Necessary?  No, sometimes a suggestion is made.  Also, i'm not sure if you're trying to say that showing such things either makes for a lack of integrity or generates it but neither is the case as art is in the beholder and therefore any ideas of artistic integrity cannot exist.

Totally agree. I'm sick an tired of all the mindless violence and gore in contemprary movies. It's just disgusting, and honestly you're 100% about the part of your post which I bolded. Hitchcock's Rear Window I think is a good example of that.

It all depends on the medium and the context.  In general my view is only the minimum to achieve the correct effect is needed and anything beyond is gratuitous.

Clearly, certain stuff falls into a grey area.  For example Torture Porn movies.  Do I like 'em?  No.  But I accept if you're going to make one for those that like it (you sickos know who you are!) then the whole point is to be gratuitous.

In games I think it's also a grey area since, to be blunt, in most cases we're talking about fake reality for fun or to appeal on more basic levels.  I don't care what anyone says Modern Warfare 2, for example, isn't in anyway a combat simulator or should be seen as providing any insight at all on combat.  It's a virtual game of cowboys and indians with soldiers instead of cowboys, plain and simple and appeals in exactly the same fashion.

Therefore, given the relative lack of artistic merit, do I think having a lot of violence in a game is gratuitous?  Probably, but as with the Torture Porn in a game that's kind of the point.

In films like The Thin Red Line or Saving Private Ryan (which is pretty flawed as a film IMHO compared to the former, but anywho...) the realstic depiction of combat violence and <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> psychological violence is justified and I'd argue necessary to convery the true extent of a very extreme element of our real, actual society.

In games, for the most part if we're honest it's for fun and kicks.  We have violent headshots as a visual reward for pulling of the skillful shot, and to deliver a higher sense of reward for the player, for example.  Certainly it couldn't be further from the intent, in say a war film, to horrify with the terrible damage and suddeness of someone, a friend, a fellow soldier, being shot in the head.

I believe a huge element of the disconnect between violence depiction in games, and how the media respond to it, and violence depiction in films, is down to a misunderstanding regarding the nature of the intent in each medium and how it should be understood.

Saying that, I've never liked the real world combat settings (WW2 or Modern) in shooters.  I'm always aware that in truth we're taking very real, impactful events and using them as a setting to for virtual cowboys and indians, and I'm never sure that there is enough justification to to do vs simply leveraging more fantasy based environments - such as Gears, or Unreal Tournament style settings which full confirm the virtual game (particularly Unreal Tournament) aspects of the setting and associated violence as seperated from reality.

I think it is necessary in order for individuals to understand the consequences of actions. So yes, I think it is absolute necessary.

That being said, there needs to be better parental controls in place starting at the point of sale. All individuals who buy mature content need to be carded, if they do not meet the age requirement then no sale. Likewise, if Johnny Doe Jr. comes in with his mother, then the employee selling the content needs to give a detailed description that the medium contains heavy drug use, heavy use of profanity, sex scenes, gratuituous violence and on until she can make an informed decision whether this content is appropriate for a child her son's age.

Absent stricter parental controls, I believe artistic integrity will face a huge backlash from decent-minded folk who don't want to expose their children to the depravities of adult life at a formative age.

I am not saying this because I believe in raising my kids in a household where the only acceptable channels are cartoons, the Bible Network, and Fox News with the only acceptable music being Will Smith and Christian music. I don't believe in any of that.

The innocence of childhood is a very sacred thing to me. Kids are exposed everday to human depravity in schools via their cliques, bullies, teachers, and yard narcs. At home, they should feel safe from all those depravities without it invading their senses.

I will agree if a 12 to 17 year old shows the ability to separate fantasy from reality, then go ahead and buy them Red Dead Redemption. Any younger, I think the parent is negligent at best and is doping up while Johnny plays whatever he wants to keep him out of their hair while they are high at worst.

In the end, it is up to the parent. There is no way that Government can raise our kids or keep our kids out of trouble. There aren't enough tax dollars for a police force sizeable enough to bust every kid breaking curfew.

1) definitely unneeded

2) if he's gonna talk about it... you might wanna show it... but you have different ways of showing this. Instead of showing the guy crap himself, you could show him sudenly running to the toilet and screw "shit shit shit". If he's not supposed to notice it... you could show his sheets get darkened (take red sheets for example and adding water they'll look almost black), without showing anything nasty. However if you were thinking of having the guy walk naked and spitting poop all over the place, well that's really unnecessary.

I'm against the over violence and gore that has appeared in the recent years, there really is no need for it, especially since in many cases, it is grossly exagerated.

Necessity is all about intent. Is it necessary to depict a socially unacceptable behaviour in order to make an honest piece of art that looks at that socially unacceptable behaviour from some angle (whether it be from a good or bad angle is a different subject)? No, it's never actually necessary.

You don't need to show a sex scene in a movie for the peole watching the movie to know that the characters had sex, and the people watching the movie will also know the context in which the sex was being had (consensual/rape/sordid affair/one night stand/married couple).

So, what is the intent of the film maker in choosing to either show the characters having sex, or not show it and merely leaving it up to the imagination of the viewer? Well if you're making porno movies opting for the "leave to the imagination" approach is going to see you leave the industry rather quickly. If you're planning to make a family friendly movie, showing close-up shots of blow jobs is probably not going to get you very far in the movie business. The issue of integrity goes to whether making pornos has any artistic integrity to it, and indeed whether there's any artistic integrity in making vacuous crap for kids. There's plenty of stuff that has a great deal of integrity yet has all sorts of socially unacceptable behaviour in it. And there's plenty of stuff with no artistic integrity that is 100% socially acceptable behaviour from start to finish.

If you're making a zombie killing game, then you need to show zombies heads being blown off, chopped off and smashed to a bloody pulp. It's the nature of a zombie game. And if zombies were real that's exactly what I'd do with a zombie. The question of artistic integrity comes in with the subject material itself, and more importantly the context in which the subject material is presented. Some zombie games have a lot of artistic integrity, other zombie games have none whatsoever, and they can have equal levels of gore.

Questioning the necessity is really rather meaningless in a discussion of integrity. Because the real issue is whether the artist has any integrity in the way they are using the imagery.