Gaming and Youths (What's Not Appropriate?)

[Piperken]

...That's why I brought up The Hunger Games from 2008. Back in one of my high schoo literature classes in the early 1990s, we read a short story called "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) by Ambrose Bierce that ended with the protagonist being hanged by Union soldiers for being a spy. We watched The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) based on a novel of the same name set in old west. When a group of cowboys come across three people they believe are rustlers and murders, they end up lynching them, only to find out when they return to town that they murdered innocent men...

Compared to when some of us attended secondary school, it's pretty common now in public school settings that if other mediums (like film) will be used as a pedagogical approach towards the curriculum, at minimum a letter is sent home.

 

[abazaba]

Compared to when some of us attended secondary school, it's pretty common now in public school settings that if other mediums (like film) will be used as a pedagogical approach towards the curriculum, at minimum a letter is sent home.

Unsure how to interpret that exactly, but: does that imply that parents get to decide what material gets to be used (or not used) at school as teaching material ?

 

[billd91]

Unsure how to interpret that exactly, but: does that imply that parents get to decide what material gets to be used (or not used) at school as teaching material ?

That's a fight going on in quite a few places across the US - and has been for decades (book banning, political fights at the school board level, etc). And the approaches taken are, at times, laughably inconsistent and hypocritical.

Schools, for a long time, have taken the practical approach of sending home notices so that the parents can have the kids opt out of that particular material, particularly for things like sex education.

 

[billd91]

I don't know where you're located, but violence and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly here in the United States. Pretty much every popular franchise I grew up with (GI Joe, Transformers, Star Wars, various superheroes) included a healthy (unhealthy?) dose of violence.

Oh, I'm from the USA, so I'm quite aware that what is broadly considered acceptable or unacceptable for kids is skewed in unhealthy directions.

 

[Piperken]

Unsure how to interpret that exactly, but: does that imply that parents get to decide what material gets to be used (or not used) at school as teaching material ?

We're beginning to drift a little, but the brief answer is: in the US this depends by state, school district, whether the school happens to be a public or private etc. Broadly speaking, if you as a caregiver object to material presented in a class setting, usually some accommodation is provided (again, subject to a district's or school's capability to do so).

 

[abazaba]

That's a fight going on in quite a few places across the US - and has been for decades (book banning, political fights at the school board level, etc). And the approaches taken are, at times, laughably inconsistent and hypocritical.

Schools, for a long time, have taken the practical approach of sending home notices so that the parents can have the kids opt out of that particular material, particularly for things like sex education.

We're beginning to drift a little, but the brief answer is: in the US this depends by state, school district, whether the school happens to be a public or private etc. Broadly speaking, if you as a caregiver object to material presented in a class setting, usually some accommodation is provided (again, subject to a district's or school's capability to do so).

Thanks for the replies and information. But I guess that this then means that we have to end this particular part of the discussion, due to the site policy. Thanks again.

 

[Koloth]

Although I can (mostly ? totally?) agree with these statements about the contents of the original Star Wars trilogy as an adult, I also must admit that I totally missed most (all ?) of these topics when I originally watched them when I was (I guess about) 10 or so. To me back then, it was just 'the good guys versus the bad guys', in the most benign matter you can think of. To me, it was thematically no different than the (original) Transformers or He-Man cartoons I watched at that age.

And that is a good way to handle SW/Cyberpunk with a younger audience. Just present it as Good Guys vs Bad Guys. No need to mention that Leia is mostly naked and probably being used 'off screen' for non consensual sexual purposes by Jabba. Present Leia as Jabba's captive that would like some help getting free. Kind of like the 10 year old you remembered it.

 

[abazaba]

oh, nevermind.

 

[Desdichado]

There's nothing inappropriate about any of those things, although there are certainly inappropriate responses to them. I'd be more concerned about how inappropriate it would be for a guy my age to be playing with teenagers at all than worried about the themes of the game.

 

[MGibster]

Based on responses thus far, I lean more cautious. I feel like in discussions about young people it's good to make distinctions like pre-teen (tweens, preadolescent etc. ~9-12) and teens (~13-19). The range of what kinds of materials one is comfortable at presenting in a way that is respectful of kids' experiences at the table, is going to vary widely from different cohorts, even within these two large sets.

In the opening post I did specify teens, which are generally defined as ages 13 through 19. Though there's a big difference beween a 13 year old and a sixteen year old.

As far as holding up what kinds of issues we were exposed to in media when we were young as a way to assess appropriateness. Well, there is a lot which I saw that on second viewing... just does not hold up well at all; fuzzy memory, nostalgia and all that.

That's why I acknowledge things have changed over the decades. The naked homophobia on display in The Monster Squad was unremarkable even for a family movie back in 1987 but would draw the ire of a significant number of people today. Julie Brown's "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" was played for laughs in 1983 but these days the subject is no longer so absurd as to be laughed at. Generally speaking it's not the violence or even the sex in and of itself that makes a work not hold up well it's how those subjects are handled.

Also, there are games out now that explicitly center sexyfuntimes, relationship drama and the harder fallout that can come from all that. They're good games too, and people will (and won't) want to play them!

But we're not talking about a game that explicitely centers on sexy fun times. We're talking about Cyberpunk Red, which yes, does have the Midnite Lady™ and Mr. Studd™ implants, but I wouldn't characterize the game as revolving around sexy fun times.