Blast from the Past: FOX News Hates Mass Effect

Alright, so, for the sake of getting some posts up and getting readers engaged, I've been searching around for old works I've done that I'd like to recycle (after all, Oregon is one of the greenest states in the nation... I threw up a bit typing that). One such work is this one, pulled from a group project from last year in which we looked at the notion of censorship in modern Western society. I'll likely pull a couple other posts I made on that blog for this in the coming weeks, but no need to bombard you with old stuff, right?

Keep in mind when reading this that it was written for a professor and a class who very likely hadn't played Mass Effect. Many of you have probably played it or know quite a bit about it, but I'm too lazy to actually go in and change things to accommodate. It's still an interesting piece (I think... biased...) regarding a now half decade old story, since FOX News hasn't really changed and videogames still get stupid amounts of blame for "corrupting our children" from conservative media outlets today.

Anyway, try and enjoy. There's videos!
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In 2007, Bioware released an ambitious role playing videogame titled Mass Effect, which looked to push the envelope on the believable by focusing on character interaction and enabling the player with the power of choice. These choices ranged from the mundane to the extreme, from whether or not you wanted to disconnect a call with your superiors to the life or extinction of an entire species. The plot plays out based on each and every decision the player, as Commander Shepard, makes, whether he even realizes it or not.

The game itself is a 20-50 hour experience, depending (again) on what you decide to explore or not explore. There is the required set of missions that assemble your team and pursue the main plot, then there is a vast amount extra to check out, from exploring new planets, finding artifacts and learning about the game's universe by speaking with teammates after missions, politicians before them or natives during. Needless to say, there is plenty of stuff in this game to keep a player interested, as every interaction varies from the last.

Now, hopefully this all sounds lovely. But what does it have to do with rhetoric in the news? Well, what if I told you that within that 20-50 hour experience of killing bad guys, deciding fates and learning about a wide-ranging fictional universe, there were two-- two-- chances for a 30 second sex scene? And what if I told you that those sex scenes could involve an alien? Or alien lesbians?




These were the scenes that Fox News decided to focus upon in their story regarding the then newly released Mass Effect. To put their emphasis into perspective, each of these possible scenes takes up at most .00000417% of the total time played in one campaign. But it's not Fox News's job to advertise media products; they're simply there to report the news. So here's the report from beginning to end:

Now, there are two audiences to address here: those who haven't played the game but are still interested in what was so wrong about this news story, and those who have played the game and already know what was so wrong about this news story. First, I'd like to address those who have not played the game, so we all know the context of what's being said.

As mentioned, the scenes are thirty seconds long, and there are two possible ones: a quickie with a "Consort" after a mission to save her reputation-- should you go the "renegade" bad boy route-- and a more meaningful experience with one of your squadmates before the game's final, possibly suicidal, mission to an unknown planet in an unexplored system. In addition, your Shepard character can be either a male or a female, and your possible partners vary according to that; for example, the female lead of your squad, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, "doesn't swing that way" if you are a female Shepard. Same goes with Lt. Kaiden Alenko for the male Shepard. In this sense, even though the game revolves around your choices, you aren't a God in a sandbox; your collective minor decisions build up the narrative, and the story progresses accordingly. There is no "want to have sex?" button.

Furthermore, they are possible scenes, in the sense that they are not automatic and require-- you guessed it-- decisions to be made. Getting to one of these scenes requires constant interaction with the character in question, kinda like how getting laid in real life requires constant interaction (most times). It requires a relationship to develop through dialogue, and then there's even more dialogue before and after the scene regarding the relationship your Shepard has with the character in question. Plus, funny enough, your romantic interest could die at a point in the game in which Shepard must decide who to leave with a special tasks group. Didn't see that one coming, did ya romancers?

Actually, how about I stop trying to explain it to you. Here is the ending scene for male Shepard and Ashley Williams, full and uncut (and yet perfectly safe for Youtube). The other possible scenes vary only in their dialogue before and after; the actual animations and "full digital nudity and sex", as described by Fox News, does not change.

There you have it. NSFW? Perhaps, depending on where you work. I'd say watching this at a church's receptionist desk may get you fired, but other than that, it's probably not too much to worry about. I've seen more stimulating stuff in PG-13 movies.

But now that Mass Effect players and non-players are on relatively the same page, I have a bone to pick with Fox News and their choice in rhetoric. And to save myself from ranting, I'd like to hit them in bulletpoints:

• The lead title: " "SE"XBOX? " Witty, sure. But it's already setting up a false interpretation of the game as an interactive porno. This is only fortified by the subtitle: "NEW VIDEO GAME SHOWS FULL DIGITAL NUDITY AND SEX". It's not full digital nudity-- I see no boobs!
• Dr. Cooper as an expert: Sure, she has some informed and important things to say about desensitization. But what she has to say on the game itself is not only misleading, but entirely incorrect. She states that the women in the game are being seen as "objects of desire" and that it's a man deciding "how many women he wants to be with". If an object of desire requires me talking to her for about an hour's worth of playing time for thirty seconds of playing time's worth of sex, then what does that make prostitutes?
• Also, I love how, when Cooper is asked if she's even played the game, her response is "hahahaha nooooo!" Could you imagine this scenario playing out in another story? "Thanks for coming to the program, (name of expert here), and talking with us about the State of the Union. First of all, I'd like to ask: did you watch it?" "Hahahaha nooooo!" Would that expert's opinion even be allowed on air after that?
• The panel: Why were they even brought on? None of them had played the game, or seemed to have any actual knowledge about it besides a briefing beforehand saying "there's sex in this videogame". The first man on the panel calls Mass Effect "Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas". There are so many things wrong with that statement that I can't even... I refuse. Why does he know what Debbie Does Dallas even is, anyway?

There was a glimmer of hope, however, coming from the final man on the panel. He said something I wholeheartedly agree with:

"At the end of the day... it's up to parents to control what their kids are seeing."

Strangely enough, this point was brushed off by the other panelists, giving the equivalent of an argument to "well I can't be a parent ALL the time". The exact point that they were trying to make is lost on me, aside from "this is bad". Should government censor what's allowed in a game? Should the scene be toned down? Why should it get an Adults Only rating instead of Mature? What about the violence in the game or the foul language or the themes of corruption and breaking laws for the greater good? Misinformed or not, I failed to see much of a point to what most of them were saying. Which brings about the question...

What was the point of the story?

Here's my take. I have a pair of grandparents who watch Fox News for hours a day. They have their favorite programs that they record if they aren't there, but most every day, they're watching it live. And during a story, they give their thoughts to anyone who can hear. Lesbians getting married in Connecticut? Grandma says that's terrible and quotes the Bible. Man in custody for a murder? Grandpa says that's terrible and quotes the Bible.

This sort of story is geared towards people like my grandparents, and the rhetoric is based on them. They aren't going to care that the game is a major feat in graphics, narrative and player interaction in the videogame industry. They're going to care, instead, about the degrading of society's values and how, after they die, we're all going to ruin what used to be a nice neighborhood. While appealing to that crowd is Fox News's business model for getting ratings, consider the trickling effect. People like my grandparents have kids who have kids. Or perhaps other viewers are parents themselves. The game now, unjustifiably, has the label of "Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas", and one of these parents' dependents who wanted the game for so much more than a brief glimpse of a pixelated butt (trust me: if he/she wanted something like that, the internet has so much better for so much less effort) may not get to play it based upon a hugely false perception.

It's up to parents to determine what's okay and not okay for their children. But misinformed news stories lead to misinformed parents, and misinformed parents make misinformed decisions. News stations need to get their ratings, but shouldn't news be about an appeal to knowledge rather than emotion?

[Originally posted on March 3rd, 2011]