A Grand Theft Auto Proposal

I was sitting in a faculty meeting about three months ago, stuck at a table full of teachers I didn’t know very well.  This wasn’t all that surprising; our administration had decided to do some kind of team-building exercise that morning, meaning we didn’t get to choose our own groups.  God forbid we be comfortable. 

So I was sitting there, making faces at my friends at another table because some things don’t change no matter how old you are, when I realized that the discussion at my table was getting heated.  I tuned back in, only to discover that they’re talking about the latest pep assembly theme. 

Well.  Talking is such a weak word.  Complaining is really more accurate, since the theme the students had chosen that year was Grand Pep Auto, reminiscent (and nearly copyright infringing) on the game. 

Everyone around me was pissed.  They were bitching about the same issues with the game that I’ve heard a million times before: that it advocates cop-killing, violence against women, committing crimes for prestige, and a million other things.  One teacher’s husband is a cop, and so she said she couldn’t with a clear conscience stay silent about the issue. 

Within days, it would go to my building principal, and within days, it would get changed to something more innocuous.  More sanitized.  More acceptable. 

And still none of them understood why I was chuckling as I listened to their argument. 

Grand Theft Auto is the Modest Proposal of our day, and yet no one seems to notice.  It’s as if I suggested we replace school lunches with babies, and instead of laughing, everyone started screaming. 

I just don’t get how no one else has figured it out.

Don’t get me wrong: I 100% realize that GTA = satire is not exactly a new thesis.  But having taught A Modest Proposal, and having witnessed countless discussions like the one above, I still cannot help but be surprised. 

I did not create this image, but fuck, it's funny. 

First: A Modest Proposal.  For years, I taught this pamphlet as part of Senior Literature, and every year, I passed it out and asked students to read it without any kind of preamble or explanation.   This goes against a lot of teaching wisdom – I should be giving them background information, connecting it to other stories we’ve read, making it relevant to them.  And I do, once we read. 

Doing all that BEFORE they read takes away all the fun. 

For some context (just in case you aren’t familiar with this text): Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in the early 1700s as a reaction to the poverty crisis of the Irish under British rule.  In it, he suggested that the Irish should, quite simply, birth and raise and finally sell their children to the wealthy upper class in order to make money and work themselves out of poverty. 

The wealthy upper class would then eat the children as a tender, succulent supper.  Yum!

As you can imagine (I hope), this idea did not go over well.

Now, close to 300 years later, this overreaction is still the result I get from my students, and it’s hilarious.  They don’t realize it’s satire, at least not the majority of them.  Here and there, I get students who looked it up before they came to class, or students who walk in going, “Ms. E, he’s not serious, is he…?”  But far, far too many walk in asking why I made them read such an awful story, complaining about what a terrible human being Swift is, and (occasionally) wondering aloud what their parents would think if they told them what I had them read. 

Always, always, always hilarious. 

By the time the day’s lesson is over, most of them are persuaded.  It’s satire. Swift doesn’t really want us to eat babies.  They didn’t miss some important part of Irish/British history in their studies.  No worries. 

But there are always exceptions.  No matter how much we talk about fairy tale satire like Shrek, and sarcasm in writing like Dave Barry, Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, etc., some students still walk out going, “What a messed up story.”  It won’t click – they aren’t abstract enough thinkers for this to work, and no matter what I do, some of them will stay that way. 

They then, in turn, grow up to become the teachers and parents and everyone else who doesn’t get what’s going on with Grand Theft Auto. 

This is really a shame, because what Rockstar Gaming has done with the GTA franchise is kind of amazing. 

This series is a satire, through and through. Many, many let’s players before me have analyzed the shit out of this, so I’m not going to rehash all the basics like Sprunk and eCola, the 'deliciously infectious' soda, or Lifeinvader, the social media platform of choice in-game, or anything else.  They've been done, and done well, before.

But there is so much more depth to this satire that just that we Americans are a bunch of over-caffeinated, sex-obsessed assholes.  (It’s terrifying to think that’s how people the world over think of us, isn’t it? *shudder*)

Think about the biggest complaints about GTA.  Cop killing.  Prostitute killing.  No consequences for committing crimes. All those things that, apparently, parents are terrified that little Johnny will start doing if they play this game, as if the world is just one tiny push away from descending into total chaos. 

Then again, we did put an oversized, racist Oompa Loompa into the nation's highest office. 

But the 2016 election aside, generally, America isn’t entirely abandoned to the darkness just yet. 

Parents, teachers, politicians, and many others, however, disagree. 

This is how GTA earned its terrifying reputation.  I understand there are certainly elements of GTA that are despicable, but to me that’s almost part of the hilarity.  Players can visit a prostitute, at times complete with cut scenes, pay her, and then kill her and take the money back.  That’s awful on the face of it, but the sheer absurdity of the exchange is hilarious.  That’s one of the most obvious tenets of satire – hyperbolic events in order to showcase their absurdity.  So it’s fitting, even if I cringe. 

But so much more of GTA is a commentary on what people are able to do, and get away with, in our culture. 

How many times have we as Americans seen men commit violence against women, and get away with it?  We need only think back to last year to the Stanford rapist, a man whose crime was absolutely heinous, and yet the judge was so concerned with the rapist’s future that he only received 6 months in prison – and only served 3. 

Not a word was spoken about how destroyed the victim’s life was.  The media instead often covered just how ‘ridiculous’ it was that such a promising star had fallen, most famously in Michael Miller’s apologist Washington Post article.

There is less difference between how players get to treat women in GTA and how real life men are allowed to treat women than we like to think.  Fewer repercussions in the real world than we want to think.  Fewer consequences. Less jail time.  More like GTA, really, and no one wants to say it. 

People around the country called out the rapist himself, his defensive father, the author of this article, the Washington Post itself.  The case and how it was handled changed rape and sexual assault laws in California, strengthening the wave of ‘yes means yes’ consent and sexual education rolling through college campuses across the country.  That's all positive, but it doesn't change the statistics of on-campus rapes, for example, or the mindset that if I'm wearing a short skirt, I'm asking for it. 

Hearing that that message is absurd needs to happen, and if GTA is the vehicle, so be it. 

How many times are cops attacked for how they respond to crises, whether it’s with too much or too little force, too many or too few officers, whatever the case might be?

I’m not talking about Ferguson, where there are still murky gray areas of what actually happened and how race played a role in the death of Michael Brown.  I’m talking about cases like that of a 17-year Chicago PD veteran who did not shoot the man who eventually beat her into unconsciousness for fear of media backlash. 

GTA, by allowing players to beat up, shoot, set fire to, what have you, the cops in the game are pointing out just how absurd it is that cops really do get treated like this.  It may not be the norm, of course, but when it’s plastered across the news, it certainly feels that way. 

The issue of police violence inevitably leads into issues of racial stereotyping, and here, GTA deals frankly with just how ridiculously prejudiced our culture is. 

How many times have young black men been stereotyped as part of gangster culture?  That they are shitty human beings, simply for wearing a hoodie? 

Trayvon Martin springs to mind, as does Michael Brown and an unfortunately large number of others attacked or killed in recent years.  Hoodies routinely get banned in schools for the reputation they carry. 

And I certainly hope I don't need to break down institutional racism in Los Angeles (or anywhere else in the country) to prove that we as Americans are still prejudiced to a terrifying degree.

How we are still arguing that somehow GTA is the problem in the face of the rest of America is beyond me. 

All these satirical takes on real American issues aside (as if we can just forget them that easily), critics often forget that the game itself is not advocating any of these crimes.  There are in-game penalties for killing citizens at random, for shooting hookers, for running over cops.  Hell, you attract the attention of the police by running red lights, something I know for a fact doesn’t always happen in the real world.

The game doesn’t want players to be assholes – it wants them to follow the story, like all games.  The fact that they’ve built a world where the player can interact with 100% of their surroundings is testament to how much time and effort the developers put in, not that the game should be condemned. 

Rockstar is hoping, perhaps even praying, that their players have at least some morals guiding their decisions.  While I don’t know for sure, I have to suspect that when they first started getting massacred in reviews for being able to murder people at random, someone in their development team was surprised.  Of course, the assumption that people have scruples is time and time again proven incorrect – like the numerous stories of tourists carving their initials into historical icons like the Colosseum or the Luxor Temple in Egypt – but we can hope. 

one of my favorite satirical billboard in the game

Let me also remind you: GTA is not a game for kids. 

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but all things considered, I absolutely have to.  My eleven and eight year old nephews have played GTA, for god’s sake, and then their mom complains that video games are too violent. No shit.

That’s an essay for another time though. 

Whenever this comes up, Bishop inevitably tells me this story from when he worked at Game Stop as a teenager:

A mom came into the store looking for a game for her young son.  Since this was the early 2000s, Bishop recommended Pokemon, a fun and popular game rated perfectly for her child, who was about 10.  The mom, I shit you not, said that she wouldn’t be buying Pokemon for her child because it was Satanic (and if you don’t believe me, just Google it; there is a TON of discussion out there about how some deeply religious people see those little Japanese monsters as demons.  Something about a satirical interview no one understood -- no surprise!)

So, possible demonic connections aside, she didn’t want to buy Pokemon for her kid.  Fine.  Did she instead go pick up Super Mario? Any of the Harry Potter games? Hell, even Lego Star Wars?

Nope.  She walked over to the felony-titled Grand Theft Auto and, ignoring the giant M FOR MATURE label, proclaimed it perfect. 

Bishop also never fails to finish this tale with how pissed this woman was when she tried to return it later, as if her poor parenting was somehow Game Stop’s fault. 

The warning labels are there for a reason, people. 

10-year-olds are not supposed to be playing Grand Theft Auto, or Call of Duty, or Wolfenstein, and the game developers know it.  That's why the ESRB rating system exists -- to help parents make informed decisions about the content of games they let their children play.

Frankly, the whole notion of someone seeing the M rating, shrugging, then being pissy that the game was full of drugs and violence, is as hilariously absurd as reading a 1700s pamphlet and legitimately thinking that the author wants you to eat a boiled toddler for dinner. 

Rockstar doesn't want you to kill hookers in real life!

No one wants a kid under 17-18 to be playing Grand Theft Auto!

Swift doesn't want us to eat babies!

But somewhere, somehow, we’ve missed the point, and GTA has suffered for it.  

10 Things I Know to be True

Every spring, my Composition students write a graduation speech.  It’s a nice way for them to end the year – they get to think about their legacies, small though they might be, and this year, I get to think about mine. 

This is the last graduation speech I will ever assign or grade.  This is one of the last assignments I will ever assign or grade.  This is the last group of seniors I will take pictures with at prom, the last group I will laugh with, the last group I will send off into the world. 

Every spring, when they write the graduation speech, we start off by discussing truth.  What would they have wanted to know as freshmen?  What do we know to be true?  What kinds of lessons matter?

I ask them to make a list: 10 things I know to be true.  Every year, I sit with them and I write my own list. 

This year might be the last time I ever do this. 

I have no doubt that I will continue to find meaning in my life, that I will learn lessons that will affect how I make choices and the path I take.  I have no doubt that I will find new things to be true. 

It doesn’t change that right now, I know 10 things to be true, and they are 10 things I didn’t know last year.  Each year I grow and change and (hopefully) get better, and so, for 2016-2017, the last academic year of my life, here is my list:

1. Changing your life is worth it.

This is the truth I most identify with right now.  I am in the midst of changing my life; I have only a few days left in my life as a teacher, only a few days before I head off into a new world of computers and technology and travel.  So far, it has been worth it – my anxiety is lower.  I feel better.  I sleep better.  It’s easier to be optimistic than it used to be. 

I hope I still think this change was worth it next year.   

2. People are never upset when you tell them why they matter.

I always struggle with this one.  I used to be better at it – I used to take every opportunity in the form of notes, birthday cards, signing yearbooks, text messages, anything at all, to tell people I was glad they were part of my life. 

At some point in college, I got made fun of for it, and it fell off.  I regret it. 

But I’m learning to embrace being open again.  As I’ve told friends that I’m leaving, it’s become remarkably easy to tell them that I value our friendship and want to stay close.  It’s easier to tell colleagues that I admire their work ethic and dedication to this job.  It’s easier to thank my boss for being awesome. 

None of them has ever been upset to hear that they are important to me.

3. Working out is a mental health savior.

This is basic health wisdom, but it's something I often forget.  Working out drops off my schedule in favor of more sleep, taking a longer shower in the mornings, not wanting to wash my hair, feeling lazy -- any number of dumb excuses. 

But it helps.  On days when I don't want to get out of bed, when I'm trapped in my house because school is cancelled due to flooding, when everything feels so empty, working out somehow gives me the perspective I need to keep going, and feel better. 

I may never be the person who adores working out -- I just need to remember why I do it. 

4. Intellectual curiosity is more important that knowledge or education – keep learning!

I was scared to start the journey that led me to where I am now.  I bought the textbook I needed to study for the A+ in July, and while I opened it occasionally, I didn’t start seriously reading it until November.  It was overwhelming – 1500 pages of information I didn’t understand!

When I finally broke through that fear, when I finally realized I really needed to push myself and start learning again to change my life, it got easier.  The book got, I don’t want to say interesting, but tolerable.  The acronyms started making sense.  Bishop and I took apart computers so I’d see what was going on with motherboards, CPUs, and power supplies.  We bought me a new graphics card so I could learn how to make Mass Effect Andromeda better. 

Learning slowly became fun again, something I’d rather forgotten about in the midst of anxiety and a job I knew inside out. 

And as it got fun again, it continued to get easier.  One of the most frustrating side effects of anxiety for me has been how it affects my information processing skills – it was noticeably harder to learn.  I used to be a fabulous auditory learner.  In college I barely took notes because I memorized most lectures as the professors gave them.  I could read a textbook and remember it nearly word for word without much effort. 

But by October 2015, I’d lost that.  I still struggle to process information when I listen; it remains easier for me to learn if I’m reading something.  Thankfully, I’ve adapted.  I studied for close to 150 hours over four months and passed the A+ just fine. 

Learning is finally fun again.  I've maintained my curiosity throughout this entire experience, but now I understand so much more! In the past few weeks, I've read articles about how the development of artificial intelligence is hampered by the English language's inherent bias against women, people of color, and more; how the study of bog bodies is continually changing as technologies helps in new and unexpected ways; how King Tut's father Akhenaten was a true revolutionary of Egypt; and how the bunker under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado is designed to be actually indestructible, safe from everything from a nuclear war to a 2012-style end of the world. 

I have never been so grateful that I love to learn.  I hope I never forget it. 

5. Take risks.

Anxiety makes me terrified of even tiny risks.  Opening a new book, watching the first episode of a new show, getting words down on paper: these tiny things sometimes feel as insurmountable as Everest.

They shouldn't. 

Risk brings rewards.  Logically I know this -- but as anxiety and depression have made painfully clear, knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart are wildly different. 

The past year has taught me that risks can be worth it, even when I have to force myself.  It's not a feeling that is going away, either;  in the past week, I've put in over 30 job applications as the school year draws to a close and I remain unsure of where I'm going next.  Some real-life experience has inspired a fabulous idea for a novel, a novel that for once won't be fanfiction nonsense but really me pouring my soul into my writing. 

I have to take risks to move forward, and anxiety can't hold me back. 

6. You’ll never regret pushing yourself to be better.

I've said a lot of what could go here already, but what I haven't said is this:  I'm proud of myself. 

All these changes have been terrifying.  Sometimes the slightest thing will send me over the edge to crying in my car on the way home from work or lying in bed mindlessly watching 30 Rock reruns so I don't have to think. 

Despite everything, I haven't let it stop me.  There is no regret over leaving my job, or trying to learn something new, or anything else.  I haven't given up, even when I wanted to. 

7. Take time to enjoy your hobbies.

I wrote about this on another blog recently because in March, I realized I'd essentially stopped reading.  I'd stopped blogging.  I was playing a shitload of Stardew Valley, an addicting if shallow farming simulator that was absolutely challenge-free, instead of Sniper Elite 3 or the Last of Us or Jade Empire. 

Part of this was reasonable: I was studying 2-3 hours a day to pass the A+. 

Most of this was unreasonable though, and I was boring even myself. 

So I made a change: I set reading goals for myself, like reading all the books people had recommended before the end of the school year.  I built a hammock so I could relax in peace.  I rebuilt my blogs so I didn't forget how much I loved to write. 

It's only been a few weeks, but this is true: Hobbies you love deserve time to enjoy them. 

8. Acknowledge your privilege, and use it to make the world a better place.

The past year has helped me understand privilege in ways I never expected.  I'm just one of likely millions of people unhappy where they are, but I have the resources to do something about it.  I'm employed, insured, and so is my husband -- that is privilege.  I have networking connections and a new certification and experience to help me get a job -- some of that is sheer hard work, but some of it is privilege.  I'll get paid through the end of the summer so there's no pressure to get a job tomorrow -- that is privilege. 

I've been lucky throughout my life to have so many advantages.  My parents grew up poor, but they worked their asses off so I didn't.  My dad helped me pay for college so I didn't graduate with any student loan debt.  They taught me how to manage money so I can pay off my credit cards each month and put money into retirement each year. 

My privilege is tied up in my own abilities to work hard and not give up, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  I hear that argument all too often.  It's hard to acknowledge that the world has set you up better than someone else by an accident of birth; I fought it for a long time. 

But I'm realizing now as I leave a service profession that I want to leave the world better than I found it.  For the past years, it's been by being a teacher and trying to help future generations.  Looking forward, I see myself donating money and items instead of time until I figure out where I'm going next. 

I just don't want to forget to be grateful for what I have, and to try to make life easier for someone else, too. 

9. Express yourself, but do it intelligently.

I have 19 tattoos, but you wouldn't know it from looking at me.  Every year when my students find out I have ink, they always tell me I don't seem like the type, and I always laugh. 

This is purposeful.  I love my tattoos, but I don't want them to be all anyone sees -- at work, in a job interview, running errands, just hanging out, whatever I'm doing.  Every image, every quote on my body can be easily covered, and this is the conversation my students and I inevitably have (as kids love talking about tattoos):  Get ink, sure, but be smart about it.  Be able to cover it.  Don't get that boyfriend/girlfriend's name.  Don't get a meme tattoo. 

If they remember nothing else, I hope they remember this. 

10. You are more than your mistakes.

I'm the type to mentally relive every embarrassing thing I've ever done.  Just last weekend, I called a kid the wrong name at prom  (I've been calling him his brother's name all year, so of course I did it again.  Of course.) -- it's been replaying in my head ever since. 

Bishop always tells me this is no big deal, everyone does stupid shit.  I know this, but living it is harder. 

So on Monday, I tried reframing it to see if it made me feel better.  I saw some of this kid's friends, other students I know well, and I told them the story, laughing at myself all the while.  They thought it was hilarious.  And it worked; walking away, I didn't feel so much like a moron. 

The past year of my life, really the past six years of my life, have been full of mistakes.  Some have been huge, and some have been tiny.  It doesn't change that I am more than just those moments. 

And I would do well to remember that in the year ahead.