There’s a particular argument that crops up a lot in the
comments section of game and movie discussions: “Eh, don’t think too hard about
it. Just turn your brain off and enjoy it!” My response to this is usually “NO.”
Or, if I’m being slightly more honest: “FUCK NO.”
The impetus for this rant is Chris Plante’s post on The
Verge about his discomfort violence he’s asked to commit in Far Cry 4. It’s a
pretty nuanced piece all told. Plante loves the game but is unsure about the protagonist’s
motivations for the violence. With the recent slate of releases criticizing the
player’s choices in games, Plante wonders if developers have also become
skeptical about the ways in which violence is used in mainstream video games.
The topic of video game violence is best saved for another
time (I’d suggest starting with this if you want to dig in). But what I’m more
interested in is the comments on the piece. A surprising number of them fall
into the “it’s just a game”, “why do you have to overthink it?” and “there’s
too many of these damn articles criticizing the things I like in my games”
categories.
And that last strawman is the point. When you’re asking for
games criticism (remember, this isn’t even a fricking review) to ignore certain
aspects of game media you are wrong. Criticism isn’t about assigning a goodness
score to a piece of art. In fact that’s its absolute lowest form. Media criticism
is about understanding how and why a piece of media works and the ways in which
it fails. And that includes more aspects of the media than just its level of
professionalism and polish. Criticism isn’t about recommendation. It’s about
creating an understanding. And those comments want to, in an indirect and
unintentional way perhaps, stifle that discussion.
The reason why they do this is simple. People like things and they
don’t want to be told that the things they like are bad. That’s pretty much what
this idea comes down to. Here’s the thing: tough shit. If you’re interested in
discussing things you have to take the bad with the good. Not doing so results
in the horror that is fan-ism, an uncritical acceptance of whatever’s brought
before you.
That’s dangerous stuff. Especially with media. Media isn’t
particularly good at getting you to DO stuff. But it is surprisingly good at
getting you to think stuff. And without that critical lens you’ll be hard
pressed to oppose what the media thinks. Paranoid? Yes. Justified? I think so.
And it’s not like a critical lens means you give up on
enjoying stuff! Not at all. If a movie or game is actually good it'll hold up to the scrutiny. In fact, for the things that are truly good and
wonderful I’d argue that critical thinking opens a whole degree of nuanced appreciation you might
not have caught before. For every skeevy feeling I get playing BioWare romances
(which I enjoy) I also get to appreciate the breakneck pacing of Tales of the
Borderlands. So don’t be scared that your love of media’s going to leech away
when you look at it critically. Turn your brain on and enjoy it.
