The innocence of Parents

[smileyeagle1021]

They'd be all "As long as there's no nudity!" So, nudity is therefore somehow 'worse' than shooting civilians?

Ah yes, I remember an argument between my mom and grandma on exactly this... mom was adament that I knew the difference between reality and fiction and that violent media wasn't going to make me violent, but nudity would turn me into a pervert... to which my grandma replied "if he really wants to see someone naked, he can look in the mirror. He knows what skin looks like, and will continue to know what skin looks like either way, he's never seen someone bleed to death from a gunshot wound though, and pray that he never does!"
Yeah, grandma was a trauma nurse for over 30 years, and a point that she insisted on making any time we watched a movie with violence in it "people don't die like that, they don't just drop without a noise..." and then would tell me a story about working in trauma... yeah, I never wanted to see that first hand.

[DaDairyDruid]

memory f the episode of South Park. where Butters has a ninja star in his eye, covered in dog piss, and the parents are more paniced that cartman was walking around naked and some little girl might have seen his penis

[Sulhythal]

There's a whole underlying issue here, in all forms of media and probably thinking in general, that sex is somehow "Worse" than violence. It's not just in games or movies and I am rather puzzled by it, honestly. I have a couple theories on where the idea has come from, but I won't go into them here.

As for gaming, I've been playing games since I was old enough to grip a controller, and my niece and nephew are the same, or technically earlier since I used to let them "help" me play Plants Vs Zombies. I am firmly in the camp of "every game is educational" and "it's the responsibility of the parental unit to decide what is appropriate for their child"

[Chromatix]

I recently read Aldous Huxley's lesser-known novel "Island". It's basically a fictionalised description of traditional Balinese society - and it is so completely opposite to the American ideal that it's worth reading for that reason alone. As a minor spoiler - it describes a Utopia (unlike Brave New World which describes a dystopia) which is eventually torn apart not from within, but from without.

[Lace Neil Singer]

This topic reminds me of the furore over Janet Jackson's nipple... all these parents who probably quite happily let their kids watch violent movies, but if there's a naked breast anywhere, get the torches and pitchforks out!

[RootedPhoenix]

I stay away from sex and violence, myself. Even so, I'm also befuddled by the idea that violence is worse. Depending on presentation and context...oh I don't know. But the idea makes me puzzled.

I'd be the mean mom who insists on knowing about everything my kids played. I don't like the idea of games as babysitters. I'm their mom, not the console or computer.

[emax4]

Sometimes it doesn't have to be a game. According to a "True Story" in The City by Derf, it was only a matter of time before kids started putting their Tickle Me Elmos on their naughty bits...

[Sapphire Silk]

Back in the 8-bit NES days games just weren't graphically advanced enough to pose a serious problem. It was in the early 1990s when that changed thanks to a game called Mortal Kombat. The intense violence of the game is part of what led to the creation of the ESRB, which assigns ratings to all games now.

There's a scene in Wing Commander 2 where you talk to your (female) boss who is nude. You don't see any actual breasts, just bare shoulders. It pops up and disappeared quick after a particular mission. Quite startling when I saw it.

[HotelMinion]

Really, I think parents see video games as a way to get their kids out of their hair, so they can have some peace and quiet themselves. So video games = good in their minds. I play a few games myself, and once me and my younger brother rented out a solid snake game. I always liked snake so I thought it the R rating meant blood. But at the end of the game, snake peeps at this buxo m blonde changing her clothes and gets all horny and they roll around in a, lets just say, non combatant way. Awkward!

[Estil]

What always baffles me are parents who have no problem buying junior the most violent games around but then freak the heck out at even the SLIGHTEST bit of nudity in a game.

Roger Ebert felt pretty much the same way about movie ratings. That is, he couldn't believe how much violence you can get away with and get only a PG-13, but just showing a tit for a few seconds or dropping an f-bomb or two is pretty much an automatic R.

In fact (to give a few examples) I believe the original uncut Robocop (which you can now easily get on DVD/Blu-Ray) is the only X rated movie to be so because of graphic violence (which had to be trimmed down for its theatrical release so it could get an R) and didn't have any sexual content and only for a couple seconds (if that) showed a boob (in a cop locker room setting). Black Hawk Down and The Omen are (to date) the most graphic movies I've ever seen (and The Omen is one you most definitely do not want to see right before bedtime!) yet both only got R's. Again, if there's now tits or not too many f-words no biggie right?

So you're not alone in this regard. Not by a long shot.

[Shalom]

In fact (to give a few examples) I believe the original uncut Robocop (which you can now easily get on DVD/Blu-Ray) is the only X rated movie to be so because of graphic violence (which had to be trimmed down for its theatrical release so it could get an R)

There were a couple others. I'm pretty sure "A Clockwork Orange" was rated X for violence, not sex (although it had that as well). They got it changed to R on appeal.

[Hawaiian Eskimo]

Isn't the step above R on the movie rating scale NC-17? That's the highest the MPAA will give you, an "X" rating is completely voluntary on the part of the publisher IIRC.

[manybellsdown]

Roger Ebert felt pretty much the same way about movie ratings. That is, he couldn't believe how much violence you can get away with and get only a PG-13, but just showing a tit for a few seconds or dropping an f-bomb or two is pretty much an automatic R.

In fact (to give a few examples) I believe the original uncut Robocop (which you can now easily get on DVD/Blu-Ray) is the only X rated movie to be so because of graphic violence (which had to be trimmed down for its theatrical release so it could get an R) and didn't have any sexual content and only for a couple seconds (if that) showed a boob (in a cop locker room setting). Black Hawk Down and The Omen are (to date) the most graphic movies I've ever seen (and The Omen is one you most definitely do not want to see right before bedtime!) yet both only got R's. Again, if there's now tits or not too many f-words no biggie right?

So you're not alone in this regard. Not by a long shot.

Did you see Casino Royale? PG-13. No topless Bond girls in that movie. Of course, a naked Bond gets his whipped with a rope, but hey, there's no boobs!

[sstabeler]

Isn't the step above R on the movie rating scale NC-17? That's the highest the MPAA will give you, an "X" rating is completely voluntary on the part of the publisher IIRC.

X IS NC-17, from before 1990. It was changed because the X rating was never trademarked. (it used to be used for non-porn that had adult content. Unfortuntely, because it wasn't trademarked, porn fims started using it, resulting in the association of the X rating with porn. The MPAA decided to introduce a rating to distingish the porn from the merely adult, so introduced NC-17. Of course, the same places that refused to sell -rated films also banned NC-17, so...