Like my brother, I am too a great fan of Spider-Man (and super-heroes in general); so I decided that I would sit in for while and watch him play his new game. Now here this brings me to the point of today's blog post.
One of the levels within game is set in a psychiatric hospital called the 'Beloit Psychiatric Hospital', and here Spider-Man comes to find a patient, Dr Connors, and release him. The game level starts, and Spider-Man sets out to open Dr Connors ward, however, a security guard accidentally ends up opening all of the wards and releasing all of the patients. The level progresses to where the patients are 'subdued' by Spider-Man; the game-player can beat the living snot out of the patients. I find this absolutely disgusting.
Here below are some screen-shots taken from a video walk-through of the game.
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| YouTube Screen-shot from a walk-through of The ASM; game-player/Spider-Man beats up psychiatric patient. |
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| Another YouTube Screen-shot from a walk-through of The ASM. |
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| And another YouTube Screen-shot. |
As I watched my brother playing this game I was feeling horrified, disgusted and distressed. I understand the structures and features of games that fall into this genre; you have 'enemies' and the objective is to defeat them, but to make these 'enemies' psychiatric patients (who can be quite vulnerable) is sickening. Also, depending on which format the game is in, you can also earn achievements - so does that mean that you're being rewarded for punching and kicking psychiatric patients?
The game itself also seems to depict the patients as violent, and makes many other prejudicial and misinformed statements about those that have mental illnesses. Those who suffer with mental illnesses are more likely to be a victim of violence. I have no idea what the game makers/developers were thinking at the time, but they have been unbelievably insensitive and offensive. It's also quite hard to think that the developers at Beenox, or the publishers at Activision have not once appeared to think or consider the ethics within this game.
Now, I think this game is going to be popular - it's Spider-Man - and so there are going to be a relatively large amount of people that are going to be playing this game. There may be some game-players who know the myths and the facts on mental health - and may see the point I'm making here, but there's also the case of having those that don't and this game adds fuel to the fire of prejudice. In one way or another someone could end getting hurt by this.
BMNM.
I know it's been about year and a half since you wrote this, but I just had to say how glad I am that you did. I just got this game for Christmas and, as someone with mental health issues, I found this level not only personally offensive, but--I feel stupid saying this--it actually kinda hurt, using my favorite superhero to beat up on people like me. I wondered why people hadn't talked about it, and worried I was the only person who cared, but then I found this blog entry and now a little of my faith in people has been restored.
ReplyDeleteI think this level was intended to be the game's answer to Batman: Arkham Asylum, but the developers didn't realize (or care) that Arkham is stated as being specifically for the "Criminally Insane," giving a reason for their inclination towards violence. And the worst part is, because so few people have talked about it, Beenox and Activision probably think it's okay and won't hesitate to do it again if the opportunity arises. I hate that.
I'm glad you mentioned Arkham, because this post (as well as the later ones about the 'mental patient' costumes and Thorpe Park's Asylum reminded me of Arkham, and the Batman mythos in general. There are actually collectibles in the game where you collect recordings of sessions with the patients, where the doctors discuss in some detail what mental health problems the villains have. In-game, in Asylum anyway (I've played none of the games, but I watched the playthrough the of first one) most of the enemies are actually standard thugs (there's a small plot point where the Joker says he engineered a fire at Blackgate, Gotham's prison for non-'criminally insane' bad guys in order to get his thugs transferred to Arkham). However the boss bad guys, both in this game, and in the Batman mythos, ARE stated to be considered mentally ill and 'insane'. Obviously, the Batman canon is playing off the horror trope here, fitting in with it's Gothic theme. I think if we were to talk of media portrayal of mental illness, the Batman mythos is quite a big part of it.
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