Ok so the premise of "Gamer" has been done to death. That's a given, even "Surrogates" had the whole issues with avatars. However "Gamer" has the link with video games and online social gaming, really being an extremist technopohibic take on the whole situation. What "Gamer" plays on to work though is that you must believe that watching violent media makes you less prone to act "properly" to real violence as some do. This ascertation really in my view is a very closed minded take on the media, borrowing alot from the old passive audience theories of broadcast media. What it fails to even try to understand is the fact that humanity could already have an instinct for violence. Obviously violence happened before violent media did.
Films like "Gamer" try to argue that as a society we are totally desensitised, to the point that having real people in the game dying wouldn't even phase us. As a gamer and being well versed in the violent cinema I can say that I'm pretty damn sure I couldn't send people to their deaths as easily in "Gamer".
Here in lies the problem with the film's argument in the sense that while it is clearly marketed to video game players it also insults them. Along with the added irony that it is just another piece of violent cinema to further desensitise us. Clearly they are taking their own message seriously. Yes I know it's just an action film but still. Unlike the film I won't generalise and say "yes all gamers are normal and no one like to kill things" what I will say is that I don't want to. I don't think I know anybody who would. Maybe I'm just talking to the wrong people.
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