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Violence in America An Encyclopedia
Video Games Video Game History In early 1994, after the release of the arcade hit Mortal Kombat for home play, growing concerns over game violence led to congressional hearings on developing a rating system for games. (Mortal Kombat is famous for its "finishing moves," in which, for instance, a defeated rival has his still-beating heart ripped from his chest and displayed.) These hearings led directly to the development on industry-regulatd ratings systems.

Charles Scribner's Sons An Imprint of The Gale Group of New York

Copyright 1999

ISBN 0-684-80490-5

Volume 3

Editor in Chief-Ronald Gottesman

Consulting Editor-Richard Maxwell Brown

Page.375

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Video Games
The most popular third-person shooter game is "Mortal Kombat," which is rated M. The package states: "3D fatalities: Watch as brand new and classic fatalities take on a completely different meaning in three different di||mensions." In 1993, Sega sold a version of the game in which a warrior rips off his opponent's head and spine while spectators shout, "Finish him! Finish him!" Nintendo's version, also rated M, did not include that scene, but it was outsold three to two by Sega's product.

Espejo, Roman. Video Games. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2003. 11-12. Print.

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The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity
Youth Culture Martial metaphors and Asian American literature have largely parted ways since Kingston, except in occasional revivals such as Peter Bacho's Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories (1997). The vanishing of warrior imageries in Asian American literature denotes a minority's retreat from the warring 1970s. Increasingly, kung fu has become a part of American youth culture, multiplying in comic books, graphic novels, weekend cartoon shows on TV, toys, video arcades, and movie theaters. Bruce Lee has also been elevated into somewhat of a cult figure in the teen world. Undergoing drastic physical and psychological changes, adolescents yearn

p.69 ________________ to be in control as in an idealized adulthood and to transcend limitations of the body. Teenagers, therefore, are especially susceptible to the kung fu mystique: sudden empowerment via a facile union of the body and the spirit, of the Western self and the Orient. Unlike the counterculture movement in the 1960s spearheaded by the hippies and born in part out of the peace protests, American youth culture revolving around martial symbols embraces rather than rejects the material conditions and the consumer habits in a late-capitalist society. In most cases, middleclass parents purchase these products for their children. For instance, the Sega video game marketed by Sony, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, cost about forty dollars at major electronic and video stores across the United States in 1997. But that game has to be mounted on a “PlayStation” (ironic that it is named after “work station”) at a retail price of around $150. Outside the home, video games of kung fu motifs are woven into the fabric of an economy of self-perpetuating desire for consumption, and are widely available at video arcades in shopping malls, hotel lobbies, university student unions and dormitories, and roadside cafés — hence occupying public spaces intended for regular social activities. However, the fact that these game rooms are often relegated to the dim, self-enclosed corners of the ground floor of the above-mentioned sites bears out the underground characteristic of such activities, epitomizing the teenage subculture dwelling on the borderline of adult consciousness, a subculture marked by violent and potentially antisocial fantasies. This late-capitalist, corporate culture is, nonetheless, equally adept in gobbling up exotic cultures abroad and deviant behaviors at home. These video games predictably feature a battle between good and evil, between us and them. However brutal the games may be, those phantoms immobilized in front of flickering screens in a cavelike room, those twitching fingers and facial muscles, those schizophrenic reflexes exploding into hoorays when the players score (kill) or into curses when they lose (are killed) serve to work out teenagers' aggressiveness, offering the illusion of control, neutralizing dissent, inculcating the ideological consensus of the one and only consumerist lifestyle.

Compared to the underworld inhabited by urban black youths in Henry Giroux's Fugitive Cultures (1996), video games are tamer by far and fraught with hegemonic interpellation. Giroux defines youth as

inhabit[ing] many fronts ranging across the cultures of the mall, computer bulletin boards, rock music, gangsta rap, urban basketball

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courts, hacker coffee shops, and an urban underground where sex is traded, drugs exchanged, politics created, and sexuality expressed. These are sites of fugitive cultures not because they are inherently oppositional… but because they often do not conform to the imperatives of adults and mainstream culture. Youth as a self and social construction has become indeterminate, alien, and sometimes hazardous in the public eye. (10–11)

What Giroux is concerned with harks back to, shall we say, Bruce Lee's initial fans in the 1970s. Decades later, the middle-class users of video games are enormously privileged and domesticated, albeit as susceptible as ever to delusions of grandeur.

Yet even experts disagree on whether video games induce or eliminate violent impulses. Randy Schroeder, in “Playspace Invaders: Huizinga, Baudrillard and Video Game Violence, ” attests that “three seminal studies on arcade games in 1983…all failed to establish any significant correlation between video game-playing and negative behavior” (145). Nevertheless, Schroeder concedes that dialogue with the video game is, as noted by Eugene F. Provenzo Jr., “defined primarily by the computer and the way it has been programmed” and not by the player's imagination (Schroeder 144).

Without trying to resolve the complex issue, let me turn now to a specific example of video games— Mortal Kombat. 9 There are, of course, hundreds of other games featuring kung fu motifs, almost all of them kaleidoscopically configured in American youth culture through an array of forms. 10 More widely accepted than Mortal Kombat is perhaps the comical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, considered to be more wholesome family entertainment. As bloody as our subject at hand, though less profitable, is Street Fighter, which was turned into a film in 1994, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia. Obviously, those famous video games without an overt kung fu theme are excluded, such as Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.

Mortal Kombat manifests itself as video games, as cartoon shows, and as a full-length feature film in 1996. Although video games seem to precede the other two forms of production, Mortal Kombat the game is itself a reproduction of a sci-fi, kung fu fantasy and thus enjoys minimal originary status. Jean Baudrillard's contention that simulation is “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (1) explicates perfectly the lineage, or the lack thereof, of Mortal Kombat. The poorest reincarnation of the trinity is the cartoon, made specifically

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for the promotion of the film as well as related products, such as Web page, Crew T-shirt, tour, practice kit, book, and Kombat Klub in Los Angeles. Almost every cultural production, particularly in the electronic media, is exploited by the company to cast as wide a net as possible. The target group of consumers is undoubtedly children, adolescents, and young adults, as the plot, tempo, characters, and language of the game and the film mirror those of the youth culture.

The story of the Mortal Kombat is necessarily simplistic, even somewhat archetypal. Through a martial arts tournament called Mortal Kombat, mortals defend the Earth against the “hostile takeover” by the sorcerer Shang Tsung and other evil figures from the Outworld. Violence is posed not only as a problem-solving tool but as a mission to ensure the survival of the Earth. To achieve the noble goal of self-preservation, much blood is spilled. But the “Game Konfigure” in the instruction manual explains that blood can be turned off. When it is turned off, the “Finishing Moves” of beheading or killing with blood splashed all over the screen cannot be performed. A self-contradictory logic, one suspects that the option of no-blood, no-win is incorporated into the computer program to fend off charges of excessive violence. It is, in effect, an admission of excessive violence. The “Game Konfigure” also allows the player to choose the sorcerer Shang Tsung's Morphs, or transformations into another image, hence increasing the thrill of the game.

With the logo of a coiling dragon superimposed on the box containing the video game, on every single page of the instruction manual, and on the video images of the game itself, Mortal Kombat oozes such Orientalist fetishes. All the warriors fight with kung fu postures, dressed in quasi-Chinese or quasi-Japanese costumes. Equipped with biographies in the instruction manual, many characters have Asian-sounding names. The Chinese cast includes Liu Kang, the Warrior Monk (whose simulated image is the most Asian of all the characters); Kung Lao; Shao Kahn (named after Genghis Khan, despite the slightly varied spellings); Jade; and Shang Tsung (complete with Fu Manchu's goatees in the cartoon ). The Japanese contingent includes Smoke (Cyber-Ninja); Kitana (who throws her folding fans like deadly boomerangs); Motaro (halfhuman, half-beast); Kintaro; and Prince Goro. The last two are monsters with four arms each. The character “Sheeva” descends from the Hindu god of destruction, Shiva. The “Earth's sworn protector, ” Rayden, though his name can be construed as Western, always appears with a samurai

p.72 ______________ readily recognizable by American teens — the surfer-type movie star Johnny Cage and the blonde Sonya Blade. Moreover, advertising gimmicks so promiscuous in today's market are evident in the substitutions of “C's” with “K's, ” as in “Mortal K ombat Trilogy.” Changes of spellings are believed to be eye-catching, for they disrupt the reading process.

There are thirty-two warriors in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, a substantially larger cast than the meager seven in Mortal Kombat I. The basic moves of each of the combatants consist of “Klose Quarters (the Elbow, the Knee and the Throw), ” “Special Moves, ” “Krouching Moves (primarily for defense), ” “Spinning Moves (the Roundhouse Kick and the Foot Sweep), ” and “Aerial Moves (Flying Punches and Kicks).” Most warriors have their unique combat skills, exemplified by Kitana's fans and Liu Kang's flying kicks. The latter is a series of kicks performed while Liu Kang glides horizontally in the air as if treading on his opponent. The misleading instruction on “Special Moves” is the basis for the marketing strategies: “These moves, whether Special Kicks or Elemental Bolts, make the Mortal Kombat Warriors the fiercest and most ferocious Kombatants around. Mastering their special moves will make you the same.” The last line exposes the illusion of control and the player's identification with visual images that lie at the heart of the fascination with video games. By the same token, the mathematical combination of these moves with the number of warriors creates the appearance of multiple options, of variety, when, in reality, they are repetitions. A close look at the images and the biographies of the thirty-two warriors in the instruction manual reveals that, except in blatant cases such as the four-arm grotesque Goro, they are somewhat alike, with good and bad characters nearly indistinguishable.

The film Mortal Kombat (1996) is directed by Paul Anderson and filmed in Thailand. This film has one of the longest concluding credits to list its special-effects teams. Growing out of the sci-fi bent of the video game, many filmic sequences are computer-generated and digitized, hence involving a huge team of technicians. As the credits roll, the sound track repeats its theme music, a fast-paced, MTV-style electronic piece dominated by synthesizers and punctuated by shouts of “Mortal Kombat ” and an incantation of the names of the characters. Once again, the deep, husky voice recites the names indiscriminately. Virtue and evil are

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flattened and entwined, no matter how three-dimensional the characters may look in virtual reality.

The film focuses on the trio Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade. Liu (Americanized as Lu or perhaps Lou) Kang is played by the Hong Kong actor Robin Shou, who also doubles as the martial arts choreographer. In general, the film is heavily derivative of the video game, including commands such as “Finish him!” or “fatality.” One strain of the film does stand out from its predecessor: the film romanticizes the self in the most adolescent and egotistic way. The finale of the defeat of Shang Tsung is predicated on Liu Kang's ability to face three types of fears. He must confront the fear of enemies, the fear of himself, and the fear of his own destiny. Abstract and vacuous, the last ordeal suggests that Liu Kang should rid himself of the sense of guilt over the death of his brother Chen at the hands of Shang Tsung years before. Liu has since fled from his obligation of avenging his brother to America, an escapist solution that any average teenager (or even adult) is likely to embrace. Liu Kang, in other words, is urged to take no responsibility for the death of his brother, who, in Liu's words, “took his own path.” This kind of feel-good, Gen-X justification for egotism somehow leads Liu to prevail over Shang Tsung. The film perpetuates the ideology of unrestrained individualism, one marked by boundless delusion of heroism and absolutely no personal accountability. The genre of teen kung fu films relentlessly recycles such an ideology in The Karate Kid, Best of the Best, Surf Ninjas, Sidekicks, and innumerable other flicks, including sequels to the aforementioned ones.

In a transnational economy, it is a moot point to quibble over whether Sega-Sony products such as Mortal Kombat Trilogy are made in America, Japan, or elsewhere. The intricacies of corporate contracts as well as the ever-changing negotiations among businesses are beyond the purview of this chapter. According to Kevin Maney's Megamedia Shakeout (1995), Mortal Kombat was initially developed by Sega, a company founded by an American in Tokyo, with the home base in Japan and the U.S. division in Redwood City, California (329). This video game is only one of Sega's whole arsenal of, in the words of Randy Schroeder, “hard-hitting” games to penetrate Nintendo's monopoly of the industry in the 1980s and 1990s. 12 Conversely, Nintendo was founded by the Yamauchi family in Japan and its U.S. subsidiary, Nintendo of America, is located in Redmond, Washington. Despite the predominantly Anglo-American names

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for the team that created Mortal Kombat Trilogy, the video game bears the Sony logo and is marketed by Sony. If one insists that the Orientalist stereotypes in the game are the brainchild of the Anglo-American team, a Japanese company finances the production and oversees the distribution. In terms of consumption of such merchandise, the picture is equally blurred. During the holiday seasons in industrialized countries around the globe, these games are frantically awaited by long lines of, mostly, parents, Asian or otherwise. Ultimately, martial metaphors embodied by Bruce Lee, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Mortal Kombat have become universal. Historical ties do not equal exclusive rights; indeed, no one can enjoy a proprietary relationship to any specific aspect of culture. Yet even if a minority is willing to share its cultural heritage, these metaphors at times return to haunt members of that group, which is what happened in the death of Vincent Chin.

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Book Title: The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity. Contributors: Sheng-Mei Ma - author. Publisher: University of Minnesota Press. Place of Publication: Minneapolis. Publication Year: 2000.

Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture
Reviewers of Paul Anderson's film adaptation of the kung-fu video game Mortal Kombat (1995) emphasize “a soundtrack of … primitive, head-bonking urgency” 9 and endless scenes of “kick, sock, pow … to-the-death battles, ” 10 in which “backs, wrists and necks are shattered with sickening cracking sounds. ” 11

Publication Information: Book Title: Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Contributors: Vivian Sobchack - author. Publisher: University of California Press. Place of Publication: Berkeley, CA. Publication Year: 2004. Page Number: 54.

Video Games 2
THE VIDEOGAME AS SOCIAL SPACE While studies such as Sherry et al. (2001) problematize the notion of videogames as solitary or isolating experiences, they are less forthcoming as to the exact nature of social interaction in gaming. In fact, it is possible to identify a variety of types of social interaction and locations either created within games during play, or as a consequence of play. In a study championing the cause of ethnomethodological approaches to the study of games, and clearly highlighting the benefits of studying videogames in their 'natural' context rather than abstracted into research laboratories, Saxe (1994) notes a variety of social interactions that take place during, and as a result of, videogame play:

On many occasions, at a particularly popular arcade game such as Virtua Fighter and Mortal Kombat, participants (players, spectators) from diverse racial and age backgrounds are all gathered together, sometimes in very cramped quarters, around the same video screen. On this level, the screen play provides an anonymous opportunity for shared play space among individuals who might not normally participate in joint activities.

(Saxe 1994)

Players not only reported significant social networks oriented around and emerging from gaming, but also that these networks were supportive and non-confrontational. For example, players indicated the ways in which they learned from others, and helped others to learn, by sharing information on strategy and technique through talk and observing of the play of others.

This chimes with the position of Loftus and Loftus (1983) who have noted that 'extrinsic' reinforcement, such as praise and admiration from peers, constitutes a motivation for play. The simple fact is that, just as not all videogames contain violent content, not all videogames are solitary, single-player experiences. Games such as Gran Turismo offer two-player racing options where players can compete against each other in real time. One-on-one combat games (generically classified in industry parlance as 'beat-'em-ups') such as Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat (see Saxe 1994 quote above), Tekken and the Dead or Alive series, are designed, first and foremost, as multiplayer experiences and often present comparatively weak single-player options

Publication Information: Book Title: Videogames. Contributors: James Newman - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 2004. Page Number: 149.

Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence
In the 1990s, the willful pursuit of offensive violence hit a peak in the video game industry. Mortal Kombat allowed a player to rip the spine out of his opponents body. p.142 ___________ Video game designers found that the voluptuous female fighters in Mortal Kombat and other games were becoming favorites of adolescent players—not only as femme fatale opponents but as surrogates for the players themselves. p.150 ___________ The current generation of adolescent boys love active, powerful, threatening female figures—often as protagonists and often, as in the case of video games in which the male player "becomes" Tomb Raiders' Lara Croft or one of the female warriors in Mortal Kombat, as a heroic surrogate for the boy himself. p.160 ___________ As adults, we find the linking of sexuality and violence disturbing, especially when those images are gory and intense. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dark Angel are mild in comparison to games like Mortal Kombat, D.O.A., and Tomb Raider. Watching a teenage boy manipulating those sexualized figures as they hammer at bad guys and each other, grinning triumphantly as they make blood fly, is troubling. But we need to differentiate our reactions from what they're experiencing. p.163 ___________ Publication Information: Book Title: Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Contributors: Gerard Jones - author. Publisher: Basic Books. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2002. Page Number: *.

Free Expression and Censorship in America: An Encyclopedia
Claiming that such games contributed to the growing violence in American society, the senators showed reporters segments of two of the more violent games, "Mortal Kombat" and "Night Trap." "Mortal Kombat" pits two martial arts warriors against each other, with the game players given the choices of killing the opponent by ripping his heart out, tearing off his head and spinal column, or other blood-spattering strategies. In "Night Trap," the player fights hooded killers who try to capture sorority sisters and drain their blood. Shortly after the news conference, Toys R Us announced that it would no longer sell "Night Trap."

Subsequent Senate hearings again suggested that the video-game industry might be a contributing cause to the nation's plague of violence. "The rating system must not be a fig leaf for the industry to hide behind," said Senator Lieberman. "They must also accept their responsibility to control themselves and stop producing the worst of this junk." The harshest criticism was aimed at Sega, the company that had produced controversial titles such as "Mortal Kombat," "Night Trap," and "Lethal Enforcer" ( "Video Game Firms Yield on Ratings," Washington Post, December 10, 1993, p. F1).

Publication Information: Book Title: Free Expression and Censorship in America: An Encyclopedia. Contributors: Herbert N. Foerstel - author. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 224.

Jon Foo Raring to Play 'Disturbed' Characters.
All his films have had him showing off his martial arts skills but that doesn't mean English actor Jon Foo is unwilling to take on roles that are off the beaten track.

"I'd like to play characters that are slightly disturbed, slightly troubled characters," he said during an interview held July 26 at Greenbelt 3 where his latest movie, "Tekken," was screened exclusively for local media.

Jon admits that films with a lot of physicality limit the kind of story they tell since most are about revenge. He cited his next film, "Rebirth," as example.

"My character in 'Rebirth' witnesses his parents getting shot in the head. My character gets shot in the head, too, and although he doesn't die, the injury affects his emotional state of mind," he said.

Some members of the press pointed out that if he were based in the Philippines, he could easily pass off for a romantic leading man. A source whispered to Bulletin Entertainment that Pioneer Films (local distributor of "Tekken") execs are, in fact, thinking of producing a film for him.

"Anything is possible. I keep an open mind about everything," Jon quipped.

A local film, though, has to wait. After his stint in the Philippines, John will fly back to Thailand to shoot more scenes for "Rebirth." He was there recently to "see the islands and chill out with a coconut [in hand]."

Asked about his diet and fitness secrets, John revealed he used to train everyday starting at age 8, even joining competitions at 15 "though that's not for me anymore."

"I used to train a lot-everyday. After you've done the hard work, it's easy to maintain," he said of his slim build. "[As for my diet], I just stay away from saturated fat and I only eat protein when I feel a bit worn out."

Winning the role of Jin Kazama in "Tekken," however, was not as simple. The 27-year-old actor said he had to flew to Los Angeles to audition for the role "before the director, the producer and the producer's friends" before getting the part a month later.

Jon also knows other types of martial arts including kung fu, tae kwon do and Muay Thai. He doesn't prefer one over the other but would rather mix and match styles based on what works best with his body.

"Tekken" is based on the video game of the same title. It tells the story of Jim Kazama who discovers he holds great power and must battle a team of elite fighters. Kazama makes a living as a fleet-footed courier in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by corporations. It is Jon's first lead role.

According to the release, "Tekken"'s casting director Kelly Wagner said he was handpicked from the many who auditioned for the role "because we sought actors who could legitimately fight and act. One of the most frustrating things is when you're watching a movie and it's so obvious that your actor is not doing the physicality," she said in an interview.

As expected, Jon was asked if he had eaten the Filipino delicacy, balut.

"Yes, after the first screening at Megamall. Balut is alright though I didn't look at it for too long. There were a lot of feathers in it-we'll try wood worm next," he joked.

Is it different doing a film that's based on a video game?

"Video game, movie, book, original screenplay-.they are all the same because you go through the same process. This one, however, was especially fun to play."

Other films Jon had done in the past are "Batman Begins," "House of Fury" and "Left For Dead."

"Tekken" opens in Manila on Aug. 4. (Publication Information: Article Title: Jon Foo Raring to Play 'Disturbed' Characters. Newspaper Title: Manila Bulletin. Publication Date: July 26, 2010. Page Number: NA. COPYRIGHT 2010 Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp.; COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale, Cengage Learning )