More sex in your violence?
From the rocket-propelled grenade that shoots down a police helicopter to the punch in the face delivered to a former friend, the depictions of realistic violence in the newest "Grand Theft Auto" video game are raising fresh concerns. And gamers can’t wait to play.
Video game popularity and real-world youth violence have been moving in opposite directions. Violent juvenile crime in the United States reached a peak in 1993 and has been declining ever since. School violence has also gone down. The U.S. Secret Service intensely studied each of the 37 non-gang and non-drug-related school shootings and stabbings that were considered "targeted attacks" that took place nationally from 1974 through 2000.
The Secret Service found that there was no accurate profile. Only one in eight school shooters showed any interest in violent video games; only one in four liked violent movies.
On the other hand, reports of bullying are up. Our research found that certain patterns of video game play were much more likely to be associated with these types of behavioural problems than with major violent crime such as school shootings.
For many children and adolescents, playing video games is an intensely social activity, not an isolating one.
When I watched the game, I caught one sequence that would seem sure to prompt outrage -- your character gets falling-down drunk and can, if he wants, steal and then drive a car. The scene is undeniably fun and funny. Admittedly, the humor is low-brow, more in the tradition of "Jackass" than of Oscar Wilde, but it's still fun; like much else in the game, it's the thrill of discovery, the sense of, "Whoa, I can't believe I can do that!"
Of course, that'll be exactly the sentiment of the game's detractors: Can you believe they're letting children do that?! This has to be illegal!
Well, actually, nobody is letting kids play this game. It's rated M, which means it's for sale to people 17 or older. Kids will still get it, of course, just like they also get hold of R-rated movies and all kinds of perversities on the Web.
But nobody -- at least nobody sane -- calls for movie houses to refuse to play R-rated movies just because kids might sneak in. It's hard to see why the policy should be any different with video games.
The public image of Disney pop sensation Miley Cyrus could change after the June issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands.
If "Hannah Montana" wasn't a television show directed at kids on the Disney Channel, this could be the wacky premise for an upcoming episode: The tween pop sensation goes to a photo shoot, gets talked into taking some "artistic" pictures with a famous celebrity photographer, and the next thing she knows, the country is going n
The innocence factor can't but plummet under conditions like these, because the beauty that makes Miley's picture possible and that makes this commentary possible is manufactured; yes, she herself has something to do with it, but hardly all and probably not most. So what we are worshipping turns out to be less Miss Cyrus' marvelous fresh fecundity and youthful radiance and more the erotic appeal of a giant confection. In an earlier era, this picture would in fact be a painting of a nameless young girl, and it would be a work of art. In this era, it's a brick in a long, high wall.
Pity. I've argued before that our problem isn't honoring the sexual power of young women, it's in aggravating that power for the purposes of dishonoring it. Miley's evocative portrait alone doesn't contribute to this problem. But the premise of the picture, and so much of what brought it into being, does. So people decry its classic pose and echo of nobility while smiling away at this getup. Tell me: which is cheaper?
It's going to take a long time to untangle the psychosexual web this culture's woven. Maybe forever.
It has never been easy to be a child star, but as an article in Thursday's Globe and Mail argues, today's teen actors are facing increasing scrutiny about their sex lives. It points to the media's fascination with the romantic lives of, among others, Emma Watson of "Harry Potter" and "Heroes" actress Hayden Panettiere as evidence of our growing obsession with teen stars' virginity. The article suggests that this development came in the wake of "Olsen Twins Countdown" (the Web site dedicated to counting down to the "Full House" stars' 18th birthday) and Jamie Lynn Spears' recent pregnancy. But it may have more to do with the fallout from her older sister's early branding strategy. As the recent (jaw-dropping) Rolling Stone profile of Britney points out, in the late '90s, manager Larry Rudolph turned her supposed virginity into a key part of her marketing plan -- as the "teenage Lolita of middle-aged men's dreams."
Spears was paraded around talk shows, discussing her virginity and, as the profile suggests, laying the groundwork for her eventual collapse. Jessica Simpson developed a similar look-but-don't-touch persona, and as they reached stratospheric popularity, Spears and Simpson managed to be both wholesome and sexualized -- a dichotomy that made it acceptable for prepubescent girls to show off their stomachs, and may have set a dangerous precedent for a new generation of teen stars whose entire life, including their sex life, has, without their consent, become a part of their public persona.
"Divisive" or "descriptive"? Jeremiah Wright talks to reporters at the National Press Club.
Barack Obama's former pastor is making the rounds... and stirring up more controversy for the Democratic presidential candidate. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that he will try to change national policy by “coming after” Obama if he is elected president.
Wright ended on a note straight from the 1960s: “I believe a change is coming.”
But is it the same kind of change Barack Obama promises? They may share the same economic populism that blesses marching on the picket line, but Wright’s views on race don't seem to have much in common with Obama's public statements to date. Wright’s separatist message is hardly post-racial, while many have acclaimed Obama as embodying that unifying ideal. Obama said in his Philadelphia speech on race that “the profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is... that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made.”
In that March 18 speech, Obama expressed the conviction that he represents a new generation of post-grievance black leadership, ready to take on the challenges that confront blacks in places like Detroit today: Crime and family disintegration.
But his good friend and pastor of 20 years is a symbol of how much of the black establishment still revels in old-school demagoguery.
We knew there would come a moment when the first black man with a realistic shot at becoming president would have to reconcile black anger and frustration with white fear and resentment. It's a critical test: acknowledging the righteous anger of people frustrated by continuing racial inequality without looking like the kind of Angry Black Man often rejected by more conservative white voters.
Who knew that the race-based bullet wounding Obama's campaign would come from friendly fire -- his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright -- adding yet another unpredictable twist to the most unconventional electoral contest in history?
I've already pointed out how the initial stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons have distorted many of his points. So I'm not saying he shouldn't feel compelled to defend his church and his reputation by facing down the media he way he has by speaking to PBS' Bill Moyers, speaking to the Detroit NAACP Sunday and speaking to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. as I write this.
But Wright's recent appearances will continue to hurt the candidate, because the reverend is the radical Obama never was, and he's close enough to give skeptical white voters an excuse.
Al Sharpton, center, stands with friends and family of Sean Bell. Bell was shot 50 times by New York City police on his wedding day. The three detectives involved were acquitted of manslaughter last week.
Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.
Al Sharpton is back in the news with his vow to close New York down to protest the acquittal of three police detectives in the death of Sean Bell. The AP story somehow omits to note that two of the three NYPD detectives against whom Sharpton now seeks to lead his lynch mob are are black. So far they have been protected from the likes of Al Sharpton by due process of law.
Sharpton's long career as the race hustling leader of lynch mobs is one of the continuing disgraces of our public life. How is it that Al Sharpton has assumed this position of leadership in matters allegedly pertaining to race? Though he is accorded an absurdly respected role in the Democratic Party by politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he is easily one of the most vile men active in American public life.
When I first heard the news, I was so angry that I was unable to think of anything but retaliation. Where should we riot? What can we destroy? Who can we hurt? Like many people, I craved the sense of power, however ephemeral, that is produced by making our enemies hurt the way they’ve hurt us. Even now, as I make an unequivocal call for peace, a huge part of me wants to see somebody pay for this egregious miscarriage of justice.
The problem, however, is that reactionary violence doesn’t help. All the rioting and looting in the world will not return Sean Bell to his wife, child, parents, and friends. Destroying police cars will do nothing to stop the next detectives from seeing unarmed black bodies as a threat that warrants lethal force. Inflicting bodily harm on the three officer-assassins will not prevent the next judge from ignoring the evidence and ruling in favor of an arrogant, white supremacist, proto-fascist police state.
Although I understand what we shouldn’t do, I am at a loss about what we should do. How do heal from this latest tragedy? How do we achieve justice for Sean Bell and his family? How do we prevent the next senseless murder from happening? How do we fight back?
