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CSI Takes On Grand Theft Auto
Tycoon Guy was one of many to write "Looks like another 20 million viewers will be fed the 'video games promote violence' story tonight. Today's CSI: Miami episode will feature a group of kids who are inspired to go on a city-wide crime spree by a game that looks suspiciously like Grand Theft Auto. From the description: 'Delko witnesses a bank robbery and the CSIs soon discover that the culprits are playing out the action from the videogame 'Urban Hellraisers' on the streets of Miami. As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.'"
Shows often hop on a hot-topic issue to prompt more viewership. This move is relatively unsurprising. What will be interesting to see is if the game is actually blamed, or the show exhonorates (sp?) the game, dismissing what the kids emulate and acknowledging that personal responsibility is capable of dettering anyone from a mass murder spree, GTA be damned.
(Sorry for the poor spelling.)
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
After I played GTA (can't remember which one) at a friend's house for a couple of hours, I found myself thinking about ramming into other vehicles and stealing their cars. I'm really not joking. Of course, I also once pointed at a cop checking for speeders during my Quake years and yelling audibly, "Look at that camper!!!" Again, I'm really not joking.
While I neither rammed other people's cars nor pulled out a rocket launcher to teach the cop a lesson, I certainly KNOW that games can bleed into reality and if the person is just messed up enough in the head already, I don't doubt they could live out the game.
As long as they portray it as bad parenting and idiotic kids acting out bits from a video game. Or a book. Or a movie. It's how you portray it.
Well sadly, TV episodes based on activities that happen elsewhere in *reality*, aren't always true to the way it really happens and even go so far as to completely misrepresent the way things are. Take for instance the recent episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent (5/8/05) that included a bit on geocaching that misrepresented it as cache containers being buried and requiring a shovel to retrieve.
geocaching.com (the largest of the cache listing services) had to post something about it on the main page because of all the parks districts that might become offended if they believed that cachers were out in the woods with shovels:
Geocaching was featured on Law & Order: Criminal Intent this evening, May 8. Contrary to the creative license taken by the show's writers, we strictly do not list caches that are buried.
The TV shows will take whatever liberties they can to make it sell well, regardless of the possibile outcomes for those that actually partake in the *real world* activities.
Consider a jury: 12 people too stupid(*) to get out of jury selection wonder why the scientific evidence is so bad. They compare it with what "scientists" say on CSI with all the flashy graphics that seem so convincing, and conclude that the real evidence is not compelling. Reasonable doubt surfaces and joe bad-guy walks.
One of my father's friends is a reasonably-high-ranking policeman back in the UK, and there is a genuine concern that people's expectations of phorensic evidence is being pushed too high by programs like this.
Here's a use for 'mythbusters' - get them to take a CSI show's flashy effects, and then compare to the real world... Some points:
CSI is a fantasy - an enjoyable fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. Just once it would be nice if their technological approach failed (the database was wrong, the drivers licence pointed them in the wrong direction, etc.) but no, they're perfect. It would be nice if fingerprints were shown to be not 100% accurate as well (it might trigger some debate!)
Simon
(*) I don't really think jurors are all stupid, some of them are true servants of the state, but some of them... sheesh.
Physicists get Hadrons!
The only one I've seen this season is the first episode of CSI:NY.
Within 2 minutes they pulled out a fucking tricorder and I turned it off.
I complained about the image enhancements for years.
I complained about pseudo-science for years.
Star Trek tech is just too much.
All CSI's are off my (short) list of watchable TV now.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
If TV (and other media) doesn't inspire some people to commit crime, then explain this http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,975 769,00.html.
"Four years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences."