Are videogames protected by the First Amendment? No, accoridn gto U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. In April, Limbaugh upheld a St. Louis law that made it illegal to sell violent or sexually explicit videogames to people under 17 without first obtaining parental consent.
Limbaugh went well beyond simply saying that the state had an interest in keeping minors away from violent or sexually explicit imagery, however, and argued instead that such video games are not Constitutionally protected speech. In his decision, Limbaugh wrote,
[There is] no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures.
This contradicts a ruling in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit which ruled in a similar case that video games are indeed a protected form of speech.
Writing in Salon.Com, Wagner James Au blames the video game industry itself in part for this backward decision. According to Au, the video game industry produces such dreck, that it provides ample ammunition for people such as Limbaugh. According to Au,
The pit is, we can name only a few more [games that contain consequential expressions]. Because, as it happens, Limbaugh is pretty much right that most speech in games really is inconsequential, with characters and plots that are largely an artificat of marekting, more than anything else, derived from the shuffling about of recycled archetypes with the necessary Q-rating. (In this game, you’re a warrior/wizard/officer/king/commander, and you’re the only one who can stop/escape/surpass/overrun/destroy an evil race/army/mysterious/monstrous horde/dictator that threatens yourself/society/kingdom/planet/entire known universe).
Au indicts the videogame industry for not producing more game like “The Sims.” I love “The Sims” and games like it, but Au’s obnoxious argument against the standard archetypes of most video and computer games is far off the mark.
The fanatsy of being a lone individual who is the only person who can prevent a disaster that threatens the milieu in which the character resides is a powerful and important fantasy that is present in a lot of lousy art. It is present in everything from Westerns to Star Wars to lousy pulp fiction such as Doc Savage.
Rather than denigrate it, Au would be better off trying to understand its appeal and its importance. Most people have fantasies of being able to make a real difference in the world, but most peopole do not have a chance to actualize those fantasies. We can’t all be soldiers storming the beach at Normandy or firefighters rushing in to try to save people from the World Trade Center. But videogames, much like escapist entertainment throuhgout history, allows us to experience that in the comfort of our own homes (or video arcade).
Au and Limbaugh’s argument against games such as Resident Evil is no different than the longrunning criticism of another long suffering pop art form, the comic book (in fact Au’s complaints read eerily like somebody put anti-comic book arguments from the 1950s into a time machine set for 50 years later).
Pointless click ‘n kill videogames are free speech — and they are damn fine entertainment that fulfills an important human fantasy/dream.
Source:
Playing games with free speech. Wagner James Au, Salon.Com, May 6, 2002.
