Category: Politics


Endsong

Filed under: Gaming, Politics by sbmrclean — 2 Comments
March 23, 2011

Inspired by the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (which deserves a post of its own for another time) I’ve been re-reading the Ultimate X-Men series from the early 2000’s.  Partially because of the third X-Men movie (My disappointment with which has already been catalogued elsewhere), the Phoenix storyline has quickly become among my favorite of the recurring X-Men storylines.  For those of you unfamiliar with the storyline, I refer you to Wikipedia.  For those of you unfamiliar with the storyline with enough of a life that you can’t read that whole thing, Jean Grey is, for whatever reason, chosen as its host by an otherworldly entity of immense power called the Phoenix Force, and must deal, simultaneously, with people wanting to use that power for some nefarious purpose and keeping it under control herself.

 

I find this storyline the most interesting, however, in Ultimate X-Men (I’ve only read up through volume 17 at this point) for a couple of reasons.  First of all, the nitty gritty of telepathy is fascinating, and this bothers to deal with some of that.  Second, I enjoy that it doesn’t feel obligated to wrap everything up in a neat little package before moving on to the next storyline.  And finally, I find it interesting that they walk the line so carefully between Jean being the avatar of a powerful otherworldly entity and her being nothing other than a very powerful but emotionally unstable mutant, but I think therein lies the rub.

 

I’ve never been one to write about gender issues in media in anything other than the most theoretical sense, (there are many better people to look into if such a thing strikes your fancy) but I’ve since started to wonder: if Jean Grey was a male character, would there be a plotline centered (at least initially) on her being told by everyone around her that she was just getting used to her new powers, and to not worry about it?  Would Professor X be able to get away with saying, “You’re not a God, Jean.  you’re an eighteen year old girl with a discipline problem and I will not tolerate this behavior from one of my students… you’re Jean Grey.  An eighteen year old telepath with a beanie collection and you’re doing all this because you’re scared of being happy with (Cyclops)”?  There’s not too much point in speculating about what ifs when it comes to fiction, but I find it difficult to imagine that Xavier would have said that anyone else.

 

Of course, nobody ever says, “Quiet down, sweetie.  You’re just being hysterical.” or suggests that it’s “that time of the month” or anything awful like that.  Any time it is suggested that she is being emotionally volatile, or otherwise not in control of herself, it is attributed to her being a very young and very powerful telepath, (surely an immensely traumatic condition, bound to make anyone emotionally volatile) but you can’t exactly shake the feeling that this condition wouldn’t affect any of the other X-Men.

 

But before we dismiss this as blatant sexism too quickly, I’d like to remind the reader that because we know the Phoenix plot arc, we know, definitively, that she’s not crazy, and there really is an alien entity of immense power trying to use her body as an avatar by which it can unmake the world.  Furthermore, it is suggested (though never corroborated, I believe) that Professor X knows full well the entire time that these aren’t mere hallucinations, and is instead merely attempting to convince Jean of this fact because the emergence of the Phoenix at that time would be damaging to his agenda.

 

So I’m stuck at this crossroads.  I don’t feel obligated to cut media out of my life even if it engages in a subtle (and relatively mild) form of misogyny (I don’t think someone should stop playing Kirby Superstar even though it assumes male to be gender normative) and just because something occurs within a piece of fiction doesn’t mean that the piece condones it.  But on the other hand, I would feel much better if there was any acknowledgement on behalf of the comic of what’s going on here, especially given the nature of the X-Men core fantasy about being a suspect class.

 

Personally, I don’t tend to put much stock in authorial intent.  If someone told me that I shouldn’t purchase Super Mario Galaxy 2 because it actively contributes to the oppression of women by removing their agency, I’m sure I would be polite enough not to dismiss them out of hand, but I can’t imagine it ceasing my purchase.  But is it really okay to say, “Well, even if this thing indirectly supports something I find reprehensible, it’s okay to financially support its creation because its fun”?  Something tells me that “Social Justice” isn’t just a point to put next to graphics, sound, gameplay, and replay value while writing a review,  but how else does one use their purchasing dollars as an instrument to affect social change?

 

(As a side note, I’m not saying that Super Mario Galaxy 2 does that, and the point is not in debating whether or not it does.  Just imagine a hypothetical piece of media for which that statement is true.  Besides, I already bought it, so too late.)

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Facebook Privacy and Mind-Reading

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics by Malgayne — 9 Comments
June 5, 2010

I have always believed that, as a culture, mind-reading was the solution to all of our problems.

This sounds like a joke, but I prefer to think of it as a thought experiment.  Imagine, if you will, that everyone in the world could read minds. Think of the changes and the effect that would have on our culture.

Oh sure, there would be some growing pains as we get used to it.  The first few weeks would be terrible—every dirty secret you had, or thought you didn’t want to acknowledge, would be instantly known by everybody.  It’s hard to imagine a worse fate.

…except when it happens to everyone else too.  How can your boss judge you for secretly wanting to dress up like Jem and the Holograms when you know all about his illicit fantasies involving Hulk Hogan?  No one would ever be able to judge another person, lest they be judged.  Every single character flaw you had would be laid out for all the world to see, and no one could say a thing—because you could see every bad thing they’d ever done.

How could we ever argue? We’d instantly form a complete understanding of the other person’s point of view.  How could we hurt one another? It’s impossible to imagine being cruel or hurtful someone when you feel every pain as if it were your own.  We couldn’t lie, cheat, steal or murder—because everyone would instantly know what we’d done.  The more you think about it, the more you realize…once you get used to it, it might just be a perfect world.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I don’t care what Facebook does with my privacy settings.

Now I’ll be the first to recognize that Facebook trying to profit off of my personal information without informing me is serious bad news.  I disapprove whole-heartedly of this behavior.  But in general, the concept of using my personal preferences in order to better market to me things I might be interested in? That doesn’t bother me in the least.

The fact is these days, it’s getting harder and harder to keep secrets.  Everyone in the universe has a camera in their phone, so no matter what I do there’s a good chance it’ll wind up posted on Facebook somewhere.  Even if I want to keep some illicit activity a secret, all it takes is one photo-tag and everyone I know has found me out.  I can’t do anything too dastardly, even if I wanted to—because there’s no way to keep it a secret from my loved ones anymore.

Privacy is disappearing, and quickly—and I agree that this is difficult, painful, and disruptive to our lives.  But if we ever really got there—I mean really got there, where privacy truly was a thing of the past, and no one could keep any secrets anymore….well, would that be so bad?

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Hot Topic #2: Violence in Video Games

Filed under: Gaming, Philosophy, Politics by Malgayne — 5 Comments
November 14, 2009

So unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Modern Warfare 2 has just come out.  In honor of the release of a brand new video game in which people kill eachother with assault weapons, we’ve had the usual celebratory round of news stories about how the violence found in video games is destroying our children.

Specifically, someone linked me to the video below:

My favorite quote: “You bring a game into a house…nothing to stop an 8 year old from becoming a terrorist and shooting people.”  And that’s from the anchor.

Now any gamer would be outraged by this, of course—but heaping scorn and ridicule on Fox News for their ultra-conservative right-wing media coverage is kind of like making fun of a midget for being short.  What really outraged me was Jon Christensen.  You let us down, Jon.

You must have known what you were getting into when you were asked to appear on the program—It’s Fox News.  Poor Jon looked like they had called him up to ask for commentary 10 minutes before the show aired.  He had the chance to stand up in front of the nation and tell everyone how violent video games aren’t destroying our youth, and what was his argument?  That no one should be offended, because you weren’t pretending to be a terrorist—you were pretending to be a CIA agent who was pretending to be a terrorist?

Here’s what Jon should have said.

There has been no increase in violent crime to correspond with the increase in video game violence.

There’s no doubt that violence in video games is on the rise—any gamer knows this.  What is frequently ignored is the fact that in the corresponding years, violent crime in the US has seen a massive decrease.  Here’s the evidence, courtesy of Stubborn Facts:

Violent Crimes in the US from 1985 to 2005

The source on the numbers used to create this graph is credited to a study performed by the FBI.  Now this is a pretty massive decrease in violent crime, and I’m proud of my country—but it’s pretty unmistakeable to watch that as video games have gotten more violent and more realistic, violent crime in the country has decreased.

For context, here’s Wikipedia’s list of video games released in 1991, the highest point on this graph.  This is the year that brought us such incredibly violent games as Bomberman 2, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, and Duke Nukem—not the one with the strippers, the original, in which Duke battles the nefarious Dr. Proton, and then retires to his home to watch Oprah.  (Look it up, I’m not kidding.)

Here’s some gameplay footage from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, one of the more violent games I could find on that list:

And a screenshot from the 1991 Amiga game Extreme Violence, to prove the point:

That IS pretty extreme.

Here, meanwhile, is the list of video games released in 2005.  This list includes such gems as Call of Duty 2, Crime Life: Gang Wars, and Viet Cong 2.  Just to compare, here’s the video trailer for Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, which also came out that year:

I think it’s pretty easy to follow the line I’m drawing here.  From 1991 to 2005, the amount of violence in games, as well as the visceral realism of that violence, has increased dramatically—and violent crime in the US has decreased just as dramatically.  Case closed.  As my brother pointed out in his own eloquent blog, Playing Columbine, “Small scale cause-and-effect studies don’t do much for your cause when correlational evidence is stacked so high against you.”

Edit: Due to a misunderstanding, credit was not given—the first person to link this video to me was Brian Rubinow, who maintains The Select Button.  Credit where credit is due: Sorry Brian!

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Fairness vs. Justice

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics by Malgayne — 1 Comment
October 22, 2009

My aunt, Ann Monroe, is a writer who focuses on sustainable agriculture and ecology, especially how they relate to economics and to food (her website is at http://www.annmonroe.com).  I follow her on Twitter, and I noticed a post she put up today:

RT @gfriend: Is Dobbs losing it? RT @grist: RT @huffingtonpost Lou Dobbs freaks over 1 day/wk of vegie school lunches http://bit.ly/3Lctsd

The post is here: http://twitter.com/ann_monroe/status/5041257805.  I encourage you to read the linked article before you continue.

The article is a short read, but the gist of it is this: there was a CNN segment on Monday Night on the “Meatless Mondays” program that the Baltimore city school district has implemented—the students are being served a vegetarian lunch one day a week.  CNN noted that “…they found no parents who objected to the policy”, but then went on to describe an opposing viewpoint—offered by the American Meat Institute.  The AMI expressed concern that “students are being served up an unhealthy dose of indoctrination”, and that students (and their parents) were being deprived of “choice”.  At the end of the segment, Lou Dobbs apparently described the situation as “a real political storm in the making.”

I would like echo the Huffington Post’s reaction here, and say: …really?

This is an egregious example, of course, but it’s something that happens all the time in American media, and by extension in American culture: Fairness is being substituted for Justice.  CNN is determined to remain a fair, and unbiased news source, and what that means (apparently) is giving equal time to both sides of an issue.  Media outlets don’t make value judgments—they show you the facts, and then “let you decide”.

The trouble is that fairness is not justice.  The story that is receiving coverage here is not a debate.  One of the sides represented is a group of teachers and parents who want their kids to have a vegetarian meal once a week.  After all, it’s a good idea to encourage vegetable-eating habits at a young age—my wife often laments the fact that her family didn’t eat right when they were kids, since if they did it might be easier to eat healthy today.  The other side is a multi-million dollar lobbying organization, with a vested financial interest in the continued sale of meat products.  One side is interest in the health of children, the other side is interested in increasing its own profits.  This isn’t a “2 sides to every argument” kind of debate.  Or perhaps it is—and those sides are “Good” and “Evil”.

Attention media outlets: You don’t have to offer equal time to everyone.  The axiom “There are two sides to every story” is false.  Two is an arbitrary number.  Give us the number of sides to the story that there legitimately are—however many that may be.  This may require you to make a value judgment.  So be it.  Value judgments, from time to time, are your responsibility as a journalist.

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