Way back in my days at Crazy Go Nuts University, I had a couple of friends whose study programs were at the intersections of computer science and sociology. Had I not been a starving student, I'd have probably given them gifts such as a subscription to the then-new (and cutting edge) Wired magazine, or perhaps one of the then-hot books on the social and cultural implications of virtual reality or hypertext.
What would I get them now? That's easy. A copy of The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical Essays, a collection of academic papers ruminating on Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto of series of games.
“It is tempting,” goes one of the book's essays, “given the degree to which this world is fleshed out, to consider GTA:SA in the light of Jean Baudrillard's concepts of the hyperreal and the simulacrum…” You'll find other excerpts from the book in the Tech Digest titled Top 10 things you never knew about Grand Theft Auto (because you're not brainy enough) such as:
In both the demonization and celebration of the virtual reality offered through the GTA series, the horror and praise resulting from suburban bodies entering the otherwise impenetrable (segregated) world of gangstas, thugs, hip-hop, and ghettos, and the surrounding discourse of reception, dominant understandings of race, hegemonic rationalization (explanations) of contemporary social inequality, and the advisable methods (policies) needed to address current issues become visible.
and
The Hot Coffee patch makes sexual encounters in the game much more explicit but not any more sensual. Reduced to the stilted rock of the 'joystick', sex is quite literally mechanized. The result of the abrupt breaks with everydayness precipitated by the mechanical nude image is a 'step outside the everyday without actually leaving it: it shocks, it seems brutal, and yet this effect is superficial, pure appearance, leading us back toward the secret of the everyday – dissatisfaction.
Nope, no facile explanations like “blastin' chumps and jackin' cars is fun” here. If you've got a friend or family member with an interest in videogames who's taking life deferral — er, I mean graduate — studies, this might be the gift for him or her.
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