Blog 9

In the recent movie that we watched in my Race, Gender, and the Media class we discussed how women are portrayed in video games. The verdict that was decided was that women are depicted as being abused by men.

The video game that was being dissected was Grand Theft Auto. In the game, the male character is allowed to sleep with a hooker and then beat her to death to steal the money back that he gave her. In my opinion, a man beating a woman is wrong, but I must speak the truth here: Whores on the streets do experience battery, do I think it should be depicted in a video game? No, not particularly, but it is, unfortunately.

The thing is, this is an option in the video game. The player does not have to use this option. I have played this video game on multiple occasions, and I have yet to use a whore, beat her to death, and steal the money back. Yes, I am aware, it is the concept of the option being available that is the problem here, but everyone who plays the game has the option to either do it or not. Just because someone plays this option in the video game, doesn’t mean that they are going to go out on the streets and beat a hooker.

Although women are portrayed as being abused throughout video games, this does not mean that the player will choose these options to do so. But I must add that if parents have a problem with their children learning about abuse through video games, such as Grand Theft Auto, they are the gate keepers and have the decision to either allow their children to play the game or not.

I do believe that abuse is prevalent throughout America and that something needs to be changed in order to make it go away, but we can’t just take it out of video games if we don’t take it out of the other parts of the media first.