A pretty blonde mob princess, bound and gagged, is taken kicking and screaming raw-throated curses out of the trunk of the player’s car. Tied to a chair in the hideout of the gangsters who hold her hostage, the player’s asked to snap a photo to send to her Mafia father.
She screams muffled protests through the rag between her lips, the image on the camera phone screen reflecting her tormented, terrified eyes. As the player centres her face in the frame, she offers a desperate moan, a wracked sob.
“Smile for daddy,” the player tells her.
Click.
Is Grand Theft Auto IV an expression of hate towards women? Are those who enjoy it misogynists?
Feminist interest blog Feministing certainly thinks so – though not because of this mission scene from later in the game. At the time of GTA IV’s launch, Feministing poster Samhita came across a video called “Ladies of Liberty City: Very Bad Things,” created by IGN. The video featured sequences of the game edited together by IGN, and all of these sequences depicted violence, with sexual overtones, toward the prostitutes and strippers in the game – such as soliciting a prostitute and then running her over with your car to get your money back.
