Whenever Rockstar releases a video game, you can pretty much assume that controversy won't be far behind it. Manhunt 2 is still making waves in the UK, and in a little more than a month the next volume in the Grand Theft Auto series will likely signify the coming of hell on earth (personally, I'm beyond excited for GTA4). But the story of the moment involves the re release of Bully - a game first turned out in 2006 for the PS2, which has recently been ported to the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
You don't need to be a game junky to figure out what exactly Bully is about. You play the part of Jimmy Hopkins - a young teenage boy as he gets into all sorts of shenanigans on his way toward becoming the king of fictional Bullworth academy. And with a publisher like Rockstar and a title like Bully, you can guess that good old Jimmy isnt playing paddycake to get himself where he wants to be. Of course its also not a game about picking a fight with every single person you see either.
When Bully was first released it saw a flurry or protests from a whole slew of people, not the least of which were parent and teacher groups who didnt feel that the game's content was appropriate or in any way beneficial to the young minds that might take up Jimmy Hopkins' quest. The re-release has also seen an outcry against the game (albeit subdued compared to the first go), epitomized by one Emily Noble, the president of the Canadian Teacher's Associated who called for retailers to ban Bully. A quote that sums up Noble's perspective: "What it does is it encourages kids to target other kids, to be a bully with other kids. This doesn't help us as teachers in the work that we're doing at school." Her words are part of a line of argumentation that I've heard a lot of - what is the good in game like this? How does Bully make the world any better off because it exists? Whats the point in playing the role of a Bully? Why do we want children seeing, and potentially emulating this sort of behavior?
As I've said before, I don't have children of my own. And I have no doubt that with the enormous responsibility that is parenthood comes a entirely new way of thinking about the world, and the things you want your own child to be exposed to.
But despite not being a parent myself, I did have a childhood of my own (one that I can only hope never ends). I was never a Bully (at least not that I know of), nor did I incur the wrath of any school yard brutes. And in that I was fortunate. There were plenty of my peers who were not so lucky. I've seen people get their lunch money taken. I've seen people get their ass whooped for pretty much no reason at all. I've seen the Lord of the Flies that is the public school bus. I've seen girls make fun of the odd one out in ways that would make a grown adult cry. I've heard names and insults that would make you shudder. I've even seen someone get a swirly. Yes it does exist. And man is it nasty. This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.
Kids are cruel, folks. I don't think I'm making a particularly profound statement in saying that. Kids can be mean, brutal, hurtful, and down right awful little beings sometimes. No I don't hate children - but I was one of them once and I, like all of you, have experienced the good the bad and the ugly. Its a part of growing up. Whether or not the video game Bully will inspire a wave of in school wedgie attacks is something I'm not qualified to answer (though I doubt it). But I do know that bullies existed long before Bully was published, and they will exist long after its forgotten.
I have a big problem with Emily Noble's notion of banning the game. Not because I am particularly fond of it (its next on my Gamefly queue) but because I think games like Bully have the potential to do the same thing that Michael Moore movies do: start the conversation.
There are no required classes for kids to take about how to handle bullies. At least there werent when I was a child. It is a subject that was treated with the same pragmatic thinking as abstinence sex campaigns. If you're being bullied, tell an adult immediately. Because that has ever worked. No one ever teaches you how to fit into the complex world that is school. When you're coming up, there is no such thing as "How do survive Social Darwinism" 101. You're just supposed to figure it out. And for some people, those are very painful lessons. For every popular kid there is a looser. For every top dawg, there is a bottom feeder. It sounds like some sort of cliche stereotype out of a bad movie. But thats how life is. And no one tells you how to figure that out.
I'm not going to pretend that Rockstar's aim with Bully was to usher in a new area of schoolyard understanding, or even that the life of Jimmy Hopkins was anything like my own. But that doesnt mean that it cant be a catalyst to make people talk about the way life is, rather than the way we'd like to pretend it is. Just because you refuse to acknowledge something, or deny exposure to it for fear of what it might do, doesnt mean you are doing anything to fix the underlying issues at hand.
And in that I feel like there is a parallel between the way some people would choose to handle a game like Bully, and the way that race, gender, and religion have come to dominate the mainstream media in the midst of the current presidential race. Sometimes its the things we don't talk about - the things we pretend we have the answers to - that make all the difference.
Funny how that works. Or maybe the word is sad.
You don't need to be a game junky to figure out what exactly Bully is about. You play the part of Jimmy Hopkins - a young teenage boy as he gets into all sorts of shenanigans on his way toward becoming the king of fictional Bullworth academy. And with a publisher like Rockstar and a title like Bully, you can guess that good old Jimmy isnt playing paddycake to get himself where he wants to be. Of course its also not a game about picking a fight with every single person you see either. When Bully was first released it saw a flurry or protests from a whole slew of people, not the least of which were parent and teacher groups who didnt feel that the game's content was appropriate or in any way beneficial to the young minds that might take up Jimmy Hopkins' quest. The re-release has also seen an outcry against the game (albeit subdued compared to the first go), epitomized by one Emily Noble, the president of the Canadian Teacher's Associated who called for retailers to ban Bully. A quote that sums up Noble's perspective: "What it does is it encourages kids to target other kids, to be a bully with other kids. This doesn't help us as teachers in the work that we're doing at school." Her words are part of a line of argumentation that I've heard a lot of - what is the good in game like this? How does Bully make the world any better off because it exists? Whats the point in playing the role of a Bully? Why do we want children seeing, and potentially emulating this sort of behavior?
As I've said before, I don't have children of my own. And I have no doubt that with the enormous responsibility that is parenthood comes a entirely new way of thinking about the world, and the things you want your own child to be exposed to.
But despite not being a parent myself, I did have a childhood of my own (one that I can only hope never ends). I was never a Bully (at least not that I know of), nor did I incur the wrath of any school yard brutes. And in that I was fortunate. There were plenty of my peers who were not so lucky. I've seen people get their lunch money taken. I've seen people get their ass whooped for pretty much no reason at all. I've seen the Lord of the Flies that is the public school bus. I've seen girls make fun of the odd one out in ways that would make a grown adult cry. I've heard names and insults that would make you shudder. I've even seen someone get a swirly. Yes it does exist. And man is it nasty. This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.
Kids are cruel, folks. I don't think I'm making a particularly profound statement in saying that. Kids can be mean, brutal, hurtful, and down right awful little beings sometimes. No I don't hate children - but I was one of them once and I, like all of you, have experienced the good the bad and the ugly. Its a part of growing up. Whether or not the video game Bully will inspire a wave of in school wedgie attacks is something I'm not qualified to answer (though I doubt it). But I do know that bullies existed long before Bully was published, and they will exist long after its forgotten.
I have a big problem with Emily Noble's notion of banning the game. Not because I am particularly fond of it (its next on my Gamefly queue) but because I think games like Bully have the potential to do the same thing that Michael Moore movies do: start the conversation.
There are no required classes for kids to take about how to handle bullies. At least there werent when I was a child. It is a subject that was treated with the same pragmatic thinking as abstinence sex campaigns. If you're being bullied, tell an adult immediately. Because that has ever worked. No one ever teaches you how to fit into the complex world that is school. When you're coming up, there is no such thing as "How do survive Social Darwinism" 101. You're just supposed to figure it out. And for some people, those are very painful lessons. For every popular kid there is a looser. For every top dawg, there is a bottom feeder. It sounds like some sort of cliche stereotype out of a bad movie. But thats how life is. And no one tells you how to figure that out.
I'm not going to pretend that Rockstar's aim with Bully was to usher in a new area of schoolyard understanding, or even that the life of Jimmy Hopkins was anything like my own. But that doesnt mean that it cant be a catalyst to make people talk about the way life is, rather than the way we'd like to pretend it is. Just because you refuse to acknowledge something, or deny exposure to it for fear of what it might do, doesnt mean you are doing anything to fix the underlying issues at hand.
And in that I feel like there is a parallel between the way some people would choose to handle a game like Bully, and the way that race, gender, and religion have come to dominate the mainstream media in the midst of the current presidential race. Sometimes its the things we don't talk about - the things we pretend we have the answers to - that make all the difference.
Funny how that works. Or maybe the word is sad.
Thanks for, as you put it, starting the conversation, on this one, Chris.
I have a lot to say on this one considering I am a gamer, former high school teacher, and a parent.
First off, wearing my gamer hat, I can say that too many people make the mistake of assuming that the gaming demographic has been unchanged for the past thirty years. Given how long gaming has been around and that the original child gamers have grown up and taken their games with them, the average gamer is much, much older than most critics assume or most media figures would scare their audiences into believing. Gaming has grown up, and we play games like our grandparents played cards.
Now switching to my parent hat, I'll tell you that part of being a good parent is screening content before your children see it. And, if they're young enough to still let you, consuming it with your children after you've initially screened it.
I don't rely on ratings to determine what is appropriate for my children. Take two movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark (a PG) and Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban (a PG-13). Which one was more appropriate for a child about to enter kindergarten?
The same goes for games in our house. Some games, like the Guitar Hero series, may be rated for older children because of song lyrics, but because we are more concerned with violence, than a few words that go over the kids' heads, we allow them to attempt to play along.
Unfortunately, we can't control what every parent does. Sometimes we who wear the parenting (or teacher) hats are at the mercy of someone else's bad parenting. Take the Hannah Montana craze. My daughter's friends love the show, and there is a great amount of peer pressure for her to like it as much as they do. I, on the other hand, find it laden with stereotypes and would rather she not watch it.
Wouldn't it be easy to just ban everything we don't want our kids to watch so there was no peer pressure? Wouldn't it be easy to just shelter our kids from everything objectionable? No.
My daughter was the victim of some girl bullying--yes, it starts early. My first reaction was to separate her from the girl in question, but I thought better of it.
It would be much better for her to learn to stand up for herself and not give in to peer pressure now, by 5 years old, than to have to deal with this stuff in middle school when she wouldn't heed her mother's advice and a parent/teacher's intervention would not be cool.
I'm not saying I didn't get involved or get the teacher involved.
I'm not saying I didn't advocate that the other child be punished; this
little girl also had something to learn early on about bullying.
However, instead of protecting my child from the world, I opted to teach my child how to live in the world.
Well, given the problems that my nephew has been going through at school this past year, I kind of think people should be more concerned with the lack of parental control of bullies and also apparent teacher disinterest. At least at his school. I think that is more of an issue than a game.
In my nephew's case, the one teacher told my brother that the constant abuse on my slightly mentally challenged nephew was "kids being kids." I find that disgusting and incomprehensible.
So yeah, more so than a game, I think I have more concern over incompetence in the real world.
I feel confident assuming Emily never played Bully. Nor have I for that matter. But recalling all the bad press it received on the first release, I also remember seeing early players of the game posting videos where you're character, Billy, actually has to make decisions to either participate in Bullying the helpless kids, or PROTECTING them from the other bullys running around the academy.
So if people actually played the game, they would realize it's not 100% about beating kids up, taking lunch money, or throwing the smallest kid in school in a locker (one that I've witnessed).
Like you said, it's a conversation starter. This is a stretch, but a parent could potentially use such a game to in an attempt to teach the lessons you speak of: how should my son/daughter handle these situations in real life, should they occur? The game is a great catalyst here.