I really liked the way today's speakers show various films that were made in different ways out of the same story. How an original story can be translated to different contents and delivers different appreciation to audience was quite interesting. After taking production classes last semester I found myself actually improved in the way of watching what's happening inside a film. I think it's important to recognize what's behind the filmic devices. We need to be more aware of the fact that something we didn't expect could be delivered to audience when we didn't pay enough attention to the embedded values of particular choices we made inside our work.

In cinema, the filmic way how different values are conveyed is the only concern - since we are supposed to be, at least, half visual/aural professionals. It's merely droll to see Hollywood trash - sorry, I have no choice but to use this term - is pilloried abreast with an Italian neorealistic work.(Oh yes, I recall that the value difference was the topic. Sorry.) For Ossessione and The Postman Always Rings Twice respectively, Whereas I see the reality of Italy in its forties and fifties of last century, I only see numerous turned off minds in front of the silver screens of theatres of the entertainment lines. In terms of value, it's more so for the economies whose cultural values are wilting - that is, readily openning their markets however by no means would/can defend their values at the same time.

And it's more understandable and reasonable that it so easy to stir the talk towards comparing the value of cinema and game. Compare Cinema with Game???(I'd stop here, right now!) The visual mechanics of the only diagonal framing before the cultured/half democratized woman orders the maid to carry her suitcase into the house out of the steady, symmetrical others, the diagnal, dynamic but limited spacial designs while the dumb woman is fingering the piano keys contrasting against the other openning beach shots, the mise un scene(e.g. the one outside the small restaurant) Luchino Visconti had been playing so well together with his fellow Italian/French artists with their underlying neorealistic aesthetic and ideological pursuits...... non of them are comparatively important during the seminar in terms of medium aesthetics. Why? I believe we can find it out later. By ending my report today in name of the value of Media, I'd brihg forth some of my notes(all are writen by Americans):

....In these days more than ever before, Hollywood is a place where business comes first, entertainment second, and art, well, art is the distant third. Money is the score card in Hollywood these days....

....(In Hollywood,)art is the dirtiest word only could be lowly mentioned at the far end of the workshop aisle....

....in his Memoir, Ben Hecht once said the amount the one-night misguide (by Hollywood bullshits) to american audience went beyond the toal of 10 year's gross of the medieval times.

......

I totally agree w/ Yuechuan.

I was going to write about stereotype usage in games, but then I realized that I know better than to pontificate about a subject where I don't have much experience and certainly have much less than many of my potential readers. So I'll pose my thoughts as questions based on my own experience with games and their marketing.

I believe that as an artist of any medium you have a responsability for any messages your piece sends to its audience. Yes, there are assumptions and stereotypes we often feel are universal or even unconscious in our culture, and you are free to take advantage of them, but you still have the responsability to be aware that you are making those creative choices. You have to know what they mean and what their implications are. If it represents something you don't actually believe, you better be spoofing or critiquing it, or else get it out of your work because your audience will still hear its message coming from you.

My main question is whether games at this point have developed standard stereotypes for characters and/or place settings and whether they are employed consciously and/or well. My impression is that there are stereotypes (see many female characters), but that they are employed without much thought.

In response to Jess's comment: I think they (stereotypes) are employed with a bit of thought. That thought being:

"This girl doesn't clearly address our target audience enough...give her a midriff and shorter hemline...PERFECT."

Okay. Maybe it's not that (actually, it's very likely not that, but...)

I think the reason we use these stereotypes time and time again is because game interfaces haven't figured out how to allow us to react in a complex manner. If a really deep and sophisticated character were put in front of us and all we have are the finest in this current generation's video game peripherals (a rumbling controller with a dozen buttons), what are we to do when that character says: "We're friends, right?"

Heck, I don't even know how I'd react to that person in a game. Would I shrug my shoulders? Would I wait a bit and see if there is some more information that that person could give me with hemming and hawwing and physical gestures? Would I look that person in the eye? Would I sit down and reminisce before giving the first answer that five seconds of thought will provide?

Right now, we can't do any of these complicated reactions to complicated actions...so we simplify them. And because having sex with a prostitute in Grand Theft Auto is so simple, because it is presented in an extremely simple manner, it allows the gamer to look past the stereotype and into what it really is. The prostitute isn't a person with real emotions and real wants and needs; it's a power up. And once you get to that point, OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO RUN HER OVER. It's part of the optimal path to playing the game.

I think stereotypes will be all we can do until we're able to find some way of reciprocating complex emotions with like communication...I have no idea when or how that will happen.

Carroll was my professor in 519/521 last semester so I had the embedded values lecture already. I think its really interesting to scrutinize films with embedded values in mind because they can be subtle and somewhat transparent when you're in the film-watching mindset. In games, they aren't so subtle. Games typically use iconic representations that bash us over the head with archetypes/stereotypes. Unfortunately, rare are the games that give us nuanced characters and situations with embedded values that aren't LCD cliches.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: