News
Pseudo-Psychologist Admits She Was Wrong About Mass Effect
Nice Gesture, A Little Too Late
by Sarah
Have you heard this one yet? On Fox News last week, a self-help author and self-described “expert” on relationships and psychology went on Fox News and, in the most ignorant way possible, bashed Mass Effect and its “full digital graphic sex”. When asked if she had played the game, she giggled and scoffed, “No!” Yet she still went on to talk about the pornographic sex in the game and how damaging it is to the young boys this M-rated game is being marketed to.
Yup, that looks like hardcore porn to me!
As we all know, that pornographic sex does not exist anywhere in the game, and Cooper Lawrence completely underestimated the gaming community. As a result, her credibility as an author has been completely shot to hell. Hundreds of gamers wrote one-star reviews on her Amazon.com pages, giving her so much negative feedback I’d be surprised if she ever sells another book on that site.
Since the debacle, Ms. Lawrence has seemingly become slightly more educated on the topic at hand and issued this statement:
“I recognize that I misspoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.
Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit.”
I do respect her decision to admit that she was wrong, as that can’t have been an easy thing to do. However, I still wouldn’t ever buy a self-help book from a woman who has no problem with claiming to be an expert on things she clearly knows nothing about, and I can’t see why anyone else would, either.
Comments
Did you ever see that show Paradise Hotel on Fox?....That was closer to pornographic sex than anything I've seen on Mass Effect....Keep on trying you bunch of ambulance chasers....
if she can do this, then Im an expert on eubacteria in hawaii (what's bacteria?)
I've been keeping up with this because it definitely fascinates me.
Video of note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM7S3A7lXeM
What a lame-ass excuse for an apology. She "misspoke," indeed. Where's the real, unvarnished apology to the developers that EA demanded--- and quite rightly?
Where's the personal apology to that SpikeTV host guy (can't remember his name)? She tried her hardest to make him seem like some creepy-uncle co-pornographer, when he tried to defend Mass Effect against their baseless accusations.
That takes some amount of courage. Once you're on the Bill O'Reilly/fox "news" list of evildoers, you're labeled as everything from a terrorist to a sexual deviant.
Not to mention, she called him "darlin'" at one point, while she was casually dismissing his truthful and reasonable assertion that the game isn't porn. If he'd patronized her in such a sexually charged manner, that would have been the only part of the story anyone could remember by this point.
I still think EA should sue. This "apology" can't repair the damage done to Mass Effect's reputation, the reputations of the developers, and the VG industry itself. Potentially millions of viewers saw the initial tissue of lies, while so few are going to see the retraction or apology in any form.