legitimacy to videogames that they do to film? It’s because they still think videogames are for children. Those of us who cut our teeth on Atari games are pushing thirty at this point. Is it so unreasonable to expect that as an adult I should be able to purchase an M rated videogame that includes adult material in much the same way I might see an R rated film that contains the same. The fact that pornography exists does not mean that film as a medium is inappropriate for children.
The videogame industry has given parents a means by which to determine if a game is appropriate for their child. I imagine any parent would go to great lengths to make sure that their seven year old is not watching porn or drinking gin. Yet the same dedication to parenting is surprisingly absent when it comes time to purchase a videogame. Do these parents expect the Playstation or the computer to determine if a game is inappropriate for their kid and simply shut itself off? The fact that you are a poor parent who is unwilling or unable to show some interest in what exactly it is that your child is doing in front of the television set every day after school is not the fault of the videogame industry. For a generation whose motto is responsibility you seem to be placing it with the wrong people.
Does anyone remember the last line of "Blame Canada"?
Does anyone else notice how life imitates art as long as the art was tongue-in-cheek and so ludicrous at the time that it could only possibly be thought of as humour? Does anyone else remember how when smokers sued tobacco companies for giving them cancer, The Onion ran a story with the headline "Fat People Sue Hershys For Making Them Fat"? That was fucking hilarious at the time. Did anyone else notice the *REAL FUCKING LIFE* headlines about fat people suing McDonalds and KFC for making them fat!?? When the fuck is at least one judge, somewhere, going to have the balls to let common fucking sense rule? "No you dont get a $50m payout for being too fucking fat to sit in the dock, I don't recall any evidence being submitted to the effect that somone held a fucking gun to your head and forced you to spend the last 15 years of your life downing Barbeque Bacon Double Cheeseburgers and 50-piece chicken buckets with extra skin. Go home and dont eat again until you can see your own feet without the help of a mirror."
More to the point, why aren't I doing anything about it?
Do you really think that with my vitriol, any political platform would be recognised? Answer: no. It's too fucking politically incorrect. Hell you're probably not even allowed to say "overweight" anymore. Any mention of dykes, midgets, gays, blacks, in fact, anything that might refer to a certain group or community of people, is taboo. Although the taboo usually turns out more like a witchhunt. They tried to throw Clinton down from his seat of power on the basis of a fucking blowjob, and the sad fact of the matter is that it almost worked. "Oh but he LIED about it!" If you loved your wife and were asked on national, nay international TV, if you had recently fooled around with a cute young intern behind her back, you would too. All people, even the ones on the voting forms, are human beings, and cannot be held against perfection. Everyone fucks up, everyone has personal opinions, and everyone thinks they are right. And people still place thier votes on basise like "He's got a nice face and he he comes from a good family." So did Charlie Manson.
I, for one, am not going to vote for any of the cunts until one of them promises me the right to grow my own weed, and play my fucking videogames in peace and guilt-free quiet.
"No truth worth listening to is ever politically correct" - Simon Fleming, 2002
... So why don’t people lend the same legitimacy to videogames that they do to film? It’s because they still think videogames are for children. Those of us who cut our teeth on Atari games are pushing thirty at this point. Is it so unreasonable to expect that as an adult I should be able to purchase an M rated videogame that includes adult material in much the same way I might see an R rated film that contains the same. The fact that pornography exists does not mean that film as a medium is inappropriate for children.
The videogame industry has given parents a means by which to determine if a game is appropriate for their child. I imagine any parent would go to great lengths to make sure that their seven year old is not watching porn or drinking gin. Yet the same dedication to parenting is surprisingly absent when it comes time to purchase a videogame. Do these parents expect the Playstation or the computer to determine if a game is inappropriate for their kid and simply shut itself off? The fact that you are a poor parent who is unwilling or unable to show some interest in what exactly it is that your child is doing in front of the television set every day after school is not the fault of the videogame industry. For a generation whose motto is responsibility you seem to be placing it with the wrong people.
Does anyone remember the last line of "Blame Canada"?
Does anyone else notice how life imitates art as long as the art was tongue-in-cheek and so ludicrous at the time that it could only possibly be thought of as humour? Does anyone else remember how when smokers sued tobacco companies for giving them cancer, The Onion ran a story with the headline "Fat People Sue Hershys For Making Them Fat"? That was fucking hilarious at the time. Did anyone else notice the *REAL FUCKING LIFE* headlines about fat people suing McDonalds and KFC for making them fat!?? When the fuck is at least one judge, somewhere, going to have the balls to let common fucking sense rule? "No you dont get a $50m payout for being too fucking fat to sit in the dock, I don't recall any evidence being submitted to the effect that somone held a fucking gun to your head and forced you to spend the last 15 years of your life downing Barbeque Bacon Double Cheeseburgers and 50-piece chicken buckets with extra skin. Go home and dont eat again until you can see your own feet without the help of a mirror."
More to the point, why aren't I doing anything about it?
Do you really think that with my vitriol, any political platform would be recognised? Answer: no. It's too fucking politically incorrect. Hell you're probably not even allowed to say "overweight" anymore. Any mention of dykes, midgets, gays, blacks, in fact, anything that might refer to a certain group or community of people, is taboo. Although the taboo usually turns out more like a witchhunt. They tried to throw Clinton down from his seat of power on the basis of a fucking blowjob, and the sad fact of the matter is that it almost worked. "Oh but he LIED about it!" If you loved your wife and were asked on national, nay international TV, if you had recently fooled around with a cute young intern behind her back, you would too. All people, even the ones on the voting forms, are human beings, and cannot be held against perfection. Everyone fucks up, everyone has personal opinions, and everyone thinks they are right. And people still place thier votes on basise like "He's got a nice face and he he comes from a good family." So did Charlie Manson.
I, for one, am not going to vote for any of the cunts until one of them promises me the right to grow my own weed, and play my fucking videogames in peace and guilt-free quiet.
"No truth worth listening to is ever politically correct" - Simon Fleming, 2002