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US
Videogame sales in 2005 hit a record $10.5 billion, reaching over
60 million American households (that's 55% of all households!). Fifteen
percent of these games received an ESRB rating of "M" meaning
they are intended for mature audiences over the age of 17 due to graphic
violence, profanity, sexual themes, or depiction of alcohol or illegal
drug consumption. With the average gamer spending about 10
hours per week playing videogames, that translates to many hours of repeated
exposure to violence and graphic content. The correlation itself
– between exposure to violent gaming imagery and real violence in
society – is at the heart of this growing, timely debate.
Several videogames have gained notoriety -- some even before their
release to the public -- in part because of their violent nature.
Some of these include "Grand Theft Auto", "Postal",
and the upcoming "Bully" and "Reservoir Dogs."
Moreover, “Doom” and other first-person shooter games came under
fire after the killings at Columbine High School in 1999. And recently,
a web posting by Dawson College shooter, Kimveer Gill, indicated his love
of playing the game “Super Columbine Massacre.”
As the video game industry explodes and the imagery becomes more realistic,
where do we place the blame when our youth act violently? |
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Jack
Thompson
Through
his legal practice and his role as a media source on such issues as obscenity
and the influence of violent popular culture on youth, Jack Thompson has
become an eloquent advocate for a more responsible American entertainment
industry.
Raised
in Ohio, Thompson earned his B.A. at Denison University, and his J.D.
at Vanderbilt University Law School (1976). He has been practicing law
in Miami, Florida, since 1977 as a As a trial lawyer specializing
in medical malpractice, he is trained to apply the growing medical and
scientific findings that explain the impact of entertainment on minors.
He
has been actively and prominently involved in national and international
First Amendment issues since 1987, and he has discussed his work more
than 70 times on such programs as 60 Minutes, Today, Nightline,
Good Morning America, 48 Hours, Politically Incorrect, G4 Attack of the
Show, Oprah, and others. His accomplishments in this arena include
securing the first decency fines ever levied by the Federal Communications
Commission in American history and forcing Howard Stern off all Clear
Channel Stations after securing a $500,000 fine against Stern.
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He
also served as the court-appointed amicus curiae in the 2 Live Crew
federal obscenity trial, which resulted in the first verdict in
American [delete American, because it was the first such verdict
on the planet] history declaring a sound recording to be obscene.
His role in the case spawned a successful 130-campus university
debate and lecture tour on the issue of prosecuting obscenity in
our popular culture and entertainment, including music. During the
tour, Thompson debated such liberal luminaries as Nadine Strossen
(president of the American Civil Liberties Union) and Bob Guccione,
Jr. (then publisher of SPIN magazine) on First Amendment issues,
and on the link between sexually violent material and rape. Thompson
has represented rape victims, whose cases led him to his activism
on the issue.
In
1992, he appeared on behalf of Lt. Col. Oliver North's Freedom Alliance
at the annual Time Warner shareholders' meeting regarding the rapper
Ice-T's song, Cop Killer. During the meeting, Thompson said to the
skeptical audience that "eventually parents whose children
are harmed by your corrosive entertainment will successfully sue
you for damages." This statement turned out to be amazingly
prescient: Now Thompson is involved in two triple homicide cases
by teens who copycatted Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The Alabama
Supreme Court has now cleared the way for one of these cases to
go to trial.
Jack
Thompson has been much in demand on college campuses, where he participates
in debates on such issues as how popular culture products can
cause, violence; censorship and the First Amendment; and other related
issues. His work has already influenced the debate as the video
game industry considers him its public enemy #1.
WHAT'S
NEW WITH JACK?
You
may have seen him on Nightline or his profile in the November 16
Rolling Stone.
Jack just recently drafted a Massachusetts' bill, at the request
of the Mayor of Boston,
banning sale of mature video games to kids.
Jack will also be featured the upcoming documentary on video game
violence: Moral
Kombat.
(Click link to view trailer) |
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WITH OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS |
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Bob
Guccione Jr.
Born
in 1955 in Manhattan, Bob Guccione, Jr., the eldest son of Penthouse
publisher Bob Guccione, Sr., was raised in London and attended high
school in New Jersey. At 18, he returned to England, where he published
his first magazine, A Step-by-Step Guide to Kung Fu, becoming the
youngest publisher in Britain at the time. Returning to the United
States the following year, he then became America’s youngest
publisher, launching Rock Superstars, a monthly magazine that unfolded
into a 2’ x 3’ poster.
In
1985, Guccione launched SPIN, the enormously successful music magazine
that many regard as the modern-day version of Rolling Stone. Under
Guccione’s tenure as founder and publisher, SPIN developed
a reputation for award-winning journalism, publishing ground-breaking
exposes of Live Aid’s failure, the Atlanta child murders cover-up,
the first article on crack and from 1987 to 1997, a highly-lauded
monthly column devoted to AIDS. |
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As
a leader in the campaign against music censorship, Guccione frequently
debated such personalities as Jimmy Swaggert, Tipper Gore, Susan
Baker and Ed Meese. In addition to being a frequent contributor
to the Op-Ed pages of The Los Angeles Times and Billboard, Guccione
was a regular guest on TV talk shows and a frequent guest host of
CNBC’s Talk Live.
In
1997 Guccione sold SPIN and in 1998 launched GEAR, which grew to
a circulation of 500,000 before closing in 2003. In 2005 Guccione
and his investment partners Waller Sutton and Sandler Capital formed
Discover Media and bought Discover magazine, which he currently
runs, from Disney Publishing. |
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Gerard
Jones
As
a culture critic, Gerard Jones is the author of Killing Monsters:
Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence,
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book,
and Honey I'm Home: Sitcoms Selling the American Dream. He serves
on the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and has published articles
on popular culture in Harper's, The New York Times, and The London
Times, among other publications. He's spoken on the subject of children
and mass media on Fresh Air, the Today Show, ABC World News, and
many other venues. Much of his insight comes from the work he's
done with children, as the creator of the Art and Story Workshops
for the classroom and a volunteer at the 826 Valencia center in
San Francisco. Gerard has also been a screenwriter and a comic book
writer, with credits that include Batman, Spider-Man, Pokemon, and
many creations of his own. He is a member of the San Francisco Writers
Grotto and the father of a 13-year-old boy..
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