Tag Archives: Violence

20XX: Bleed And The Future Of Action Heroines

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Jason Rice

  As a child of the 80s, I was raised on bloodshed. Practically everything I did involved the quintessential adolescent male power fantasy, one expressed by countless Arnolds, Stevens, and Jean-Claudes. High body counts, bottomless clips, and an arsenal that … Continue reading →

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Contemplating The Mirror: Manhunt Revisited

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Javy Gwaltney

Memories Rockstar’s Playstation 2 games were the video nasties of my generation. I remember my father reading an article in USA Today about prostitution in Grand Theft: Auto Vice City and telling me that I couldn’t have it. Likewise, the … Continue reading →

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Nuns with Guns: Hitman, Grindhouse, and Gamer Expectations

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Steven Sukkau

by Steven Sukkau I have a strong suspicion I may be a vile person. For the most part, I enjoyed the Hitman Absolution trailer, “Attack of the Saints”. I loaded up the video, consumed what I thought was a striking, if somewhat average piece of marketing media, and went about my day. Technically, the video is stunning. I actually made a double take, unsure if the trailer was live action. My favorite pieces of media have often come from Blur studios that routinely create artful marketing trailers of such quality that they outstrip the actual product represented. I love these things, and I assumed the Hitman trailer was created in the same vein. Then Twitter erupted. One of the major voices in this was Brendan Keogh wrote, who noted the “conflation of hypersexualisation and violence” in the trailer: “Violence against women in media is fine. It’s when it is conflated Continue reading →

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Octopus Sashimi: Examining the Polemics of Tentacle Bento

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Kyle Carpenter

Editor’s note: the following is a discussion of the status of non-consensual sex in culture and fantasy, and necessarily employs some very charged terms. Please be warned before reading. If you don’t feel comfortable continuing, know that you have our sympathies. By Kyle Carpenter Tentacle Bento, the source of another whirlwind argument regarding the fictionalized portrayal of rape and its place in culture, is going to fade into obscurity within the next few months, but is for now the centre of much deserved discussion.  In many ways a microcosm of the furor that arose over the infamous Penny Arcade “Dick Wolves” fiasco, Tentacle Bento refocused the debate because of the way the game implicitly revolves around the goal of rape, as opposed to a throwaway line in a gag strip. The polemics of this argument are becoming well practiced. On one side, there is the suggestion that Tentacle Bento plays into a Continue reading →

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