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Brent Bozell on Nudity in Upcoming Video Games
Ant writes "Brent Bozell of TownHall.com wrote an editorial about the video game nudity trend. It covers games like 'Playboy: The Mansion' and 'Singles: Flirt Up Your Life' that are due out later this year." Ultimately, Bozell seems to distrust the ESRB, citing Eidos' decision to only sell Singles in downloadable form.
Weapons of Mass Distortion : The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media
Brent Bozell is Founder and President of the Media Research Center, whose poll "Do any of the Pew Research Center findings (that 'Liberals Dominate Journalism, Think Media Too Easy on Bush') surprise you?", had only three responses:
Yes. I was surprised so many journalists would admit they're liberal.
No. But it's nice to have more proof of what we already knew.
Don't know.
Talk about loaded questions? Everyone's entitled to their opinons, Mr. Bozell included, but before judging his article on nudity in videogames, be forewarned that Bozell's site makes the Simpsons' Fox News spoof ("Do Democrats cause cancer?") look like the friggin' New York Times...
It's digusting that game companies are using the sensationalism of sex to get people interested in their games.
Why, it's almost as bad as journalists using the sensationalism of sex to get people interested in their articles.
It's like the whole Janet Jackson superbowl thing: Any normal person saw a low res blur for a split second. The outraged moral majority had to spend hours scouring the net to download and print a good half dozen different pictures of what bothered them so much.
I completely overlooked Singles: Flirt Up Your Life at E3. Now that this article has brought it to my attention, I'm definitely going to check it out!
Damn, nice unbiased article there. If Mr Bozell wasn't such an ignorant jerk he'd know that Hugh Hefner is anything but a sleazy pornographer. He not only affected the way people perceived nudity, but he also popularized a way of life that was hardly known in the fifties. Hefner showed society that it was ok to shun marriage, kids and the picket fence. That both men and women could be sexual creatures without the shackles of moral expectations such as the presumption of family. The equility of the working couple would never have been possible without Hefner.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Let us, for laughs, point out the assumptions this idiot has made in the article:
The target audience for the Sims 2, and the Singles, is pasty white teenage boys.
There is on-screen explicit sex in "The SingleS"
Pornography is inherently evil.
Exposing children to pornography is inherently evil.
Video game players tend to be ignorant, smut-obsessed, teenage males.
Parents are stupid and ignorant and are perfectly willing to lend their sons credit cards so that they can purchase an Adults-Only game over the internet.
The ESRB is a toothless organization composed only of malcontent pedophiles who wish to corrupt our children's minds with sex and violence.
Movies inherently contain less violence, filthy sex, and coarse language than videogames do, and are much harder for little kids to see/obtain.
Homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle, and depictions of homosexual acts are somehow worse than ordinary pornography.
Questions you might ask the author:
Did you actually play the games in question?
Are you aware of any of the earlier shit that came from Japan?
If so, are you aware how it is sold, and what the sales volume for it is, and what the target audience is?
If you're so morally pure, then why do you use such sexually charged language?
Are you compensating for something by growing that thick, 1970's-style beard?
Are you aware of the how much better the pornography industry is doing in terms of gross sales in comparison to the movie industry? Are you aware of how much more profitable video games seem to be in comparison with traditional feature films? Why do you think that is?
Do you have a template or something for writing reactionary articles against bullshit you don't understand? Could you try using a different template next time, perhaps one more subtle?
If anything, parents should be more concerned about the extreme helpings of violence in video games. I'm not a nut who says that it makes neglected teens go out and shoot up their schools. Those are clearly cases where the parents were not nearly involved enough in their kids' lives.
But this whole outrage about nudity is mostly ridiculous. American culture just can't let go of its Puritan roots. It's the human body, for fuck's sake, we all have one! The human body can be a very beautiful, artistic thing. Sexuality is a natural, healthy thing. It doesn't have to be lewd, crude, or demeaning, but we're so fucking afraid of the naked body that we assume kids will be scarred for life if they see one.
Yeah, go ahead and let them watch people get killed every night on TV, see all the violence in the movies, and act it out in video games. No problem, we don't need to talk to our kids and explain how it's make-believe and that real violence is very, very wrong. But by god if they see one square inch of forbidden skin, they're damned to hell!
It's like the whole Janet Jackson fiasco. What a bunch of crap. Sure, nudity can be associated with sexual harrassment situations, and that's all bad. But unlike violence, it can also be a very beautiful thing and associated with the ultimate love between two people. No, brush that under the carpet and KEEP IT AWAY FROM OUR CHILDREN! Will somebody please think of THE CHILDREN!!
Insane.
The most disturbing thing about the article for me was the way, right from the start, that Bozell wants parents to endorse violence, role playing as a calculating killer, or a vicious thug capable of rupturing organs with their fists in preference to playing a game that lets you hope that one day sex might be a normal part of your life. He's happy with kids putrefying in their bedrooms as long as it's only deliberate brutal murder they're planning, not getting to second base.
That's perverse.
What sort of person is happier with junior killbots than junior people?
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Out of curiosity after seing a lot of articles about the game, I played Singles a little bit one evening. I'm not sure what the big deal is. Aside from it being a boring version of Sims, there was no nudity (not that I was hoping for it or anything). In fact, when your sims use the bathroom, huge toilet paper icons are plastered over them so youy only see their feet, neck and head. When they change clothes or shower, they are still in their underwear.
I think the people who report on Singles have failed to do their homework (or have clearly made it much further in the game than I bothered to - but if you were going to have a game with nudity why would you bother to cover up going to the bathroom or shower?). It strikes me as being very similar to all the idiot journalists covering the "underage and pre-teen children wearing colored jelly bracelets to indicate sexual activities they're willing to do" whenever they need a news story in 2004. Clearly it's overstated or possibly even entirely made-up -- but they still run with it because it gets eyeballs.
I don't mind nudity in games anyway. Nobody's forced to buy a game and there is probably a market for quality game play that includes some degree of sex or nudity beyond the old Leisure Suit Larry and Strip Poker products.