The Color of Mayhem, in a Wave of 'Urban' Games

[Rose Siding]

THE screen crackles with criminality as a gang of urban predators itch for a kill. The scene erupts into automatic-weapons fire in a drive-by nightmare of screaming car engines, senseless death and destruction set to a thumping rap soundtrack.

The action is not part of a new film, but of a video game in development - the latest permutation of Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular game series ever. Partly set in a city resembling gang-ridden stretches of Los Angeles of the 1990's, it features a digital cast of African-American and Hispanic men, some wearing braided hair and scarves over their faces and aiming Uzis from low-riding cars.

The sense of place, peril and pigmentation evident in previews of the game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, underscores what some critics consider a disturbing trend: popular video games that play on racial stereotypes, including images of black youths committing and reveling in violent street crime.

"They are nothing more than pixilated minstrel shows," said Joe Morgan, a telecommunications executive in Manhattan who is black and is helping rear his girlfriend's 7-year-old son, who plays video games. Mr. Morgan argues that games like the Grand Theft Auto sequel, which was described glowingly and at length in a game magazine the boy recently brought home, are dangerously reinforcing stereotypes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/technology/circuits/12urba.html?hp

[livinginphotographs]

1. I've said it once, I'll say it again.

Video games don't cause violence. Dysfunctional people who play these games cause violence.

It's like the Columbine shooters; anyone who could be convinced by Marilyn Manson to massacre 15 of their classmates were going to be pushed over the edge by something, whether it was Marilyn Manson or Yanni.

And of course this guy is right to "protect" his 7-year-old son from violent video games; why should a 7-year-old be playing GTA anyway? No responsible parent would allow that in the first place.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. I think they should make these games switchable between any ethnicity

Imagine having a gang of white youths in Beverly Hills stealing Mercedes and Rolls Royces from black people staying at the Beverly Hills hotel - it would be a blast all the way around!

Then later you get tired of that, throw a switch, and it's a bunch of Amish gangsters stealing gaudy roadster hot rods from the local Latino hang out...

SHOVE IT! - Drop Bush Not Bombs! - Hero Kerry AWOL Bush
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[DrWeird]

3. LOL. I love it.

There's a lack of positive gangsta stuff in popular culture.

Look at how much glorification the mobsters of the 1930's got.

Or the "cowboys." Shit, hundred plus years later people are still dressing up like them.

Or pirates. When is Disney going to make a gangsta film a la "Pirates of the Caribbean?

[thebigidea]

4. Pixilated minstrel shows? Was Al Jolson Online released or something?