benlehman

So I played "Bully" a bit, which is a game about high school by the makers of grand theft auto. It was billed as "the most controversial game ever made" but, honestly, it fell pretty flat for me on that front. The most "controversial" thing that you can do is make out with another guy if you ask him to. It's a far cry from GTA's sleeping with hookers in the back seat of a stolen car and then beating them up to get your money back.

It's an excellent game, as a game. I should say that. It's a blast just to run around and skip class and hit on girls. I find it enormously cute that art class makes you a better kisser. Etc.

But in a nation where high school kids and teachers are facing down drugs, gangs, and guns, it falls seriously flat for me as a narrative. Rockstar Games is supposed to be the cutting edge of acceptability, making art both offensive and provocative, and if the best answer they can give us for school violence is stink bombs, wedgies, and itching powder I am desperately afraid for the state of art in our country.