RE: Ebert’s Second Take

For what it’s worth, I think both parties are missing each others point.

Art is a tricky thing.  Some people believe that art is any production of creation while others believe that “art” and “entertainment” should be separated because there’s something distinctly different between the two.  While I’m firmly in the second camp, I get what both parties are saying so let’s try to bridge the gap.  Ebert is speaking from ignorance — that’s pretty obvious — but he still has a point.  If we separate the two concepts games cannot be art.  However, separating the two makes no sense unless we separate “game” from “narrative.”

Obviously if you don’t separate art and entertainment, the entire argument seems absurd.  There’s no distinction to be made since the worst fiction novel is categorized in the same breath as, let’s say, Hamlet.  In this distinction historical significance gets thrown out the window as well, which is why I think people like Ebert (and myself) avoid it.  Surely a historical perspective is vital, isn’t it?

However if you separate the two things get murkier.  Firstly, these things must be judged historically as well as a combination of its own parts.  The importance of the work must be established.  Some works are obviously art from the get-go, but often things are so far ahead of their time that you really can only look at them historically.  This is what Gabe follows up with:

Ebert is simply filling a role played out by art critics throughout history. There was the newspaper headline back in 1959 with regards to Jackson Pollock’s work that said “This is not art — it’s a joke in bad taste.” It’s a funny line but time has proven it was also completely wrong. Ebert has thrown his hat in with the rest of the short sighted critics who would rather debate what is or isn’t art, rather than simply enjoy the work of artists.

and for the most part I agree.  Some things are obviously art and other things are only art in retrospect.  Judging with words like “never” is almost certainly going to come back and bite you in the ass.

But I think Ebert is right.

Games can never be art.  Games are an abstract construct to get people to interact.  While a chess set can be art and a game of chess can be played artfully, the game of chess is not art.  It’s entertainment.  Likewise the architecture of a game can be art, and the game can be played artfully, but that doesn’t mean that the game itself is art.

But I hate defining things in those terms because I’ve played a number of Final Fantasy games.  I’ve played Braid.  I’ve played Flower.  I’ve played Portal.  And these video games are art.  Just playing them makes that obvious.  So where is the disconnect?

The battles in Final Fantasy are not art.  They are a game.  I hit the attack button and I attack.  Done.  It can get complicated in a chess-type way, but it’s a game — I either win or lose each battle.  The characters and environments can be rendered beautifully and artistically, but the actual game aspect cannot be considered art.  But the narrative can.

Everybody who’s played Final Fantasy VII remembers the death.  It brought some people to tears.  How can that not be art?  Everybody I know who played FInal Fantasy IX really got to like the characters and eventually really wanted Vivi to succeed.  How can characterization like that not be art?  Everybody who played Final Fantasy X will tell you how well constructed the plot was with the inevitable twists and turns along the way.  It was an Epic, forget just a story.  It was a modern mythology.  How can that not be art?

Or more currently (and abstractly), Braid, Flower, and Portal.  Ebert calls the text between levels of Braid “exhibit[ing] prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie,” which is 100% true.  However, the real narrative is implied by the gameplay in this case.  The game is about the futility of turning back time.  Even if you win, you fail.  In Flower, you are the wind, opening up flowers and making the world a more beautiful place while trying to strike a balance with modern society.  The gameplay implies a distinct vision of the future, a hope for the present, as well as abstractly presenting the framing device as petals flowing in the wind.  That’s art.  Portal’s gameplay implies a battle with one’s mind to not only escape from one’s shackles but to also release another from what binds it.  It frames the game in tiny snippets such that the narrative is constructed entirely in the player’s mind.  This is art.

I have a Philosophy and English bachelor’s degree.  I’ve read a lot of literature.  The narratives of these games are as strong as 1984, Brave New World, or Neuromancer and it’s reasonable to think that in the future they will be seen as having as much cultural significance.  Some of them flirt with being able to be seen as serious existential or postmodern narratives.  There is no way to deny that this is art.  None.  Regardless of how gracefully these video games will age, their cultural significance in the advancement of the medium cannot be disputed.  I mean, hell, Final Fantasy VII has sold over 100,000 copies on a version released 12 years after it was released.  This is not chess.  Nobody plays FFVII for its gameplay.  To deny the narrative as art is just silly.  Final Fantasy VII is to game narratives as The Lord of the Rings is to the fantasy genre.

Games cannot be art.  Sure.  Fine.  Video games architecture and character modelling are surely art, and if we think of video games being about the narrative then video games can be art.  If we think of video games being about the gameplay then video games cannot be art.  If we think of it as a combination of the two, we can still at least pick out the narrative as art.

But it’s not as simple as the result of artistic work being art.  If that were the case we could look at houses as art — everything as art — and the word becomes absolutely meaningless¹.  Art needs to mean something more.

And video game narratives, in some cases, definitely fit the bill.  Definitely.  13 years later Final Fantasy VII is still going strong and it’s one of the most culturally important narratives of this generation.

How is that not art?

¹ – I doubt anyone who creates anything at all — whether it be a house, an epic novel or a toilet — does not have the intent to create something aesthetically pleasing or having some cultural importance.  Toy makers design toys to elicit emotion.  Everything that is ever created is created to a) fulfill a purpose and b) elicit emotion.  Are video games somehow more artistic than a house because they’re consumable?  More artistic than a house because they fulfil a cultural purpose (houses also really, really do)?  Kellee Santiag’s distinction is completely arbitrary.  We communicate with architecture.  We tell stories in construction.  Deconstructing an old house we can see the care or lack thereof in its construction.  We can see what materials they used to use, which tools, and learn a bit about that period’s culture.  Did they use electric heat?  Gas?  Boiler? Did they use copper wiring?  Copper pipes?  Iron drain pipes?  These things all tell us about a culture and a time in history.  These things are all intended to be both pragmatic and aesthetically pleasing.  Do we want to consider housebuilders artists?  If so, can’t we consider every act of creation art?  At that point life is art.  And I would agree with that.  But when we’re talking about art colloquially or academically we’re not talking about art in that way.  Frankly, Kellee Santiag doesn’t seem to understand history, film or even what art is.  Either that or she just makes her argument really, really poorly.