In the past few weeks I have played both Saints Row IV and Grand Theft Auto V. Numerical markers aside these games have a lot in common. Both of them involve crime (and lots of it), both build characters based on horrible stereotypes, both drip sexism, and both a super violent. But I couldn’t play much of Saints Row IV, it was just too problematic for me. It made me mad. Grand Theft Auto V was another story. I love this game even with it’s racism, sexism, misogyny, and general disregard for the law. It reminds me so much of the Blaxploitation films of the 90s (and their predecessors in the 70s, but most of you won’t be old enough to remember those). Let’s start by recognizing that blaxploitation films are not wholly positive things…they are of an age. An age where these were just about the only chance that Black folks had to see themselves on screen and they were the chance for Black film makers to present cultural critique to a wider audience. Through films like Boyz N the Hood (John Singleton, 1991) we were given a peek into the lives of young Black people in South Central L.A. and through this lens we are able to critique teen pregnancy/motherhood, sexuality, drug culture, professional sports, and a number of other problematic issues that dominate(d) life in the inner city. For those of us who recognized it for what it was it was an awesome thing.
Last week when I popped in GTAV, got to the narrative of Franklin, and the music kicked in I entered my own personal TARDIS…I was transported back 22 years to the first time that a socially conscious 22 year old Black woman say John Singleton’s film in the theater and was brought to tears, not by the fate of the characters on the screen, but because of what the represented for young Black folks in America. Life as tools in a drug war, tools of professional and college sports, tools of the of the oppressor in short. There I saw the way that others saw me, regardless of what I actually was. And now as I am of advanced age and cranky mind I watch the same film and still see myself reflected in the film. No longer as the young folks on the screen, but now as Furious Styles. A socially conscious adult that works hard to try to drop some knowledge on the young folks….if you haven’t seen Boyz in the Hood yet go and watch it now…as soon as you finish reading this post.
But I digress, back to GTAV. I know that a lot of people found the language over the top in this game. And it was, but it felt right for the genre. Add in a soundtrack that includes Old Skool N.W.A., Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre and it’s like playing the Singleton film. It was like my original experience on steroid. I cursed at the screen, threatened pixelated criminals and pedestrians, and had a fucking blast. And then I left my culturally aware bubble and started listening to what other people said about the game. Not everyone “read” this game in the way that I did. I heard stuff like “As a White person I just don’t understand that culture.” (as if this was a window into “Black culture” and “This game made me feel so White” (again as if this really was some monolithic Black experience). Damn! Why did they have to go and ruin shit for me like that? Are we still at a point, decades after Boyz in the Hood, where mainstream culture sees Black folks as sociopathic, hypersexualized, ignorant criminals? And then I asked myself the question…am I being overly optimistic to think that these other folks were wrong in their view of what the game developers intended to portray and that I was actually right? I am usually the pessimistic one, why is it now that I want to think that something good can come out of a game about characters with no redeeming value? Does any of that matter if the point gets lost?
If a socially conscious game falls in the forest and nobody hears it for what it actually is does it make a sound?
