{"id":884,"date":"2011-07-02T06:53:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T10:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/?p=884"},"modified":"2011-07-02T12:03:03","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T16:03:03","slug":"scotus-cites-the-brothers-grimm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/2011\/07\/02\/scotus-cites-the-brothers-grimm\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS cites the Brothers Grimm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court overturned California’s effort to regulate access to violent video games. Scalia wrote the majority opinion and declared that video games deserve the full protection of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas \u2014 and even social messages \u2014 through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player\u2019s interaction with the virtual world),\u201d Justice Scalia wrote. \u201cThat suffices to confer First Amendment protection.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He added: “Certainly the books we give children to read–or read to them when they are younger–contain no shortage of gore.\u00a0 Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed.\u00a0 As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers ’till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.’ . . .\u00a0 Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. . . .\u00a0 And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven.”<\/em><\/p>\n

(I was amused by the fact that the clerks wrote “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” rather than “Grimms’ Fairy Tales.”\u00a0 That does not detract from a sound opinion that recognizes that parents must be responsible for regulating content, even if not all parents are responsible.\u00a0 The opinion can be found at the following link:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/10pdf\/08-1448.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/06\/28\/us\/28scotus.html?ref=video-games\u00a0\u00a0 –for further reading.<\/p>\n

And for the other side of the argument:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/07\/02\/2295768\/justices-dont-live-in-the-real.html<\/p>\n

In his dissent, Justice Breyer asked the right question: \u201cWhat sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting the sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more: http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/07\/02\/2295768\/justices-dont-live-in-the-real.html#ixzz1QwaOweU0<\/a><\/div>\n


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In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court overturned California’s effort to regulate access to violent video games. Scalia wrote the majority opinion and declared that video games deserve the full protection of the First Amendment. \u201cLike the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas \u2014 and even social messages \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}