The Entertainment Value of Rape

I woke up to a weird question on the radio this morning. "Is rape too serious to be entertaining?" Huh. I'd fucking well hope so.
Apparently, the context was the episode of a soap opera, where a character got raped, the whole thing aired at 8pm and the whole thing was a bit more graphic than what you usually see in a family program at that hour. And now that I think about it, soap operas in the UK can be pretty dark.

I don't really care much for soap operas, but Claire has made me watch Coronation Street for about four years now. Last night's upsetting rape episode was on a different show, but during my four years of watching Coronation Street, one character got raped, as well. Twice. The rapist later got murdered by his own mother. Another girl had her skull crushed with a lead pipe just a few weeks ago. Before that, a lady had been trapped in a basement, which had then been set on fire by her captor. A firefighter died trying to rescue her and basement lady actually survived the fire, but then they offed her in hospital. There were also a few fun domestic violence episodes, where a woman regularly beat the everloving shit out of her boyfriend. What a pussy!

Some woman with Alzheimer's offed herself with a toaster. One of the regulars on the show had been in prison for murder. I didn't watch the show when she killed the guy, but they bring it up every now and then. Another character murdered someone and assumed his identity, up to a point where he met his victim's parents and eventually locked them in the basement, along with some other characters of the show. He got chased by the police, fell from a rooftop, had a car accident and eventually died in hospital. One of the first ever episodes I had to watch featured a tram crashing into a building, killing several characters:

Coronation Street isn't set somewhere in a dystopian, post-nuclear future (I'd totally watch that, though!), but in the fictional town of Weatherfield, showing the miserable everyday lives of a bunch of middle class average joes, all of which are exceptionally stupid, lose their shit at the first sign of a crisis and most of them happen to be scum. Because there wouldn't be much drama or conflict if the show was realistic. All of the characters have fucked one another at some point, both physically and metaphorically.

Now, don't get the wrong idea here. I'm not shocked or offended by any of this stuff. I just find it amusing. They brutally rape and murder people on tv every evening on what they call family tv. Those who survive usually end up losing their jobs, their relationships, they get betrayed and bullied and cheated on, everyone is hilariously miserable and now they're stopping for a moment, going, "Hmmm... might rape not be entertaining after all?" And they don't feel even a little weird or stupid.

Speaking of the pain and suffering of others for the sake of entertainment: Call of Duty. Yes. Again. I'm not buying Advanced Warfare. I've bought most CoD titles, played them for hundreds of hours online, but after all the empty promises, performance issues, cheats, hacks and other bullshit that came with CoD: Ghosts, I'm just not gonna fall for any more day 1 special edition preorder nonsense.

Ironically, Claire and I are still crazy about Ghosts, even though it's probalby the worst CoD yet. Apparently, they're finally starting to ban cheaters. Well, they all claim to be perfectly innocent, of course, except maybe this guy. Suddenly, players in most lobbies have an average K/D of .9 or worse, with the best players rarely showing anything above 1.5. In other words, they all suck, which makes fighting them a lot of fun.

And since most players, like us, were stupid enough to purchase the special edition, season pass and everything included, all the new maps are being played fairly often, which is good, as most of them are fantastic. Not only do they look great, but they come with fun features, such as random care packages, which can turn you into the Predator:

I like the character customization in Ghosts, both visually and in terms of perks, guns and killstreaks. The weapons are extremely deadly in this game and people aren't bullet sponges like they were in Black Ops 2. And if you're one of those people who keep on whining about how awful the Graphics in Ghosts are - go fuck yourself! No, it doesn't look as good as Battlefield. But its visuals are still the best in any CoD yet. Go compare the PC version of Ghosts on ultra quality settings to the maxed-out PC version of Black Ops 2 and keep telling me Black Ops looks better. Moron.

~3000 players on the PC version during prime time, no dedicated servers, performance issues, crashes... sometimes you just fall in love with a game, which is pretty shit. So, whatever you do, if you've avoided Ghosts so far, or maybe you've tried and hated it like most sane people did, don't come back. It's not as hack-infested as it used to be and some of the new maps are so much better than the awful, unplayable maps this game launched with. But if you hate this game, then a bunch of new maps and fair play won't do much to change things for you.

You wouldn't like it.

Meanwhile, we're thinking about buying a pair of PS Vitas, so we can play Call of Duty against each other on the go. You know, sit on the bus or near market square in town and shout at each other. "Stop knifing me in the dick, you cunt!" I can't wait.
And now I'm running out of time, because we gotta buy groceries and shit. Bleh.

-Cat