Well, I have been trying to find time to really sit down and write, but due to life being a bit too busy for me nowadays, I haven't been able to. Instead here is a bullet point style blog of stuff I have been thinking about these past two weeks instead! Hooray!
-Spring is still too cold. Honestly, I am ready for summer to be here already.
-I haven't been able to appreciate music as much as I'd like to lately. I buy music, but then find myself forcing myself to listen to an album because I've only listened to it two to three times. I just can't keep the enthusiasm up for some reason. I find myself changing playlists and trying to shuffle through my old music, trying to feel pumped about music again. The only way I have been really been able to fully appreciate music lately is through music video games.
-Talking about music games, I have been thinking of doing a blog about Hatsune Miku. I have been enjoying the Hatsune Miku Vita game but I still have no real idea about what people really think about those games. They certainly can be weird, but it is all so artificial that It doesn't come off to me as bad in any way. I might be missing something, admittedly.
-The worst thing about having a minor cold is having to do everything you would normally do, just without being to breath out of your nose.
-Once my time in Japan is done, I worry that I won't have enough time to do this blog anymore. Though I suppose my real fear is if I find myself with too much free time to do the blog once my time in Japan is over.
-I find it hard to write about Japan sometimes because I feel like if I don't do research and really try to create something worth reading then I'll fall into the same trap that a lot of other blogs about Japan seem to fall into. My of my biggest pet peeve is how people write sweeping overreaching statements about Japan and then their only real evidence is entirely circumstantial and subjective. It gives off an impression that people seem to think that no matter where you live, what you do, or who you talk to in Japan, that their experience is somehow representative of everyone's experience in Japan.
-Oh, and FYI, Japan is country where you can watch TV and have a show say how similiar everyone in Japan is, and then switch the channel and have an entire news segment about how different people in Osaka and Kyoto are. It is ridiculous.
-I could elucidate why I think that is, but alack and alas, all the proof I have is circumstantial and subjective. I gotta get back into my studies. I just wish that was what I as being paid to do, and not just something I do on my free time.
-On the topic of studies, I also want to write about why people go to college. It bugs me that people seem to think that, unless you get a job that has to do with the subject you majored in, going to college was a waste of time. I guess my feelings that it is only of waste of time if the person doesn't learn anything from it. For me, the college I went to completely changed who I am, so asking whether it is "worth it" isn't as important to me. The opportunities it gave me, the people I met, and what I studied formed who I am today.
-Thinking of maybe making a sequel to Compartmentization, if only because there is so much I set up that it would be a waste. I want to clean up and revise the first part though. Will I ever have the time to do this???
-Been on a bit of a Pokemon kick lately. It is just something I got into a little bit when I was a kid, and then got sidetracked into other things. It interesting to look back at what Pokemon was and what it is today. Pokemon always seemed to rely on this multimedia aspect, no single product really giving a complete picture, just each part giving a snapshot into this strange world of pocket monsters, but so many of those off-shoots have gone on for so long that they offer something complete in and of themselves. It is strange, but still complete comfort food. Nothing wrong with that though.
-I am pretty sure Spec Ops: The Line is one of the most amazing games I have played in recent memory, but I want to finish it before I give any sort of real assessment.
-Pretty excitiped for the new Daft Punk album. I sure hope its good.
-Beasts of the Southern Wild was such a good movie. It is something I would need to watch again before I write about it though.
Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading! Hopefully I have something more complete, and on time, next week!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Damsels in Distress in Video Games
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video. For one, I have already written a blog about sexism and video games (here), and the conversation has gotten so heated in some parts of the internet, that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to “jump in the fray.” The more I thought about it, the more ideas jumped into my head, so I figured that if I had something to say, I might as well say it.
Anita Sarkeesian first video in a series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (check it out here) was released and it talked about one of the most common tropes in video games, “Damsel in Distress.” Essentially, it is when a woman gets kidnapped, and it is up to the protagonist (usually a man) to save her. I have some things I could nitpick about the video (for example, framing the change in Dinosaur Planet as a “joke” from Shigeru Miyamoto, and not a marketing decision, seems a bit off), but I don’t think the video was really meant as a strict scholarly dissertation. The way the video is edited feels less academic, and has more of a “researched blog” feel. The video series is as much about giving information as it is about starting conversation. In that respect, I think the video series has started off well.
The way people have been analyzing it on the internet, however, is less like going it over with a fine toothed comb, and more like hitting it with a hammer and then complaining about how broken it is. I do wish Ms. Sarkeesian would wait to release all the videos at once and present more of a complete thesis, instead of releasing it piecemeal, and trying to hook the viewer by teasing what she will talk about in the future. In the end, it got me thinking, and that is good enough for me.
What it got me thinking about (and what seemed to be outside the scope of the videos) is why is the “damsel in distress” trope still used today? Is it just tradition as Ms. Sarkeesian’s video suggests? Perhaps, but the more I thought about it, the more that didn’t seem quite right to me. Entertainment, especially in the pop culture realm, is all about trying to hook an audience in and trying to make sure they come back to buy whatever else they are selling. There all a lot of ways to do this, but the only real surefire way is to make entertainment that appeals to an audience’s psychology.
It is like food industry. The food industry has scientists and testers trying different balances of salt, sugar, fat, textures, etc. in order to get a consumer base that “needs” their product. If a food product is able to get into the hands of the individual, be eaten, and becomes so liked that the individual uses their product in their daily routine, then that food product is a huge success. The problem is that due to all the choices that the individual has to choose from, the only real way to appeal to a wide enough audience and to be profitable is to study human biology and determine what factors keep people coming back, again and again. It turns out, due to how humans have evolved over the years, there are certain elements of foods that the human body will desire. Unfortunately, it is these same elements that cause foods to be unhealthy in large quantities. Food companies have to balance their need for the consumer to want to eat their product, but not make it too unhealthy or too much for the average consumer (though how important this aspect of the food industry is now is debatable). Entertainment is very much the same way. Successful entertainment has to be able to identify and exploit things that the audience thinks it needs in order for people to keep consuming it again and again. And, much like the food industry, entertainment in large quantities can be harmful for the audience. Entertainment then has to figure out what the “sugar,” “salt,” and “fat” of their respective mediums are in order to appeal to an audience.
The “sugar” and “fat” of video games are “verbs.” “Verbs” are the actions the player can perform in a game. These actions can both be literal (“press A to jump!”) or more metaphorical (“play the game to save the world!”). The literal verbs serve as the minute to minute actions the player has to perform to progress through the game (anything from walking to scrolling to the next line of text). The metaphorical verbs are the goals and context the game is trying to give the player (which is why video games can have a narrative structure in the first place). The literal verbs are extremely important for hooking in a player, but the metaphorical verbs help keep the player playing even if the literal verbs become too challenging or not as interesting as they were in the beginning (this is especially important if the game designer wants a slower paced experience). The “Damsel in Distress” trope then becomes the “saving the damsel” metaphorical verb. So, following the food analogy, if the video games verbs are the “fats,” why has “saving the damsel” been compelling enough to use in so many video games for such a long amount of time?
It is because “saving the damsel” is a fantasy. “Saving the damsel” boils down to “if a man works hard enough, they will reach the goal and get the girl in the end.” The reason why this is a “fantasy” (and not just a cliché) is because it is the opposite to the reality of the situation. The fact is, no matter how hard a person works, they may never actually achieve their goals. This is especially true when it comes to people trying to become romantically involved with other people. How a person is nurtured before they reach puberty, and the genes they are born with determines so much of a person’s appeal to a potential mate, that is it probable that no amount of trials and/or tribulations will change who is attracted to whom. This is true for both men and women, but because many (if not most) societies encourage men to take the initiative to try and start a romantic relationship, the “reaching the goal, getting the girl” serves as a positive encouragement for men to keep trying, even if the man is confronted with failure after failure. “Saving the damsel” serves as visualization for player to succeed in a virtual world where in a real world they would fail.
The problem then is that this fantasy is just a lie men tell themselves to keep themselves comforted. At best, this fantasy fulfillment of “saving the damsel” serves as a shield for both the player and the game developer to escape the complicated reality of the matter, but at worst, the “saving the damsel” verb only advocates the objectification of women as “prizes” and is just another reinforcement of the ignorance that permeates gender politics. Until men and women understand that they must treat each individual person a subject (as opposed to an object), the perceived slights that can divide men and women will not cease. Video games that deploy the “saving the damsel” verb are not solely responsible, and in the grand scheme of things, are only harmful because of the hate and ignorance that lie outside of the scope of video games. If game developers ever hope to expect audiences to take their narrative seriously, however, they should at least try and create something that speaks to reality, and not wallow in their escapism. Lying to an audience in an attempt to appease them will only result in both the potential of narrative in video games never being realized and video games avoiding any other sort of potential other than fun time wasters.
The solution then is for game developers to take their video games, and what they are saying in them, as seriously as their audience does. There is a reason why people funded Anita Sarkeesian’s videos in the first place; it is because people care about this new interactive medium. They care enough that they will criticize and ridicule it until game developers get the message and create something that they think deserves praise. I am just glad that this conversation has started, and it will hopefully create more games that are thoughtful and have more to say then the common video games of today.
This is not to say that there aren’t a few video games that are actually very thoughtful. Not only do these exist, but there are games that gave me the insight to write this blog in the first place. These are games that take the “damsel in distress” verb and remove it of its potentially harmful implications by speaking in truths instead of escapism.
Don’t Look Back by Terry Cavanagh
This game is actually available for free here. I am going to spoil it a bit, so I urge anybody interested to play it first before reading. It only takes about 20 minutes to play and it is worth it.
Did you play it? Wasn’t it amazing?
For those who didn’t play it, Don’t Look Back is a take on the Orpheus myth, in which Orpheus has to go into Hades to save his dearly beloved. The game starts with the protagonist staring at a grave in the rain. Once the player takes over, the goal is to run to the right and fight your way through the underworld to save whomever the grave belonged to. When the protagonist reaches the “damsel in distress” the player then actually has to lead her out without looking backwards (much like the myth). This has a big implication to game play, because the player can not go backwards without looking back. Every time the player makes a mistake and does attempt to go backwards, the “damsel” gasps and fades away, prompting the player to play the screen again (the game does present a lot of challenge, but thanks to the forgiving checkpoint system, the player is never sent to far back if they reach a fail state). The protagonist gets closer and closer to where they came from, and at the end, the protagonist sees himself at the grave, and the player controlled protagonist and the “damsel” fade away. The player is left looking at the protagonist staring at the grave again, listening as the rain pours and the title appears again.
There are many ways to interpret this game, but the one that stuck out to me is that the journey the player plays isn’t what actually happens, instead, it is the fantasy that the protagonist plays inside his head to try and deal with the loss that he has endured (granted, it is impossible to truly say the gender of the protagonist, but since it is so inspired by the Orpheus myth, it is safe to say the gender is at least implied). The fantasy that somehow he can go to Hades and save his loved one is a sad one because of how helpless the protagonist is to really do anything. The game speaks to how debilitating grief can be, and how people torture themselves to try and find a way to make it all better. In the end, even though the protagonist is unable to save anyone, perhaps by killing the demons in his head, it can help him start to heal.
Braid by Jonathan Blow
Braid is another 2D platformer (I am not sure whether 2D platformers happen to be more thoughtful than most games, or it is my personal bias to seek out thoughtful platformers) that has the player solve puzzles using jumping, pushing, and being able to rewind and fast-forward time. The whole game in couched in what at first seems like a Super Mario pastiche with elements that closely resemble the same Mario obstacles, and at the end of stages even says “The princess is in another castle!” As the player continues though, the puzzles get harder, and what exactly the nature of the “princess” is gets murkier and murkier. I don’t want to spoil the game (unlike Don’t Look Back, it is more of a time investment and isn’t free), but a lot of what Braid is trying to convey is that even if you could “save the princess,” should you? Does “she” want to be “saved?” What if “saving the princess” meant doom for the rest of the world? Is reaching your goals so important that nothing else matters?
It is these questions that Braid asks that make it worth playing through.
Saira by Nifflas
Saira flips the script a bit and instead of a man trying to save the damsel, Saira is a woman in distress that decides to help herself. The game is about Saira going from planet to planet to gather parts to try to get back to her dimension. She isn’t trying to really save herself, or anyone else really (though she is worried about where everyone has gone). Saira is just trying to figure out what has happened and find anyone or anything that can help her figure that out. I also mentioned it here and it is a game that I wish more people would play.
I hope everyone plays these games and finds them as enlightening as I did. I hope that they are just the tip of the iceberg of what to expect narratively out of video games and not just outliers to be cherished for their attempts to be something more than cliché, boring, and potentially offensive.
Anita Sarkeesian first video in a series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (check it out here) was released and it talked about one of the most common tropes in video games, “Damsel in Distress.” Essentially, it is when a woman gets kidnapped, and it is up to the protagonist (usually a man) to save her. I have some things I could nitpick about the video (for example, framing the change in Dinosaur Planet as a “joke” from Shigeru Miyamoto, and not a marketing decision, seems a bit off), but I don’t think the video was really meant as a strict scholarly dissertation. The way the video is edited feels less academic, and has more of a “researched blog” feel. The video series is as much about giving information as it is about starting conversation. In that respect, I think the video series has started off well.
The way people have been analyzing it on the internet, however, is less like going it over with a fine toothed comb, and more like hitting it with a hammer and then complaining about how broken it is. I do wish Ms. Sarkeesian would wait to release all the videos at once and present more of a complete thesis, instead of releasing it piecemeal, and trying to hook the viewer by teasing what she will talk about in the future. In the end, it got me thinking, and that is good enough for me.
What it got me thinking about (and what seemed to be outside the scope of the videos) is why is the “damsel in distress” trope still used today? Is it just tradition as Ms. Sarkeesian’s video suggests? Perhaps, but the more I thought about it, the more that didn’t seem quite right to me. Entertainment, especially in the pop culture realm, is all about trying to hook an audience in and trying to make sure they come back to buy whatever else they are selling. There all a lot of ways to do this, but the only real surefire way is to make entertainment that appeals to an audience’s psychology.
It is like food industry. The food industry has scientists and testers trying different balances of salt, sugar, fat, textures, etc. in order to get a consumer base that “needs” their product. If a food product is able to get into the hands of the individual, be eaten, and becomes so liked that the individual uses their product in their daily routine, then that food product is a huge success. The problem is that due to all the choices that the individual has to choose from, the only real way to appeal to a wide enough audience and to be profitable is to study human biology and determine what factors keep people coming back, again and again. It turns out, due to how humans have evolved over the years, there are certain elements of foods that the human body will desire. Unfortunately, it is these same elements that cause foods to be unhealthy in large quantities. Food companies have to balance their need for the consumer to want to eat their product, but not make it too unhealthy or too much for the average consumer (though how important this aspect of the food industry is now is debatable). Entertainment is very much the same way. Successful entertainment has to be able to identify and exploit things that the audience thinks it needs in order for people to keep consuming it again and again. And, much like the food industry, entertainment in large quantities can be harmful for the audience. Entertainment then has to figure out what the “sugar,” “salt,” and “fat” of their respective mediums are in order to appeal to an audience.
The “sugar” and “fat” of video games are “verbs.” “Verbs” are the actions the player can perform in a game. These actions can both be literal (“press A to jump!”) or more metaphorical (“play the game to save the world!”). The literal verbs serve as the minute to minute actions the player has to perform to progress through the game (anything from walking to scrolling to the next line of text). The metaphorical verbs are the goals and context the game is trying to give the player (which is why video games can have a narrative structure in the first place). The literal verbs are extremely important for hooking in a player, but the metaphorical verbs help keep the player playing even if the literal verbs become too challenging or not as interesting as they were in the beginning (this is especially important if the game designer wants a slower paced experience). The “Damsel in Distress” trope then becomes the “saving the damsel” metaphorical verb. So, following the food analogy, if the video games verbs are the “fats,” why has “saving the damsel” been compelling enough to use in so many video games for such a long amount of time?
It is because “saving the damsel” is a fantasy. “Saving the damsel” boils down to “if a man works hard enough, they will reach the goal and get the girl in the end.” The reason why this is a “fantasy” (and not just a cliché) is because it is the opposite to the reality of the situation. The fact is, no matter how hard a person works, they may never actually achieve their goals. This is especially true when it comes to people trying to become romantically involved with other people. How a person is nurtured before they reach puberty, and the genes they are born with determines so much of a person’s appeal to a potential mate, that is it probable that no amount of trials and/or tribulations will change who is attracted to whom. This is true for both men and women, but because many (if not most) societies encourage men to take the initiative to try and start a romantic relationship, the “reaching the goal, getting the girl” serves as a positive encouragement for men to keep trying, even if the man is confronted with failure after failure. “Saving the damsel” serves as visualization for player to succeed in a virtual world where in a real world they would fail.
The problem then is that this fantasy is just a lie men tell themselves to keep themselves comforted. At best, this fantasy fulfillment of “saving the damsel” serves as a shield for both the player and the game developer to escape the complicated reality of the matter, but at worst, the “saving the damsel” verb only advocates the objectification of women as “prizes” and is just another reinforcement of the ignorance that permeates gender politics. Until men and women understand that they must treat each individual person a subject (as opposed to an object), the perceived slights that can divide men and women will not cease. Video games that deploy the “saving the damsel” verb are not solely responsible, and in the grand scheme of things, are only harmful because of the hate and ignorance that lie outside of the scope of video games. If game developers ever hope to expect audiences to take their narrative seriously, however, they should at least try and create something that speaks to reality, and not wallow in their escapism. Lying to an audience in an attempt to appease them will only result in both the potential of narrative in video games never being realized and video games avoiding any other sort of potential other than fun time wasters.
The solution then is for game developers to take their video games, and what they are saying in them, as seriously as their audience does. There is a reason why people funded Anita Sarkeesian’s videos in the first place; it is because people care about this new interactive medium. They care enough that they will criticize and ridicule it until game developers get the message and create something that they think deserves praise. I am just glad that this conversation has started, and it will hopefully create more games that are thoughtful and have more to say then the common video games of today.
This is not to say that there aren’t a few video games that are actually very thoughtful. Not only do these exist, but there are games that gave me the insight to write this blog in the first place. These are games that take the “damsel in distress” verb and remove it of its potentially harmful implications by speaking in truths instead of escapism.
Don’t Look Back by Terry Cavanagh
This game is actually available for free here. I am going to spoil it a bit, so I urge anybody interested to play it first before reading. It only takes about 20 minutes to play and it is worth it.
Did you play it? Wasn’t it amazing?
For those who didn’t play it, Don’t Look Back is a take on the Orpheus myth, in which Orpheus has to go into Hades to save his dearly beloved. The game starts with the protagonist staring at a grave in the rain. Once the player takes over, the goal is to run to the right and fight your way through the underworld to save whomever the grave belonged to. When the protagonist reaches the “damsel in distress” the player then actually has to lead her out without looking backwards (much like the myth). This has a big implication to game play, because the player can not go backwards without looking back. Every time the player makes a mistake and does attempt to go backwards, the “damsel” gasps and fades away, prompting the player to play the screen again (the game does present a lot of challenge, but thanks to the forgiving checkpoint system, the player is never sent to far back if they reach a fail state). The protagonist gets closer and closer to where they came from, and at the end, the protagonist sees himself at the grave, and the player controlled protagonist and the “damsel” fade away. The player is left looking at the protagonist staring at the grave again, listening as the rain pours and the title appears again.
There are many ways to interpret this game, but the one that stuck out to me is that the journey the player plays isn’t what actually happens, instead, it is the fantasy that the protagonist plays inside his head to try and deal with the loss that he has endured (granted, it is impossible to truly say the gender of the protagonist, but since it is so inspired by the Orpheus myth, it is safe to say the gender is at least implied). The fantasy that somehow he can go to Hades and save his loved one is a sad one because of how helpless the protagonist is to really do anything. The game speaks to how debilitating grief can be, and how people torture themselves to try and find a way to make it all better. In the end, even though the protagonist is unable to save anyone, perhaps by killing the demons in his head, it can help him start to heal.
Braid by Jonathan Blow
Braid is another 2D platformer (I am not sure whether 2D platformers happen to be more thoughtful than most games, or it is my personal bias to seek out thoughtful platformers) that has the player solve puzzles using jumping, pushing, and being able to rewind and fast-forward time. The whole game in couched in what at first seems like a Super Mario pastiche with elements that closely resemble the same Mario obstacles, and at the end of stages even says “The princess is in another castle!” As the player continues though, the puzzles get harder, and what exactly the nature of the “princess” is gets murkier and murkier. I don’t want to spoil the game (unlike Don’t Look Back, it is more of a time investment and isn’t free), but a lot of what Braid is trying to convey is that even if you could “save the princess,” should you? Does “she” want to be “saved?” What if “saving the princess” meant doom for the rest of the world? Is reaching your goals so important that nothing else matters?
It is these questions that Braid asks that make it worth playing through.
Saira by Nifflas
Saira flips the script a bit and instead of a man trying to save the damsel, Saira is a woman in distress that decides to help herself. The game is about Saira going from planet to planet to gather parts to try to get back to her dimension. She isn’t trying to really save herself, or anyone else really (though she is worried about where everyone has gone). Saira is just trying to figure out what has happened and find anyone or anything that can help her figure that out. I also mentioned it here and it is a game that I wish more people would play.
I hope everyone plays these games and finds them as enlightening as I did. I hope that they are just the tip of the iceberg of what to expect narratively out of video games and not just outliers to be cherished for their attempts to be something more than cliché, boring, and potentially offensive.
Friday, March 8, 2013
A Dedication to Kenji Eno
This week, I want to give another dedication to someone who passed away recently. Unlike Donald Richie though, this may be a bit more obscure. Mostly because this is a dedication to someone who reached for the stars, but never quite got there, but it is his attempts and his journey that made him one of the most compelling video game designers in history.
Kenji Eno (not his real name, he took his last name from famous musician Brian Eno) didn’t make the greatest games. It is rare to see any of his games on anybody’s “top ten” lists, but what he did wasn’t about making video games that would sell millions of copies. Kenji Eno instead made experiences that audiences couldn’t forget.
Take for example, probably his most famous game, D. D starts off with the protagonist Laura running into a hospital to confront her dad. Her father has seemingly gone insane and has taken everyone hostage. As soon as Laura enters the hospital, it turns into a baroque mansion, and everything the player sees as they go through the game is mired in the insanity of your father, yourself, or both. D takes the first person adventure established by games like Myst and 7th Guest, and creates something that plays like those games, but with an atmosphere and context that forces players to think about the experience of video games in a way they may never have before.
Unfortunately, D hasn’t aged particularly well, and it may just be unplayable compared to games that are much more user-friendly now, but there is something about what D was trying to do and what it accomplished in 1995 that deserves to be mentioned (especially the sound design, the sound of the ending credits if you get the bad ending still ranks as one of the creepiest things I have heard in a game).
Kenji Eno’s other games, such as Enemy Zero and D2 also have their own flavors of disturbing and originality. Enemy Zero being a shooter that made the player rely on sound to locate their opponents
Kenji Eno (not his real name, he took his last name from famous musician Brian Eno) didn’t make the greatest games. It is rare to see any of his games on anybody’s “top ten” lists, but what he did wasn’t about making video games that would sell millions of copies. Kenji Eno instead made experiences that audiences couldn’t forget.
Take for example, probably his most famous game, D. D starts off with the protagonist Laura running into a hospital to confront her dad. Her father has seemingly gone insane and has taken everyone hostage. As soon as Laura enters the hospital, it turns into a baroque mansion, and everything the player sees as they go through the game is mired in the insanity of your father, yourself, or both. D takes the first person adventure established by games like Myst and 7th Guest, and creates something that plays like those games, but with an atmosphere and context that forces players to think about the experience of video games in a way they may never have before.
Unfortunately, D hasn’t aged particularly well, and it may just be unplayable compared to games that are much more user-friendly now, but there is something about what D was trying to do and what it accomplished in 1995 that deserves to be mentioned (especially the sound design, the sound of the ending credits if you get the bad ending still ranks as one of the creepiest things I have heard in a game).
Kenji Eno’s other games, such as Enemy Zero and D2 also have their own flavors of disturbing and originality. Enemy Zero being a shooter that made the player rely on sound to locate their opponents
(with a soundtrack from Michael Nyman, listen to a song here)
and D2 using survival mixed with aliens to deliver a story that is as crazy as it is scary . Even Eno’s smaller games like One-Dot Enemies and You, Me, and the Cubes incorporate interesting ideas, good sound design, and charm to create games that are worth playing.
It is tragic that in an industry that seems to be stuck in a rut to how to convince people to take them seriously, that someone who managed to put their heart and soul in their games to be taken so soon. Thank you Kenji Eno, for making games that changed the way people view video games.
Friday, March 1, 2013
A Dedication to Donald Richie
I have noticed lately that movie critics as a whole seem to be losing more and more mindshare. People don’t really seem to care about what these people have to say about movies anymore. There is nothing wrong with this, but there also seems to be quite a bit of vitriol towards any critic that disagrees with the views that are held by audiences. To be honest, this bums me out because, for one, I acknowledge that my opinions are not usually in sync with the rest of the mainstream (so I know how it feels to stand out on that sort of thing), but also because movie critics can be so good at opening my eyes to something I never even would have considered before.
That is part of the reason I want to dedicate this blog to Donald Richie. His writings on Japanese cinema, and Japanese studies in general, has made my own journeys in Japan much more informed and lively.
Donald Richie started his movie criticism career in 1959 when he wrote the first English guide to Japanese cinema with Joseph Anderson. Without the hard work of Donald Richie pouring over what must of been just an enormous amount of Japanese text, everything from books, magazines, newspapers, and then having to directly ask directors for Japanese movie history that no one ever wrote down, Japanese cinema history would have been lost, at least to English speakers. His thoughts and work with directors such as Akira Kurosawa made Japanese films known and beloved all around the world.
That is part of the reason I want to dedicate this blog to Donald Richie. His writings on Japanese cinema, and Japanese studies in general, has made my own journeys in Japan much more informed and lively.
Donald Richie started his movie criticism career in 1959 when he wrote the first English guide to Japanese cinema with Joseph Anderson. Without the hard work of Donald Richie pouring over what must of been just an enormous amount of Japanese text, everything from books, magazines, newspapers, and then having to directly ask directors for Japanese movie history that no one ever wrote down, Japanese cinema history would have been lost, at least to English speakers. His thoughts and work with directors such as Akira Kurosawa made Japanese films known and beloved all around the world.
I still remember reading his critique on Yazujiro Ozu in college and being completely enchanted with how utterly thoughtful and beautiful his films are. Mr. Richie described Ozu’s films as uniquely Japanese, and it taught me how to look at films not as just a story, but as a freeze frame of the thoughts and feelings of the society it was birthed from. Watching an Ozu film is the closest a person can probably ever get to experiencing how Japan was from 1930 to 1960. It was Donald Richie who allowed me to experience and understand a culture in a way I never would have thought possible.
Donald Richie wasn’t just about telling people about how Japanese cinema or Japanese culture is, he was about encouraging people to try to see a different culture through many different lenses. His writing demands that the reader not just understand, but try to empathize with people and cultures that are different from their own. It is Donald Richie’s knowledge, wisdom, and observation that helped lead me to the appreciation of have of Japan today. Perhaps if there were more people as illuminating as Mr. Richie was, the world would be a better place.
Thank you so much Donald Richie. Please rest in peace.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)