[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4419-S4421]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VIDEO VIOLENCE AND THE CULTURE OF KILLING
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to address the body today on
another aspect of our culture. I have spoken several times this week
about different aspects of our culture in areas that I think need
desperate reform, which certainly has been highlighted by what took
place in Colorado.
Today, I want to speak of video games. I have examples to show people
in this body and I hope around the country of what is being marketed to
our children, what is being put out there, what they are receiving.
I have kids who are in this age range. My oldest daughter is 12, my
son is 11, and my youngest daughter is 9. They have some exposure to
some of these notions. I rise to address one aspect of our society that
I think demands attention, particularly in the wake of these tragic
events.
Yesterday, I addressed the rise in popularity of music with
hyperviolent, often misogynistic lyrics. More and more kids are tuning
in to music which glorifies and glamorizes violence and viciousness. As
the popularity and profitability of music depicting murder, torture,
and rape grows, the music industry is making a killing off our kids.
The problem is not unique to the music industry. It is found in many
entertainment fields. This coming Tuesday, we will hold a hearing in
the Commerce Committee to examine marketing violence.
Today, I will talk about another equally troubling trend in pop
entertainment, the rising popularity of gory, graphic video games. The
video game industry has received far less attention than television or
movies but is among the fastest growing entertainment media in the
country.
Last year, the video game industry was worth more than $6 billion.
Its profitability is climbing steadily and rapidly. The rise in
profitability is fueled by the rise in popularity of these games. Video
games are being played more often by more people and particularly more
kids.
Even industry executives acknowledge that video games are a growing
part of the cultural landscape. I want to put this in the context of
the cultural landscape. One executive of the industry went so far as to
assert in a recent Wall Street Journal article that:
Games are a primary vehicle for popular culture.
These games are.
As a father with a young son who plays a lot of video games, I can
tell you, they get to spend more time with him a lot of times than
anybody else does, as he plays the video games.
Although many video games are nonviolent, a growing number of
companies are producing and promoting unimaginable gory, interactive
video games. They are gory and they are interactive.
[[Page S4420]]
Consider these few examples. ``Carmaggedon'' is a highly popular
video game put out by Interplay, which debuted a little over a year
ago. The purpose of the game is for the player, who controls a race
car, to mow down as many pedestrians as he possibly can. That is the
purpose of the game, ``Carmaggedon.'' You are in the car mowing down
people. Points are awarded for each pedestrian killed, and the more
gruesome, the better.
Unlike some games where the player aims to kill villains, such as
monsters or aliens, the targets in this game are innocent people. The
game player is no longer cast in the role of vigilante but simply a
cold-blooded killer.
The video game ``Quake,'' put out by Midway Games and ID Software,
the same companies as producers of ``Doom,'' consists of a lone gunman
confronting a variety of monsters. For every kill, he gets points. As
he advances in the game, the weapons he uses grow more powerful and
more gory. He trades in a shotgun for an automatic, and later he gets
to use a chain saw on his enemies. The more skilled the player, the
gorier the weapons he gets to use. Bloodshed is his reward. ``Quake''
sold more than 1.7 million copies its first year out.
Here are some other examples of popular games. I want to show you
some of these ads, because I think they are particularly troubling in
the advertisement that they use. These are ads that were all taken from
a recent gaming magazine, again, aimed at a teenage audience. These are
generally aimed at people under the age of 18. And I can see some of
our interns and pages up front. I rather imagine they will recognize
some of this advertising that I am going to show.
But I want you to look at some. Here is ``Quake.'' Just look how this
is advertised, if you would, Mr. President.
Blowing your friends to pieces with a rocket launcher is
only the beginning . . . .
Sound familiar?
Whether you are in search of the ultimate online frag-fest
or looking for the latest Quake news, information player
ranks, or skins--the Imagine Games Network has it all.
It talks about ``[b]lowing your friends to pieces with a rocket
launcher is only the beginning. . ..'' Unfortunately, does that sound
like a news headline?
Let's look at the next one we have up here. And I want to point out,
before I get to the real graphics of it, it is rated 14. So there is
actually a rating system on video games. So this one is supposed to be
purchased by people under the age of 18. It is rated to do so.
Listen to the title of this one. Look at how this one is advertised
at the very top. ``Kill Your Friends Guilt Free'' is the advertising.
``Kill Your Friends Guilt Free.''
If you consider yourself a fighter kind of surg, Guilty
Gear comes highly recommended. No true fan can be--
This is online here. What else do we have of this one? ``Fighting
games.'' You can see the rest of it, and the gory details. It is rated
for teens. This is rated for kids under the age of 18.
``Kill Your Friends Guilt Free.'' Does that sound horrible?
This is an actual game screen, really. This is of a very popular
game.
It is built on the revolutionary Quake II engine kingpin.
Life of crime. Includes a multiple player gang bang
deathmatch for up to 16 thugs.
I think you can see the blood splattering here at the side in which
different people are blown away.
One other point I want to make about this is that we will have people
testify at our hearing about the desensitization that this does to
people to allow and even empower them to do things to people that are
not even imaginable, but after you spend so much time looking at and
studying the screen and shooting at and blowing up people, the
desensitization process happens.
We will have an expert witness testifying that that allows you to do
things that you would otherwise have an internal mechanism in you
saying, no, you cannot do that; no, you do not do that. But after hour
after hour of the blood and guts, it has a desensitization to it.
These are advertisements.
Look at this one. Look at this one: ``Deploy. Destroy. Then relax
over a cold one.''
``Deploy. Destroy.'' And ``[t]hen relax over a cold one.''
On this one you can see the little teen label. This is marketed and
this is for teens to purchase. They actually are for teens to purchase.
Can you really sit there and say that the consumption of this on and
on and on does not have some impact on a young mind, on a young soul?
``Deploy. Destroy. Then relax over a cold one.''
Look at this one. This one goes further than even death.
Destroying your enemies isn't enough. * * * You must devour
their souls [in this one]. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. As a
result, stalk the shadows of Nosgoth, hunting your vampire
brethren. Impale them with spears, incite them with torches,
down them in water. No matter how you must destroy them, you
must feed on their souls to sustain your quest, the ruin of
your creator, Kain.
[Y]ou must feed on their souls to sustain your quest, the
ruin of your creator, Kain. Dark Gothic story, shift real
time between material and special planes. Morph.
Those are being marketed to our kids.
The video game industry has not only deemed some of these acceptable
for teens and parental consent unnecessary, but they market them to
teens as well.
This may seem over the top, but they are among the more popular games
around. One survey of 900 fourth to eighth graders found that almost
half of the children said their favorite electronic games involved
violence.
Columnist John Leo put it this way:
We are now a society in which the chief form of play for
millions of youngsters is making large numbers of people die.
Hurting and maiming others is the central fun activity in
video games played so addictively by the young. Can it be
that all this constant training in make-believe killing has
no social effects?
One would think that some of these games are so violent that they are
out on the fringe somewhere snubbed by respectable companies, cringing
somewhere in the electronic redlight district. Not so. They are backed
and distributed by some of the biggest names in the business.
GT Interactive distributes ``Quake.'' Sony Corporation is developing
the ``Doom'' game, which so inspired the two young killers in
Littleton, into a movie. They are making this into a movie and are in
the process of negotiating with its own game division's ``Twisted
Metal'' car game, where the object is to mow down innocent pedestrians.
In these games, the goal is death. Success is determined by the body
count. Others' pain is your gain.
Moreover, almost all of these games are sold in toy stores. Reports
indicate that they are typically arranged in alphabetical order, not by
rating or age level.
It seems pretty apparent to me that toy stores are designed to appeal
to children. Children are the targeted audience. Parents do not enter
toy stores to buy toys for themselves. But right there on the shelves
are products that are supposedly unsuitable for children.
Defenders of these games say they are mere fantasy and harmless role-
playing. But is it really the best thing for our children to play the
role of murderous psychopaths? Is it truly harmless to fantasize about
mass murder? Is it?
We need to do better than this. I am not saying that companies do not
have a right to peddle this, but it is not right to make a killing off
peddling violence to our children.
Raising children is a precious duty and a precarious task. It
requires nurturing, sacrifice, and lots of love. But even the most
devoted parents may find it impossible to shield their child from these
images and messages that surround them at school, at the mall, at a
friend's house, through music, TV, movies, and video games. We can no
more shield our children from a polluted culture than we can shield
them from polluted air.
Just as a polluted physical ecosystem is poisoned by several sources,
so our cultural ecosystem has many points of source pollution. And this
is one. We all need to do our part in cleaning up our cultural
ecosystem--or else we shall all be poisoned by it.
Mr. President, I am willing to share these graphics with other
offices for them to look at as well. I simply ask them to look and to
examine and to think as we start to explore more in this area of
cultural renewal and the need for renewal of what we are actually
dealing with today--how do we
[[Page S4421]]
move forward to get to a better and a brighter day, so our children can
live in a culture of life rather than a culture of violence and a
culture of death? What are they receiving today versus what we want
them to receive tomorrow? Can we really sit here and say that these
have no impact on our children? I don't think we can.
I think we need to examine and push, each of us individually, and
start down this line of saying, what is it that is being received? What
sort of cultural pollution is getting to our children, and how do we
improve that ecosystem? How do we get it renewed?
We can, and we have to start about this task, not by a series of
censorship but first by knowledge and, by that, spreading and getting
away from a culture of doom and death to a culture of life.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed
to proceed for up to 12 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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