Grand Theft Auto Kills Three, Steals Car - I'm Sorry, Officer. GTA Ate My Brain.
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"The video game industry gave him a cranial menu that popped up in the blink of an eye, in that police station," says Thompson. "And that menu offered him the split-second decision to kill the officers, shoot them in the head, flee in a police car, just as the game itself trained them to do."
After his capture, Moore is reported to have told police, "Life is like a video game. Everybody’s got to die sometime."
Or, quite simply, Grand Theft Auto ate his brain.
That’s right. He played one too many games of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (that edition is mentioned specifically as it contains a mission in which you infiltrate a police station, kill officers, and steal a police vehicle), which hard wired him to act this way. It inspired him to steal a car. It inspired him to resist the police. It inspired him to murder. It inspired him to grab the officers gun and proceed to “reenact” scenes from the game.
And monkeys might fly out of my butt.
Well that was a bit harsh on my part, but let’s be honest here. If a person is obviously unglued from reality, you don’t blame one of their forms of entertainment for causing this disconnect. It’s like blaming a sneeze for the cold.
There is no doubt that movies, television, books, music, comic books, and even video games can influence people. The other day the AFI most memorable movie quotes played on television, showcasing all the little lines of thought and humor that have integrated themselves into our culture.
We all remember kids lighting themselves on fire ala MTV’s Jackass, which came after kids playing with fire ala MTV’s Bevis and Butthead. Jennifer Anniston changed her hair and sent the women of this country to the beauty salons. The swing dancing GAP commercial kick started a swing-dancing craze that lasted for about a month, but it was responsible nonetheless. Books and music change people’s perspectives and can define a generation. You get a nice warning label when you buy a superhero Halloween outfit that says “Does not grant the ability to fly”.
But I guess my point is this. It is one thing to say that our various forms of entertainment can influence our lives in some ways, but it’s another to say that they are solely or mostly responsible for causing us to act in a certain way.
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