Before I really got into movies, I was a big fan of video games. I owned every Nintendo system, from the NES to the Wii (except the Virtual Boy; couldn’t waste my time on that) and played them constantly. I was mostly a Mario fan, but I enjoyed other series like the Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, TimeSplitters, The Sims, and Portal. When I went to college, I didn’t have any time to play these games and instead shifted my focus to movies, since they were more concise forms of entertainment that I can watch while doing homework. Still, video games hold a special place in my heart, as they formed the basis of my childhood.
That is why I take the whole “war against violent video games” personally. Ever since the genesis of video games, there have been groups of politicians and parents that have condemned the violent material in them. Games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Doom, and Mortal Kombat have been called obscene and immoral by the likes of Senator Joe Lieberman, Hilary Clinton, and the now disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson. They claim that these “murder simulators” are desensitizing children to violence and aggressive behavior, and that protective laws such as the Family Entertainment Protection Act will help children from exposure to these violent attitudes. They still see video games as a children’s medium, despite the fact that the average gamer is, and has been for a while, well over the age of 30 (see page 2 of this document for the statistics of 2011 from the Entertainment Software Association). It’s pretty evident that the landscape is changing for the infantile medium of video games, and it is time for the public to acknowledge this.
This is where the 2008 documentary Playing Columbine comes in. Playing Columbine is directed by Danny Ledonne, an independent filmmaker and the creator of the controversial computer game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. The game recounts the events that occurred during the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999 through the eyes of the two killers. You play as one of the killers as you prepare for the attack and kill the students that try to get in your way in the high school. The documentary covers the controversy of the game, the reactions from the Columbine survivors and the surrounding media, and the history of controversial art across many media.
I have to admit, the first time I ever heard about Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, I thought it was an insensitively violent game that pokes fun at the tragedy at Columbine. That was my impression from the silly title of the game and the scant number of reviews of it that I read. After watching this documentary and a playthrough of the game, however, I realize that the game does not celebrate the massacre at all, but instead tries to educate the gamer about the actual events of the massacre, the possible motivations of the killers, and the hysteria that resulted after the killing spree. On the website in which you can download this game, there is also a forum used for discussion about the game and its themes.
There isn’t that much evidence to prove that Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is an exploitative game. You do get to kill students, but you can hardly revel in the deaths; instead of vanishing away like in every other video game, the dead corpse of the person you just killed remains on screen until you walk away from it. Near the end of the game, you see real-life photos of the aftermath, including the dead bodies of the two killers after committing suicide and the terrified faces of the people who experienced this tragedy. There is little joy found in killing these students, yet it is profoundly disturbing seeing these events through the eyes of the monsters. Ledonne says in the film that his intent wasn’t to create a murder fantasy that celebrates the Columbine massacre, but rather to display the true actions and motivations of the killers that have been largely hidden from the media. Watching the gameplay footage of the game, I was emotionally impacted by how these guys could have committed these horrific acts
Now you may think that it is a bit too egotistical to make a documentary about your own game, and in fact Ledonne does spend a lot of time talking about the meaning of his game and the controversy surrounding it. But he also gives a lot of time for conversation about other independent games that have received similar treatment as his, like JFK: Reloaded and Waco Resurrection. He also leaves time to showcase the Columbine tragedy, the reactions of the survivors, and the implications that violent games such as Doom helped fuel the massacre. As the documentary goes on, Ledonne and his game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, feel less like the featured subjects of the film and more like the springboard for other, more interesting topics.
This film makes the right decision in bringing in a lot of interviewees from various different careers and perspectives. Not only do we get independent game developers and fans, but we also have experts and PhD holders from various fields like literature and sociology, journalists working both in and outside of gaming, people who have experienced the Columbine massacre either directly or indirectly, and even Jack Thompson, the most universally loathed person in the gaming world. They all create a deep, intellectually engaging discussion that covers a wide array of topics, like the violent effects of gaming, the role of violent games in real-life tragedies, the artistic value of games, sensational media, censorship, and many others. I can safely say that I have never seen a piece of non-fiction that talked about video games this maturely and intelligently.
What I got out of this documentary is that the main reason why the video game media is picked on so much by politicians and other outsiders is because they don’t recognize video games as art. They only see games as toys for children, which is a perspective that is growing more and more untrue as time passes. This debate is mainly spurred by a generational gap; these political groups are mostly composed of older people who never grew up with video games. They don’t understand other people’s fascination with them, so they treat them with harsh scrutiny and even censorship. It’s the same thing that happened with films before the Hays Code; people didn’t understand the importance of the relatively new medium of film and sought to heavily censor it. We’ve seen this same type of debate with rock and roll music and role-playing games, and those debates have both died out over time.
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court officially declared that video games have the same First Amendment rights as other works of art back in June, people still argue that the interactivity of video games disallows them from being labeled as art. I happen to disagree; I believe that the interactivity of video games has the potential to emotionally impact its audience in ways that can’t be done in more passive forms of art, such as film or paintings. If done wisely, the gameplay, the story that is told through the gameplay, the locations, the sounds, and the in-game dialogue can all meld together to create truly meaningful and impactful experience. In the documentary, they point out Darfur Is Dying, a game in which you play a starving child from Sudan who is running away from the genocidal soldiers. Mainstream examples that I can think of now is the Metal Gear Solid games and the Portal games, both series telling great stories with its gameplay.
I know I’m going a bit off topic here, but I would also like to comment on an article written by Roger Ebert with the now falsified title, “Video games can never be art” (you can read the article here). As much as I admire the man and his ideas, I believe he relies too much on his flimsy definitions of art to dismiss games. He says that the main reason why video games cannot be art is because “you can win a game” (paragraph 11). So? You are typically working towards an objective in a game, but that doesn’t mean that the game itself doesn’t have artistic meaning. How you accomplish these objectives and what it means for your avatar can have some deep meaning behind it. Ebert is also very quick to dismiss the game Braid, one of the most brilliantly artistic games that I’ve ever had the pleasure to play. He snubbed the time-manipulating aspects of the game and said that the story “exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie” (para. 17). Obviously, he had never played the game, or else he would have discovered how the gameplay complements the story and creates a symbolically rich experience that wouldn’t have had the same impact if expressed in any other way.
But what really galls me is when Ebert asks near the end, “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?” (para. 23) Why? I’ll tell you why. Because they deserve to have the same rights as filmmakers, authors, and composers to express themselves and to be protected from those who actively try to silent their voices. Because they are tired of being looked down upon by those in other factions of entertainment and art. Because they need the support of filmmakers, authors, etc. in order to stop the over-protective politicians and parents from censoring them. Because game programmers, level designers, story developers, sound effect designers, art designers, and game composers have worked too hard for their crafts to be considered trivial by non-gamers. Because video games and, in general, interactive media are the future of art and entertainment, and we need to recognize them as such. This cannot stand anymore.
However, I can somewhat see where Ebert is coming from with his opinion. Game developers nowadays seem to exploit the things that most gamers want in a video game just for the sake of sales and not for the artistry. That’s why we see a ton of first-person shooters that all feature the same dark gray environments, the same macho gritty protagonists, the same ugly looking alien cannon fodder, and the same basic story clichés. But Playing Columbine frames an optimistic picture for the future of artistic games. It doesn’t showcase the big studio-backed, high-selling, shallow games, but rather the independent ones that directly address social issues. These games are slowly building up an audience, and will hopefully someday be the games everyone will think about when they envision the video game industry.
Playing Columbine isn’t a perfect documentary. Its production values are low even by documentary standards, and I found certain sections of the film, like the part about the Slamdance Film Festival, to be a bit too self-indulgent. Still, Playing Columbine is a surprisingly intellectual and stimulating discussion on the role of video games in society. Gamers will love it for providing very convincing arguments for the free artistic rights of video games. Non-gamers will hopefully appreciate the perspective this film takes on video games and side with the independent developers. No matter where you are coming from on the great video game debate, Playing Columbine is a fresh, bold film that takes the whole debate to a higher level of maturity and foresight.
Rating: 4 Stars
Distributed by Emberwilde Productions
Running time: 94 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment