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The Daily Show Invokes Floridal Kombat

Mortal KombatThe Republican presidential primary is happening in Florida today, and as the election carnival rolls through the sunshine state in advance of today's voting, The Daily Show is covering the back-and-forth snipping and tripping between GOP frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.  The fun part comes from the use of gameplay clips from last year's Mortal Kombat for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 to illuminate the conflict between the two potential nominees.  Watch Jon Stewart annotate the debate in advance of a political finishing move.

What I find most interesting about The Daily Show using Mortal Kombat clips as a punchline is that last July when the show reported on the Supreme Court decision that extended free speech protection to video games, the show used clips of this same Mortal Kombat game to argue that based on its gory and unsettling content, games should not enjoy such protection.  The show purposefully called out that the Mortal Kombat footage was disturbing and not easy to watch.  Now the program is using clips of the same game in a humorous way to punctuate the political report.  I'm not against the use of Mortal Kombat footage for hilarity purposes (and I thought that this "Floridal Kombat" segment was very funny), but I do think it's odd for The Daily Show to cite Mortal Kombat as an example of a game that is so distasteful that it should invalidate the medium's free speech protection while also using the same game for its comedy needs. 

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