Catharsis - Manhunt is the new Child's Play

Yet again, popular culture is becoming the victim of an ill-informed and misdirected grief.

The tragic, violent, theft-motivated murder of 14 year old Stefan Pakeerah by 17 year old Warren Leblanc, and the subsequent media reaction, are covered here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3936597.stm and here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3934277.stm

Now, there's not a lot about this story that I don't find infuriating... and actually, that's one thing that I find most distressing about stories like this: the initial sympathy one feels for the likes of Stefan Pakeerah or Leah Betts quickly gets undercut, overwhelmed and completely agenda-swamped by their obviously upset parents, and it becomes difficult not to resent the deceased offspring for the acting out of their parents. And any anger one feels becomes coloured by a peculiar feeling of guilt, because it's completely understandable that a parent that has lost a child will start to cast about for reasons, scapegoats and revenge.

Which is why I'm not going to let myself get drawn on all the things that I feel need saying about this, except to make these few points.

1: Computer games didn't invent the concept of violent murder. In fact, society did. The entertainment industry works with what it knows will appeal, and it's a reflection of society that these themes are intriguing to people, and that parents allow their children access to such artifacts.

2: Manhunt is an easy target, and it's typical that it has been attacked, while games like Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider have been left alone. Killing is killing... the only difference in Manhunt is that it doesn't provide any sort of moral cushion for the player. Very few parent groups complained about Indiana Jones, because he is obviously on the side of the angels, and the germans are obviously on the side of evil. In some ways, Manhunt is almost commendable, in it's honest and disquieting portrayal of killing.

3: I've played Manhunt through, and recently completed both GTA 3 and Vice City, and I haven't thrown a punch in my life, let alone murdered anyone. And it's not that I'm without rage... I doubt many people are. If anything, the games provide a safe outlet for negative feeling that otherwise might fester and boil over. Often the scariest people, the most vicious killers, have some element of emotional repression in their lives from very early on. It's not like men get to go out and hunt wild animals with their bare hands much any more.

4: If Manhunt rewards bloody murder, it also rewards stealth and covering one's tracks. This isn't what happened in the case in question, so it's difficult to see much connection between incident and game beyond the "grass is green, this chair is green, therefore this chair must be made of grass" variety.

5: I seem to have been saying this periodically since about the age of fifteen, when Michael Ryan shot up Hungerford and Johnny Rambo got the blame, but if someone doesn't know that killing people is objectionable behaviour, then there's something a lot more worrying going on than what tv they are watching or what games they are playing. And if those people are only kids, or teenagers, there's something wrong with the morality lessons they're learning (or not learning) at home and school. In other words, parents need to start taking responsibility for their kids, and leave the rest of us, happily and non-violently playing nasty ass games in the privacy of their own home, out of it.

You can probably see the restraint I'm having to show, through the cracks in those paragraphs. I just don't understand how people can so comfortably and quickly become Daily Mail following cretins. To me, it's like watching Edward Scissorhands in a crowded cinema, and suddenly realising that the audience around me is rooting for the rabid suburban townfolk.