Why Super Columbine Massacre should not have been made: A gamer parent’s POV
Recently, there’s been a medium (I won’t say ‘big’ since quite a few people who read my blog won’t know what I’m talking about) hoo-ha about the removal of a game at this year’s Slamdance festival, a part of which is dedicated to the making of independent games, called the Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition.
AÂ few responses to the issue have been floated around and about the blogosphere, including of course the makers main supporters hosting (thanks, AndrewK!)Â the game, Manifesto, who made their thoughts known very eloquently on their site.
The ‘ripple effect’ of their removal is now being felt as other game makers have begun pulling out their titles as well, Boing2 reports, perhaps in protest or simply as an indignant ‘kinship reaction, common in the indie game-making community united by the menace of big business.
Firstly, for the reasons put forth by Manifesto itself and its supporters, I do not think the removal is justified.
As Jonathan Blow of Braid has so articulately put it, games should no longer be treated as mere entertainment and
“… be taken seriously as an art form that can expand the boundaries of human experience.
as they
…can help us to understand situations in a fully-engaged fashion, as participants and co-creators, which the passive media cannot do. As an art form they contain a tremendous power to shift perspective and to heighten wisdom.”
I come from a country that bans for far less. Sanitary napkin advertisements. Walking into government departments in mini-skirts. Children’s books (see numbers 15 and 16). So I know something about oppression, where a discussion of one’s civil liberties (or lack thereof) may be tantamount to treason, so don’t even talk to me about the lack of freedom of expression.
But I will say this, as a parent and a gamer: Super Columbine Massacre should never have been made at all.
Firstly, what kind of deeper understanding can the gamer hope to gain from playing an RPG based on such a tragedy? What boundaries of human experience can be broadened, and what kind of shift in perspective or heightened wisdom can we hope to acquire from playing a game about, say, the holocaust, as Hitler, or as the terrorists who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center? If there are, they escape me and I would love to learn just how I could find entertainment in or become a more learned individual with a larger horizon of understanding from putting myself in the imagined shoes of the perpetrators of such tragedies in a straight up shooter, much less a roleplaying game.
Games like Postal or Grand Theft Auto, while imitating the darker slates of life, have invited criticism, both fair and unjustified. However, these are not interactive portrayals of actual events that deliver entertainment at the expense of those who are STILL suffering from the tragedy.No matter how you spin it, Manifesto, even a cartoon about the massacre will undermine it. Perhaps to some, it may simply leave a bad taste. To others, it is bitter realisation that there are people out there who are willing to turn your pain into their pleasure, and in some cases, profit.
As a parent, it is a challenge guiding our children through the labyrinth of mass media. What games or TV shoes, movies or videos, should our children watch? How long is too long? How violent is too violent? This is a task that is especially difficult for my husband and I, for the fact that we have spent the last 25-30 years of our lives playing computer games. While accepting that it is our responsibility to filter all content our children may come into contact with on a daily basis, it is a slippery slope. One wrong judgment call and the jig is up. Do what we say, not do what we do, or we’ll just have to throw away the XBOX and the TVs to be fair.
We want our children to enjoy what we enjoy, to develop a love for an art form that brought my husband and I together for one, and one that has given me the best eight years of my career as a journalist. Even with the violence and the sex and the gore, we will tolerate it all if we can tell our kids that “this is just pretend.”
And that, Super Columbine Massacre is not.
Perhaps this is the curse of the industry. In the chase for more shock value, more excitement, more controversy to fuel our increasingly jaded, and yet insatiable appetite for entertainment that pushes the limits, we have forgotten that these games are created in an age where the distance between real violence and our children are simply a few keystrokes and clicks away. This assault happens in our homes, right under our noses, so quickly that we just cannot keep up without completely turning off our TV sets and cable modems.
Need it come to this? I, for one, simply cannot imagine a world without video games. Not for me, nor for my children.
I would’ve expected the bigger game companies to take such a distasteful risk. We all understand that real ingenuity in games is hard to come by but tell me: What do independents have if they do not have integrity?
What do you have if not even dignity?
Let the big boys resort to such tactics. You have the freedom to come up with so much more.
For so much less.
Posted in Imperfect Sense, Imperfect Tech
January 9th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Your feelings about the game were spot on. During that time, I read obsessively about the Columbine massacre in all the magazines and news sites. I say obsessively because I needed to know the why and why and why. Because I was a parent, because I had been a teen with not so many friends, because I had been bullied too, because I had worked with teens (hopefully with positive influence) - and most importantly, because I wanted to know if this would ever happen in MY world.
As my kids get older, the excuse that the TV shows only “pretend” stuff doesn’t work any more. They soon realise that the sports shows aren’t pretend, travel shows - that’s not pretend and so on.
I worry that the Winnie the Pooh game that they have now will turn into some bloodsport-shoot’em-up-thing. (I don’t game. Have coordination problems with control pads! All thumbs - or is that all fingers?)
But we can’t always shield our little ones from the world can we? I’m looking to give them the best tools to deal with all that’s out there.
Good luck to you too!
January 10th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Play the game and judge for yourself. I did, and I found out the following:
- It TRIES to be a meaningful approach to the subject.
- It sorely fails at that. It’s a directionless mishmash.
- It is NOT entertaining.
It fails both as a game and as an insightful piece. It’s a pity that this game is becoming the posterchild of games-as-art, because it’s pretty terrible art. But it is great that a game like that could be made. As a comparison, “United 93″ succeeded both as a movie and as a work on the events in that plane.
January 10th, 2007 at 2:52 am
I understand the sentiments that you’re expressing, even though I’m not a parent myself but I think you might be under a few misconceptions about SCMRPG itself.
First off, it wasn’t developed or published by Manifesto Games. IIANM, they’re just hosting the game now as a show of support for the game being dropped by Slamdance.
SCMRPG was originally written by a college student (the now-infamous ‘Columbin’) using RPG Maker and released as freeware, so I’m pretty certain that the last thing he had in mind was making money from the Columbine tragedy. And after looking at some of the screenshots and reading a sypnosis of the game, I doubt that his intention in making the game was to turn tragedy into fodder for entertainment.
‘Columbin’ has stated that he himself was on the same path as Harris and Diebold, but turned a corner thanks to other outlets like film and theater. Making the game was probably his way of trying to relate and understand why they did what they did; not too different from us regular folk who were reading every article and editorial regurgitating the details of the tragedy while trying to wrap our heads around it the sadness of it all.
Add to his statements about SCMRPG being intended as an indictment of the pressure cooker of adolescent life and media hyperbole, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who realized the bitter irony of a tragic event that was ‘blamed’ on a video game, in turn inspiring a video game of its own.
The one point that I might concede that this is not going to be easy on the family members of the victims that were lost in Columbine. But then wouldn’t the same argument been leveled against Michael Moore and Bowling for Columbine?
Which leads to the core debate of the current hoo-ha; that video-games are being judged against a hasher scale of ‘morality’ than other artistic mediums like film and novels. To get video-games to be taken seriously as a form of artistic expression (yes, stop laughing at the back!), then we’ll need to see more games in the ilk of SCMRPG, whether our stomachs can take it or not.
In the film industry, for every Spiderman or Star Wars movie, there’s an ‘Irreversible’, ‘Shortbus’ or ‘9 Songs’. In the comics, for every ‘Archie’ and ‘Garfield’, there’s going to be a ‘Preacher’ or ‘Sin City’. So for the industry to mature, we’re going to have to accept that for every ‘Super Mario’ or ‘Pokemon’ game, there’s going to be a ‘GTA’, ‘Left Behind: Eternal Forces’ or ‘Super Columbine Massacre RPG’.
This Newsweek blog makes this argument better than I could ever hope to: http://ncroal.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=417924
And yeah, all this entertainment overload is going to be hell for parents, but I’d worry more about accidentally switching the channel to a war scene on CNN in front of my future kids than them playing a violent video game that they would need my permission to buy and play in the first place.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:38 am
I’m with Jenn on this one. It’s the equivalent of someone in another part of the world making a game out of 9/11.
It’s simply distasteful, imho.
I’d much rather have my kids accept reality, as it is.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Thanks everyone for their comments!
Hey Andrew - hmm, I wonder who pointed u to my blog
Thanks for the corrections on who wrote the game, but I still think it is one thing to produce dark comics/games/movies, but quite another to translate an actual event into a work of art. If this is the argument to try and ‘forcibly’ bring games to a whole other level for it to be respected as an art form, then it is simply the wrong way to go about it. I have no grouse with games such as Postal or GTA. Are they not doing the job? Does the world really need to play SCM to say, whoa, not all games are for kids?
How SCM differs from Postal or GTA, and how it differs from movies such as Bowling for Columbine or even the Neo-Nazi movies cited by N’gai from Newsweek is this:
1. Neo Ned and movies in the same vein do not put the gamer/moviegoer into the shoes of Hitler. They may at the most be viewed as Nazi-sympathising drama, but they are fictionalised accounts and what-ifs. SCM is lifted from a real event.
2. Bowling for Columbine should not even be compared to SCM. It’s a documentary about gun control. Nobody watching the documentary sympathesizes with the shooters or the environments that made them the way they were.
3. The massacre is about children shooting children. THIS game was created by a child. We as adults are bringing this to a whole other level by publishing it, by marketing it, by entering it into a festival. How can we keep tellings parents to be responsible for what our kids consume, and then glorify such a product and not at the very least be alarmed by it?Â
I would pose this question to these game publishers/supporters of SCM: Would you allow your children to watch real footage of this massacre? If Eric and Dylan had mounted cameras on themselves and filmed the whole event, would you allow your kids to watch the footage?
I don’t see how experiencing this in the form of a game is any different.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Eh, you’ve been letting everyone know about your blog for a while ok?
Yes, I definitely wouldn’t watch the actual footage of the shooting, let alone let my kids watch it.
But what if Hallmark or HBO were to produce a TV movie in the same vein? Yes, I would still have problems letting my kids watch it, and I would have second thoughts tuning in myself, but I wouldn’t give a thought about protesting the making of it (although I would probably make the odd grumble about the exploitative nature of it all). It’s up to the studios to film what they want, and it’s up to the public to vote with their TV sets by turning it off.
Same with SCMRPG. I’ve made a conscious choice not to play it. But I wouldn’t harangue Daniele Ledonne (’Columbin’) for making it. By most accounts, it was a terrible game anyway (heck it was made with RPG Maker, not even Flash!) and he knew no major publisher would touch it with a 6 foot pole, therefore releasing it for free.
And this is why it should be defended; big publishers are now going to be increasingly averse to risk (and not necessarily in terms of violent content). The general public is not going to be as thoughtful as you are in being able to make the distinction between GTA and SCMRPG. Both games are in the same boat as far as public opinion is concerned.
And if it was a choice between having GTA while stomaching SCMRPG, or both vanishing from the face of the earth, I would choose the former. I agree that SCMRPG is a poor candidate for the games-as-art pep rally, but it looks like we’re stuck with it for now.
Btw, I’m probably in the minority of your reader demographic, but do blog more about gaming topics if you can find the time from your parenting schedule. This has been an interesting post.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Wow, so spamming my friends does work!
I thought perhaps the Gohs had something to do with it hehe.
Once in a whilelah. I thought I’d lost all *five* of my gaming readers with my endless spiels about poopy diapers and SAHM angst. This is supposedly a *cringe* mommy blog after all. Can’t have other mommies thinking I’m a bad influence lol.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I’m a high school student who is making a film on this controversy. For this video project, may I quote you from this blog?
January 12th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I really don’t have a problem with scmrpg being excluded from the contest at the git-go. I do however have serious problems with them excluding it since they were the ones who prompted him to enter in the first place.
Using the logic you’re using for the reasons it shouldn’t exist, then no war games in the last 100 years should exist. Nor a slew of movies that explore similar issues, like bowling for columbine for example. Art is art regardless of medium, if you want it to be free you can’t pick and choose to exclude things that offend you from that freedom.
I was heading down the same road as the columbine kids and I can easily understand why they did what they did. Those kids went through a lot of the same things I went through… Some of us just had a parent who gave a shit– they didn’t. Most people can’t understand the rage and hatred being an outcast, being beaten, being abused, and being humiliated can have one someone. I can and do. It leaves life long scars no matter what age you are.
Do I think scmrpg is a quality work? It’s blah, rpgmaker. As a work of art I think it pokes us where it hurts and sometimes thats a good thing… it reminds us we’re human. If it even potentially helped prevent another columbine either by the author or someone who played it, and having played it, i can see where it might, then i wouldn’t mind seeing thousands more games like it published. It’s a free game available on the internet… much like a diary or blog, no one is twisting anyones arm to make them play it. Just like no one goes and forces someone to look at art people find offensive. shrug.
January 12th, 2007 at 9:38 am
VIctoria: Sure.
Shadus: Calling something art does matter if ure entering it into a festival. Content DOES matter if you’re putting it on a worldstage.
As I’ve mentioned in my comments, there is a difference between fictionalised shooters (and RPGs) and re-portrayals of exact events in the shoes of the perpetrators of these events. Even playing a Nazi soldier in Medal of Honor or a terrorist in Counter-Strike is not the same as playing Hitler and Osama or Saddam.
While I believe that Columnbin’s recreation of the events has helped him, there is no empirical evidence that these games, when played, are an effective outlet for individuals such as yourself who’d faced the same challenges. More concerned is the realisation that there are MORE people out there who come in contact with the game who may not require such an outlet. What is the impact of such a game on them?
Interactivity and being able to roleplay is a feature inherent in games that must be used responsibly, even as it is used creatively. If the purpose of this game is to teach, why name it SUPER Columbine Massacre? Why make it an RPG?
If anything, Slamdance’s exclusion of SMC (which again, was something I disagreed with - it IS unfair and unnecessary), although based on business reasons, shows how seriously some take such a game to be, and not the other way around. This is pushing a game created by a child, where children shoot children, plain and simple.
If there is a case ever for mild self-censorship, this is where the line must be drawn. Which brings me to the point of The Dance of the Slippery Slopes. We are ever afraid of the slippery slope of censorship, afraid of allowing even one single example to be strapped down before all manner of oppressive sanctions break loose. On the other side, there is the slippery slope of allowing one single game or movie that goes too far to slip through the cracks, before all manner of improper creativity floods over. It is a shame that the systems in place just cannot distinguish the two. That the people involved are too Goddamned lazy or greedy or incompetent to ensure that freedom of expression and morality, creativity and decency can co-exist.
That is the wrong that we must undo.
January 13th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
LOL U r funny, Jenn.. I did no such broadcast k? hehehe You are ur own advertisment
Andrewk haha u have a godson to look out for now
good training for when u have ur own..
January 15th, 2007 at 4:18 am
> there is no empirical evidence that these games, when
> played, are an effective outlet for individuals such as
> yourself who’d faced the same challenges.
Games like that are a part of the reason I didn’t snap, I made them myself. Photos from the yearbook skinned over doom models. It gave me a place to vent my rage. Hell I even anonymously posted my doom wads to the local bulletin boards at the time (this was prior to the interweb), many of the people featured got a first hand look at how someone felt about them.
> More concerned is the realisation that there are
> MORE people out there who come in contact with
> the game who may not require such an outlet.
> What is the impact of such a game on them?
I would assume that the impact for someone non-emotionally tied to a similar situation would be minimal, much like someone playing a typical rpg or fps, without emotional significance there is no real connection to it… you shrug and move along.
> Interactivity and being able to roleplay is a feature
> inherent in games that must be used responsibly,
> even as it is used creatively. If the purpose of this
> game is to teach, why name it SUPER Columbine
> Massacre? Why make it an RPG?
The name is a play on the genre and the time-frame the game appears to come from, almost anyone interesting in gaming in general during that time period would recognize that… it’s an inside joke and jab at the gaming industry.
The purpose of the game is more so to show you a different perspective and make you THINK, which is different from teaching really.
I disagree with censorship of any kind, control of information is control of the population, see any number of places in the world where the government controls the media for examples of why.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:23 am
> Why make it an RPG?
Whoops, forgot to finish what i was writing.
Because the tool (rpgmaker) is simple to use, doesn’t require advanced programming knowledge or advanced graphical design skills, and a rpg is the second best way to tell an interactive story involving morality. Something akin to myst would be better but the budget and such to do it would be a massive undertaking.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
“I’m with Jenn on this one. It’s the equivalent of someone in another part of the world making a game out of 9/11.
It’s simply distasteful, imho.”
I respectfully disagree, at least with the spirit of this statement. What I mean is, I don’t see anything wrong with making a a work about 9/11 in the medium of ‘games’. What bothers me is how so many people have universally decided that an interactive medium is unacceptable for exploring controversial topics. Setting aside for a moment whether you enjoyed playing SCM (or played it at all), it has as much right to exist as a movie based off Columbine, or a painting, or a piece of music. We have gotten used to particular mediums being used for commentary, but that doesn’t mean they are the only ones. I don’t watch movies only to laugh or be entertained in the joyful way most people mean. Sometimes I go to be moved, or disturbed, to be prodded into thought. As far as how people directly (and I mean directly) involved with Columbine feel about this: it’s sort of a pebble in the water I would imagine…what really happened is so much bigger than some kid making a game as a statement years later (in my opinion).
To offer a strange example of what I’m trying to say, try listen to “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” by Krzysztof Penderecki. It’s music that uses a lot of dissonance (read: not ‘pleasing’ to listen to in a way, look it up). It was composed to give the listener a sense of what it was like in Hiroshima when the bomb fell, not exactly a simple thing to achieve with music I’d say. But the effect is dramatic and disturbing, and I ‘enjoy’ listening to it sometimes…not because of it’s pleasing melodies, but because it makes me feel uncomfortable and forces me to consider a lot of scary stuff that is a part of this world. It would be easier to forget horrible things in the past, but certainly not safer. I was first introduced to this music in college, and I was the only person out of about 80 that didn’t outright hate it and want it off, which frankly disturbed me more than the music.
Maybe that seems off topic, but think about it. This game isn’t about having a great time playing, in fact, part of the point isn’t that everyone needs to play it at all, but it has done a great job of inspiring discussion. Another way I’ve seen a positive result is reading a reviewers take on the game (I can’t recall who) who basically said that when it came time to actually start shooting, he just couldn’t do it. Don’t you find that fascinating? Someone who has undoubtably played dozens of first-person shooters and games with countless murders, probably the infamous GTA as well, but in this game with terrible graphics, and mediocre gameplay he couldn’t pull the trigger?
Maybe people aren’t as apathetic as they seem sometimes. Maybe we are quite well aware of what is reality until that reality comes collapsing down on us because of real life events we can’t handle, like with those kids. The fact that SCM became real enough to that reviewer illicite that sort of reaction out of a veteran ‘gamer’ already tells me it has more than enough reason to exist, whether you like it or not (because it’s frankly, not about any one of you, or me).
As you can probably guess by now, I am appalled that it was removed, and I agree with those pulling out as a result. Did any of you ever consider that if you find it so immediately distasteful that you just aren’t the intended audience? Nothing is for everyone. Maybe you don’t care to explore topics like Columbine anymore or what they say about culture, music, games…but I do, and so do many others.
shanti shanti shanti
January 19th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
As mentioned, I did enjoy games like GTA and Postal and Serious Sam, and still play CS occasionally, so I’m sure I would fall under the demographic, albeit a very small subset. But I draw the line at a game about this event, an event about kids shooting kids. And that is the difference between an adult and a child. We know how to draw those lines. Our kids don’t. Like the reviewer who is unable to pull the trigger, he or she was obviously halted by a strong conscience, a facet that is still developing in children.
I too disagreed with the pulling out of the game based on the reasons given. If it were any other gruesome shooting game, I would blog the other way. Alas, it is not. It takes an obviously more enlightened mind (like yours), and I mean this sincerely, to sit back and digest the plethora of negative emotions SMC may evoke. However, the average gamer will not hesitate to pull the trigger, nor will they try and derive a deeper meaning from the experience. Most will simply consume and move on, taking with them an enjoyment, no matter how perverse, unaware of the long-term effect.Â
For nobody - NOBODY - is able to say for sure what these effects are in the long run and I suspect nobody will ever find out for sure, for every research that is positive there will be rebuttal. What we are fighting for in the end is the right to take a gamble. That would be ok if someone knew what the stakes are.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
“However, the average gamer will not hesitate to pull the trigger, nor will they try and derive a deeper meaning from the experience. Most will simply consume and move on, taking with them an enjoyment, no matter how perverse, unaware of the long-term effect. ”
That’s frankly not fair at all. You DON’T know that, and you are in NO position to make a judgment like that. If you give it to a young gamer, then yes there is a much higher chance of this, especially one that doesn’t know/understand the event that took place. But I don’t know one gamer personally that would treat it so callously. All I’m saying is, we each have a perspective there, but neither of us has the information necessary to judge all gamers like that. That statement actually slightly offended me as a life-long gamer. But that aside, because frankly, that is still not a good argument. Secondly, the argument about how kids will react to it…you are aware all the adult material out there that is available right? Stuff much worse and easier to get to?
You don’t abstain from making adult material because kids MIGHT get a hold of it…that’s where parents come in; and I know parents can’t be there 24/7, but the morality and ethics you instill in your kid are really quite powerful. You can protect them from stupid decisions even when you aren’t there. So sorry, that also doesn’t add to the pile of reasons to pull it.
Here’s the thing about drawing out these kinds of lines. You don’t have to right to for anyone but yourself and your family! You certainly don’t have a right to draw that line for me, and ‘as an adult’, which of us gets to draw that line? Now I agree with you that it isn’t the average mind that will take something positive from this, but one: that’s hardly saying a lot of people won’t (not everyone is a dullard), and two: I’ll keep saying it, it isn’t your place to say that because some people will just shoot away, it must be censored. Huh? That’s a long jump from proving it proposes any kind of harm. This game isn’t going to create a killer. The person it inspires a copycat murder-spree in is the same person that would’ve gotten the idea from old news, a documentary or anywhere else.
Some people are in great positions to say what the effects are long term. This game falls into the SAME category as GTA. The fact that it’s about a real event doesn’t make it ten times more damaging, that’s absurd. You seemed to be arguing that it is morally wrong to create the game (I’m assuming because of the disrespect towards those involved) most of your points seem related to how a ‘violent video game’ could damage people. If you are ok with GTA, then you have no right to use an argument like that at all, stick with the moral high ground.
Ok, I’m done for now. Just a final note though…I hope I wasn’t coming across as snippy or anything, it’s eary for me and I haven’t had any coffee yet…I’m actually really enjoying the debate this topic has stirred as it isn’t simple black and white. It wasn’t easy to decide where I stand on this, but after a lot of consideration, and as someone that is a gamer, game developer, and sometimes artist (not in a pretentious way), I have to look at this issue from the side of the creator of the work. Protecting peoples kids from video games is just off topic for this argument. Cheers!
February 5th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
To devalue any art by proxy of your own moral barometer, to employ intentional censorship, instantaneously discredits any value you perceive to add to the equation and invalidates your connection to all forms and content delivery methods of self expression, be they movies, books, music, or games and more personally to you, your own ‘journalism’.
Citing specifically offensive hotbutton aspects distasteful to you, about the art piece, to skirt duty of objectivity and the application of seemingly parallel arguments, self fulfillingly questioning “who has a ‘right’ to make an accurate nazi game, and what could it possibly contain that noone should be allowed to care about in the first place”, states clearly your intent to pre-label the unconsumed content, as one would judge a book by it’s cover in a snap assessment against something you admit not even desiring to know anything about beyond initial impressions from shock value, gives way to “too offensive for me, therefore for you too” line drawing, as posturing behind notions that any one person must shoulder the burden to screen everyone else’s work for proper exhibition, increasing your circle of influence to what anyone other than your own kin deserve to make or see, in a society where arguing with assumptive closes and simplistic catagorizing, “It’s a game about kids shooting kids, plain and simple”, inhibit thinking beyond the box to the lasting impact of lessons learned, when ascending from pretending the world has no monsters in it, to the stark realization when anything contrary to a jilted delusional slant on actual life events shatters a carefully constructed web of deceit, leaving the affected to pick up the pieces and reconstruct the puzzle from a new parentless angle, as the old pills cease to make scary things never to have existed.
How then, can a person decide what is fair game for communication when none is allowed to take place beyond a murmer of tabooistic shunning and outright denial of the reality, that while tragic events may occur, only sadface retellings can accurately portray the events.
With this attitude why let your children think for even a moment they live in a society or, far bet it, a home that encourages unsanctioned truly free speech? What then, inspires a person to share anything of one’s self, be it the adorably embarrasing moment their friend spilled lunch on them in front of their crush sitting nearby, or even reporting inappropriately lude physical conduct from daily caretakers, as casting an ominmusly fearful shadow of your baseless blanket reprisal on self expression allows it all to take place, behind a beloved veil of prescribed self-denial.
Responsibily consuming content lies strictly in the hands of those who choose to view it. To stifle creation or distrubition of any
artwork, as an individual, can certainly extend beyond yourself, even to those you so strongly wish to effect with your personal views of what is acceptable, such as your own children.
However, be warned, although the indelible cost of sacrificing distasteful art on the altar of judgement may be high, still, a rose colored world where nothing bad happens could be painted on the fertile minds of our youth before they ever have the chance to, as is apparent that you shudder to think, learn to judge for themselves, lest concepts of reality versus fantasy and morality that may not be a carbon copy of your own, come in to play.