The Expendables 2 is opening in a few months, which means there will also be a video game. As luck would have it, the trailer is out now and it delivers a much-needed dose of testosterone.
It’s been a disturbing couple of months, as I see a steady trickle of search engine results bring men to douglasernstblog.com in their quest for “brosiery and mantyhose”— but what is more disturbing has been the occasional Republican buying into the claptrap that video games make kids violent. Wrong.
What makes kids inappropriately violent are bad parents. What makes kids inappropriately violent are cultures that place little value on human life. What makes kids inappropriately violent are neighborhoods and communities that tolerate it. The easiest thing to do is to blame video games and video game makers for deep-seated problems that metastasized long before computer graphics perfected the blood splatter or bone crunch.
With that said, it should also be noted that violence isn’t always a bad thing. Teaching kids to be violent — when necessary — is healthy. Does good and evil exist? If so, let’s have it displayed in a video game. And if good and evil exist, who symbolizes good and who symbolizes evil? While I haven’t had a chance to play the Expendables 2 video game, a good guess might be that Communist-thug regimes and the goons of South American dictators are the bad guys. And if that’s the case, then I say: “Put that controller into your kids’ hands and let them have at it!”
Wouldn’t it be nice to see an avatar of Sylvester Stallone blowing away North Korean soldiers, perhaps the kind who perform in Kazoo Armies by day and rape women by night? There are free nations and there are fear nations, and there is nothing wrong with portraying them in video games. The problem with many video games is that today’s characters are often anti-heroes, or the line between good and evil is so blurred that the user doesn’t know what to believe. Stallone’s movies (and I’m assuming his video games) generally don’t have that problem, which is probably a reason why I’ve been watching and loving them for ages.
Still not convinced? Watch this workout video with Terry Crews. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and a stand-up citizen. There’s nothing cooler than a man who is physically fit, mentally strong, compassionate and in possession of a moral compass. If I had kids, I’d let them hang out with Crews any day of the week, and I’d definitely let them play the Expendables 2 video game.
Douglas Ernst Blog 