American Movie-Goers Are Dumb

This is a thought as to why people thought Crash is a good movie. If you want to read my review of it than click here.

As a general case, American theater patrons are kind of dumb when it comes to movies they exalt and movies they shun, and it's a simple case of education. People are afraid of what they don't know. This limits their intake of material to the familiar and safe. After awhile the pool gets smaller and smaller until every movie they see they like, and is therefore good. Then that day arrives where they happen upon something different and they've learned to like what they watch, and what they watch is always good.

When was the last time you saw a foreign film? Have you ever thought a movie was poorly made and not just a "I didn't like it" kind of thing? Can I look at top box office grosses for the year and accurately predict what you went to the theater to see or rented when it arrived at Blockbuster?

It takes effort to go forth, learn, and try new things, and most people are too lazy to try. It takes integrity to like bad movies and admit their bad, or think movies were really well made even if some of their ideas didn't appeal to us.

A lot of folks are content with slapping down their $7.50, buying their popcorn, sitting back, not thinking too much, and being entertained. And there's nothing wrong with that once in a while. It's good to see those movies, but it's good to see all types of movies. Everything is worth at least one viewing. Remember, judging a book by its cover and so forth.

There's a vast ocean of film out there for us to experience. With this experience comes the realization that what popular culture offers us at our local multiplex is often a dumbed down version of good cinema in order to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I understand not all people are, or have the desire to be, cinephiles. However, I cannot stand anybody that cannot differentiate between good and different. This entire post was prompted by my recent viewing of Crash and realizing most people liked it. Sorry, let me rephrase; most people thought it was a good movie. It's different than a lot of stuff typical Americans see, so I can understand the initial impression people have. But if they were educated in the manner I have discussed above they'll see a movie with a poor screenplay, complete lack of direction, and poor acting.

I urge you to try something new. Go rent something you've never heard of. Try something from a different country. I don't care, but start to educate yourself. And if not for the merit of learning about new things than remember that variety is the spice of life.

Are Video Games Art?

Here's the link to the edited Daily Cardinal version.

But I prefer my original copy, so that's what I posted here. Enjoy.

January 25, 2006

This column runs every other week in the Arts section of the Daily Cardinal, but are video games really art? My editors seem to think so. And I believe that this section is the most natural fit for them in the paper. However, I’ve been plagued for a long time with the question as to the true artistic nature of games, or if they even have one.

There are generally two camps concerning the matter; those that think games are art and those that don’t. People in the first camp tend to like games. They play and understand most gaming concepts. People from the second camp don’t really understand games. They never liked them, probably never will, and generally still think of them as nothing more than adolescent male entertainment, despite growing statistics to the contrary.

Of course there is some crossover. I find myself on the fence a lot when I really think about it. The problem with the whole issue really has nothing to do with the games themselves, yet, but more with the definition of art, that is there’s no definitive way to define art. There’s no checklist of criteria to meet for something to be considered art. All we have are a list of some media generally considered art for one reason or another; painting/drawing, sculpture, music, film, dance, etc.

I think that it’s dangerous to have a set list of things that are art, though. It still leaves no method for which new media, like video games, can be classified as art. So I would like to propose my own general method of classifying art.

My method deals with understanding the culture that some medium comes out of. It’s as simple as thinking about whether or not a society at a certain time needed whatever it is they created. To qualify as art something must be in excess to what people need to survive. At different points throughout history people were capable of pretty much ensuring the continuation of the human species, and different forms of art arose at different times when people had the time to create it.

When they got bored of advancing the cause, whatever it was at the time, they did other stuff to amuse themselves, much of which we consider art today. When humans found caves to hide in so they wouldn’t be eaten by dinosaurs they drew on walls. People figured out ways to make and manipulate pleasing noises and presto: music. Motion pictures caught on and thrived during the industrial revolution because people had free time and didn’t constantly worry about famine, pestilence, and man-eating deer.

The computer was invented to do work. Somebody saw the possibilities of the machine to do other types of computations and, despite being totally unnecessary, started amusing themselves by playing games with it. Today those games have advanced into fantastic interactive worlds complete with plots, character development, orchestral scores, and experiences that can’t be found anywhere else.

But recall when I said that it has nothing to do with video games themselves, yet. Despite something qualifying as art I believe there is still the matter of deciding whether or not it is artistic. This is a much trickier topic to discuss, and one probably suitable for a future column. If you buy my theory that something excessive to the survival of the species is art you’ll realize there’s a ton of stuff around today that we don’t need that most people probably wouldn’t consider art just because it doesn’t seem artistic, including games.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. People that play games aren’t going to stop playing them because they are or aren’t art, and the people that don’t play aren’t going to start for the same reason. It is funny, and kind of sad, how there are some of us that need games to be considered art to justify our pastime. Do I think games are art? Yes, but it doesn’t really matter.