The Guardian Pulls a Daily Mail; Rape and GTA

In a reply to a well rounded article by Mark Kermode who likened modern game controversy to that the horror film genre faced 20 years ago, Jacqueline Hunt wrote an article that I really don’t quite understand.

Kermode wrote about how modern games and their violence are often unreasonably feared and daemonised. He’s a respected film critic and although, he admits, he doesn’t know much about games, he does recognise the parallel between the current crop of controversy and the moral panic horror films caused. The Guardian have now published a “reply” by Hunt which hammers on about RapeLay, and slips in a GTA mention for what can only be giggles.

No! Bad Guardian! By this logic I should be able to reply to a story about the Harry Potter films by damning the fact child pornography exists. Or I could write outrage at the fact a book was made, and Hitler made a book and was evil. These two articles on their own are perfectly reasonable and I heavily support Equality Now, the international women’s rights organisation that Hunt is the London director for. But to link the two in this way is a terrible move.

It makes Hunt look like a babbling moron, unaware of what the previous article was about and hell-bent on damning all videogames; it undermines Equality Now’s reputation, as I assume any gamer who read that article has now firmly formed a negative opinion of the fantastic organisation; it makes Kermode look like he was talking about a two year old, banned game about raping children; it drags GTA through the mud again and it makes the Guardian look like the host of a day time chat show trying to stir the pot for ratings.

Even more bizarrely, posting this as a reply is counter to the paper’s own description of what the Response series (which the reply was one of) is meant to be about: “The Response column offers those who have been written about in the Guardian an opportunity to reply.” Did Hunt claim to be talked about by the fact Kermode mentioned the word “violence”? Of course not! She’s a sensible woman.

I assume, as the Response column is updated a dozen times per day, this was some kind of strange crossing of wires. I also assume, as seems to be the way with most online publications, once an article is released nobody can be bothered or has the time to update it or clarify confusion raised. I understand the column is meant to create discussion but this just creates some kind of ugly, disconnected arguments.