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The ''Mortal Kombat'' series of fighting games, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, has been the subject of various controversies since its creation in the 1990s. In particular, ''Mortal Kombat'' has often been criticised from a broad spectrum of political and other positions for its unrestrained use of graphic and bloody violence (in both the regular combat and the Fatalities, finishing moves which allow the player to kill or otherwise maim opponent characters), which remains a popular draw of the series. The violent nature of the series, one of the earliest of its kind, has led to the creation and continued presence of the ESRB and other ratings boards for video games. Various ''Mortal Kombat'' games have been censored or banned in several countries, and the franchise was the subject of several court cases. ==Controversies and censorship== The series' violence and especially its "Fatalities", a gameplay system of lethal finishing moves featured in the ''Mortal Kombat'' series, was a source of major video game controversy during the early 1990s. A moral panic over it, caused by the outrage from mass media, resulted in a U.S. Congressional hearing and helped to pave a way for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) game rating system in 1994.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=ESRB Talk About of the Mortal Kombat Games Series )〕 To illustrate why a government regulation of video games was needed, Democratic Party Senator Herb Kohl showed clips from 1992's ''Mortal Kombat'' and ''Night Trap'' (another game featuring digitized actors; violent but hand-drawn games such as ''Doom'' or ''Eternal Champions'' were not even mentioned in the hearings),〔Steve Kent, ''The Ultimate History of Video Games''.〕 with Professor Eugene F. Provenzo commenting that such games "have almost tv-quality graphics () are overwhelmingly violent, sexist and racist."〔Karen J. Cohen, States News Service, "Kohl still wants video games bill". ''The Milwaukee Sentinel'', December 10, 1993.〕 Nintendo, due to their policy of screening games for content such as blood, has refused to allow gore in the game's release for their home system,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Gamasutra - Mortal Kombat - A Book Excerpt from Replay: The History of Video Games )〕 while their rival Sega released it with their MA-13 rating, resulting in a great commercial success for them when millions of consumers chose their version over Nintendo's.〔Kevin C. Pyle, Scott Cunningham, ''Bad for You: Exposing the War on Fun!'', page 63.〕 Nintendo then attempted to use that fact to attack Sega during the hearings and Sega's Spanish division cancelled the release of their version of ''Mortal Kombat'' in Spain, stating that they feared the game would stir up as much controversy in Spain as it had in the USA and UK. Conservative Democrat (later independent) senator Joe Lieberman was one of the first politicians to voice concerns over ''Mortal Kombat'' in 1993. He also later referenced it and ''Doom'' in his 1996 statement when he joined Kohl and the psychologist David Walsh for a campaign to inform the Congress about the new wave of violent games such as ''Resident Evil''.〔Claire Bond Potter, Renee Christine Romano, ''Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History that Talks Back'', page 209.〕 ''TIME'' commented in 2012 that "the reason the 1992 classic remains seminal is because it broke an implicit taboo about what was okay to put in a game." As in the case of the first ''Mortal Kombat'' game, the absurdly bloody content of ''Mortal Kombat II'' became the subject of a great deal of controversy regarding violent video games. In 1994, ''Mortal Kombat II'' was put in the index of the works deemed harmful to young people by Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien, or BPjM). Next year, all versions of the game except for Game Boy were confiscated from the German market for violating §131 of the country's penal code, that is for showing a gruesome violence against humans (the ban ended in 2005, due to the ten-year limitation for confiscations). ''Mortal Kombat'' co-creator Ed Boon said in 2012: "I've always had the position that the rating system was a good idea and should be put in place. Once ''Mortal Kombat II'' came out, there was a rating system in place (North America ). We were () an M-rated game, and everybody knew the content that was in there, so it became almost a non-issue."〔Reyan Ali, (Ed Boon's 12 Biggest Mortal Kombat Memories ), ''Complex'', September 12, 2012.〕 It was also a unique case of video game violence being censored in Japan, where Nintendo insisted to change the game's blood color to green and the screen would turn black-and-white for all character-specific Fatality moves.〔''EGM2'' 5 (November 1994), page 96.〕 Midway Games was later forced to tone down the Joker's finishing move to secure the ESRB T-rating for ''Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=MK vs. DC: The Joker's Fatality Gets T-Rated )〕 In 1998, a showing of video tape recording of gameplay from one of ''Mortal Kombat'' games helped to pass the Democratic Party's Barry Silver sponsored Florida House of Representatives bill to regulate video game violence that Silver said has "affected the moral fiber of our youth." The bill was first urged by the Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles and the Florida State University professor Murray Krantz, a specialist in children development, and then gained support from more than 50 lawmakers and various groups ranging from the Florida Parent-Teacher Association to the Christian Coalition of America; Chiles alleged that such games can become "an instruction manual for murder and mayhem."〔The Associated Press, "Chiles looks to restrict violent video games". ''Boca Raton News'', April 3, 1998.〕 The House Governmental Rules and Regulation Committee passed the bill unanimously after seeing the tape, the content of which was described by an AP reporter as follows: "After a male warrior repeatedly pummels a female opponent, the game urges him to 'finish her'. He then punches his hand into her chest and rips out her heart as blood gushes to the floor. At other times, the winning warrior instead pulls out the entire spine." The bill's critics such as the Interactive Digital Software Association founder and president Doug Lowenstein regarded it unconstitutional as violating the free speech provision in the First Amendment. Video game magazine ''Next Generation'' called it "a serious threat to video games in Florida" and expressed concern that the measure "might lead to the removal of all public video games in the state and possibly start a national trend."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Florida House panel votes to regulate video-game violence - First Amendment Center – news, commentary, analysis on free speech, press, religion, assembly, petition )〕 In 2010, Swiss Social Democrat politician Evi Allemann campaigned to outlaw ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Manhunt'' and video games displaying interactive "cruel acts of violence" in Switzerland.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Swiss Game Ban May Feature Only a Little Censorship )〕 In the aftermath of 1999 Columbine High School massacre, the Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton stated that "video games like ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Killer Instinct'', and ''Doom'', the very game played obsessively by the two young men who ended so many lives in Littleton, make our children more active participants in simulated violence."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Internet Hub Offers Both Sides of Game Violence Debate )〕 Attorney Jack Thompson, a Republican and Christian conservative activist against sexual themes and violence in video games and other entertainment media, has previously represented the families of three of victims of the shooting, who unsuccessfully sued the producers of ''Doom'', ''Quake'' and ''Mortal Kombat'', saying he intends "to hurt" the video game industry.〔John Shelton Lawrence, Robert Jewett, ''The Myth of the American Superhero'', page 202.〕 In 2006, Thompson also ordered a cease and desist to ''Mortal Kombat'' developer and publisher Midway Games, writing: "It has today come to my attention that the newly recently ''Mortal Kombat: Armageddon'' contains an unauthorized commercial exploitation of my name, photograph, image, and likeness within the game."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Jack Thompson Orders MK "Cease and Desist" )〕 Midway did not respond. In fact, what Thompson thought was an actual character put by the developer into the game, was actually just created by a player who used the game's "Kreate-a-Fighter" mode to construct a likeness of Thompson and demonstrated it in a video clip posted online.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Jack Thompson in new Mortal Kombat )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=10 Things You Probably Don't Know About Mortal Kombat - Listverse )〕 Instructions how to make a "Jack Thompson" character, described there as "the most violent man in America," were published two days earlier by video game website Gaming Target.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mortal Kombat Armageddon: Kreate A Fighter Kraziness )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mortal Kombat’s Kreate a Fighter mode used to its full potential )〕 Thompson had the offending video successfully removed, but the article has remained online in an unaltered form.〔 He was also interviewed in the 2009 documentary ''Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat: The Official Movie Site )〕 Some have attributed the series' supposed influence in particular cases of real-life lethal violence other than the Columbine massacre. In 1999, Brazil banned ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Postal'', ''Carmageddon'', and four violent first-person shooters for allegedly inspiring twenty-four-year-old medical student Mateus da Costa Meira's deadly shooting rampage in a cinema in São Paulo, which was primarily blamed on ''Duke Nukem 3D''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=When Two Tribes Go to War: A History of Video Game Controversy )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Brazil Bans Violent Video Games )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Gamasutra - Brazil Bans Six Games )〕 In 2007, after twenty-year-old Patrick Morris used a shotgun to shoot five times and kill fifteen-year-old Diego Aguilar in Klamath Falls in what prosecutors alleged was a drug-deal related killing, the defense was reported as having said that violent video games such as ''Mortal Kombat'' "may have blurred Morris' ability to distinguish reality and the consequences of his actions."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title="Video Games Made Me Do It" Defense Raised in Oregon Murder Trial )〕 In 2008, the series was liked to the so-called "Mortal Kombat murder" case in which seventeen-year-old Lamar Roberts and sixteen-year-old Heather Trujillo were accused of fatally beating Trujillo's preteen half-sister, Zoe Garcia. The pair told investigators they were acting out moves from a ''Mortal Kombat'' game; prosecutor Robert Miller stated at a preliminary hearing: "Zoe Garcia was the object of abuse by both Heather Trujillo and Lamar Roberts caused these injuries with ." Roberts and Trujillo were convicted for murder,〔 but the victim's parents said they were convinced the ''Mortal Kombat'' story was fabricated by the killers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mortal Kombat Murder Girl Sentenced )〕 CNN's Ashleigh Banfield described the 2015 Charleston church shooting as "Mortal Kombat murders". In 2000, two related studies on the effects of media violence by psychologists Craig A. Anderson and Karen Dill, which involved notably violent games including ''Mortal Kombat'' and ''Wolfenstein 3D'', concluded that playing such games makes players, especially male, act more aggressively. ''Mortal Kombat'' then again came upon a year-long "flurry of new scrutiny" from U.S. media and lawmakers.〔"Violent video games are drawing fire from many lawmakers." ''The Southeast Missourian'', July 19, 2004.〕 During the 2000s, however, the controversy surrounding the series had wound down significantly. AP writer Lou Kesten wrote in 2006 that Lieberman has remained "one of the video game industry's most persistent critic, but ''Mortal Kombat'' is no longer the flashpoint of the game violence debate. Its brand of ''mano-a-mano'' brawling is seen as kind of old-fashioned today, now that the likes of ''Grand Theft Auto'' are serving up the indiscrimate slaughter of innocent civilians."〔Lou Kesten, the Associated Press. "Blood and guts a video game standby." ''Park City Daily News'', October 26, 2006.〕 When Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, blamed violent video games, including ''Mortal Kombat'', as an allegedly contributing factor in a rise of shooting killing spree incidents in the United States in wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, several commentators felt that LaPierre's choice of ''Mortal Kombat'' was an outdated "pop culture reference."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Wayne LaPierre’s bizarre pop culture references )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NRA condemns games in wake of Connecticut shooting )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NRA Press Conference Riddled With Weirdly Outdated Cultural References )〕 In his statement, LaPierre said: "Guns don’t kill people. Video games, the media and Obama’s budget kill people. ... And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like ''Bulletstorm'', ''Grand Theft Auto'', ''Mortal Kombat'' and ''Splatterhouse''."〔Paul Tassi, (NRA Press Conference: Blame Video Games and Movies, Not Guns ), Forbes.com, 12/21/2012.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NRA's Wayne LaPierre blames 'Natural Born Killers,' 'Mortal Kombat' for Newtown shooting )〕 In 2005, ''TIME'' noted that the Democratic politicians such as Lieberman and the conservative-liberal Hillary Clinton "lambasted ''Mortal Kombat'', highlighted violent games more than a decade ago (...) but members feel the party has ignored these issues in recent years, allowing () Republicans to seize the high ground on moral values." The 2011 California state ban on selling violent video games to minors, proposed and advocated by a Republican and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was struck down in a 7:2 vote against it the Supreme Court of the United States case ''Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association'' on the grounds that "video games qualify for First Amendment protection." The Justices' majority opinion declared: "Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing ''Mortal Kombat''. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violent video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than ''The Divine Comedy'', and restrictions upon them must survive strict scrutiny." Justice Elena Kagan was quoted as calling ''Mortal Kombat'' "an iconic game, which I am sure half of the clerks who work for us spent considerable amounts of time in their adolescence playing."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Justices should keep video game violence from kids )〕 The series' 2011 reboot game ''Mortal Kombat'' was banned in Australia, Germany, and South Korea. The Australian Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor asked to be briefed on the decision, citing "public disquiet on the issue". Previously, the original ''MK'' game, along with ''Time Killers'' and ''Night Trap'', and its media coverage contributed to the Australian Senate setting up an inquiry that led to the Commonwealth Classification Act, which came into force on March 1, 1995. The Act has introduced the Australian Classification Board almost exactly 18 years before the 2011's ''Mortal Kombat'' game was finally banned by the Board for its "explicit depictions of dismemberment, decapitation, disembowelment and other brutal forms of slaughter."〔(It took 18 years, but Mortal Kombat's finally banned ), news.com.au, March 2, 2011.〕 The publisher Warner Bros. Interactive's appeal was repealed,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mortal Kombat Classification Appeal Rejected in Australia )〕 but following the introduction of the adults-only rating, the ban was overturned in Australia and the game re-rated R18+ uncensored.〔Mark Serrels, (Mortal Kombat Finally Receives An R18+ Classification In Australia ), Kotaku Australia, February 14, 2012.〕 ''Mortal Kombat'' games was also used in several studies other than Anderson's and Dill's. A 2008 experiment by Richard J. Barlett, Christopher P. Harris, and Callie Bruey also examined how playing ''Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance'' affected the subjects' hostility and heart rate, interpreting it as evidence of "more aggressive thoughts activated in semantic memory". A 2011 study conducted by Dr. Brock Bastian from the University of Queensland's School of Psychology and published in the ''Journal of Experimental Social Psychology'' claimed to having "found evidence that playing violent video games leads players to see themselves, and their opponents, as lacking in core human qualities such as warmth, open-mindedness, and intelligence." The study's participants were playing ''Mortal Kombat'', fighting against each other and against AI-controlled opponents. Bastian said he believes "the findings of this study point to the potential long-term effects of violent video game play and suggest that repeated exposure to these dehumanising experiences may result in chronic changes in self-perception."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Video Violence Lowers Self-Esteem - Australasian Science Magazine )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=University of Queensland study believes violent games reduce humanity )〕 An earlier laboratory experiment conducted by psychologists Brad Bushman and Bryan Gibson and using ''Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe'' and two other violent games (''Resistance: Fall of Man'' and ''Resident Evil 5'') appeared to indicate "that the aggression stimulating effects of a violent video game can persist long after the game has been turned off, if people ruminate about the violent content in the game."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Study Examines Effect of Ruminating over Violent Games )〕 ''Mortal Kombat''s advertisements have also received criticism and were subjected to censorship. During the 1993 hearings on violent video games, Senator Lieberman criticized the video game console manufacturer company Sega for one of its TV commercials, saying that it promotes violence. The video, as described by ''Weekly Reader'', "shows a boy gaining the respect of his friends after winning ''Mortal Kombat''. At the end of the commercial, the boy angrily knocks over a tray of cookies given to him by friends now frightened by the boy's fighting ability. The boy roars, Some others have condemned the games from other perspectives, such as feminist and racial activists. Guy Aoki, the president of the advocacy group Media Action Network for Asian Americans, rebuked ''Mortal Kombat II'' in 1994 for allegedly perpetuating existing stereotypes of Asians as martial arts experts with the game's portrayal of characters such as Kitana, Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Mileena, Raiden, Scorpion, Shang Tsung and Sub-Zero. Allyne Mills, publicist for Acclaim Entertainment, answered: "This is a fantasy game, with all different characters. This is a martial arts game which comes from Asia. The game was not created to foster stereotypes."〔May Lam, "Do Fighting Video Games Prolong Stereotypes of Asian Americans?" ''AsianWeek'', September 23, 1994.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Polémica en juego (II) )〕 In 1995, crtitical studies professor Marsha Kinder denounced ''Mortal Kombat II'' and ''Mortal Kombat 3'' for allegedly allowing the player to have what she termed "a misogynist aspect to the combat." Kinder was quoted as saying that in ''MKII'', "some of the most violent possibilities are against women. Also, their fatality moves are highly eroticised. One of the women characters kills her opponent by inflating him until he explodes, another by sucking him in and spitting out his bones. Talk about Spider Woman!"〔''Los Angeles Daily News''. ("WHAM, BAM, DECAPITATE YOU, MA'AM: Women, of a sort, enter Mortal Kombat" ). ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'', May 29, 1995.〕 In media scholars Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins' 1999 book ''From Barbie to Mortal Kombat'', the series was used to represent "the basic boy cyberworld of aggression, action and dead bodies." Liberal journalist Ellen Goodman commented while reporting about the book: "Much as we want little girls in the computer circle, it's hard to lament the fact that our daughters are not drawn to Kombat bootstraps."〔Ellen Goodman, "Trouble in cyberspace: For girls, virtual world is more regressive than the real world". ''Daily News'', March 26, 1999.〕 Maddy Myers of ''The Boston Phoenix'' charged in 2011 that ''Mortal Kombat'' "represents everything that's awful about video games. It's trashy, it's corny, it's gory, it's sexist, it's racist — and it's deceptively addictive."〔 In 2013, video game commentator TotalBiscuit took on to Twitter and reddit to defend ''Mortal Kombat'' from accusations of misogyny, citing the term's dictionary definition and other arguments.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=/r/gaming says this guy is "telling it like it is". Grr. : GirlGamers )〕 On the other hand, game journalist Patrick Klepek (Giant Bomb) argued that "designs might not be misogynistic if we’re going by the baseline definition of 'hatred of women,' but they’re certainly tainted with sexism. (Of which the second Oxford Dictionary definition is 'attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.') Every single woman in ''Mortal Kombat'' is wearing the equivalent of a bikini."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Patrick Klepek Will Now Take Your Calls )〕 Mistaking a bare fist for a hand holding a sword in a high-speed fight scene, Jezebel's Collier Meyerson wrote how she saw "the female controlled by Lynch stabbed/punched Gronkowski's female in the vagina with a sword" in ''Mortal Kombat X'' and called it "super fucking rapey and violent."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Stabbing Vaginas Isn't A Fun Pre-Super Bowl Game, Conan O'Brien )〕 As previously mentioned, the series is based on and notorious for its high amount of in-game ultraviolence and gore, which attracts controversy. A 2014 reddit thread that compared the original Fatalities to the ones in then-upcoming ''Mortal Kombat X'' has raised additional concern as the improvement of graphics has made the violence appear much more striking and realistic.〔Aja Romano, ("Here's a look at how violent 'Mortal Kombat' has gotten, in GIF form" ), The Daily Dot, June 22, 2014.〕 Although the franchise is faced with a bombardment of negative feedback from concerned parents, Ed Boon has implied that what is the worst Fatalities in ''MKX'' have not even been publicly shown yet; he has said in an interview “there’s been a number of things that’ve been presented… they’re so bad I don’t even like talking about it.”〔 Bruce D. Bartholow, a psychology professor at the University of Missouri, said that there is a fear that this simulated violence can translate into real life violence as “the extent that a player learns to make specific or violent responses in the context of the game, those same skills could transfer to similar scenarios outside the game, potentially increasing aggression in nongaming situations.”〔Craig Johnson, ("'Mortal Kombat' is back, but this time (some) fans cringe" ), HLN, July 15, 2014.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mortal Kombat controversies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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