Art or not?
So Roger Ebert is learning that gamers read. He wrote:
While some agree with Ebert, most find his comments either ignorant or offensive. Personally, I'm surprised at Ebert—what kind of arrogance does it take to say "I am unfamiliar with video games" but "someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense"?
I see four useful rebuttals to Ebert's comments (which I'm sure have been made in many places--I didn't have time to follow all the links to folks writing about this issue).
1. Ebert suggests in elaborations to his comments that
Ebert's suggestion that art demands total authorial control ignores a huge body of contemporary thinking about how individuals interact with the texts they create. Not only do reader-response theories conflict with this idea that the author controls the text, but Ebert's definition of art rules out many pieces of art. For example, a playwright has some control, but ultimately the actors and the director choose how to render the play on the stage. Does that mean the playwright is not an artist? Plays are not art?
2. I heartily disagree that art has to be narrative. Is Ebert dismissing abstract art? What about interactive art (as seen in video installations at museums for some time now)? Both Ebert and Spielberg (not to mention critics like Janet Murray) emphasize story over all else, ignoring the ludic qualities of this new medium.
3. Ebert also suggests that video games should be producing masterworks "on the level of films produced by Kurosawa and others" to be considered a medium. I'm reminded of the regular and vicious attacks against cinema that emerged in the early 1900s, before cinema had a chance to establish its conventions with much vigor. You'd think as a critic of a medium that had to fight for its own legitimacy fairly recently, Ebert would have a bit more respect for young media.
4. I find it particularly galling that Ebert admits he knows nothing about games, yet he feels compelled to comment on their artistic merit. What would we make of a critic who said this: I admit that I'm not familiar with movies, but I've seen Picassos and Monets, and I've read Checkov, Dickens, and Austen. If there were any movies that were worthy of similar attention, I'm sure someone would have made that argument. What would be the answer to that? They have. We would be offended at the arrogance of the speaker, to assume that he knows about a medium without even doing a cursory literature review. I can only assume Ebert didn't look to see if anyone has made these arguments. As a media scholar, and a member of Game Culture Watch, I'm constantly looking at thoughtful, interesting discussions of games and their 'value.'
Ebert should take a cue from James Paul Gee, whose What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy actually explores games before expounding upon them. Gee writes:
I think the best art seeks to be life enhancing, and good games (like anything) can be exactly that. It would have been nice for Ebert (and all people interested in talking about games, writing about games, or legislating games) to explore the medium a bit before they weigh in.
I believe books and films are better mediums, and better uses of my time. But how can I say that when I admit I am unfamiliar with video games? Because I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa, and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense.
While some agree with Ebert, most find his comments either ignorant or offensive. Personally, I'm surprised at Ebert—what kind of arrogance does it take to say "I am unfamiliar with video games" but "someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense"?
I see four useful rebuttals to Ebert's comments (which I'm sure have been made in many places--I didn't have time to follow all the links to folks writing about this issue).
1. Ebert suggests in elaborations to his comments that
Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control. I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art.
Ebert's suggestion that art demands total authorial control ignores a huge body of contemporary thinking about how individuals interact with the texts they create. Not only do reader-response theories conflict with this idea that the author controls the text, but Ebert's definition of art rules out many pieces of art. For example, a playwright has some control, but ultimately the actors and the director choose how to render the play on the stage. Does that mean the playwright is not an artist? Plays are not art?
2. I heartily disagree that art has to be narrative. Is Ebert dismissing abstract art? What about interactive art (as seen in video installations at museums for some time now)? Both Ebert and Spielberg (not to mention critics like Janet Murray) emphasize story over all else, ignoring the ludic qualities of this new medium.
3. Ebert also suggests that video games should be producing masterworks "on the level of films produced by Kurosawa and others" to be considered a medium. I'm reminded of the regular and vicious attacks against cinema that emerged in the early 1900s, before cinema had a chance to establish its conventions with much vigor. You'd think as a critic of a medium that had to fight for its own legitimacy fairly recently, Ebert would have a bit more respect for young media.
4. I find it particularly galling that Ebert admits he knows nothing about games, yet he feels compelled to comment on their artistic merit. What would we make of a critic who said this: I admit that I'm not familiar with movies, but I've seen Picassos and Monets, and I've read Checkov, Dickens, and Austen. If there were any movies that were worthy of similar attention, I'm sure someone would have made that argument. What would be the answer to that? They have. We would be offended at the arrogance of the speaker, to assume that he knows about a medium without even doing a cursory literature review. I can only assume Ebert didn't look to see if anyone has made these arguments. As a media scholar, and a member of Game Culture Watch, I'm constantly looking at thoughtful, interesting discussions of games and their 'value.'
Ebert should take a cue from James Paul Gee, whose What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy actually explores games before expounding upon them. Gee writes:
I somewhat arbitrarily picked the game The New Adventures of the Time Machine, a game involving adventure, problem solving, and shooting ... knowing nothing about video games. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. This game, like nearly all such games, takes a great many hours to play. Many good video games can take 50 to 100 hours to win, even for good players. Furthermore, it was--for me--profoundly difficult. In fact, this was my first revelation. This game--and this turned out to be true of video games more generally--reguires the player to learn and think in ways in which I am not adept. Suddenly, all my baby-boomer ways of learning and thinking, for which I had heretofore received ample awards, did not work. My second realization came soon after, when at the end of a day in which I had played Time Machine for eight straight hours, I found myself at a party, with a splitting headache from too much video motion, sitting next to a 300-pound plasma physicist. I heard myself telling the physicist that I found playing Time Machine a "life-enhancing experience," without even knowing what I meant by that.
I think the best art seeks to be life enhancing, and good games (like anything) can be exactly that. It would have been nice for Ebert (and all people interested in talking about games, writing about games, or legislating games) to explore the medium a bit before they weigh in.
