Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Sunday, May 11, 2008 )

Grand Theft Auto IV has been creating a lot of controversy for its depictions of women, its glorification of violence, its use of ethnic stereotypes in a storyline, and its depiction of modern day New York as a crime-ridden dystopia (called “Liberty City”). What criticisms are being leveled at this popular new video game?

–*Critics insist that New York City is no longer a war zone, as depicted in the video, but instead is starting to look much more like Orlando.

–*The game is full of ethnic stereotypes of Russians, Puerto Ricans, the Irish and blacks who participate in the drug world, but sadly omits the rich and colorful history of Hasidic Jewish drug mules with their Yiddish-speaking, Ecstasy-tablet-carrying, old country ways.

–*The storyline offers several “morality” choices that allow a player to spare his opponents from death. However, there is no such “abstinence” choice when it comes to the services of Liberty City’s many prostitutes.

–*There is no morality choice in “Grand Theft Auto” that would allow you to not participate in the life of crime at all and instead retire to your house in the north and read the great masters.

–*A variety of sexy prostitutes are available in the game offering various sexual services from street corners. … Even though there is no such thing as an attractive New York City streetwalker. For those you must go to Montreal, where I suggest the next version of Grand Theft Auto take place.

–*The main character Niko is allowed to solicit fellatio, masturbation and cow-girl position sex from prostitutes. But he NEVER returns the favor with cunnilingus or allows them to finish. Also, if he wants to, he is allowed to run over them with his car. Either way, 14-year-old adolescent male game players learn bad sexual manners.

–*Conservatives argue that the game can narrate its players into violent ideation and anti-social behavior, and besides, the game always freezes up.

–*Conservatives also argue that television and violent media in general condition children to be more likely to participate in violent acts. However, the same conservatives are mum on the causal relation between ordering an army to invade a Middle Eastern country and the number of violent acts that may occur after that.

–*The game’s soundtrack includes a variety of diverse artists in a rich variety of musical genres, all of which can be played on the protagonist’s car radio. I don’t know if the makers of this game have been here lately, but New York has the shittiest radio stations in the country, all of which are a pretty good argument for nationalizing the broadcast system, by the way, and satellite radio would be the only way you can hear anything decent on a New York City car radio.

–*New York’s fifth borough of Staten Island has been omitted from the game, which, by the way, means Liberty City has overlooked a great many of the Italians, not to mention the actual mafia, that might have given this game some kind of verisimilitude.