Cartoon Violence

Last week, I brought home a new t-shirt added to my collection: a retro Transformers print with Jazz, Optimus Prime and Prowl on the front.  The shirt is a camouflage shade of green, and the print is all black. 



So I pulled it out to show to two of my roommates, I thought that they'd just give me a ribbing about how big a dork I am for spending money on shit like that.  Instead, one of them says, in a tone of dismay bordering on disgust, "Is that a gun?"



I looked down at the large barrel near the bottom front of the shirt.  "Well...yeah.  That's Optimus Prime's gun."



At that point, she mumbled something about "a shirt with a giant phallus on it."



I could not believe my ears.  Are you fucking kidding me??  It's a FUCKING CARTOON T-SHIRT.  These are GIANT ROBOTS.  Here I was with a perfectly average nerdy t-shirt.  And here was my roommate being absurd about it.  Apparently, someone traded her in for a package deal of Tipper Gore, Hillary Clinton and some other lefty-overzealous-censorship-psycho-female-politician to be named later when I wasn't looking.  I must have been out of town when the shit happened.



Let's get this out of the way now: no serious politician -- or serious person -- should be wasting their time campaigning against violent cartoons, video games or whatever other nerdy stuff some people are concerned about.  This issue alone makes me worry about Hillary's candidacy for president.  I'm supposed to take somone seriously who actively campaigns against video game violence?  Really?  What, did someone beat you to the other 'moral outrage' issues, Senator?  That health care problem not taking up enough of your time? 



If you (and by you, I mean the politician[s] of your choice) are going to preoccupy yourself with a cultural issue, how about you spend some energy lobbying against realistic portrayals of violence, like those found in live-action TV shows and movies?  Kids should probably be kept away from that stuff. 



But leave cartoons and video games out of it.  And stop shitting all over my childhood while you're at it.  I didn't end up a trigger-happy maniac because I enjoyed a cartoon about giant robots and played with G.I. Joes -- and neither has anyone else.  I also played with tons of toy guns as a kid, yet I've never even held a real one in my life.  Get over yourselves.

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