P.S. Re: that homophobic game in Georgia

The Observer, run by France 24, reflects my earlier blog post on homophobic game which appeared on Georgian website popular among children: Hunting the homo – the game infuriating gay rights activists. The article states that the game was created by a Frenchman and it’s banned in France.

A video game hosted by a Georgian website is causing outrage in the gay rights community. The idea of the online game - to shoot nudists, before they b**ger you, was created by a Frenchman. It's banned in France... but not in Georgia.

The game (available here), was initially picked up and slated by the Gay Caucasus blog, shortly followed by Gay Armenia. Global Voices quoted the latter as being "completely disgusted", finding it particularly shocking that the concept was adopted by "those religious-minded people in Tbilisi, Georgia, who swear in the name of Georgian patriarchy and constantly cite Bible to ‘justify' their homophobia and hatred. Is this their (un-)‘orthodox' way of bringing up children by creating an image of an enemy (= gays) and teaching how to deal with it (= kill them)?" [...]

However the owner (Jean Christophe Calvet) of website which originally launched this game in 2002, tries to justify it as a “juvenile humour”.

"We launched this game a long time ago [2002] and it worked very well. It was only a few years after it came out that a gay rights association took legal action against us. So we withdrew the game. It's no longer available on French sites, but it's impossible to wipe it from all foreign sites too.
I have to say that at the beginning, we really didn't understand why the association was attacking us. The guy who came up with the game, Stéphane Aguie, wanted to mock hunters and red-necks, not gay men.
Our games are not politically correct. They're aimed at teenagers (12-18) and it's true that they're of a juvenile humour. I realise now that this one in particularly could be found shocking, but I believe that you should be able to make this kind of joke in the name of freedom of speech. Incidentally, not everyone in the gay community was supportive of banning the game.
It's not the first game we've been attacked over. Jean-Marie Le Pen [far right French party leader] took us to court over a game in which users could throw axes at his face. He was not the only celebrity featured in the game, but in his case it was a swastika rather than an axe... We were also criticised by the Americans for our ‘New York Defender' game. Launched in 2001, the aim of the game was to protect the Twin Towers from plane attacks."

I completely reject such ‘justification’. There is nothing “juvenile” and not a bit “humorous” in something which promotes hatred and killing. Even worse, if this is aimed at children and teenagers. Will Mr. Jean Christophe Calvet be as light-hearted in relation, for example, a game which depicts white people hunting and killing black people? Will he describe it as a “juvenile” and “humorous” concept, or a “joke in the name of freedom of speech”? I doubt very much. This has nothing to do with the freedom of speech. This has everything to do with promotion of hatred and homophobia.

You may read the piece by The Observer (France 24) here.

My original blog post is here.