Fictional story about violent video game causes real censorship
San Francisco's Art Institute of California administrators confiscated copies of a magazine due to one piece. The offending work was Simone Mitchell's story Homicide, a tale of three black youths who go on A Clockwork Orange-style romp. The big twist ending is that it was all a video game being played by three white boys in the 'burbs. That's a better ending than M. Night Shyamalan's last piece of schlock.
Mitchell, who is black, says, "There are so many stereotypes in games, of African Americans as thugs, for example. Video gamers are exposed to this kind of violence and offensive language all the time and need to think about what they are doing."
Teacher Robert Ovetz (pictured) who protested the censorship was fired. State Senator Leland Yee, who actually wrote California's controversial game law, attacked the school for the censorship and for firing Ovetz.
How can an art school, typically a bastion of free thinking, censor a piece of work? The school even went so far as to not allow a copy of the magazine be kept in the school's library archive. We'd rage and scream, but we've seen Leland Yee in action and we're sure he'll do a perfectly good job. Maybe defending a violent story, about a violent video game, will help Yee finally tie the two things together in his mind. Mitchell's work may have more ripple effects than originally expected.
