I, like a majority of my generation, enjoy the spectacle. Specifically, films and computer games. Even more specifically, those involving action.
Hollywood churns out explosive blockbusters as fast as the heart rates they instigate in their audiences. If you have a desire to watch an action film with a fast pace, tension, guns, the fight between good and evil, death, destruction… the shelves in your local DVD or video rental (or lists in your local illegal torrent website) teeter above you ominously. We are spoilt for choice, and our desires to see something exciting, something fantastic, something we couldn’t achieve even if we did manage to peel ourselves off the sofa, focus our choices largely in the realm of action.
Moreso with computer games; players want to experience the adrenaline rush of a soldier ducking gunfire on the beaches of Normandy or a starship fighter pilot thumping lasers into the hull of a space pirate’s frigate. After all, who would want to play a game where you wake up, brush your teeth, go to the toilet, watch television, make lunch, do your taxes then have an early night? Well, some people, but the majority certainly want the thrill of killing, the eye candy of dismemberment, the spectacle.
I was one of these (and much as I’d like to pretend I’ve ‘grown up’, I still am). Recently, I bought Far Cry 2 and thoroughly enjoyed tearing up African jungles with gunfire in my pursuit of a warmonger, a murderer: the bad guy. It was never real, you understand. As much as these games inch closer towards realism both graphically, physically and mechanically, I was always fully aware that it was just a bit of fun. The heads I was aiming for were mere pixels on the screen. The screams that bubbled from burst throats were prerecorded sound effects probably instigating a chuckle from the voice actor and the sound recordist as they sat in the studio. I was playing a game, after all.
A pregnant woman dies after being shot at a US checkpoint.
That was until I watched Brian de Palma’s film, Redacted. Now, like games, I enjoy a nice gory war film, whether the message is “America saves the world again”, or “War is hell”. Like everyone else, the spectacle is pleasurable. I even studied the anti-war subtleties (of lack thereof) in a number of films and appreciated the messages, agreed with some of them, but ultimately was more pleased by what my eyes saw. Perhaps as you are reading this, you’re remembering the last anti-war film you saw, eyes welling up with disgust with our species’ self-destructiveness. Perhaps you’re clutching your replica M16, your dirty red bandana slipping down your oily forehead as your seethe at the mere concept of anti-war. Perhaps, like me, you have concerns and opinions and feelings about real war, but when it comes to the screen, it’s all just jolly good fun.
Well, after watching Redacted, I felt myself slowly slipping from the latter to the first. Perhaps it was the mockumentary style of the film as it mirrored true events in a fictional narrative. Perhaps it was the graphic photographs of real victims from Iraq: infant heads burned, pregnant bellied punctures. The bottom line is, I was affected.
Shortly afterwards, I picked up Far Cry 2 again to continue my digital, fictional journey. I closed it after my first encounter, disgusted at myself.
So many brutal murders.
My mother’s words of scorn after seeing the violent games I played eons past had finally taken hold; I finally saw her point-of-view. I was sitting alone in my room, headphones clasping my ears and a hunched posture destroying my spine, but I was also out there. In the African plains. Sneaking through the reeds beside a river, lining my iron sights on an explosive barrel beside two enemies chatting, oblivious to their imminent extinction. The most clichéd death in games and films alike: the explosive barrel, and I found myself thinking of their families. A pregnant wife at home weeping, a brother trembling with sorrow, anger and confusion.
Had I been glorifying death? Reproducing it digitally as a signal to myself and others that it’s okay, really? The whole experience reminded me of all the things I should be doing with my life rather than wasting my time playing games: working hard to save money, reconnecting with long-lost friends and family, donating to African charities… Was this guilt? Was this an apology for killing so many? Was this what war veterans feel?
Probably not. But the only computer game I’ve touched since is Solitaire.
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