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Sep 20th, 2010 at 20:01:52 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) |
When I played the game on my second run through, I tried sticking to the story a little more. When CJ interacted with his family after going to see Big Smoke, Kendl, and Sweet, one learned a little more about the dynamics between them. There is excessive use of the “N word” between the two brothers as well as various gang members.
Throughout the entire game, the black characters use Ebonics and other slang when conversing with each other throughout the game play. For a game that seems to center on a city filled with thugs and gangs with mostly African American characters, it makes it seem as if violence is a way of life for all black people. Since games tend to be distributed worldwide, there might be someone out there who looks at the game and believes that black people are all as they are depicted in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
I also noticed that there seems to be another racial slant when it comes to Latinos. Sweet refers to Caesar, supposedly Kendl’s boyfriend, with another racial slur aimed at Latinos. From what I’ve observed, the few latin women and men that I have come across have been portrayed was “cholos” and “cholas”. They have a certain speech pattern that is usually not seen in “civilized” people and they seem just as ghetto as the African American’s in the game.
The Caucasian men and women in the game seem to upstanding and law abiding citizens as opposed to their ethnic counterparts. I have yet to see a gangster that was white, just police officers and high class citizens. This makes it seem as if the game is saying that Caucasian’s are the good guys, and all ethnic individuals are the bad guys that need to be shot at and arrested.
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Sep 19th, 2010 at 12:17:30 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) |
Well, I had never played any of the Grand Theft Auto games since I heard how violent and offensive they can be. After a few minutes of playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, I realized that the rumors were in fact true. Playing as Carl “CJ” Johnson, I started the game running through the streets of the city depicted and noticed that I was able to easily attack anyone on the street and gain some monetary points. The money isn’t available until you defeat the person I attacked and beat them to a bloody pulp or murder them.
It matters not if the person is a civilian, minding their own business, or another gangster, carrying a variety of weapons. At one point I got into a fight with a police officer and had to weather getting shot at or beaten with a baton. I experienced my first virtual carjacking when I pulled a man out of his car and stabbed him to death. After obtaining the car, I was offered the chance to complete a mini game but I chose to instead drive around the city and run people down with impunity.
The ethical question here is: is this game so violent that it is desensitizing those that play it to violence in the real world? At one point I was laughing at all the inventive ways I was coming up with killing bystanders, but does this mean I would laugh if it were to happen in person? Would I go around killing random strangers just because I did it in the virtual world and it gave me a thrill? I would say not since, as an adult, I already have some sense of what’s acceptable in a moral sense and what’s not. This game is rated mature for a reason and is not meant for younger, more impressionable audiences.
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