Grand Theft Auto and Moral Fiction
Why is it that I find the computer game BlackHawk Down reprehensible but I’m ok with Grand Theft Auto 3 (GTA3)? In BlackHawk Down, you’re a righteous American soldier fighting local warlords who are starving their own people. In GTA3, you’re a hoodlum who succeeds by randomly killing innocent pedestrians and taking their money. Also, you hijack cars, kill policemen, and blow stuff up. Why do I have my moral polarity reversed when it comes to these two games?
I watched Pulp Fiction again the other night. I don’t want it to be one of my favorite movies, but it is. There, too, the fact that we side with hit men is oddly liberating. Unlike movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos where we’re responsibly reminded intermittently that the protagonists are capable of violence that separates them from us, Pulp Fiction is non-judgmental about its characters’ murderousness. It accomplishes a true suspension of moral belief. This isn’t used for any profound purpose — Tarrantino is no Dostoyevsky — but it does enable us to enter a world where the basic rules have been altered. It is the equivalent of science fiction, except instead of removing the law against time travel, the law against murder is removed. Call it “moral fiction.”
To be popular, GTA3 and Pulp Fiction had to be comedies. GTA3 even has its own radio stations playing parodies of various musical styles. (“Ah,” says the pretentious classical DJ, “that reminds me of the summer I spent reading Proust … in the original Italian.”) In suspending morality, they keep us so disconnected from the victims that we can laugh at what in real life would be horrific. If we were to connect with our victims, the morality would no longer be suspended; when Nicholson falls for the hitwoman who is to be his victim in Prizzi’s Honor, morality — sort of — comes back into play because the human connection is made. Not with GTA3 or Pulp Fiction. Both are unrelentingly disconnected.
In fact, the implicit disconnectedness is itself the source of humor: When in Pulp Fiction Travolta accidentally blows a kid’s head off in the back of the car, that it means nothing to him and Jackson except that they have a mess to clean up is funny. The suspension of morality is so obvious and so obviously a literary device that it has no more effect on my actual moral stance than watching Star Wars made me think I can levitate objects by channeling “The Force.”
I understand why parents are concerned about GTA3. And I understand why news magazines make a to-do about it: Show a 5-second snippet in which a player is shooting a cop and you’re guaranteed an 8 minute segment with outraged parents and indignant politicians. And I’m queasy enough about it that I don’t let my 11 year old son play GTA3 because I don’t know what “moral fiction” will feel like to him. But the truth is that I’m more concerned about heroic games like “Blackhawk Down” where the ultimate moral message is that being right puts one in a zone where everything is permitted. That to me is the most dangerous moral idea.
Salon reviews the new version of GTA. Salon says it’s art. I don’t know about that, but it sure sounds like it kicks fictitious ass.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I think this is interesting because I just bought GTA3 (for pc) yesterday. I find it to be artistic comedy as well, and a drama game where yes, morality is suspended.
And Tarantino films I do NOT find entertaining. I always felt that Tarantino films glamourized villainry (sp? word even?)
So upon starting to read this post, I suddenly wondered about the connection between Tarantino films & GTA3. Well, there is and there isn’t.
I think part of my problem with the Tarantino films are some of the people I’ve known who liked them – people who don’t have their morality suspended, but have questionable abberation morality to begin with, and see Tarantino films as a sort of relief – a “go ahead” for their own behaviour, which isn’t so bad, but isn’t good either.
I bet there’s many people who like GTA3 for entirely different reasons than you & I do.
And people who wouldn’t even notice the equal dangerous message of “as long as you’re on the “right” side, you can do anything”… after all, I saw Noble Sacrifice over the weekend, and throughout the film interviewed Shiites said they had a mission from god to free all oppressed, Muslims, Christians, or even atheists… and that this martyrdom terrorists engage in is just and right, because it’s for this cause.
(Mind you, this movie was not made to suggest a justification, just an explanation – which even the explanation is pretty weak, since it’d be hard to tell any Westerner that these people are sane after they see this film anyway… people celebrating in the streets of blood puddles, people cutting the tops of their heads with razor blades & slapping their heads on the wounds…)
Anyway, my point with that is that yeah, I see the problem with the Black Hawk Down game… but you know, that’s “OKAY” with most people… A lot of Americans would have to agree with the morality that an American, being on the right side, should be able to go to any lengths, even if ruthless.
And somehow I doubt Rockstar Games will come out with a game where you’re an extremist Muslim terrorist… (they’d probably be locked in jail for even considering it.)
But they do have a game where you can be an anti-globalization rioter. (Though you’re probably put on an spy list when you purchase the game. hahaha.)