Monday, September 10, 2012

Games As Art

    
            I agree that Roger Ebert believes that Video Games can never be art; everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  Do I believe video games are art?  Some, but not all; and I feel the same way about movies, novels, and actual art.  Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and what I behold, and how I behold it, can be entirely different from another person.  If it moves me, captivates me, and makes me talk about it with others then it is art to me.  I am not a famous, lauded critic (I have never heard of Roger Ebert), nor do I visit a critic’s site to justify my appreciation of a game, movie, novel, etc; but I will listen or read what people of my ilk have to say and use that as a basis of whether to spend money on a form of entertainment.  A critic like Roger Ebert will analyze a film base on his perceptions, bias, and ideas of what makes a story good, which may not align with my notions.

            So what if a movie critic thinks games can never be art?  Does it cheapen my enjoyment of it because someone occupies a position where he is considered an authority on all things of the imagination?  If Roger Ebert retracts his statement in favor of games being art, will the gaming community give a collective, vindicated shout that their pastime has been elevated to the prestigious label of art?  Will a shaft of line from the heavens part the clouds to illuminate a stone tablet that decrees “Games, Thou Art Art”?

            If art is an representation of life - be it a nature landscape, the human figure, a person’s life story – then art already existed before it was transferred to canvas, page, celluloid, or pixel.  It is up to the person that is observing, reading, watching, and playing to decide what is art.  When I look at my young daughter’s drawings and painting through the years that occupy every square inch on the refrigerator, I don’t worry if they would be considered art by a perceived higher authority.  But I know that I love my daughter very much, and at the end of the day, I admit I don’t know much about art, but I do know what I love.

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