Grand Theft Auto V Torture Scene Causes Uproar

[lacktheknack]

And yet all was cool when churches across the US bought hundreds of thousands of tickets for "Passion of the Christ" and demanded every man woman child see the film which is quite literally torture porn.

Wat.

No credible church said that children should watch "The Passion of the Christ". Furthermore, it has much more purpose than pure torture porn, as it gave some visceral context and reference to the sacrifice of Christ. It left the Christian audience with a higher respect for the movie's subject. Hostel? Not so much. It was made because Eli Roth gets off on guts.

Context is everything.

By extension, GTAV could be using the "Spec Ops" approach to decry torture, but all I can say is that the scene isn't making me want to buy the game.

Not sure how you missed it it was all over the news. Both the catholic church and churches across the states made a massive push to make everyone see it. You can just google for all the news stories.

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=17681

Of course FOX made a shit ton of money on it as usual.

This is a discussion of why this would be lambasted in the news and passion was not. You're making the case that watching Jesus be tortured did what? make you more thankful for jesus? Please tell me what Passion brought to the table of the christian faith that it didn't already have. The scene in GTA 5 is an observation on the ultimate value of torture and makes the point that we should not be asking others to do what we wouldn't be willing to do ourselves.

Read the article, no one advocated children seeing it (unless I missed that, please point it out). I don't deny that they wanted everyone, in terms of religious and non-religious, to see it, but to say that includes children is just disingenuous.

<spoiler=Religious nuttery>As the article stated, the film had a major impact on watchers on an emotional/potentially spiritual level. That's what I'm making a case for. Saying "Jesus died on the cross" doesn't adequately portray the full extent of what Christ chose to go through because humanity screwed up. The entire point of Christianity is that God was insane enough to literally get himself killed and tortured in a horrific way out of love... a "passion", if you will. To be faced with the reality of how someone died violently to save your sorry ass is a valuable experience indeed.

And if what you say of the GTA torture scene is true, then it has value. I've not played the game, so I can't comment.

 

[Rad Party God]

"Four to five-year-olds have a tendency to copy what they see on TV, whether it's this or Fireman Sam putting out fires," she said. "ATL is not calling for a ban on these games, or censorship at all. What we are asking is for parents to become aware that the little ones are seeing these things."

Who in their sane mind would ever buy a f*ing M rated game, especially GTA, to a 5 year old!?...

*looks at Xbox Live*

Oh... right... a lot of people apparently...

Well... brace yourselves, the next couple of months will be filled with news about GTA, quoting "especialists" saying this:

Spoiler

 

[Gorrath]

"This adds insult to injury for survivors who are left physically and mentally scarred by torture in the real world," he said. "If Rockstar North's message is a satirical critique of the practice of torture, it's lost on us."

I find this statement obnoxious. It does not add any insult to injury, it's just a piece of fiction for crying out loud.

And its really great for triggering any PTSD you have.
You know there are enough people who GOT tortured in the USA and else..there are even people who got tortured by the usa or got abducted into 3rd world country and tortured there so that our government can wash its hands and deny anything..


i think it would be nice just to jump over that part-ist just asshole-ish to shock for the shock sake and take the fun people had away and to turn their fun into an full out flashback where they are that tortured or torturing person on the screen and get panic, dissociation or worse.

also, just a trigger warning maybe? So that people with ptsd just not buy this? or make that like the shooting, and free objective where you can choose not to partake-maybe buy someone to do that. (also its really kinda dumb to just torture somebody and then say Eh, I tortured yourself for my boner because I know that torture does shit when its "used" to extract information. if you get electrocuted you just say whatever the torturer wants. you might even sell your grandma to the gestapo just to not get tortured.

mean the USA are so into militarism, veterans and all this shit, so might be in their interest to not fuck the mind of the people they threw into one senseless dumb bullshit war-to not rip pen any wounds which heal badly because the military tends to ignore ptsd-victims. sick system. eh, but its military. you are trained to kill, the heck you need empathy for *shrug*

I understand that you had no way of knowing this, but I am a veteran of several wars and was my own self tortured at length using a bunch of different methods. I brought up a few things in the other thread that was running about this topic but I'll go ahead and repeat them here, along with a few things about PTSD and the military in general.

Firstly, my reaction is very 'so-what' because the whole thing is fiction. No one involved with the game is advocating for torture (that I'm aware of) and even if they were it would simply make them an ignorant fool, and I don't think people should allow themselves to be offended by ignorant foolishness if they can help it.

I struggled with PTSD in some very specific circumstances when watching certain scenes of certain films that were very graphic in their portrayal of warfare. Despite this, I would find a warning label put up on screen warning me about those scenes to be far more obnoxious than anything the scene itself might portray. I don't need to be coddled like a child because I, like so many, had to work through the stress of transitioning from wartime back to regular life. If my PTSD had been so great that I found such scenes impossible to deal with, I would have gone out of my way to avoid them by not watching movies full of people shooting at each other.

I don't agree with you about the supposed pointlessness of the wars we fought, but to each his own on that point. But I do object to the idea that we have no need for empathy, or that we don't have it at all. We are trained to employ weapon systems against other military or paramilitary forces, but we aren't a bunch of robots who lack empathy running around spewing death and destruction with nary a care,(not saying you said that either, but that's what a lack of empathy would imply.) In fact, more than half the missions my unit carried out were in support of humanitarian aims, even in the midst of war.

Lastly, torture can be an effective method of gathering intel, it simply isn't a good method on it's own. But as I said in the other thread, this fact neither makes it ethical or moral no matter what the outcome of that intel is. We have an obligation to use ethical means and ways, even in war, and those who defended water boarding as a means to an end had no idea what they were talking about. There is no moral dilemma with torture and it is not a means to an end that we would want.

 

[Quiotu]

And its really great for triggering any PTSD you have.
You know there are enough people who GOT tortured in the USA and else..there are even people who got tortured by the usa or got abducted into 3rd world country and tortured there so that our government can wash its hands and deny anything..


i think it would be nice just to jump over that part-ist just asshole-ish to shock for the shock sake and take the fun people had away and to turn their fun into an full out flashback where they are that tortured or torturing person on the screen and get panic, dissociation or worse.

also, just a trigger warning maybe? So that people with ptsd just not buy this? or make that like the shooting, and free objective where you can choose not to partake-maybe buy someone to do that. (also its really kinda dumb to just torture somebody and then say Eh, I tortured yourself for my boner because I know that torture does shit when its "used" to extract information. if you get electrocuted you just say whatever the torturer wants. you might even sell your grandma to the gestapo just to not get tortured.

mean the USA are so into militarism, veterans and all this shit, so might be in their interest to not fuck the mind of the people they threw into one senseless dumb bullshit war-to not rip pen any wounds which heal badly because the military tends to ignore ptsd-victims. sick system. eh, but its military. you are trained to kill, the heck you need empathy for *shrug*

So you have PTSD, and you're playing GTA V. I think I see the problem... you have REALLY bad judgement.

'This game has really awful people engaged in really violent content that's clearly stated on the box and is part of a series renown worldwide for such violence. I am outraged they didn't warn me!'

No, the problem is you, not the developer. You played a game developed by a team that's constantly pushing the envelope for the content they can show in a video game, and you're shocked that your delicate mental imbalance was impaired by it. Maybe you're playing the wrong games, sunshine. And guess what? This 'outrage' will now sell another 8 million copies because of this shitstorm... this is why most people play the game.

I give you all the respect in the world for your military career and what you did for the country, but if you're PREDISPOSED to taking torture and heavy gunfire bad and THEN play a game known for using those very subjects to get points across... that's dumb. That's borderline sad, and you should feel ashamed for blaming a video game for your terrible choices.

 

[J Tyran]

These people have it wrong, the torture scene is supposed to depict something that happens in real life. Its there to smack you in the face with it and say "this stuff really happens and people suffer like this" to make you feel uncomfortable and shock the player into gaining a small amount of understanding. Any decent person (the majority of the people playing this I like to think) will be horrified, this will provoke discussion and awareness of human rights and suffering.

Amnesty International should be praising this game not condemning it.

dont forget the odd torture flash game that made the rounds last year that was so popular they made a sequel. alot of people get off on this stuff

Can't help that, sick people would find it anyway as they seek material for their perversions all the time. That sounds harsh but as long as they confine their urges to pixels I don't really have a problem though.

 

[wooty]

So its perfectly OK to make 73 Saw movies, which are basically torture centered, but this one scene is BAAAAAAAAAAADD, school kids everywhere will now be pulling teeth and electrocuting peoples nipples in the classroom!!!

Though I must say, I did cringe at the teeth pulling part. Wasn't offended or mortified, just chilled.

 

[Hithlain]

I think the issue here with this is that you have no choice, like at all. You MUST do the things that people tell you to do in missions, and granted you have options about how to do them, but you MUST finish to continue. In other controversial scenes in other games, you had a choice not to participate. Perhaps that is the problem? Shocking games must be shocking in a way that makes you think about your decisions, what you would do in the character's position, and how it affects your real life. Here, the characters are batshit insane and you can't really connect to any of them. You are detached from the scene because you are playing a crazy person doing crazy things and it drains the effectiveness from the message. None of it applies to real life because in real life, you would be more reasonable.

Rockstar makes some of the BEST sandbox games ever and GTA5 is certainly a diamond. But I wouldn't call their writing or choice styles some of the best in the business. And that's perfectly okay!

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

In this topic: Gamers yelling at the group for asking GTA V to be censored without realizing that they are just asking that parents be made more aware of what the game entails. You know, like gamers say parents need to do?

As for the "it's rated M, you should have known better", there is a world of difference between, say, Halo and GTA V, and I'm not just talking graphically. Both rated M, but one is quite a bit worse.

Here's the thing: if you look at the back of a box it does say what is involved in the game. Dark Souls, for example, is rated M for Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, and Violence. You know what that tells me about the content of the game? Very little. How much blood and gore? How much violence? What context for the violence? Is the partial nudity preceding a sex scene that isn't shown, or is it just a woman who happens to not have a top on? You can't tell that from the back of the box.

What this group is asking for is for the ESRB to make parents aware of exactly what is involved in each category. Even just something on the back of the box saying "for more details, please visit ESRB.com" would suffice. But we can't expect every parent to be as savvy as we are about realizing what is involved with the game. For those less aware parents, they should be made aware of the options towards finding out about the content of the game. If the parents screw up at that point, then it is totally on the parents. This group, however, is not being unreasonable. We think it may be foolish to let a preteen/young teen play GTA V, but would a non-gaming parent realize the problem with doing so, or would they just know that their kid really wants this game, and having no problem with violence, buy it for them, without realizing just how much violence there is in the game?

 

[toastdieb]

[T]he characters are batshit insane and you can't really connect to any of them. You are detached from the scene because you are playing a crazy person doing crazy things and it drains the effectiveness from the message.

I disagree. The fact that I was forced into torturing that guy made my skin crawl. I would imagine it would force people to think about the people that actually are doing horrible awful crazy shit like this for results that are, at best, questionable. That would seem to me to actually amplify the message - nothing promotes awareness to horrible things like watching it happen.

 

[LegendaryVKickr]

I don't comment often, as in like, ever. Lurk mostly...But I just gotta say, this is a bit off putting. I've never been a fan of 24. Heck, I freak out when I get my blood drawn. I'm a squeamish wimp. So this is a mission that would likely put me off from playing the game.

Fortunately, I can intentionally fail prompts and skip the mission, since I understand that's a new feature in the game. But it's a bit unsettling.

I guess it unsettles me because it's really disturbing to play as the person doing it, in a prolonged cutscene where you see it all happen as you're doing it. Sure, you murder a lot of people in GTA. but in previous GTA games, murdering Vlad, Ryder, whoever felt good, because they had done things to make you angry. And the majority of kills in the previous games that aren't a villain are largely impersonal. one gunshot to the head, bang.

But a prolonged torture scene I wouldn't wish on even Tenpenny or Dimitri. It's a mission I will opt to skip, if anything to keep my lunch down.

I just hope there's good writing to back this. I understand this was what got it a 7/10 for the Escapist review, I really hope that it's not thrown in for the sake of just being there, like the one where you break into Lifeinvader.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

There's no point in complaining about things like torture in video games these days when television violence is finally catching up.

Game of Thrones anyone?
How about Breaking Bad?
The season première of Sons of Anarchy?

Yeah, this kind of "uproar" is so diluted in this day and age it makes those offended look like massive hypocrites.

 

[Dark Knifer]

They weren't advocating censorship, they just wanted to raise awareness the scene exist. I think in entertainment if there is torture in the product then they usually put a warning on the label (or at least should) for things like torture and rape.

It's always the same; a movie can do it but a game can't, and I'm really not one for the "but games are different because you do it" because I know from years of personal experience that this is not the case.

I've been watching so many movies recently and you are right. Oldboy is getting a remake right now and that had all manner of torture, suggested rape and sexual violence. No particular uproar about that, least not yet. The classification system works, it does not take much to read the box, if it doesn't mention things like torture though then that should be changed however.

The only controversy movies seem to get more of then games is racism for some odd reason.

 

[Nathan Snake]

GTA is always a prime target, simply because GTA has always been a prime target - it was one of the first to gain this sort of notoriety, and it has remained one of the most publicized and profitable franchises in gaming history. Moreover, Rockstar is absolutely unflinching in its satirical portrayal (serious kudos to them for it), and trusts in people's ability to understand what they're getting at. This inevitably leads to a lot of confusion from a lot of people, each with their own interpretations. But then, that's the cost of a free and open society, right? People being free to misconstrue?

Plus, there's that whole $800 million in day one sales (including presales?), and the fact that the series is so well known - a lot of people and organizations will want to ride those coattails any way they can, Amnesty notwithstanding, it seems.

It's sad that human rights organizations have also decided to jump on the anti-video-game bandwagon, considering that there are just as many viable targets in every other popular medium, and, much more importantly, many much more important targets in real life, which they should definitely be focusing on first.

I've had terrible things happen to me in my lifetime, and never once been offended by similar things being portrayed in media or fiction. It's not a personal affront and has nothing to do with any specific individual when that happens. Nobody's so important that all of society needs to devote a minute of silence to them just because.

 

[BlindTom]

The entire questline is a condemnation of human rights violations in the name of "the war on terror"....

SPOILERS AHEAD

You rescue the victim from a branch of the government who are currently torturing him, only to have the branch you are working for instruct Trevor (a complete fucking maniac) to torture him instead. The information provided from the torture scene is vague and multiple lampshades are hung on this fact. Michael- the assasin who acts upon the information- even remarks that he probably "killed a man who didn't deserve it" based on the description given by the victim that contained phrases like "average height, average build." After the scene is over Trevor is instructed to kill the man he has tortured, he instead drives him to the airport, instructing him to live on under the radar since anything else would be becoming a "torture advocate."

Trevor openly admits that he tortured a man because he is a total fucking monster and enjoyed it, not because it was useful or right. If that isn't a condemnation of torture then what is?

Trevor's actions needs more consequences for the game to condemn them properly. Something really bad need to bite the psycho in the ass (like rats), and need to be related to the actions that was taken.

That seems a little like an oversimplified way of interpreting the intention of a piece. In Paradise Lost Lucifer "gets away with it" but we know based on our own judgements that he didn't. That said from what I've played of the game so far it looks like he probably will get his comeuppance. I'm rooting for it even whilst I enjoy playing him, just like you can enjoy the antics of Harry Flashman whilst knowing that he is a cowardly womanising bully who will always get away with it in the end.

 

[makano]

Ah Keith Vaz protecting people from reality as usual.
Do you really think torture don't go on even in the good old US of A? or the UK.
reality hurts don't it.

 

[RicoADF]

Is anybody still wondering why Australia had hangups on SR4 but gave this the ok? Is it because they perceived the relative realism to be less damaging to teenagers than wacky obscenities?

It comes to context, the fact that GTA is a proper narative that's trying to tell a story like breaking bad etc makes it a valid. The fact SR4 is just faffing about (which is fun, I love the game), meant that it didn't have the context to support the fact it "depicts drugs in a positive light". Basically it pushed too far in the whackyness.

 

[DeadRise17]

I'm at the point where I think Rockstar puts more violence into each game, just so people whine about it and GTA gets free marketing.

Great game still.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Glamorising? I think someone misunderstands some of the point of the game.