Rated M for Moron

Very few times in my life have I felt shocked from the words or actions of others. My relatively blunted affect, however, was electrified last night by the comments uttered by a woman at my local GameStop.

I was at the dual checkout counter trading in two disappointing Wii games and a woman with her two sons were standing next two me. Using my carnival skill for guessing ages, I’m estimating the sons were 13 and 10-years-old. The dialogue between the mother and the employee went something like this (as verbatim as I can remember and presented in screenplay format):

INT. GAMESTOP – EVENING

A mother and her two sons are talking with an employee at the counter. Eric and Bella are at the other register trading in games.

EMPLOYEE
No, this doesn’t have any nudity. What this means is
that there is just hot chicks.

MOTHER
What does that mean?

EMPLOYEE
It’s no different than what is on late-night TV.

MOTHER
That’s pretty bad.

EMPLOYEE
Well, it’s like broadcast TV late-night; not like late-night
Cinemax.

MOTHER
That’s still pretty bad. It’s not like it used to be.

The sons are becoming increasingly annoyed.

EMPLOYEE
Yeah, well, there’s no nudity, no profanity, but it is one
of the most graphically violent games.

A beat.

I’m not trying to talk you out of this, but I just want you
to be informed. You’re able to stab a sword in a guy’s neck,
cut off his head, and cut off his limbs.

MOTHER (quietly)
Oh, that’s okay.

The sons are exuberant.

We need to train the future’s soldiers to fight for us.

Eric vomits in the mother’s face.

FADE TO BLACK

I am fully aware of our culture’s acceptance of violence and repression of sexuality. Here are three examples of this:

1) Indecency and obscenity laws exist only for the control of sexual content in the media. There are no laws to control violent content.

2) Public fights are likely to attract eyes, whereas public kissing is likely to avert eyes.

3) In Alabama, owning six firearms is legal, but owning six vibrators is illegal.

However, up until last night, I was convinced that this cultural standard was subconscious. I assumed these attitudes were ingrained outside of our awareness. The mother’s comments proved my hypothesis null. She was well aware of her objection to her sons being exposed to pixilated cleavage, but actually encouraged their exposure to ultra-violence as a training method for our country’s continued fight for “freedom.”

God Bless America.