A Video Review: Sex, Murder and Video Games
A review by Frank Baker

The Minneapolis-based National Institute for Media & The Family has produced a new video called " Sex, Murder and Video Games."  The video, like others produced by NIMF, has been made as a way to make audiences aware of the topic and to generate discussions about the issues addressed.

If you have not seen some of the current video games addressed in "Sex, Murder and Video Games," the images will come as a shock.
And perhaps shock is the intended purpose. Parents, educators and policy makers might be disgusted enough by the images to take some action, but the video does not encourage this. There is no "call to action."


(The video includes a warning that the images are not appropriate for those under age 18). 

The video begins with a quote: "who ever tells the stories, defines the culture," and the quote is attributed to Dr. David Walsh, President and CEO of the National Institute for Media and the Family.  In fact, Walsh is the narrator and on-screen guide through the world of videogame history, development and impact.


Next we see actual images and sounds of two scenes from the video game "Duke Nukem." The words "Duke Nukem" are superimposed at the bottom of the screen along with the letter "M," which is not identified, but assumed to be the video game rating intended to be used by buyers as a guide.

Without accompanying narration, viewers see the video game as if they were watching it on a computer screen. We hear audio from the game: an off screen male voice says "shake it baby," as we see a scantily clad woman tied to a pole, and a gun protruding from the bottom of the screen. The gun blasts the woman away. The next scene, also from the same game, is another woman in similar fashion. This time we hear her say "kill me," and again a gun blasts her way.

"Sex, Murder and Videogames" offers the viewers an enormous number of statistics, all about the impact of video games on young people. (Unfortunately, the producers omitted the source for all of this information. The data, which apparently originates from recent research, while helpful in understanding the issues, would have been more useful to this reviewer if it had been attributed.)  If the research was conducted by NIMF, it might have been helpful to interject a soundbite from the researchers.

For example, the first on-screen graphic states: " In 1998, 5% of parents had heard of Duke Nukem," which is followed by "More than 80% of junior high school students were familiar with the game."  While I find this information interesting, I'm left asking:
    -   who reported this data and when ?
    -   was this research undertaken by NIMF?
    -   who funded the research?
    -   how many parents were surveyed?
    -   is the survey reliable?
    -  does it truly reflect ALL parents in the US?
   -   how many students were surveyed?
   -   what does the word 'familiar" mean? 

We don't know, we are left to assume this kind of data is reliable and believable.


The remainder of this video, which is 16+ minutes in length, features Dr. Walsh posing questions to the audience, before showing similar scenes from various video games. Again, the scenes used are graphic in nature and involve kicking, shooting, sexual behavior, beheading and body dismemberment. Walsh opins: "it is unconscionable that major game makers portray extreme violence toward women as entertainment."

I wished the producers had attempted to interview a representative of the Federal Trade Commission, or a video game manufacturer spokesman, or some of the youth, primarily young boys, who are attracted to these kinds of games. But no effort is made to do so. Similarly, we don't see the ramification of illegal purchases of these games from stores, despite the game industry warning system.  Additionally, we don't hear any data about the profits made by these companies from these games. A key component of media education is thus left out: that all media are businesses, interested only in profits.

And at the conclusion of the video, Walsh warns parents "if you thought that Sesame Street taught your four-year-old something, you'd better believe that video games are teaching your fourteen-year-old something."  But four-year-old's brains are much different than 14-year-old's brains, and comparing the viewing of a TV show to a video game is an unfair comparison, in the mind of this reviewer.