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January 29, 2008

Message in a Serial Killer Board Game

I have always been fixated on trying to make things better and make people feel happy. As an artist, I have been interested in creating beautiful things from which people would derive pleasure. So I will state right up front that I have always been entirely baffled by artists who are obsessed with portraying evil, degrading, revolting, cruel, inhuman, or depressing subjects. Same goes for dark musicians (such as Marilyn Manson, whose artwork is apparently as twisted as his music). It’s just not something that has ever interested me. So my first reaction upon hearing that someone who is, in truth, a very talented artist, has created a trivia board game featuring famous serial killers was revulsion.

The Serial Killer Trivia Game features Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer Gary Ridgway and Spokane's serial killer Robert Yates. The game places the players in the middle of some of the most notorious cases of our time with a roll of a dice.

"You would land on the victim's house and once you do that, you would grab a trivia card and attempt to answer it correctly in order to claim the victim," said Ryan Hobson, the game's creator.

The game, like any other board game, involves moving player pieces around the board and coming across a variety of scenarios. But the scenarios in the serial killer game involve killing.

"'BTK strangler' stands for 'bind, torture, kill.' So if you got the question right, you would claim one of these victims, the little baby," Hobson said.

The plastic babies are color-coated to match the killer (or player) who claims them.

What does this have to do with art? Well, Hobson describes his game as “an art piece.” He says, “I don't feel that art's job is to always be tasteful," and even an optimist like me can recognize and appreciate the value of shocking and horrifying works of art. Sometimes that is the only way to express something effectively and induce positive change in people.

Hobson does not say why he created this game, so I can’t speak for him, but even though I hope it doesn’t get reproduced and wind up on store shelves, I do think it expresses some interesting ideas. It serves as a commentary on the commercialism and trivialization of everything – of the value of human life, of the suffering of others, and even of our fascination with evil and our obsession with the mindset of the serial killer, which results from our inability to understand it. It also speaks to me as a commentary on the unquestioning nature of children – those most likely to play board games. In imagining children playing this game, which would surely happen if it was published, I am struck by the fact that children simply assume that life is supposed to be the way they experience it and, without moral judgment, they accept whatever evil is around them as “normal.”

With the mainstreaming into our culture of incredibly realistic horror and slasher films, brutal and bloody video games, dark music and its accompanying dark videos, and the constant onslaught of horrific real news stories featured every day, I suppose a serial killer board game won’t make much of a difference. We’re virtually saturated with inhumanity and barbarism. But I can’t help but wonder what will become of the kids today who are absorbing all of this ugliness, whose parents "enjoy" this media around their children, those impressionable young minds who are still establishing their moral compass. Adults can filter through these messages and find the deeper meanings, but children cannot. Will these children grow up thinking this horrifically inhuman "art" is an expression of what is normal? And will it thus escalate into the next generation?

Posted by Becky at January 29, 2008 01:19 PM