Manhunt 2 has been banned in the United Kingdom. The Director of the British Board of Film (BBFC) has called the game “casual sadism”. In response, the publishers of the game have taken an artistic defense:

“The US publishers of a video game banned in the UK and Ireland have described it as a “fine piece of art”.

Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said Manhunt 2 had his full support and that consumers should decide for themselves.”

link: Banned video game is ‘fine art’

It seems that that statement is a summary of the sensitivities involved. One wonders how Strauss Zelnick would describe the body count from Iraq that accompanies each news program, the senselessness that was visited upon Virginia Tech, the evil that happened upon a rural Amish school…

The examples are endless. I need not go on - each of us remembers a litany of the horrors that have befallen our fellow citizens. However, to call sadistic violence as fine art is truly pathetic.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]manhunt 2, video game, banned, fine art, strauss zelnick, violence, bbfc[/tags]