Killing Gay People Should Not be a Video Game

by Michael Jones · 2009-07-17 15:16:00 UTC
Topics:

Hunter video game

Well, how's this for some Friday disturbia.  A video game Web site in Georgia (the country, not the state) is hosting an online game where a hunter walks around a public park, trying to shoot and kill naked gay men who approach him. If the men get to the hunter before he can bloody their brains?  He gets raped.  Game over.

Nothing like a video game culture that reinforces disgusting stereotypes and plays on people's fears.  And what's worse?  According to Gay Armenia, one of the blogs that first broke the disturbing video game, the site is marketed to children and teenagers.

Wow.  So children in Georgia (and really, anyone who can access the damn Internet) are seeing a hunter shoot gay people, or get anally raped if he fails to kill them.  Actually, let me rephrase that...since this is a video game, anyone who wants can access the site, be the hunter, and shoot gay people.

Find this disgusting?  Contact the site here and let them know this game, known in French as "Prend garde à tes fesses chasseur" should be taken down.  The contact page is in French, but it's still worth registering a massive complaint. This type of "entertainment" should not be tolerated.

And speaking of, it's all the more important to address homophobia in the video game world.  That's why it was so refreshing to see the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) host a panel last week with some of the leading virtual world creators in the world, addressing the role of homophobia in video games and online.  As Justin Cole, one of the staff members at GLAAD who helped organize the panel, told Edge Publications:

After you bash someone online, when you walk out of the house it becomes a little bit easier to do that in real life.

That's exactly what this French game on a Georgian Web site does.  It enables people to virtually act out violence toward LGBT people, and by default, enables them to commit just as serious acts of violence in the real world.  The game should be removed from the Web site.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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