Reactionary Men Who Hate Videogames

Not too long ago, a former movie critic from the Niagara Falls Reporter penned a long letter to renown movie critic Roger Ebert explaining why he left the newspaper and what had become of the once prestigious publication. The letter is titled "Reactionary men who fear and hate strong women".

In his letter, the writer Michael Calleri, accused the publication's editor, Frank Parlato, of misogyny. According to the writer, the editor refused to publish his reviews if they were of movies that featured female protagonists, as the editor saw such films like Snow White and the Huntsman as 'emasculating' to men for featuring women in strong lead roles. The editor believed that the it was not a woman's place to take on roles traditionally preserved for men, and regarded such films as being responsible for the 'wussification' of men.

The editor appears to share similar views on videogames, and has since penned a piece damning Ubisoft's upcoming expansion pack for Assassin's Creed 3, The Tyranny of King Washington, as a really bad thing. He accuses it of being the worst of everything he believes is wrong with videogames, and writes:

"Washington symbolizes everything in this nation that is strong and courageous. He could have been king. He could have been president for life. He turned it down because of the same freedom principles he gave our nation.

Now– and this is novel - Americans are going to play at killing the father of our country.

But video game makers are always coming up with novel things."

He drew further comparisons between The Tyranny of King Washington with RapeLay, a niche title that didn't even rise to infamy until Fox News made a big deal out of a game no one had ever heard of.

To conclude his article, Parlato points the finger at videogames for the 'rising violence in America', despite the fact that figures for violence have been steadily decreasing with the rise of both videogames and birth control. But that's a story for another time.

In a separate piece written by one Glenn Gramigna for the Niagara Falls Reporter, Glenn deplores the 'depravity and violence in videogames', headlining the picture with a screenshot from RapeLay. He's penned an unwittingly hilarious, if sadly un-satirical and poorly researched column of videogame descriptions, in which he calls Portal 2 a game in which players compete to use glory holes for masturbation. Read on!

Descriptions of some fun video games:

1. “World of Warcraft. Gamers are driven by Satan to become a “devilwhore.”
2. “Assassin's Creed” Gamers kill popes and politicians to protect thieves and devil worshipers.
3. “Sky Rim” Gamers have sex with people hung upside down while talking with Satan.
4. “Dubstep Guns” Hippie culture, gun violence, and sadism for the flower power generation.
5. “Portal2” Gamers compete to use their penises to create “glory holes” through masturbation.
6. “Dr. Who” A time-traveling pedophile breaks into childrens' rooms to molest them and kill their mothers.
7. “Pokemon” Japanese drug dealers have fun killing everyone.
8. “RapeLay” Gamers rape women and their daughters
9. “Princess Peach's Pool” Gamers see who can ingest the most hallucinogenic drugs.
10. “Carmageddon” Gamers ram pedestrians into steaming piles of bloody flesh. The tagline on the box says: “The racing game for the chemically imbalanced.”
11. Gears of War 2 Gamers slice foes with a chainsaw from the groin upward and use a corpse as a shield.
12. Manhunt Gamers decapitate, steel-object-to-the-brain impaling and jam a sickle up a victim's rectum.
13. Grand Theft Auto III Gamers steal cars, beat people to death and burn prostitutes with flamethrowers.
14. Postal 2 allows gamers to “go postal” with drop-kick grenades, whip scythes killing innocent people, cat carcasses as silencers on guns, hitting people with anthrax-laden cow heads and playing “fetch” with dogs using severed heads of dismembered victims.

You couldn't make this stuff up.