Tuesday, June 9, 2009

"Stockholm: An Exploration of Love"

This wins the award for Most Disturbing Media in 2009. Recently released for sale on Amazon (and then quickly banned), "Stockholm: An Exploration of Love" is an interactive video games which puts the player in position of kidnapper with the goal of physically and mentally torturing a woman in order to get her to fall in love. The game is named after Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological disorder that happens when a victim becomes emotionally attached to his/her captor.

Visit the official website to read letters from the creators about what they call a "masterpiece". Here is an excerpt from the Director of the game,

"By portraying men as weak and docile, [TV shows like Friends] suggest to us that men are supposed to be weak and docile. By portraying love as sacrificing the dominance of spirit that makes a man, and instead opting for extreme domestication, they trick us into thinking that love is supposed to be domestication. I’m not really comfortable letting something like that stand unchallenged, and that was one of the primary reasons I made Stockholm. The point of Stockholm is not that kidnapping is the true path of love. The point is that the sugar coated nonsense that TV and movies are forcing down our throat is not the only true path."

So is he suggesting that the opposite of domestication is rape and torture? Or that a domesticated man is an equivalent victim to a raped woman? I'm not totally sure. But what I am sure about is that this video game is horrifying and I would be seriously afraid of men who play it.

To read more about the relationship between video games and real life crime, read here, here or here.
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