Duncombe’s point about Grand Theft Auto and our inner deviant is a relatively valid one. The game is one we could learn from, not so much for its actions or “missions” but because it allows you to reprise a roll that society doesn’t. When you play this game or any role playing game, like sims for instance, you’re not tied to your real life persona. You don’t have be a student, a doctor or a reserved wallflower, you’re able to let loose and be whomever you want to be. Whether that be a weapon totting gangster or a notorious pimp, the game doesn’t know you in real life and nobody in real life knows you in the game. It promotes ultimate freedom, creativity and the ability to wear many masks.
We can learn several things from this, one people often feel compelled or forced to be a certain person around their peers or colleagues and are restricted in their creativity. Often they may feel a sense of rebellion but can’t act on it because of real life consequences, like loosing their job or legal ramifications. This article makes me think of those articles that roll through the media from time to time about people who lead secret lives. For instance the Dermatologist who sadly died of a drug overdose in Manhattan over the summer. She was a married woman with children and had a successful medical practice but she led a secret life, one filled with binge drinking and drug use. In no way is that sort of life style healthy or worthy of being condoned but it is an example of someone who suppressed their inner nature and feelings and stored them away in a dark corner of their lives.
I think that’s something Duncombe makes you ponder. Do all people have secret lives? Or want them? And if they do have secret lives what stops them from coming out with it? Is it because of the norms society has established or is it fear of being judged?
