Shadows On The Screen: The Safety of Maintaining Taboo and the Importance of Social Deviance

Konami dropped Six Days in Fallujah was because of a vocal minority. Bully‘s name was changed overseas despite being the gaming equivalent of a teen summer comedy. Why do even courageous creators back away from taboo?

The other night I was speaking to my friend Arthur Tebbel, who co-writes a hilarious column at Michael Davis World that you should all read. Art’s column takes the form of a comedic response to a fictional letter from a person who has made or is concerned with a snafu of some sort that week and is looking for advice. Their column this week, Art told me, would be about the recent incident of “alleged” police brutality in El Monte, California. I agreed that it would make a great topic for satire, and said facetiously “Now give me a topic for my column.” And he replied “Why aren’t there more video games about police brutality? Or video games about any remotely controversial topic, really?” I know, San Andreas was filled with corrupt cops, but rethink the question: why isn’t there a game that encourages me to perform police brutality? Why are there so many taboos left in gaming?

Let’s be clear, I know that there are games that ignore taboo. Anyone on an ego-driven correction-kick is probably already typing up an e-mail with the subject line “POSTAL, MANHUNT, RAPELAY, Do your research Austin.” These titles exist, but most of the more aggressive ones are on PC, a wild west platform with little law and lots of leeway. The ones that do reach consoles are shunned or toned down. Worse, they’re often just bad games, relying on their mean-spiritedness or boundary breaking to sell copies instead of gameplay innovation or polish.

My point is easily stated, but harder to defend: I don’t think there should be taboo in art. This doesn’t mean that what artists should be doing is creating interactive art installations that allow the audience to commit genocide-via-rape. It just means that art should be as free as speech and should a person design that piece, no one should stop them from making it. Censorship of any kind is a slippery slope, and as the freedom of the artist is lost so follows the freedom of the people. These are pretty basic concepts, and I think my readership is pretty smart. Yes, slander and libel are issues here, but that’s why laws exist to help cordon off proper usage. (If you don’t agree in free speech, or see why artists should be allowed to practice it, then leave a note in the comments and we can have that conversation.)

I spoke to the issue in my first editorial here. In an argument I made for the right and virtue of argument in and around this medium, I made the following  claim:

Eventually, something will happen that can’t help but be noticed. We’ve never had a “Birth of a Nation” or a “Triumph of the Will.” These are films that are technically proficient but represent something so disgusting that many can’t bring themselves to approach them at all, let alone without bias. They are worth deconstructing though, because of what they reveal about the artist, or about propaganda, or about film, or about any number of other things. Those films deserve attention and also deserve our disdain. We need not condone the content to try and understand it.

I stand by this but feel like it deserves a bit more space than this single paragraph, so stick with me here. In that article I was writing in reference to Resident Evil 5, a game that may have inadvertently played with familiar imagery of “otherness” to create a sense of dread. Let’s move away from “controversial by mistake” and towards “intentionally ignoring taboos.”

Earlier this Spring, One Last Continue contributor Christian Lowery posed a question to me: “What chance does a pure murder simulator have in the US Market. The game would be to murder what Jane’s Flight Simulator is to airplanes. There is no context, only the ability to commit the act and attempt to get away with it. I suppose it would be like Leopold and Loeb, the game. My immediate reaction was “It would be smashed to bits.” It would probably be able to find a release on the PC if it was self-published and offered via download, but would never see the light of day if the developer aimed for a console, and no store would ever carry the boxed product. Then I got to thinking about what that game would be like. It’s not awarding the player with bright lights and loud noises when they successfully commit murder. It’s simply a toolset, it’s Metal Gear Solid style VR missions, with more focus on murder than on stealth puzzle solving. Would this title provide any sort of benefit? Is this art? If not, why isn’t it? If not, then do you have to say that Jane’s Flight Simulator, or Madden, or BoomBlox aren’t either, since those games emulate real life instances as best they can too. Is taboo really so strong that it can turn art to smut?

Maybe “Murder Sim” hits too many buttons. Hell, even the initial stipulation of the title uses “murder” and not “kill,” with murder being a term that carries ethical connotations. So, consider a case grounded in reality. Six Days in Fallujah garnered attention from mainstream and enthusiast press. A number of arguments were made against the title’s right to exist. A key point was that it would fail to honor those who fought in that conflict. Another was that no game could properly capture the tone of war, and that war was no game. Konami finally pulled the plug after people began to complain that developer went too far by interviewing not just residents of Fallujah but also admitted insurgents.

In any debate there are initial propositions that are assumed in order for further points to be made. Even when these points aren’t mentioned explicitly, it is easy to figure out what they are. In this case the person who takes offense to Six Days is making a statement like “Art isn’t allowed to not show honor to our soldiers, depict war, or draw from an opposing perspective.” Alternatively they could hold that games aren’t art, and therefore don’t have those rights even though art does. Perhaps when confronted with the question “why” someone who holds that position could produce a different proposition at the core of the argument, or maybe when faced with these reasons they’ll back down from their staunch defense of what can and can’t be touched by art and gaming.

So what are my assumptions? I’ve argued that taboos should be allowed to be challenged by art, and that games are art. I still haven’t really answered the core question: Why is it important that taboos be challenged, and not just that it is ethical that such an act be allowed if it occurs. For that I look towards two of my favorite sociologists, Emile Durkheim and Kai T. Erikson. Instead of simply dismissing criminals as psychologically different, these two criminologists helped to define the idea of functional social deviance in an attempt to figure out what purpose law-breaking served for society. They determined that when laws are broken (especially in attention grabbing major events) society as a whole has to re-evaluate where they stand on moral and cultural issues. This labels crime not only as normal (regardless of society, rules will be broken) but also beneficial for the future success of that civilization. What is “good” and what is “bad,” what is taboo and what is convention, all of these things are redefined by social deviance.

When people turned the other way to allow rum runners and bootleggers by their grasp, it illustrated what the populous really thought about prohibition. Years of illegal dangerous back alley procedures worked towards the eventual decision in Roe v. Wade. Recent public discussions on topic like illegal immigration and torture have helped us realign where we stand on those issues, sometimes changing our previous beliefs and other times strengthening the ones we already had.

To deny deviance in art or media is to limit progress.  For instance, I watched Strange Days for the first time a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the best film ever, but a single concept stands out. (Spoilers here, it’s an old movie, watch it or move on.) In this cyberpunk film, the lead character peddles discs that provide the viewer with a complete playback of another person’s memories. It is emphasized that along with the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells that come across on these discs, emotions are also forced on the audience. In the film’s strongest scene the antagonist records himself (in that virtual reality format) as he kidnaps, rapes, and kills one of the city’s women. The scene isn’t gratuitous in content, but it is strong. What makes it worthwhile is that in the moments before her death he plugs her into a live feed of his own perspectiveve. To imagine being violated while being forced to feel good about it is a singular emotional beacon in an otherwise dead film. I was uneasy, felt a little bit sick, and felt guilty.  (End Spoilers) Snuff films are an awful crime, and I can’t help but wish they didn’t exist, but that awful crime allows us this brief insight into a part of our own humanity that might otherwise remain hidden. Art allows us to glimpse into unattainable situations with a clarity that no one in those situations has, and to limit art when crime already exists seems (to put it coldly) inefficient.

We need games like Manhunt, Postal, and even Rapelay so that we can step back and say “how do I feel about this.” These games aren’t always going to be good, or promote something that we agree with. But they’ll let us re-bracket what we think of as acceptable, allowing future works to chime in with more substance and prowess. Rape occurs in real life. A lot. It’s an awful tragedy that can ruin a person’s life forever. Odd Japanese sex games aren’t the avenue I want it to be explored in, but their existence and recent publicity might push brave developers like BioWare to take on the issue one day in a meaningful way. And if they do, I’d anticipate that they catch flack for breaking the taboo. In that instance, the developer would be asking the country and the world to reevaluate what we mean when we say “video game.” By ignoring popular convention of “do”s and “don’t”s they’ll force us to decide publicly “Is art allowed to talk about rape? Are games art?”

Maybe once we have a congressional ruling, guys like Ebert will come around.