Virtual Reality ---

I was talking with a good amiga of mine (female friend) about virtual reality, when an idea for a story came to me , about the manner in which a future and very successful virtual reality 'console' could be used in cases of criminal prosecution.

The idea I put forth was one that I knew would relate to my amigas life, since she has previously been in past romantic relationships that have, sadly, spun out of control and become situations of domestic abuse, where she was the primary victim. She was physically attacked on a  few occasions in rather extreme ways, mostly by men who still seem to have no real idea of just what assholes they were....

I thus told her: "imagine a virtual reality console that a prisoner could be hooked up to where, after being condemned on charges of serious domestic abuse, the prisoner would then  be put into a simulation where he himself would be forced to 'play' as a particularly weak woman with a psychotically abusive husband..."

Essentially the idea of the punishment here is pretty simple: Instead of being thrown into a prison cell to sit around and do nothing, the prisoner in this scenario would be thrown directly into the exact situation he just got out of in reality -- except, of course, now he himself would be playing the opposite character. He would be playing the victim whom he himself had just gotten done victimizing!

In our current reality, doing this is nothing more than a far fetched idea that would, I imagine, sound rather absurd to most citizens. In a future reality, however, as the virtual world continues to advance, there is really no reason that something like this could not become possible....

What is even more shocking about al of this however is that, in some ways, this is already very much our reality in certain respects .  In many ways for instance, compared to 100 years ago, we are already living in a society where this sort of "temporarily living as someone else" idea is and already has been taking place for quite some time. The chief example of it is probably  film. Video games are of course a close second, but for the time being it is mostly film that has been our own version of this far fetched virtual reality, wher we get to take a look through someone elses eyes, and feel, even if just temporarily, what they instead of WE feel. A film done by a particularly skilled set of artists and directors is often unusually good at transmitting the eyes of another to us....

Yes, it is true: film is not exactly virtual reality and one certainly does not get to feel or actively BE the characters in a film, but film has still done some pretty extraordinary things when it comes to helping people relate with the problems of "others" whom they would not have necessarily related with previously, in the pre-film era. In fact, certain films have been so skilled at getting society to relate and sympathize with certain types of characters that society no longer even realizes just how much their perception of said characters has changed, as a result of all these films sinking in so deeply to the core fabric of our society .

In the pre-film era all we had was a book to help everyone relate, but the problem with books was that you had to be educated to read them. Film changed this dramatically. Film has helped us to reach an uneducated lower class whom was previously impossible to influence, for literally a thousand centuries of time, in many many regards.

 When people sit down to watch a massively popular film like Titanic for instance, they are not there on the boat, no, they don't feel the freeze of the water and they don't feel the cold bite of the wind, but they still, depending on the scenes, tend to relate, in some manner, with the character Rose, in a way that they never would have been able to relate with her, in a world with no film at all. In fact, when you really look at the manner in which most films are watched, you'll even start to see that this relating people do or do not do with a female character like Rose in Titanic,   is even somewhat shamed in our current society. In many ways, we are already thinking of the films as being a sort of virtual reality. We are already seeing ourselves as actually 'being' the main characters in them, instead of just being their watchers.

 Young boys, perhaps, who would list Titanic as their favorite film and Rose as their favorite and most cherished character, are probably thought, in our own time, at least by some families, to be relating 'a bit too heavily' with a female persona . It's very easy to imagine a mother or a father becoming deeply concerned, for example, with a young growing boy who wants to watch nothing but so called 'girly'  films like Clueless , Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Bring it On, et cetera.

And why exactly would they be so upset over this - why would they be so worried? The answer is obvious: The parents are,again, in some regard, thinking of the world of film in the exact same way that I am sitting here thinking  of virtual reality. They are thinking of it as something that "echoes" whatever ones currently reality is or is supposed t obe . A boy  who watches nothing but girly films is therefore, the commoner imagines, a boy who might also want to be a girl. People tend to see favorite films as something that we want to be or wish to be doing. If I watch nothing but westerns, the idea goes, then it must mean that I want to live in the Wild West. If I watch nothing but movies about elves, then certainly I must want to be an elf... so on and so forth.

In my opinion, it's not that simple, however, and never has been. I do not believe that films, books, music, or video games are supposed to represent who or what we wish to be . I believe they are an entirely seperate reality and I believe that the sooner they are seen as such, the better off we will all be as a society. Just because I like songs about construction workers and drunken highway patrolmen  by Bruce Springsteen, does not and has never meant that I want to be either of those things. What it does mean, however, is that I am interested in those characters and their stories, because I want to understand them, and sympathize with them, and laugh with them et cetera....

 It is thus also the case that, to me, a boy who is interested in those "girly" films -- even if he is exclusively interested in them -- is not necessarily someone who wants to be a girl. What he is, or perhaps, I should  say, what he might be, is instead nothing more than a boy who is , for whatever reason, particularly curious about the alternate reality of what it would be like to be a girl. He is interested in understanding someone elses life. He is interested in figuring out someone elses reality. He is interested in.... what? Sympathizing and seeing through the eyes of someone who he is not. And what is so wrong about thhat? To me, nada. To me, that is a very good thing. It is an example of society moving forward...because, the more we can understand *why* a character like, say, a thief, decides to rob everyone, the more we can thus understand just *how* we can put an end to thievery!

We thus begin to see that what we illustrated earlier with the prisoner is a sort of societal problem that could , more likely than not, probably be solved in a major way even in our own time period, just using films, or TV shows, instead of virtual reality that has not yet been invented or, worse, a stupid prison cell where you sit and do literally nothing.

The problem of course, and the main reason that we have yet to do this -- at least with film -- is because most people, when on the hunt for media, generally do not like to hear stories about victims. They only really like to hear stories about triumphant and oh so strong heroes.

 The most wildly popular films in our own time are almost entirely  made up of people who never seem to fail, but solely succeed over & over again. Even the characters who seem like they might ultimately slip up and fail horrifically, like the main character in Goodfellas, a childhood classic for me, usually wind up succeeding in some way in the end. There's also the fact that, even in films where the characters are shown at the end to fail and fail badly, like Blow, another childhood favorite of mine, where the character George jung ends up with a 25-to-life prison sentence, there is still the fact that the majority of the film Blow shows George Jung having the absolute time of his life, and making incredible memories and friends, whilst dealing cocaine.

 It's thus quite easy to see that, when someone watches this film, they sort of get a "virtual experience" of what it would be like to be a triumphant and very wealthy black market  cocaine dealer, even if only for a short period of time. Not surprisingly, many current people in our society who live the gangster lifestyle do, in fact, quote these films endlessly, as their personal favorites. It is the old adage come full circle , of course: "Art imitates life, and then life winds up imitating art...."

For whatever reason, in our current time period, it seems that many people are unfortunately unable to disconnect between what they see on the screen and prefer to watch, and what they actually then become or are in reality. I think this will probably always somewhat be the case , and I don't think that the fact that people are highly influenced by films, games, music, or books will ever go away. I think inspiration will always be drawn from our most popular characters, and I also think that things like fashion will always be influenced by the most popular characters, as well. Behavior will always be influenced. People who watch Goodfellas and really adore it  will always, perhaps, take a few cues from the characters.  However, I also tend to think that people are slowly beginning to learn how to disconnect more & more, and the more we are able to personally disconnect from what we see on the screen, the more I think we will also be able to learn from our various characters.

This is precisely why I think the prison sentence of the male domestic abuser then becoming the abused female victim is such an incredible idea. I do not think that this man would get out of the virtual reality headset and want, automatically,  to be an abused woman after getting out of it. I believe he would, instead, want to become a better husband, better man, et cetera, due to the fact that he was finally able, for a time, to see through the eyes of the very person he was abusing. In other words, I think that this man would become a better man ... after being forced to live through this virtual reality simulation as a woman.

Sure, could it perhaps be the case that some men would get out of the simulation & feel that they related so much with the female character that they then wanted to be a female themselves? I suppose it would be the case for some men, just like it is the case in our own time that some boys tune into girly films for years and then perhaps surgically change their gender. For others, however, I think it would just be nothing more than another novel learning experience, just like it was a learning experience for me, when I took in characters as diverse as Jim in Huck Finn, to Rose in Titanic, to Willy Wonka in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I personally do not want to be any of those characters. I do, however, appreciate having memories attached to them. I do appreciate having the chance to, when the desire strikes me, see through their eyes, and feel through their thoughts....

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