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Jan 20th, 2010 at 16:34:20 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC) |
Today, like yesterday, I got disgusted once again because this game also stereotypes ethnicity and as well as genders. I noticed that most of the African-American women in San Andreas were prostitutes whereas, Caucasian women were middle-high class. I think this is a terrible discrimination of females because it might put down African-American women, especially black woman that are living in a poor neighbourhood. Consequently, black women and especially the ones that are living in degradated neighbourhoods could use this game as an escape from reality, giving up their dream. What I am trying to say is that San Andreas could facilitate to all of these women that are living every day of their life in poverty and financial problems. So, for those people the game could send the wrong message by telling them "Why are you working so hard? Why are you studying? You are just wasting your time! Sooner or later you will end up on the street and sell your body." I know this sounds terrible but it could happen. This is similar with people who start smoking or drinking because it looked cool in games.
Stereotypes against gender is unacceptable because it could reinforce the stereotype that black women are good for nothing, expect for sex, and that Caucasian women are the essence of purity and perfection. Please, give me a break!
In conclusion, my experience with GTA San Andreas was more a pain than real enjoyment, and honestly I cannot understand how in the world this game sold more than 20 million of copies. Also, as soon as I finished my last game session, I removed this game from my PC, and I will never install it anymore.
P.S. Maybe, it is true what I say to myself once in while, that I am too good for this world.
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Jan 19th, 2010 at 19:57:19 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC) |
Today, once again, I got disgusted about GTA San Andreas because of the violence within the game. I am saying this because the only way to get money (at least for what I have seen) is by robbing people or even worse, killing them. Honestly, I did not do any of those things but I read on the Internet that you can kill practically everyone you want from a police officer to old people. This did really bother me a lot because the game pushes players to do unethical actions such as killing and stealing.
Furthermore, the game forces players to be violent. For example, in one mission I had to go to my house, and instead of walking or stealing a car, I thought to get a taxi, and pay for the ride. But the game did not allow me to do that. Instead, as soon as I tried to enter the taxi, the game interpreted my action as if I wanted to steal the vehicle.
Moreover, another reason that made me dislike this game is because it promotes violence. In addition, I think that players that play this game could become, in the long run, less sensitive about violence. For example, when I was 14 years old, my friend and I saw the movie "Warriors" which both of us enjoyed very much. The problem is what my friend asked when the movie ended. He said: "Pino, what do you think if we make a gang? Come on man! I know people that would be excited about this!! On top of that, your mother can sew our jackets!! And later we can go and break store windows and make graffiti! So? What do you think?!" I remember that I was astonished about his querying. I remember asking him if he was serious and he replied to me by saying: "Sure! Let's do it. We can be like the warriors in the movie and have our headquarter on the beach!" I am sure that not everyone after seeing the movie "Warrior" ended up in gangs, but still, it could happen.
But, when it comes to video-games, I think the chances to do unethical actions are much higher because even though violent games have age restrictions, parents do not really pay attention to them. Consequently, many times violent games such GTA San Andreas are played by people much younger than 16 years old and it is much easier for them to distort reality. They could think that what happens in the game reflects the real world.
Because of these reasons, I think GTA San Andreas is not a very ethical game because it pushes players to behave in unethical ways. This is my honest opinion and I am sure there are people out there that are not going to agree with my view.
P.S. This link talks about Psychological Effects of Violent Media on Children
and refers to GTA http://allpsych.com/journal/violentmedia.html
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Jan 21st, 2010 at 15:43:58.
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Jan 18th, 2010 at 19:57:05 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC) |
GTA San Andreas is the first game of the GTA series that I am playing and to be honest, this would be also the last one. The main reason that made me say that is GTA San Andreas' stereotypes about ethnicity. For example, I noticed by fooling around in San Andreas that most of the gangs and drug dealers were African-Americans or Hispanics, whereas police officers were mostly white. The only African-American police officers that I saw were the ones in the intro-cut scene and they were corrupted and abusing their power.
For this reason, I think the game may send the wrong message to the players by letting them think that this is how San Andreas or even worse the USA is: a typical city/country full of corruption, gangs and drugs. For example, last year as soon my 16 years old nephew that lives in Italy played the game, he called me asking if drug dealers were mostly African-American.
Moreover, while playing this game, I felt in some way disgusted because it was going against my moral beliefs.The game violates my beliefs by showing that the "holy" ethnicity is Caucasian by reinforcing the stereotypes that African-Americans and Hispanics are the bad ones, like a cancer that is affecting San Andreas. Maybe I am too picky, but being raised to consider everyone at my same level independently from their ethnicity, I really did get upset playing this game.
Consequently, after my first game session, I believe that this game is distorting the truth by showing completely different events from the real world by stereotyping some ethnicities.
I now finally understand why this game raised controversy when it came out.
P.S. The real population in San Andreas, has a very small percentage of Hispanics and African-Americans (http://www.city-data.com/city/San-Andreas-California.html) whereas, in the game it looks the opposite showing that most of the population is African-American and Hispanics.
This entry has been edited 7 times. It was last edited on Jan 20th, 2010 at 16:32:42.
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