Pope Should Look at Christian Pop Culture....
Let's be honest here, our history is filled with violence and war. Hell, even today our world is still filled with violence and war. But when displayed on a TV show, movie or video game is is deemed unacceptable. Why? Because it's too much like real-life? I do, however, definitely understand the sentiment of not having violent toys and games around children.
I'm talking about this because of the Pope's recent comments condemning violent games. I think he forget to take a look at Christian popular culture. Recently, the Left Behind book series by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (also made into terrible films) has also turned into a video game with many criticisms about its excessive violence. Then again, many of the critiques could be just because it's a Christian game, because Christianity is always open season.
While I can't make any judgements about the video game, I have read the Left Behind books. I haven't finished reading the entire 12 part mini-series, I was on book 8 or 9 back in high school but stopped reading them because after I graduated and moved away for university, I was away from my source of the new books: my bus driver. I scored all 12 hardcover books on eBay last year for a great price and I've started reading them aloud with my partner (we're on book 3).
If you have a chance I highly reccommend reading Michael Adams' Fire and Ice: Canada, the United States and the Myth of Converging Values. His book consists of sociological surveys, interviews and focus groups and One of the social values he measures is the acceptance of violence. It's just an interesting glimpse into North American culture.
I never realized how violent my cultural likes are. In my media communications class we had to write journals for an assignment. After some consideration, I realized that my favourite movies and shows are extremely violent (Boondock Saints and Stargate SG1). Just an interesting observation....
I'm talking about this because of the Pope's recent comments condemning violent games. I think he forget to take a look at Christian popular culture. Recently, the Left Behind book series by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (also made into terrible films) has also turned into a video game with many criticisms about its excessive violence. Then again, many of the critiques could be just because it's a Christian game, because Christianity is always open season.While I can't make any judgements about the video game, I have read the Left Behind books. I haven't finished reading the entire 12 part mini-series, I was on book 8 or 9 back in high school but stopped reading them because after I graduated and moved away for university, I was away from my source of the new books: my bus driver. I scored all 12 hardcover books on eBay last year for a great price and I've started reading them aloud with my partner (we're on book 3).
If you have a chance I highly reccommend reading Michael Adams' Fire and Ice: Canada, the United States and the Myth of Converging Values. His book consists of sociological surveys, interviews and focus groups and One of the social values he measures is the acceptance of violence. It's just an interesting glimpse into North American culture.
I never realized how violent my cultural likes are. In my media communications class we had to write journals for an assignment. After some consideration, I realized that my favourite movies and shows are extremely violent (Boondock Saints and Stargate SG1). Just an interesting observation....
posted by Spitfire at 12:47 AM
1 Comments:
Psh. Boondock Saints doesn't count. As a college kid, you basically have to like it. No college kid is respectable unless s/he has a good collection of movies including that, Army of Darkness, the classic Batman and Robin... just about anything B-movie-ish.
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