Note:: The following is background information gathered and not definitive dialogue from the included episode. Basically stuff I personally found pertinent and worth mentioning. Many of the sub issue could be much more thoroughly explored and the links includes provide a starting point.
What's annoying about depiction movies such as Mazes and Monsters, besides the hyperbole, is the "fake science" that came along with it and of course the ensuing "Panic" that followed.
There are at least three aspects to the overall Panic:
1] back-masking of music (Tipper Gore) - in 1985 formed the Parents Media Resource Center (PMRC) - the group responsible for the “Parental Advisory” stickers found on music
2] satanic ritual abuse (Michelle Remembers)
3] Dungeons & Dragons (Mazes and Monsters)
4] We could add a fourth in that the SRA also encompassed the Daycare Debacles (ie the McMartin Case)Gore also has a hand in the bad press surrounding D&D, in which she links D&D to satanism: (Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society 1987, Chapter 6: Playing with Fire: Heavy Metal Satanism, 118)
"The popular Dungeons and Dragons game has sold eight million sets. The game is based on occultist plots, images, and characters which players 'become' as they play the game. According to Mrs. Pat
Pulling, founder of the organization Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, the game has been linked to nearly fifty teenage suicides and homicides."
A BIT OF HISTORY
What many may not realize, the SP took root much earlier, a 1964 book, Devil Worship in Britain by A.V. Sellwood and Peter Haining. Canada has also not been spared.
First major case--
While the movie about didn't come about till 2001 - Just Ask My Children - the Kern County case began in 1982.
Alvin and Debbie McCuan's two daughters, coached by their step-grandmother Mary Ann Barbour, who had custody of them, alleged they had been abused by their parents, and accused them of being part of a sex ring that included Scott and Brenda Kniffen. The Kniffens' two sons also claimed to have been abused. No physical evidence was ever found. The McCuans and Kniffens were convicted in 1984 and given a combined sentence of over 1000 years in prison. The convictions were overturned in 1996 and the two couples were released.Subsequent cases soon followed, one of which was John Stoll, Witch Hunt (2007), which focused primarily on Stoll's case. (MSNBC also made a documentary on John Stoll and the Kern County cases.)
Significant cases--
3.1 McMartin Preschool
3.2 Country Walk
3.3 Fells Acres Day Care Center
3.4 Bernard Baran
3.5 The Bronx Five
3.6 Wee Care Nursery School
3.7 Glendale Montessori
3.8 Little Rascals
3.9 Dale Akiki
3.10 Oak Hill satanic ritual abuse trial
3.11 Wenatchee child abuse prosecutions
3.12 Christchurch Civic Crèche
3.13 Martensville satanic sex scandal
What is rather, prior to the start of the Kern County child abuse cases, several local social workers had attended a training seminar that foregrounded satanic ritual abuse as a major element in child sexual abuse, and had used the now-debunked memoir Michelle Remembers as training material.
Just for perspective Dan and Fran Keller spent 21 years in prison for a "crime" they did not commit. They were freed in 2013, but were not deemed innocent until this year when they received payment for wrongful conviction from the state of TX. As far as I know the Kellers were the last of "victims" still incarcerated and finally clear of the charges stemming from the Daycare Debacle.
THE PULLING REPORT
Patricia Pulling, mother of a another D&D "victim" who went on to form BADD “Bothered About Dungeons &
Dragons" and "The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan?" (1989). In 1984, she became the president of the National Coalition on TV Violence (See::Summary - Thomas Radecki), but her crusade against D&D continued; died 1997
Founder National Coalition on TV Violence, psychiatrist Thomas Radecki ("local" boy)
WHY IS ALL THIS IMPORTANT
It lays the foundation of what is to come. It sets the group think that was over-running the country.
Before we delve in, one point that needs to be stressed. Behind the scenes there was a whole lot of money to be made - lecture tours, consulting, books - in essence a whole cottage industry arose.
THE MOVIE & THE BOOK
The film was adapted from a novel of the same name by Rona Jaffe (d. 2005) Mazes & Monsters was based on a fictional case, and this has led many people to believe that the book (and the subsequent movie) was a true depiction of the Dallas Egbert case
Based her 1981 novel on inaccurate newspaper stories about the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III from Michigan State University in 1979.
William Dear, the private investigator on the case, explained actual events and the reasons behind the media myth in his 1984 book The Dungeon Master.
Treats the playing of role-playing games as indicative of deep neurotic needs BUT while D&D is a role-playing game, it is NOT a LARP Although as Professor Stephen notes it can be with creative enough players.
Basically Dallas was a confused 16-y/o child prodigy with too much on his plate. His plan quickly spiraled out of control, most likely fuel by his self-reported drug use. D&D played no part in the events that transpired over the course of a month. Sadly on the 11th of August 1980, James Dallas Egbert III shot himself in the head in the living room of his apartment. He died at Grandview Hospital on the 16th August, just over a year after his disappearance.
RAMIFICATIONS
As one who has followed the whole SP issue, and has personally dealt with the mind-set behind such, it is frustrating to realize how large Jaffe's influence ranged. RPGs was in its infancy, Jaffe's account was read by many as a legitimate depiction of RPGS and the culture surrounding it. But then you get fucktards like psychiatrist and anti-television violence activist Thomas Radecki of the National Coalition on Television Violence citing a fictitious letter written by a character in this novel as "proof" that D&D had caused the death of gamers.
As I wrote in a video/blog posting concerning Zachary King,
It is this sort of Christianist masturbatory fantasy that is still extant, that its promulgators think that "the rubes" will actually believe it. As Deb and I found, the religious fucktards soak this shit right up; and I'm not just talking the Christo-fascists either.
D&D
I never played the game nor had an interest in it. Even though I read many fantasy type novels, D&D never
interested me. One bit of a descriptor, has always stood out by Paul La Farge (2006),
What may remain obscure, even now, is why people would choose to play D&D, all night, night afterWhile he does compare it to a written book of fantasy, he does not take his analogy far enough. D&D is
night, for years. Why intelligent human beings would find the actions of imaginary fighters,
thieves, dwarves, elves, etc., as they move through a space that exists only notionally, and consists
more often than not of dimly lit corridors, ruined halls, and big, damp caves, more compelling than
books or movies or television, or sleep, or social acceptance, or sex. In short, what’s so great about
Dungeons & Dragons?
not a book. I think it can be better compared the passion an athlete has; why continue playing your
chosen sport year after year. Think about, there is a senior league even for pros.
No comments:
Post a Comment