Idiot Parade

Unlike most kids, I didn’t grow up with video games. I never owned a Nintendo or a Sega, and the closest I ever got to gaming was playing Dr. Mario on my daycare’s Super NES. My parents didn’t allow or approve of them (at least, that was and is still my impression), so when I reached high school, I was amazed that a person could get so involved in pushing buttons.

Cut to my relationship with J. He is an avid gamer. We host LAN parties. Midnight release of Halo 3: ODST? We were there. He owns and loves some of the most popular first person shooters (I didn’t know what that meant until I started dating him), as well as classics like Starcraft. I generally keep my position as observer and cheerleader, because I don’t have patience to learn all the controls. I dabble in Gears of War (Lancer with a chainsaw attachment! OMFGWTFBBQ!) and I enjoy Rockband, especially now that we have some Maroon 5 and Queen downloads. But the Tom Clancy stuff, the Halo saga….I just didn’t get it.

Last week, J picked up a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He’s been playing it pretty nonstop, except when I make him go to work, eat, go to the bathroom, shower me with love and affection, etc. And at first, the game was, at best, obnoxious. I tired playing the first one, see, and there’s this training mission you have to do. And the Captain kept yelling at me to go faster. I don’t do well when people are yelling at me, so to complete the mission at all, we had to mute the TV. Yeah. I’m that pathetic. It’s okay, take a moment to scoff and contemplate exactly how big of a weenie I am. I’ll wait.

Anyway. When J brought home MW2, I was expecting more loud noises, and people yelling in British accents, and exploding, and J cursing “Ivan sonsabitches!” every time an enemy killed him. On those points, I was dead on. What I didn’t expect was that I would get sucked into the story line. Parts of this game have made me cry. I got attached to characters. I’m emotionally involved, and that rarely happens when I watch films, forget video games. But there’s a real, honest-to-god plot. A good one. One with twists and turns and surprises that left both out mouths hanging open. I want Modern Warfare novels. Now, if you please.

And then there’re the visuals. I have never seen a game so lifelike. Each enemy dies in a different way, even if they’re shot in the same place. Two head wounds will collapse differently. A shot to the chest and a shot to the back? Completely different. Just like reality. When you’re in Russia, the bullets make the snow puff up. Crawling on your stomach, next to a boulder, you can see every shadow and discoloration and crack in that rock. The attention to detail is mind boggling. There are trained attack dogs, and you have to break their necks, otherwise you’ll get mauled. I can’t watch when J does that, because it looks too effing real.

Have I mentioned the score? The pretty background music composed by…who was that again? Oh yeah. Hans FREAKING Zimmer. The guy who did Dark Knight and Gladiator (and Cool Runnings! Anyone else remember that movie?? We are the Jamaican bobsled team!). Ooh, and the VO actors? Kevin McKidd of Journeyman and Grey’s Anatomy fame, Keith David, who has apparently had a cameo on every show ever, and….50 Cent? What? The rapper, 50 Cent, he provides voices for all the extra bits not attached to the main campaign. I was surprised, too.

I know there’s still a lot of controversy about war based video games, whether or not they make kids psycho-killers, blahdeblahdeblah. I’ll tackle that issue another time (or simply refer you to Penn and Teller’s BS episode regarding that debate), but it’s safe to say that this game is definitely not meant for someone not yet in high school. I would maintain the most first person shooters aren’t, but the violence doesn’t take away from how masterful Modern Warfare 2 is. It’s a collaboration of all forms of fine art, and I think it should be recognized as art in its own right.

Needless to say, as soon as J beats it on Veteran level, I’ll be trying it on Normal. Possibly easy. Depends on how many characters are yelling at me.

A few weeks ago, I came to the conclusion that I needed to grow up a bit and let go of a couple grudges that I’d been carrying around.

I was friends with a girl at my junior college. We were very close, almost best friends, but I made the mistake of dating a guy that she was interested in. It hurt her much more than I thought it would, and she wrote me off the second I told her about the relationship. That was about a year and a half ago.

Then there was the issue of J’s most recent ex. She openly disliked and distrusted me. I showed her a fondness only occasionally, and usually with an agenda of simply trying to keep the peace. I took offense to some of her actions and was very much threatened by her role in J’s past. In short, there was never any love lost between us. But quite a few months have passed since that drama was active, and we have many mutual friends.

I sent brief notes to both women, similar in form. I’m sorry I hurt you. That was never intended. Time has passed. I hope we can be friends. Obviously they were more detailed and certainly more heartfelt, that’s the essence of what I wanted to communicate.

There was a small correspondence with the first, essentially saying that she couldn’t trust me and was completely indifferent to me…though the tone implied stronger feelings than ‘indifference’. I saw quickly that there was nothing to salvage, so I left it at that.

Nothing from the second. It appeared as though she had deleted her facebook, but she simply made it unsearchable, so no one outside of her friends list can contact her. I’m going to pretend that her recent decision to go off the map had nothing to do with her attitude towards me.

My personality is one that thrives on closure and resolving conflicts. I like the healing and the starting over, and it is extremely difficult for me to cut anyone out of my life. So, of course, it hurts very deeply when I try to reach out to someone and make amends, only to be greeted by more hostility. At this point, there’s nothing more I can do. If anyone has gone through similar experiences, though, I would appreciate advice on how to keep myself from internalizing everything.

Something really needs to be said about this whole gay trend.

If you’re gay, you’re a person. Lesbian? Still a person. Bisexual, Transgendered, Transvestite, or Straight. All people. Samey-samey.

So, tell me, why do we need to find undertones in classic literature that points to a character’s or author’s homosexuality? And, look, I’m not talking about Oscar Wilde, okay? That right there is pretty obvious. I’m talking Rip van Winkle. Or Batman (Batman is totally a classic, don’t judge). Screw homosexuality, what about sexuality? Last quarter, a young character in a book we were reading fell out of a tree and got mud on her underwear. My professor informed us that her muddy bottom symbolized her sexuality. I’m sorry, I thought that a ten-year-old getting dirty meant that….she was acting like a ten-year-old and making more laundry for her mother…because that’s what they do.

Today, I maintained that Robin (the first, aka Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing), Batman’s sidekick was not meant to be homosexual. That the relationships between Batman and all five Robins was one of parental….sometimes affection. Often annoyance. The tight clothing? All superheroes wear that. Because baggy shirts and pants might get caught on something. Like the villain. Not very productive when fighting crime. Also, not a sign of wanting to have sex with someone who has the same type of junk.

A gay superhero might be….oh, right. Silhouette. The lesbian from Watchmen. She was gay. How do I know this? Because the author said so. In the book. And she shared a bed with another woman in the film version. Her costume had nothing to do with it. Notice how speculation is totally unnecessary here, therefore quelling the debate before it begins.

Back to the main point–because I was so determined to prove my point of there being no homosexual relationship between Batman and Robin, it was insinuated by another member of the debate that I am a sadly closed-minded homophobe and bigot.

That ridiculous character judgment aside…have we really reached a point where there are only extremes? Is there a ‘with us or against us’ mindset in terms of sexuality? I don’t agree, therefore I hate or fear gay people? I think Women’s Studies is a stupid department to have in a university; do I hate women? I don’t think there should be a label like “hate crime”, because if you’re going out of your way to hurt someone, you probably hate them, regardless of what race, sex, gender, orientation, etc. So, that means I hate everyone, right?

At least I hate everyone equally.