Grand Theft Auto V is one of the hottest games of the year, just like pretty much every other iteration of GTA since it debuted on PS One all those years ago. The game takes place in a fictitious city and follows the lives of three fictitious criminals as the go and raise all sorts of fictitious hell. Do you catch a common theme in that last sentence? If you did, then congratulations, the rational side of your brain is functional. If not, well, then you must be one of the 40,000 people who signed the petition to have GTA V pulled from Kmart and Target Shelves in Australia because of the violence it contains.
Specifically, the violence in question is on the women of the game — you know, violence on men is perfectly fine — and how it portrays women as prostitutes and strippers. I have never played GTA V — I am a responsible parent, so I can’t play it at home — so I cannot comment on what these folks are claiming, but as I recall, you can kick the ass of whoever you like, man or woman, in GTA. Additionally, not every woman in any GTA game is depicted as a stripper or prostitute. Some of them are, but most of them are simply random women roaming the streets.
In response to this violence and overall bad impression of women in the game three women who were subjected to violence in their lives decided to start the petition to have the game pulled from the stores on Change.org. The petition managed to gain 40,000 signatures, so Target and Kmart took action by removing the game.The petition states "It’s a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get ’health’ points," but what it fails to mention is that the game is rated R18+ in Australia (the same as the ESRB’s M rating in the U.S.) and is intended for adults, not children.
The women then went on to say "To see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainment is sickening and causes us great pain and harm." That statement irks me greatly, as I want to simply say "then don’t watch it..."
A counter petition was launched to keep the game on shelves, but Target and Kmart chose to ignore that one. So to our poor Aussie fans of GTA V, you won’t be able to buy you GTA V and Underoos at the same place any longer.
Click past the jump to read more about this topic.
GTA 5 Removed From Target and Kmart Shelves in Australia originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 5 December 2014 19:00 EST.
Gabriele Tarquini Piero Taruffi Dennis Taylor Henry Taylor John Taylor
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