Girls gone wild

Just like every other game from Rockstar Studios, a tsumani of controversy surrounds the release of Grand Theft Auto 4 like a… well… like a tsunami. Everyone is getting in on the act, from British MP Keith Vaz, to the anti-drink-driving groups. And I suppose they’ve all got points. Vaz, clearly making street violence a major part of his campaign, highlights the stabbing in GTA queue in Croydon. The anti-drink-driving group point out that, regardless of how much fun it might be in the game, drink-driving in real life is not a game. But now feminist groups are suggesting that the game’s “violence and misogyny displayed towards women¹” only serves to normalize sexualized violence and fuel the sexual discrimination towards women within the patriarchal media.

Horseshit.

Most of the problem comes from this video created by IGN to highlight some of the game’s sleazier moments as well as giving a sample of the violence that can be directed towards women in the game. But, as commenters have pointed out, this is like creating a video of the player killing only black people in the game and suggesting that the game is racist based on this. This is what’s so wonderful about Grand Theft Auto - the options are there for you to create a character that’s exactly as moralistic as you want him to be. Well, in as much as it fits the story being told. I haven’t played it yet (it’s waiting for me when I finish my exams), but I know it was entirely possible to play through the previous games without killing any women or visiting any strip-clubs.²

Now, let’s take a look at something else that came out recently. In the movie, Teeth, a young girl discovers she is gifted with vagina dentata and uses this to mutilate the genitals of some pretty mean guys. Now, I can see why this might be a fun movie, but at the same time, I’m wondering why there isn’t more of an outcry from male groups complaining about the film’s deep-set misandry. Because I can guarantee if someone made a film where a man went around destroying women’s gees with his cock, we’d never hear the end of it.

1. Isn’t “mysogyny towards women” a bit of a tautology? Like ATM Machine or PIN number. [↩]
2. It’s also worth pointing out that, like Cooper Allen in the Mass Effect furore, the author of the Feministing article has never played the game and is entirely basing her condemnation on a video [↩]