Banhunt

The sequel to violent video game Manhunt has been banned from release in the UK, reports the Sun (UK). The game, first released in 2003 by Rockstar Games to what was mostly critical acclaim, involves the character James Earl Cash being forced to make violent snuff films to please his macabre ‘Director’. Set in Carcer City, where “nothing matters anymore and all that’s left are cheap thrills”, it requires the player to hunt and kill gang members in a variety of gruesome ways. The sequel sees Cash again, only this time as the hunted rather than the hunter.

Controversy around Manhunt mushroomed after the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy by seventeen-year-old Warren Leblanc on 29th July 2004. Leblanc, who hit Pakeerah with a hammer before stabbing him sixty times, was reputedly obsessed with the Manhunter game, which Pakeerah’s parents blamed as inspiring the murder. In the Sun today, Pakeerah’s father, who is obviously still suffering, is quoted saying, “Stefan’s mother Giselle and I have absolutely no doubt that Leblanc was inspired by this game when he killed our son”.

A BBC article from 2004 reports that detectives investigating the case denied there was any link between the game and the murder, claiming the motive for the incident was robbery. The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers’ Association (Elspa) further complained about media coverage of the crime, adding that no link had yet been found from any research at all. However, the Sun cites Dr Barbara Krahe, “a leading authority on the link between aggressive teenagers and violent games”, as saying her research shows that there is a definite link, though what this is exactly is not elucidated. Now, whilst the first Manhunter was withdrawn from many retail outlets voluntarily, the second has been banned completely from sale anywhere in the UK.

Paying due respect to the anguish of Pakeerah’s parents, their insistence that they “have absolutely no doubt” that playing Manhunt was inspiration for the killing does not amount to a case that it did, or it didn’t. The media coverage at the time provided the pair with an emotionally-charged national platform for their call for censorship. But it’s too simple to play the media blame game. If the killer was inspired in some way by Manhunt, the question needs to be asked why he, out of thousands of responsible gamers, was the only one to be so. And if one person has been unable to properly distinguish their imagination from reality, that is not a good enough reason to impose a blanket ban on the ‘inspiring’ material. But how should society deal with these cases? But even this gets the explanation the wrong way round: it is not so much the case that violent media cause violent activity, but an impulse within the subject himself, towards violent media and violent activity. In which case, removing the violent media may have little preventative effect.

And with this sort of censorship now acceptable, a simplistic view of people’s emotional life and motivations is accepted as a starting point for legislative decisions, which then sets a low benchmark for future freedom of expression. Not only is it discouraging that material can be banned because it is thought by one or two people in the spotlight to be directly responsible for violent behaviour (cf the gun shooting case) but it is also saddening to see a further nail being driven into the coffin of unfettered, private, and utterly harmless recreation. The destructive impulses many people share are ignored rather than accepted as part of a healthy emotional and intellectual life, and must not be expressed in even a controlled and private environment. Worse, any engagement with material considered ‘dark’ is automatically perceived as being borne out of these terrible dirty urges and not out of a desire to simply engage with friends, have a hobby, siphon off a lively imagination or just relax after work. I cannot help thinking of American Psycho.

Sarah Boyes