Posted by Devin de Gruyl on Sep 25th, 2008
From the “What Took Them So Long?” Dep’t.:
Jack Thompson, everyone’s favorite Florida ambulance chaser who’s made it his personal crusade to rid the world of “violent” video games (which, based on his personal definitions of “violence” could be fudged to include just about every video game on the planet, past and present), is out of business. A ruling was made today by the Florida District Court that effectively gives the firebrand lawyer thirty days to get his affairs in order for his clients and find some other way to make a living - preferably one that doesn’t involve blaming all the evils of the world on the likes of Grand Theft Auto or Counter-Strike.
Thompson, of course, was one of the loudest media voices protesting against what he termed “murder simulators” in the wake of school-shooting incidents such as Columbine and the like. Fox News even had him on-hand as a self-styled “expert” on the subject of school violence whenever the subject would come up in the 24-hour news cycle. “In every school shooting,” said he at one point, “we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers,” and to him that seems to be enough to use broad brush strokes to paint all of us gamers as potential mass murderers. Doesn’t matter if there were any other possible reasons for it; bad parenting, environmental influences, just plain broken minds. They played video games, ergo the video games caused it. In Jackworld, it’s as simple as that.
In this regard Thompson is absolutely no different than Dr. Frederic Wertham, who over a half-century ago tried to sell America on the notion that comic books were leading their children to ruination with his infamous tract Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham’s conclusions were based on similarly shoddy research and his book is pretty laughable today, but in the comparitively more innocent 1950s it caused enough solid waste material to hit the orbital air circulator that the comics industry created the self-regulatory Comics Code Authority to lay down specific content guidelines. I suspect Thompson, with his anti-gaming rhetoric and vitriol, was trying to hit those same nevres with Ma and Pa American, not realizing that it’s now the 21st Century and such tactics are fairly easily exposed for what they are.
I guess someone should have reminded him that, once the initial furor over Wertham’s book had died down and the Comics Code became accepted, nobody took Wertham himself as much more than a joke… one that had long since lost any semblence of being funny.
For his part, Thompson plans to appeal the ruling - he does have that right. However, given that at one point during these proceedings he referred to the judge hearing his case as, and I’m just quoting here, “unhinged” and a “raving wild woman,” I don’t suspect he’ll enjoy much success with such an appeal. And even if he does, one can only hope his antics have finally made non-gamers realize how unhinged and irrational he is. He’s really starting to remind me of the infamous Senator Joseph P. McCarthy, who in the early ’50s (there’s that decade again!) had America legitimately believing that the “Red Menace” was anywhere and everywhere, from the halls of power to the hills of Hollywood to even your next-door neighbor… until it became clear he was a grandstanding lunatic with a misplaced sense of his own importance.
Even if Thompson, by some quirk of fate, does win his appeal, it’s pretty clear his time of being “relevant” has come and gone. And that can only be considered Good News for gamers, who can now look forward to a future without a screwball attorney from Florida forever hovering over their head like some self-important cloud of doom.
On the other hand… without Jack Thompson to kick around anymore, who will us gamers be able to turn to in the future as a manifestation of all that is evil in the world?
Posted in games, opinon
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Shawn M.
September 26, 2008 at 2:43 am
On the other hand… without Jack Thompson to kick around anymore, who will us gamers be able to turn to in the future as a manifestation of all that is evil in the world?
I’m sure there will be somebody to rise up to take his place. Lunatic attorneys are like the Sith, after all… just when you think they’re under control, they kill all the younglings and build a damn Death Star.
[Reply]
Richard Pulfer
September 30, 2008 at 10:48 am
Comparing Jack Thompson to Frederic Wertham gives JT way too much credit in my opinion. I think Frederic Wertham honestly thought the comic book industry was a harmful influence on kids (especially in the offset of violent WWII productions like Vault of Horror, Crime Magazine and Tales from the Crypt). And while you can draw the same parallel to Jack Thompson in the wake of violent video games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt, one striking difference remains: BIG FAT $$$$
The video game industry is getting to be more profitable than Hollywood. I think it’s pretty clear where JT’s aim was - on the pocketbooks of the gaming industry. The mental state of gamers were just fodder for his closing arguments.
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