Violence and Sexuality in Video Games
Unlike popular belief, the first violent video game was not Mortal Kombat. The killing started with a game called Death Race 2000 released in 1976 by Exidy Software. It was based on a B movie by the same title and features the main theme of the movie in the game: to run people over. You control the car to run over people, and the people you have killed become a cross. Needless to say, the game was quick to draw attentions towards it. The criticism from Americans all over the nation eventually got the game pulled off the market. One would think that the game must have been pretty intense and gruesome if it attracted such a response. Nope…not a bit…in fact, this is how the game looks:
Things stay quiet until the 1980’s in which the Atari 2600 debuts. Out of the flood of titles being produced, someone decided that sex sells, even in videogames (geez…what a concept…). So a company by Mystique released Custer’s Revenge. The game had the player control a man named General George Custer going after a Native American maiden named Revenge, hence the title, Custer’s Revenge. Unfortunately, this game did not involve anyone saving a Native American princess; instead, the player has to control Custer and help him cross the playing field safely, while dodging cactus and arrows from Native Americans. Awaiting Custer on the other side of the field is Revenge, and the reward was that Custer gets to have sex with Revenge, on the screen, depicted by a group of flesh colored pixels (as shown on the left).
The game received heat from women’s advocate groups and the Native American communities. Custer’s Revenge was so bad that many retailers refused to car...
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...t that a 9 or 10 year old can have easy access to games such as Grand Theft Auto is just scary. I found option number 3 to be too extreme. Regulations are necessary, but option 3 would leave companies very restricted in terms of creativity and set a sense of fear in the game developers. Also, option 3 will impede one’s right to purchase the game one wants, without the eyes of big brother watching. Overall, option 2 is the most balanced, it deals with the weakest part of the rating system, and that is the enforcement of the ratings. Most retails now do not enforce the ESRB’s rating system; almost anyone can buy whatever game they want without fail. With option 2, the retailers are now more responsible than before in watching what their customers buy. This way, we can keep Mature games out of the hands of young children, yet adults can buy them if they wish to.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies offers an in depth exploration of the mind in terms of savagery and civilization. The Bible’s story of the Garden of Eden shows just how easily people can be deceived. Golding’s novel uses religious allegory from the Biblical story. In terms of imagery, characterization, and the overall themes, the novel and the Biblical story can easily be compared, and Lord of the Flies can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning for the Garden.
Livy. The Rise of Rome: Books One to Five. Trans. T. J. Luce. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
The novel is packed full of symbolism and irony. Golding also communicates his message quite well. “The title refers to Beelzebub, most stinking and depraved of all the devils: it is he, and not the God of Christians, who is worshipped (Burgess 121).
...religious allegory. He depicts a story in which the boys are stranded on an island and need to fend for themselves. However, instead of focusing on rescue and building a fire, the boys ultimately shift their priorities to hunting and killing. They turn a once beautiful and majestic island into a place of terror and evil. Additionally, they maul and kill their only hope of ever changing, Simon. Lord of the Flies is reminiscent of the television series “Lost.” Just like in Golding’s world, “Lost” is staged on a remote far away island after a plane crash. However, these people are not children. They are adults, which makes the story even more chilling. These adults eventually succumb to murderous acts and violence, further proving the point Golding sets out to make. Humans are inherently evil, and without any system to keep them in line, they will destroy the world.
One of the most important and most obvious symbols in Lord of the Flies is the object that gives the novel its name, the pig's head. Golding's description of the slaughtered animal's head on a spear is very graphic and even frightening. The pig's head is depicted as "dim-eyed, grinning faintly, blood blackening between the teeth," and the "obscene thing" is covered with a "black blob of flies" that "tickled under his nostrils" (William Golding, Lord of the Flies, New York, Putnam Publishing Group, 1954, p. 137, 138). As a result of this detailed, striking image, the reader becomes aware of the great evil and darkness represented by the Lord of the Flies, and when Simon begins to converse with the seemingly inanimate, devil-like object, the source of that wickedness is revealed. Even though the conversation may be entirely a hallucination, Simon learns that the beast, which has long since frightened the other boys on the island, is not an external force. In fact, the head of the slain pig tells him, "Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill! Ö You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you?" (p. 143). That is to say, the evil, epitomized by the pig's head, that is causing the boys' island society to decline is that which is inherently present within man. At the end of this scene, the immense evil represented by this powerful symbol can once again be seen as Simon faints after looking into the wide mouth of the pig and seeing "blackness within, a blackness that spread" (p. 144).
"Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us." In William Golding's post-war novel, The Lord of the Flies, he illustrates how darkness is within everyone by portraying the island as a replica of World War II. The island symbolizes life in the real world by allowing people to view the war through these young boys. The background of the book and the outside world are shown to correlate through the symbols. The archetypal symbols, characters, and setting relay the idea that the beast is within.
What ever happened to the simple games like Mario Kart 64, Baseball, Football and Sonic the Hedgehog? In the book The Sociology of War and Violence the author states, “Our popular culture, novel, history textbooks, mass media, art, games, children’s toys and many other everyday outlets are saturated with images and instruments of violence” (Malesevic). There has been a huge rise in violence in the media culture today. Television shows, movies, video games, etc. have all become more violent today than they have ever been in the past. Kids used to play these simple games and were fine with that, but now they only care about them if they have violence, killing and destruction. Today’s video games are being created to be based around nothing but
The title, Lord of the Flies, refers to the pig’s head that was placed on a spear and worshiped by the young boys on the island. In other words, the boys have chosen to believe in a fake deity, much like the people of Israel, who built golden calves to worship. And along with these fake gods comes along sacrifices, such as the head was for the beast as Jack stated, “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift” (137). Additionally, the lord of the flies is also known as Beelzebub, an Egyptian god that was linked with the 4th plague, as one of the ten plagues God sent over Egypt through Moses. To further suggest a biblical allusion, Beelzebub is deemed a demon within The Bible and is one of the many vividly described embodiments of evil within the book: “At least Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood – and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition” (138). Golding effectively uses the lord of the flies as a biblical allusion because he is able to exploit the underlying tone of subtle evil that begins to surface within the boys, through their worship of a disgusting thing. However, the allusion loses its power if the readers were unacquainted with The...
There is no doubt that Lucretia, the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus who was the son of Arruns Tarquinius, was a virtuous woman. This is evident through Cicero who describes her as a 'noble and chaste woman' (Cicero 100), Dionysius who describes her as a woman who 'excelled all the women in beauty as well as in virtue' (Dionysius, Book IV 64) and finally through Livy who explains how she 'won the contest of womanly virtue' (Livy, Book 1, 100). It was this contest that 'kindled in Sextus Tarquinius the flame of lust' (Livy 101) and it was started by Lucretias own husband, Collatinus, during a drunken dinner party in the quarters of Sextus. The contest was between all of the men present at the party and its purpose was to discover who had the most virtuous wife out of all of them. Collatinus, who was very drunk and therefore overly confident, declared that none of the other men's wives could beat the 'incomparable superiority of my Lucretia' (Livy 100). The men decided to participate in Collatinus' contest and so all of them went back to Ro...
The Lord of the Flies is meant to be a peace offering to the beast, but symbolizes the boys’ fears and inherent evil pushing them to savagery. Although, The Lord of the Flies isn’t evident at the beginning of the novel it soon shows up as a peace offering to the “beast.” Responding to the elusive “beast” Jack says, “‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift,’” (Golding 137). In
Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, took place on an isolated tropical island. There were many symbolic items within the story, and their meanings changed as the story developed. The fire was the symbol of hope and civilization at the beginning of the novel, but at the end it had become a fire of destruction. Ralph, in the beginning of the book, stood for leadership and almost perfection, however as the story progresses, he was nothing more than a normal human. The beast, upon its first appearance, symbolized fear, but soon, it represented the savagery within them. The different symbolic figures within the book, such as the fire, Ralph, and the beast, shifted in meaning as the story develops.
The central concern of Lord of the Flies deals with the fall of civilization to the awakening of savagery. The conflict seen in this theme is explored through the dissolution of the young boys’ well mannered behavior as they accustomed themselves to a wild, barbaric life in the jungle. The concept of innate human evil takes an important role in this theme because as the boys grew more savage the beast that they feared grew within themselves. This innate human evil is the beast that destroys civilization as savagery claimed its position. In the passage the “Lord of the flies” indicates the presence of the beast within the boys. ‘Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!’ said the head/You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? (Pg. 143).
The symbolical allegory “Lord of the Flies” written by William Golding, symbolizes through different characters of how humankind are evil from the core. The story of a group of schoolboys trapped on a deserted island takes more of a symbolizing story than it might seem. Each detail takes a position in the story to show the core of humanity. A group of young boys together without adult supervision causes the boys to slowly reveal their savage core. Being a part of the English society has taught them to make rules and follow them, but slowly as they realize that there are no grownups are there to stop them, the revealing of their nature begins. William Golding states in his interview concerning the theme of the book, “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” (Golding 204). The human race has been evil ever since Adam and Eve sinned, but through the Bible, we try our best to cover the core of our hearts with rules and morality.
Video games are a rapidly growing industry. There are nearly two games sold for every household in America each year (Anders 271). The vast majority of these are sold to adults, but there is no national law that prohibits minors from buying violent video games. A few states have legislation pending that will prevent this, but the fact is that minors do have access to violent video games. There is a voluntary rating system implemented by the ESRB, where games are rated based on their content. The games that are rated Mature are not supposed to be sold to anyone under seventeen and Adults Only titles, but “some retailers do not impose such limitations” (Anders 271). The bottom line is that minors do have access to these violent games.
International trading has had its delays and road blocks, which has created a number of problems for countries around the world. Countries, fighting with one another to get the better deal, create tariffs and taxes to maximize their profit. This fighting leads to bad relationships with competing countries, and the little producing countries get the short end of this stick. Regulations and organizations have been established to help everyone get the best deal, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), but not everyone wants help, especially from an organization that seems to help only the big countries and those they want to trade with. This paper will be discussing international trading with emphasis on national sovereignty, the World Trade Organization, and how the WTO impacts trading countries.