Bournemouth Wire

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71 years later and just as mankind’s tastes and fears have evolved, so have the media texts that reflect them. 40 years ago a badly articulated all-purpose wheelie bin was enough to render a child speechless with terror. “When I was a kid, the Daleks were terrifying...that’s why it was such a good show to watch” claims an anonymous fan on the Doctor Who website. Yet until Russell T. Davis resurrection of Doctor Who back in 2005, the Daleks were regarded by a younger generation as installing about as much fear as a rundown coffee machine. It’s a testament to the fact that reality with its constant threats of terrorism, moral degradation and outright perversions has finally become more terrifying than fiction. It’s for this reason that films no longer serve as simple escapism. They have become a reassurance that in comparison to the lives of others there may still be some sanity left in our existence. And in order to achieve that, they need to go beyond reality, which due to the diseased mental state of contemporary society, presents the medium with a curious paradox – in order to become reassuring, they must become more disturbing.

Ultimately, it all comes down to individuality and upbringing. The Columbine High School shootings of 1999 – in which two teens killed five classmates, a teenager and themselves having become convinced they were trapped in the Matrix – was an act of sheer insanity. It’s natural for films of such a philosophical nature to make us question our existence but to act on such impulses requires a certain degree of mental illness from the viewer.

Yet for the greatest odium, one needs to look no further than the gaming industry. In May 2008 a vast shuddering of excitement was felt around the world as gamers flocked to claim their copies of Grand Theft Auto 4. Mere hours after its release the pages of the Daily Mail practically roared with indignation as it reported that a young man had gotten into a fight and been stabbed while queuing for the game. Throwing impartiality to the winds, the Mail went after GTA4 with all the vehemence of a 1692 witchcraft trial, yet their attempts to curb public enthusiasm failed and the game went on to sell millions.

The greatest threat of all to our society is neither computer games nor films but the inability of certain parents to teach their children the correct moral values. I myself have played the Grand Theft Auto series on several occasions. However I, like millions of others, have yet to shoot anyone, steal their car, rob a bank and use the money to start up my own drugs or porn industry. The appeal of such games is that they allow for an interactive experience that would never be possible in real life. Likewise, it should be instantly obvious that bludgeoning your neighbour with a three-foot samurai sword does not pass for acceptable by any standards of society. To think otherwise betrays a serious deficit in your sense of right and wrong.

Perhaps it’s time the criticisers did as they advise those they criticise to do. Perhaps it’s time we defined that bridge between fantasy and reality. And in doing so admit that in our constant search for someone to blame, we have turned much loved forms of escapism into scapegoats for the evil within.

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