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Writing 101, August 9, 2002

Monkey See, Monkey Don’t

You’re walking down the street. As you jaywalk across a busy intersection, a car comes to a screeching halt honking its horn! In disgust, you subconsciously flip them the bird and run towards the driver side of the vehicle. You violently open the door and literally pull the angry, frightened driver out of the car and burn off! You change the station to your favorite tunes not knowing you just ran the light. You continue to cruise in this stolen vehicle with no thought of being caught.

A s the drive begins to bore you, you decide to treat the pedestrians like speed bumps. Smashing people like bugs, you speed through town like a madman! Now on foot, after deserting the damaged murder weapon, you shoot innocent bystanders with your semiautomatic machine gun. Shooting everyone from the elderly to hookers, you become a fugitive from the law. You run and run, stealing car after car, killing person after person trying to get away from the boys in blue. But unfortunately you finally get caught and have to start the level over again! (Grand Theft Auto 3.)

But you’ve had enough of that wild goose chase, so you transform into 24-year-old, James Patterson. As a Lieutenant in the Air Transport Corps, you are able to go back into time, the date June 5, 1944 where you were suppose to deliver a regiment of U.S. Airborne paratroopers to their drop zones behind the beaches of Normandy, France. But after being fired at by German fighters causing a hole in your tail and one burning engine, you must crash land your plane into an open field where you and four of your crew survive. Later a small French resistance group known as the Marquis picks you up and they alert you about the long awaited, large-scale invasion against the German war machine. Eager for revenge, you volunteer to help in anyway possible. As you sit cramped in a Higgins Boat, you realize you’re headed back to France …the hard way. (Metal of Honor: Frontline.)

Because of the enhancement of videogame technology, being something outrageous can be an everyday habit for your children and their friends. Naturally, we as a society frown upon such extracurricular activities, but really we contradict ourselves. We say it’s not ok to play such videogames but it’s alright to go outside and play Cops’N’Robbers. It’s a big deal for a kid to watch blood and guts at the theater but fine and dandy for them to watch the Road Runner and Wild A. Coyote. Entertainment is entertainment, nothing else. Parents across the globe find anything to blame for their children’s bad behavior beside themselves.

Children are being exposed to so much that their minds are advanced compared to those of the past, but the media doesn’t raise a child unless you let it. According to an article on technews.com, the games Doom and Quake helped train the Columbine gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to kill. I personally have played Doom, and nothing in the game has the killing or shooting of teachers and fellow students! The whole issue of media influencing violence starts with the home. Parents can try to find the truth all they want, but if they don’t start looking in the mirror then they’ll never find the truth.

Common sense plays a big role in any media situation. It’s understandable for a four-year-old boy to misconstrue the messages sent in a videogame or some other form of medium, because their mind hasn’t developed that level of maturity yet. But for a teenager to misinterpret the difference between fantasy and reality is absurd! That brings up the question, “Who raised you?” And for the media that is reality like the news, shows that there are consequences. You blame the manufacturers for selling a product people are willing to buy? If that’s the case, then cigarettes should be extinct.

There are ratings on games just like movies at the theater, so parents aren’t being deceived when they buy the games. They are just lazier than the parents of the past. My parents were always in my “business.” They bought my games and managed what I could and couldn’t watch. Nowadays, children have way too much privacy and parents have less power. Parents walk on eggshells when facing a possible issue with their kids. It’s time to win back our control. Children and parents are almost as though they’re complete strangers living in the same house. In most cases, there’s only one parent in the home, so that means twice the work load on that one parent. That leads to less time at home and less time with the children. Or grandma is mom. And we all know that grandma spoils her grandbabies! So there are factors way more complicated than a simple videogame, song, or television show even though they’re often overlooked.

So remember, that “monkey see, monkey do” is too easy to be the cause of such ruckus. It’s more like “monkey is, monkey do.” And it’s up to the parents to help dictate what exactly their child is going to be. So the next time your kid brother or your son is playing Playstation 2, X Box, or Nintendo GameCube sit down and explain to them that when they shut off the game, that lifestyle of being an outlaw or 1944 Air Transport Lieutenant is over. And they let that lifestyle stay in the videogame.

Maybe somebody shoulda had that talk with Dylan and Eric.