Video Games as a Form of Satire (With Emphasis on Grand Theft Auto V)
Gaming has a pretty bad reputation. Picture the “average” gamer: an acne-ridden teenage boy living a sedentary lifestyle and binging on Mountain Dew and Doritos. He probably plays way too much Call of Duty and doesn’t have a lot of friends. Sound familiar? This stereotype has pervaded gaming culture and allowed society to dismiss gaming as a valid platform for intellectual commentary in the way that television, music, and other forms of traditional media are viewed. Since their rise in popularity, video games have also been accused of corrupting the minds of youth – pushing them to be more antisocial and encouraging violence. Large-scale news networks have aired numerous stories on the issue. I believe, however, that video games can deliver powerful messages in a way that no other media platforms can. One exceptional example of this concept is Grand Theft Auto V.
To the non-gaming community, the Grand Theft Auto series is a grisly simulation of life as a sociopathic career criminal that the average person would find to be disturbing, devoid of all meaning, and a bad influence on today’s youth. I propose an alternative perspective – controversial video games such as Grand Theft Auto are intentionally upsetting and use disturbing and absurd scenarios to draw attention to real-world issues.
American Pop Culture
Take, for example, the fictional city of Los Santos, GTA V’s primary setting. Los Santos is a sprawling metropolis based on the American city of Los Angeles, complete with its own Walk of Fame, picturesque pier, and Hollywood (or in this case Vinewood) sign. And just like the real Los Angeles, Los Santos comes with more than its fair share of biased media outlets which help to deliver some of the game’s most biting satire. Most of the game’s hundreds of websites, radio stations, and television programs parody the lives of Los Santos’ people, effectively parodying American pop culture. Turning on the in-game TV may show you an all-too-familiar form of entertainment – reality TV. GTA V takes reality TV to the next level with programs like Implant Outsource, Rehab Island, and Fame or Shame. In all three shows, the participants are objectified and humiliated, and their struggles are sensationalized for the purpose of mass entertainment. Hits close to home, doesn’t it? If you’re not interested in reality TV, you can always pick up your iFruit smartphone to access LifeInvader, a social media network with questionable privacy settings, or send out some Bleets on Bleetr, a sheep-themed microblogging service. The possibilities are truly endless.
Questionable Characters
To experience a gaming world as vast as Los Santos, you’re going to need more than one protagonist. Luckily, GTA V comes stocked with three main playable characters: Franklin, Michael, and Trevor. Franklin is a young, black, thug desperate to escape his life as a carjacker and break into the world of large-scale crime. When the player meets Franklin, he is living in a tiny house with his aunt. Fortunately, while on a job, Franklin meets Michael, a rich, white, retired bank robber. Michael lives in a mansion with his dysfunctional and thoroughly unlikeable family. With help from his old friend Trevor, a drug-addled psychopath, Michael helps Franklin make more money (and get into more trouble) than he could have imagined. Naturally, the gang befriends some bizarre characters along the way. To make some extra money, Trevor offers to help Civil Border Patrol members Joe and Josef in their pursuit to catch illegal Mexican immigrants. Ironically, Joe and Josef are Russian immigrants themselves. When Franklin is low on money, he helps Beverly Felton, a sleazy paparazzo, take pictures of celebrities in some of their most humiliating and private moments.
Essentially, each character you meet while playing the game embodies some damaging stereotype, and the inherent absurdity of the situations in which characters find themselves demonstrates just how absurd these stereotypes are.
Controversy
The Grand Theft Auto series has never shied away from controversy. From depictions of graphic violence and prostitution to social commentary targeting religion and government, controversy and Grand Theft Auto may as well be synonymous. However, Rockstar took controversy to a new level when deciding to include a torture scene in GTA V. In this particular scene, our three protagonists are working for the highly-corrupt government, and Trevor is asked to torture a hostage for information. From there, the player is given the choice between electrocuting the hostage, waterboarding him, beating him with a wrench, or tearing his teeth out with pliers, then watching the gruesome results. It is worth mentioning that after the brutal torture, Trevor drives the hostage to an airport and tells him to leave the country to become an anti- torture advocate. During the drive, Trevor rants about the inhumanity and ineffectiveness of torture. This scene is part of a story mission, meaning that the player is forced to play through it in order to complete the game. Therefore, every gamer who has completed GTA V has heard what Rockstar had to say about government-sanctioned torture.
Conclusion – Gaming as a Tool
Whoever said that all video games are mindless has clearly never played one. Video games enable us to immerse ourselves in interactive, dynamic virtual worlds and come back with lessons we can carry with us long after we put down the controller. It is my belief that video games are one of the best platforms for communicating profound ideas. First of all, video games reach an audience that many other forms of media do not. Most ten-year-olds do not pick up newspapers or tune into CNN, but they probably do play video games in some form. Additionally, video games reach audiences on a massive scale. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V sold 11.2 million copies in the first 24 hours after its release. By three days after release, sales exceeded one billion dollars, making GTA V the fastest selling entertainment product in history. And for every copy of the game that was sold, at least one gamer was forced to think about the complex issues and social commentary that GTA V addresses. Finally, video games are unlike any other media platform because they force consumers to take an active role in their experience. By nature, one does not just sit by and watch a video game. A player has to experience it. During GTA V’s infamous torture scene, it is the player, not a static character, who must make the decision to hurt the hostage. It is this interactivity that allows video games to affect players so intensely, and this interactive element is unique to video games. Video games force us to think.
Gaming has a pretty bad reputation. The perceived idea of an average gamer is a pre-teen boy, face covered in acne, isolated in his bedroom playing games on a screen. What the average observer does not see is what content this boy is consuming. Maybe he’s playing Grand Theft Auto V. Maybe he’s completing a mission where his character is forced to torture a hostage. Maybe the scene is dripping with social commentary, and maybe, rather than wasting his time, this gamer is bettering himself by being exposed to new and important issues. Maybe this gamer will become a more enlightened person because of it.
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One Response to “Video Games as a Form of Satire (With Emphasis on Grand Theft Auto V)”
I love the radio talk shows in GTA V. Sometimes I’ll just drive around aimlessly to listen to them. They’re certainly interesting social commentary.