The Pony Problem (Pt. 2)

(Continued from: http://journalswilson.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-problem-with-ponies-pt1.html)

 

Part Two: Hush now, quiet now.

So you on the edge of your seat as to what happened that caused such a divided reaction? 

Alright, freaks…  Hold onto your brunch:

What happened was a large group of people not within the intended demographic for the show turned out to really like it. 

*Cough* 

...

*Cricket*

...

*Tumbleweed*

...

Don’t bring in the dancing lobsters yet though, you haven’t heard the whole story!  These were MEN!  Grown MEN!  Un-ironically liking a show made for LITTLE GIRLS!

*Coughing cricket riding a tumbleweed*

Oh?  You don’t see why that is any sort of deal at all?  Alright.  Not much reason for you to keep on reading unless you’re interested in knowing more, which is cool, this does pique the interest of a lot of people, and rightly so.  However.  If you’re seething and enraged right now, but the froth seeping from between your clenched teeth hasn’t dripped down and broken your mouse so you can still use the scroll, please keep reading plz. 

What was birthed along with this unintended demographic and fandom, was a group of people who despise them, pick on them, call them pedophiles, gay or gay pedophiles, and come up with more pitiful attempts to justify their murderous rage in the face of logic than the bad guy at the end of Breaking Dawn pt. 2.

Pictured: The only actor in any Twilight movie who was having the time of their lives.

There are a lot of claims from these folk, made about this fandom (which has named itself the tongue-in-cheek title of “Bronies” (Bro + Ponies)).  I don’t know how to address these claims really, because they’re all just so out there and with not a single shred of logical basis.  Nearly every post on an Internet forum, or comment on YouTube, etc., that hints at the show or its fan base gets a response similar to the following:

     1. Some members of the unintended demographic are so OBSESSED with the program, that they have quit their jobs just so they can stay home and watch the show undoubtedly in puddles of their own urine.

     2. Members of the unintended demographic are all sexually attracted to the characters and/or horses, and make an excessive amount of drawn pornographic material for their disgustingly perverse masturbatory sessions. 

     3. Members of the unintended demographic want nothing more than to force everyone to watch and love their show, and irritate and nearly harass those who refuse to join them.

     
     4. Members of the unintended demographic shouldn’t be considered real men.

How does someone address claims like that?  You’d think that there’s no need to, they’re all just so fucking out there, right?  But these aren’t just reactions from your garden-variety blooming puberty flower, 12 year old boy needing to be mean to people and pound their flat chests in order to bury to their roots all of their insecurities, the universality of these kinds of responses requires more numbers, and some of these reactions are broadcast on TV, Internet news, and segments of the Internet with higher credibility than YouTube comments and Deviant Art groups.  And it's not just the usual suspects like Fox News and the Breitbart blog, there's people who are actually genuinely smart finding themselves attempting to justify their intense dislike in admittedly positions of higher thought, but with close enough amounts of holes to consider them bedfellows of the aforementioned adolescent assholes.  I could address these guys, some of whom I have a great deal of respect for, certain Kings of Geek Rock, radio and Internet comedy writing stand out, but the truth of the matter is that they're all coming from the same place, at least that's what I suspect; the pitiful nature of their arguments at least points to that.  But to see and understand it all, there is no better way than to just look at the veil-less, blunt and omnipresent opinions listed above.  

So let’s start with the easiest one here and work our way to the ones that are incredibly difficult to refute because of their iron clad wisdom based upon cold reason and oodles of evidence.

BRONIES ARE QUITTIN’ THEIR JOBS BECAUSE THEY’RE MANCHILDREN AND SO OBSESSED AND SHIT LOL THEY JUST WANT TO STAY HOME ALL DAY AND PLAY WITH THEIR PONIES.  I’ve heard this said a lot.  I’ve never seen a news article or story that referred to specific people, strike that, even one specific adult, male fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic who has quit their job in order to stay at home and watch My Little Pony.  Just think about this, people.  Think about the TV show you like most.  Now imagine that there are only 1 and a half seasons of episodes (Around when I first started hearing about this.) 

Why would you quit your fucking job and sever your source of income to watch a show?  Would a single person do this?  Would a group of people do this?  In this economy?  Someone would willingly give up their job to stay at home and watch a handful of twenty-minute cartoons?  Even if they REALLY like them, why would someone do that?

Why is anybody latching onto this evidence-free concept when it doesn’t even make sense as like, a thing?  Wouldn’t you want to hear the details on why such an irrational beast(s) would exist?  Wouldn’t that be your first instinct to go to when you hear something that doesn’t make sense?  Evidence don’t matter to a lot of people, but why would people brush passed all of that?  You don’t need to do any work; you just need to have your brain react to what you’re hearing.  But something’s blocking that for people who subscribe to this belief.  More on that in a bit…

EVERY BRONY IS A FUKIN SECKSAL DEVIANT WHO GETS BONERS LOOKING AT THE PONIES AND THEY MAKE ALL THIS DISGUSTING PORN LOOK AT THEM FAPPING TO STUFF I DONT FAP TO WHAT FREAKS!  That's right.  Onto the masturbating.  And porn.  This is the shit that really fucking irks me.  What fucking possesses people to care about what gets people they don’t know off?  Who fucking cares?  And why is this said as if it's a particularly My Little Pony fandom thing?  This is what happens to EVERYTHING on the Internet.  In fact, the idea that everything that exists has porn made of it is called Rule 34 of the Internet.  That’s been long agreed upon before all of this Pony madness.  Is there too much Pony Porn?  How would one even know that without going out and searching for all of the Pony Porn and finding that the amount is excessively greater than that of another show with a large fan base?  Or is it just that it exists?  Forget that Rule 34 thing for just a second and think here.  All that is happening here is someone bringing themselves to orgasm, something EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING WITH A HEALTHY SEX DRIVE DOES, while looking at lines on a screen that are supposed to depict something.  Why should you hate someone for doing that?  Why should you assume that this is what every single member of the unintended demographic, that is just people who like the show, does?  Why aren’t we assuming the same thing about fans of Firefly, or Gilligan’s Island, or Lost, or Powerpuff Girls?

     I mean, sure, it's weird.  To me at least.  There's just nothing sexually appealing to me about cartoon horses, but there's also nothing appealing to me about men.  People's attraction to men being a point of difference to me, it doesn't strike me at all to be mean or hate people whose wiring makes them wanna touch their happy parts looking at something I go eww at.

   Quick sidenote, these folk who get off on the cartoon ponies are called "cloppers", and replace the popular Internet term for masturbation, fapping or to fap, with clopping or to clop.  Like when a horse's hooves clop on the ground?  I just think that's fucking hilarious.  Ha ha ha.  Anyways...

     ID BE OKAY WITH THE FUCKING BRONIE FAGS IF THEY WERENT ALWAYS SHOVING THEIR STUPID SHOW DOWN MY THROAT AND FORCING ME TO JOIN THEM I DONT WANNA RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!  Alright.  Everyone?  You too.  No.  Not you.  Everyone.  Nobody can force you to do anything you don't want to.  People being geeks about a show and wanting other people to watch it isn't "shoving it down your throat", and on the internet, where most of these cases are, it is especially fucking easy to ignore people who are saying things you don't want to hear.  You just stop.  If someone is harassing you, there are ways to keep them away from you but I suspect if anyone were harassing someone over the Internet to get them to watch a tv show, it's not the show in question, or fans in general of it that are the problem.


    Again, this is something that happens with every single other show that people like.  They are geeks, they like the show, they think other people would like it if they watched it, so they tell other people about it.  I watch Sherlock or some other fucking show and I fall in love with it, I tell my friends, my family about it and maybe they'll like it to.  If they don't like it, they can just not watch it, it's not like I'm the Fascist overlord of their freetime.  If my little sister, of a friend of mine tells me about a show that they love, after a while I'll try and check it out, and the same thing happens.  Worst case scenario, it'll be bad, but not bad enough to learn shit from it, and I'll just stop watching it.  Best case scenario, I am exposed to fucking Deadwood, The West Wing or Doctor Who and it changes my life.


   Seriously.  This is shit that every single damn show and fandom gets away with.  People like something, they talk about it, they recommend it.  It reminds me of people bitching about: "I'm fine with gay guys, just so long as they're not in my face about it, or hit on me or nothing."  It's a fucking double standard.  Girls who talk forever about how cute a guy is are never called out for being "in your face" about their heterosexuality.  And if you don't like being hit on by people you aren't attracted to, then why aren't dudes ever saying: "I'm fine with (insert kind of girl they aren't personally attracted to) girls, just so long as they don't hit on me."  It's just because these people are different that they are given different rules to follow, not because it's logical.  A gay guy taking a chance and flirting with a guy, unaware as to whether or not he's gay or even attracted to him is isn't acceptable because he's gay, and fans of My Little Pony being geeks about their show isn't acceptable because they're fans of My Little Pony.

     And here's where we get to the why.  Why this unintended demographic is getting special rules that they have to follow that no one else has to.  Why this thing gets more from people than just intrigue and wanting to know more because of how different it is.  Why people hate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and its male adult fandom: 

     NO MAN WHO WATCHES A FUCKING CARTOON FOR 3 YEAR OLD GIRLS CAN BE CONSIDERED A REAL MAN!

     Read my Internet-lips: NEARLY EVERYTHING EVERYONE DECIDES IS "FOR" MEN, OR "FOR" WOMEN IS DECIDED COMPLETELY ARBITRARILY.  That's right.  Just about everything that any culture decides is "for" or "not for" men or women is chosen for stupid reasons, held tightly by fanaticism and ever changing.  What is deemed MASCULINE varies arbitrarily depending upon when and where you're born.  A Greek hero cries his eyes out and he's a fucking MAN; he cries his eyes out in America in the fifties or even now and he's a fucking pussy.  The color pink went from being considered a manly color to blue, which was once considered a feminine color.  Now they're fucking flip-flopped like all of a sudden some scientist figured out that if a boy wears pink that his penis will slowly retreat into his body and turn into a vagina.     Sure, there are some aspects of male and female personality that can be chalked up to differences in our biology, but skirts, colors, withholding emotion, long hair, short hair, nearly all of the shit that your culture screams at your face as a child as FOR BOYS, or FOR GIRLS, that is imaginary.  If I paint my nails, wear a pink dress every day, watch My Little Pony and read Twilight, my anatomy will not change in the slightest, I will be a man no matter what in the fuck I do.  My being a man has been decided before I was born and no matter how long that dress is on me, there will still be a fucking penis under it. 
  
     Some women are comfortable being "traditionally" feminine-

     -And some women are more comfortable being what some cultures consider to be "masculine"

     Let them be who they are.  Why must one’s Manliness or Womanliness be dictated by arbitrary rules?  You got a dick or you don’t.*

     This, I think, is the root of the whole despising of Bronies thing.  People are either way too caught up in gender roles like it's still fucking 1950, or are either not secure in their own masculinity for whatever reason and being mean to someone who is doing something not-so-masculine makes them feel better about themselves.  Sure being a bully like that does upset some people, some to the point of becoming assholes themselves, but in the end it's just fucking funny.  A group of men who are open about their love for a cartoon that was made for an audience of young girls are fucking comfy with themselves and their masculinity.  They're aware of how little impact is made purely from the act of being perceived, otherwise, the negative perception others have of them would keep them from revealing their love for the show.  That's why in the end it is just fucking funny.  They are trying to attack a group who are mostly by definition immune to what they're doing.  Like a goddamned, pissed off, toothless dog gnawing at your ankle thinking he's ripping your flesh awf.  But more adorable.     Some might assume with the amount of attention I'd give to this topic that I myself, could be were among the accursed unintended demographic.  And that's unfair.  Is using this subject as an avenue to discuss important cultural subjects such a goddamn crime that you have to put me up on a witch trial and act like you know every goddamn thing about me?  Alright, fine, I fucking love My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

     But what would be unfair to assume is that my thoughts on the controversy surrounding it are tainted by my having a dog/pony in this fight.  If I didn't enjoy the show I would still feel the same way.  How do I know?  Because when I first found out about all of this, I watched the first episode and didn't really like it all that much.  I still felt the same exact way that feel now, I just kind of didn't want to watch it.  I thought maybe if I had a son or a daughter, this would be a show that I would love to watch with them, but by myself?  Not so much.  I talked to a friend of mine about it, who got into show after that.  He told me to give it another chance, I did, with full knowledge that me and him don't see eye to eye on some shows, and that he has in the past recommended I watch shows that outright fucking blew.  I watched a few more episodes and started to appreciate it more than I did when I all I saw was the pilot.

      Everything you would expect from a show called fucking "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is burned alive aside from that there's colorful girl ponies.  At first glance, you might write off the characters as archetypes, but the writers of the show go out of their way right out the door to show how these characters break your preconceptions of them.  The writers also go out of their way to test the emotional and mental limit of each of the main characters pretty regularly, leading to many episodes where a pony has a fucking mental break down or psychotic rivaling those of previous cartoon-psycho champion Ren Hoek.  They are all distinct and loveable, but the show doesn't go the Simpsons route by always evolving them and bringing up elements or characters that challenge them and make them grow.

    And the music.  Sometimes it's cute and acoustic, sometimes it's sweeping and epic...  sometimes it's heartstring-tugging, somtimes it's intentionally lame and cheesey, but it's always wonderful, and catchier than some fucking catchy monster made of catchers mitts.

    It's also just a lot of fucking fun.  It's galaxies away from the blandness of the original show, it's actually pretty goddamn cartoony, taking many cues from Looney Tunes while still keeping it colorful (not blechingly so) and cute.  If you keep in mind that it has to be a children's show first and appreciate how much it achieves within those limitations, most of the flaws can be chalked up to a show within its first season finding itself.

    

Betcha didn't think they'd be dropping anvils on wounded ponies in wheelchairs, did ya?

     This is a great show, in my opinion.  If you watch the show, disagree with my opinion and want to argue yours, then let's have some goddamn discourse and share our points of view in hopes of walking away from the experience more knowledgeable of the other side, and having strengthened our thoughts on our own at the least.  But not watching the show and having an opinion on it and having such intense dislike of people who love it and supporting your dislike with such childish, immature reasons like the above, is just a fucking waste of hate. 

     There are people, ideas and actions that deserve a shit ton of hate bred from logical observation and reason.  If you have extreme dislike for people who have done terrible shit, that just shows that you feel things and you're not an emotionless fucking creep.  It all depends upon being logical and hungry for evidence at the start, though.  The simple acts of someone enjoying a show you don't like, masturbating to something you wouldn't, and not following arbitrary gender roles do no harm to ANYONE.  And hating someone for those reasons alone, when they have harmed no one is just another example what it is about us that makes us fuck everything up.  We don't give a shit about things that matter and make demons of people who have done no harm to anyone.  Hate that could fuel Good Change, being wasted on people who like a show about cartoon ponies who never did no hurt to nobody.

“I never expected to work on a show based on a toy line, but I accepted the project based on my sincere childhood love of the toy and Hasbro’s desire to create an entertaining show that is not just a long toy commercial. 

 

“When I took the job, I braced myself for criticism, expecting many people–without even watching the show–to instantly label it girly, stupid, cheap, for babies or an evil corporate commercial. I encourage skeptics like this to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with an open mind. If I’m doing my job right, I think you’ll be surprised.”

-Lauren Faust

“And it don’t matter who you are.  If I’m doing my job, it’s your resolve that breaks.”
-John Popper

*I hope none of this is read as anti-anything aside from the subject of the essay, particularly anti-trans; that was far from my intention.  What I mean is that liking this show has no effect on both your anatomy and your gender-identity.  To simplify: by "having a dick", I mean also: "knowing that you were meant to have been born with a dick." and otherwise.  For the sake of not having to address this giant issue that deserves its own 40 page essay devoid of pony-distractions, please overlook this, it kind of would have complicated and muddled up the essay, so it's understandable.  No disrespect was intended.

Also, after last week I saw Princess and the Frog.  Giant fucking exception to what I said about Disney children's media before.  Kind of seemed like it was made rewriting the worst aspects of Disney of the past in mind...

The Pony Problem (Pt.1)

Part One: Background (ponies.)

     In the 1980’s, a toy company called Hasbro found that they could increase their profits massively if they were to increase the running time of their commercials from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.  Because of the undeniable fact that boys and girls cannot like the same thing (as they are scientifically documented to be two separate species) they had at least one series of their newly patented 30-minute commercials made special for each gender. 

     They quickly realized that in order too keep the children from changing the channel during these Extra-Lengthy Hasbro Half Hour Extravaganzas®, they needed to study carefully what would catch all groups’ attentions for the entirety of the Extravaganza.  Their research found that boys liked guns and robots and bad guys and fighting and weird voices, but they couldn’t get many answers from the demure, quiet gender as to what they liked.  It was decided to show test Extravaganzas to the girls, and just cut out everything that made the girls cry uncontrollably, leaving the My Little Pony show for girls tailored specifically to never touch upon their crippling fears of conflict, plot, characters, non-primary colors, and content.

     Flash forward to the 2000’s, the ever-creative Hasbro team decided to focus upon an experiment similar to the one they conceived in the eighties.  They found that the children who watched their “Television Shows®” had grown up now had unhealthy nostalgia for everything from their childhood, due to dissatisfaction with their current life and fear of impermanence and death.  Most importantly however, they found that these freaks had disposable income now.  They hired Michael “D’Hoffrynn” Bay, their demon child birthed from black magics and the stem cells from failed attempts to clone a

(Michael Bay being evil)

cyborg-Ayn Rand-Ronald Reagan-hybrid, to produce a series of four and a half hour long Film-Like Product® that people would pay them to see.  By the date of this essay, there have been 14 Film-Like Products® made from the Transformers intellectual property.

     

Hasbro attempted to do the same with My Little Pony, but they found that the girls who grew up watching the "show" didn’t remember any of it, somehow being placed in a catatonic trance the entirety of their experiences.  This left their nostalgia nearly impossible to take monetary advantage of.

     Michael Bay made a test My Little Pony Film-Like Product, but couldn’t refrain from having sex with and putting M80's in the specially bred Technicolor ponies on set.  Hasbro was now forced to think outside of the box and hire out of house to produce SOMETHING from the intellectual property just gathering dust instead of Frankalynns.

(Lauren Faust being good)

     The desperate toy-company approached Lauren Faust, an animator known for her work as a storyboard artist from the Powerpuff Girls and head writer of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.  Faust was a radical idealist in Hasbro’s eyes, and brought to Hasbro’s attention to the new concept of Non Corrupt Artistic Expression®, an idea Faust herself was one of the initial drafters of. 

      The tough-as-nails animator nearly walked several times from the new television production with Hasbro that she was creating, until the ever-make it up as they go along gamblers of the toy industry threw her the most creative control a cartoonist ever had in this period of animation history following John Kricfalusi being killed and eaten by Nickelodeon executives.

    

     Personally disgusted and uninterested with the My Little Pony show while she was growing up, Faust took charge to create a show with REAL, identifiable female characters that broke clichés, character relationships that created conflict and directed the internalization of the show, and themes of finding your identity and growing as a person/pony.  Being given the opportunity, she wished to make a show that would have not only kept her attention while a young girl, but caught her imagination and made her think and feel.  She didn’t care about all of the people who would undoubtedly dismiss her show as commercial trash or vapid, colorful crap for girls ...all she wanted was to make a good show for young girls.  If that ideal was compromised by her corporate overlords, she was more than willing to jump ship into the sea of jobless animators with both middle fingers extended and her tongue hanging out.  The best-case scenario would be that she could attain and maintain enough creative control to have the show (Later titled: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Seriously.)) perhaps become known as an itty-bitty oasis in the tiny desert of empty, condescending (and at times straight up evil), media for girls.

*(Exhibits A, B, and C)

Not to mention all of the children’s media that present incredibly backwards, anti-feminist values!

*(Little Mermaid:  Girl characters don’t need arcs!  Their daddies do though… And they can be rewarded for their naiveté and learn nothing at the end so long as they end up with their 1-dimensional, blandly conventionally attractive Prince GenEric they just met!  Now go get married and have a kid for the direct-to-video sequel, you scamps.  Oh, my.  Kids turn sixteen so fast.

Mulan: Starts out quite novel and pretty fighty for equal righties, until the title character is offered the biggest position of power for a woman in the history of her culture, and perhaps the world when you eliminate power inherited from bloodline, but turns it down for the laughable excuse given that she's: “been away from her family long enough”.  Because those two things are mutually exclusive.  Hows about you visit your family and then come back and serve as adviser to the EMPEROR OF GODDAMN CHINA?  Maybe change all of those sexist cultural policies that oppressed you throughout the entire movie?  Maybe serve as an example to all the girls who feel forced into where society has put them that they can attain something higher if they fight for it?  Oh?  You got a boy now?  All the men serving in Government can totes have wives and shit but she can’t have a boyfriend?  What? 
Shut up.  

And yes, Lion King.  I know, you like Lion King, but it’s one of the few Disney movies that presents arranged marriage between children in goddamn passing like it's no big deal.  And all of the Lionesses who are left behind when Simba leaves can't do anything about Scar?  Why?  Scar was overpowered by fucking hyenas.  Why did they have to wait for one guy to show up, who was assumed dead?  Because they're girls?  All of them could take him out while he was fucking sleeping, they are the hunters of the pride.  Did providing balance to the Kingdom require Simba to show up?  Just Nala was presented to be able to keep up with Simba, why couldn't all the women gang up against Scar?  One dude vs. many very strong and capable females and until they get one dude on their side they can't challenge Scar's role as leader? But back to fucking arranged marriage in a kids movie; even fucking 15-year-old Snow White who had her happy ending with some guy she met for less than a minute at the beginning of the movie and didn’t show up till the end wasn’t arranged for her.  That aside, am I the only one who thought they were kind of totally setting up it ending up with her and Grumpy?  Like, if you’re just paying attention to the narrative and not how he’s a troll and shit?  She was making a pie for him and everything.  Fuck.  Wait.  Am I still in a fucking caption?  Shit!  Back to ponies!)

     -Faust also hoped that perhaps My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic could be something mothers would look forward to watching together with their daughters.  What happened however, was an unprecedented something no one has yet claimed to have predicted, and a source of both great, fiery hatred and heavily devoted love.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK!!!

*For the record, I love all of these movies.  The Disney ones for many reasons, mainly the music, and the non-Disney one for giving me one of the most unintentionally and unexpectedly unique movie-going experiences I've ever had.  But Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, hilariously jarring tone-shifts and CGI babies don't make up for under-characterizing female characters as a rule, and using them as a vessel to promote sexist, damaging philosophies that should be gone-gone by now.  I mean, Birth of a Nation made some of the biggest leaps forward in film history, but it's still kind of the most racist movie ever in the history of ever, dig?

A Wolf Baby is Born

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Wolf Man and the Airship Captain is a band fronted by my good friend Gus, under the pseudonym I’m still trying to talk him out of, Constantine Xilver.  Me and him have been making movies for a couple years now and will continue making movies together until his untimely death. 

(Me and Gus (right) scouting locations for our upcoming surrealist epic, 

Bundeloafe II: The Return of Jafar.)

Wolf Man also has other people in it.  I’m friends with all of them but one.  Henry Randall plays guitar, Jack Lynch plays drums, Colman Hickey plays keys, and Max Kilcup plays bass.  Max Kilcup is the one I’m not friends with.  No particular reason behind that.  We’re just not.  And we never will be.

I’ve been going to their shows for a while, and I like them.  But don’t take my totally biased word for it!  They’ve recently come out with a three-track EP that you can listen to for free!

It’s called Wolf Baby.  You can listen to it here:

http://wmatac.bandcamp.com/

Wolf Baby is really cool.  It's tiny, but doesn't use that as an excuse to not do anything interesting with the order of the songs, and there's definitely a logic to how they did that.  It starts out with the anthem to fucking awesome, We Rob Banks, the show-closing number for nearly all of their live shows. There was a demo version released a while back that never really got near to capturing the energy of their live performance of the song.  The Wolf Baby version gets it right.

That leads us into the less driving, but more contemplative and no less rocking Oreo cream of the middle, Mallomarz.  It has some pretty fucking sweet keys and fucking taint punching fucking rocking drums.  Also has probably my favorite lyrics in any of their songs.

The three-track album closes with a really cool, mellow ballad called Crystal Earth.  It’s a song sort of alien to the rest of the Wolf Man songs I’ve heard, but not an unwelcome kind of alien.  Total fucking ear candy.  Here’s a beautiful video accompanying the song in question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE9GyL2Epr8

Crystal Earth ends the album having changed shit up and revealed a new side to them that I’m looking forward to seeing.  I’d be cool going to their shows and showing support for my friends even if they coasted on doing what is familiar to them, namely gritty, distorted, high-energy, rock.  But if the promise in Crystal Earth means anything, and I think it does, I’m actually looking forward to hearing new shit from them, and support of my friends isn't the driving force behind actively following them anymore.

I CHANNEL CRACKED: 3 Stupid Things People Think About Video Games. AKA: The girl, art and high art discussion.

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#1: “Video games are for boys!”

If you don’t mind, I’ll hit you with a stat from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA):

“Forty-seven percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).” -http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp

So.  More women over 18 play video games than boys under 18.  Seems like video games are more for adult women than boys, right?  Not really.  It really does appear that most video games are totally for little boys with military fetishes.

     Take into consideration that the definition of video games is more broad than just the triple A console/PC shooters that seemingly pervade every pocket of the perception of what video games are nowadays.  It also includes casual, puzzle games on smartphones, computers and the DS, which lends the statement: “Video games are for boys!” in need of a little amending in order to not be stupid.  Video games are for everyone.  The video game community, and many video games outside of the casual market, present themselves as being NOT for women.

Why is it that the biggest, most expensive to make video games end up presenting the view female characters with writing and design choices that show them primarily as a romantic lead and a pair of tits and ass cheeks over a 3-dimensional character with an arc and a personality and stuff?  Is it because the games are made with its own sort of “Male gaze”, for men to look at and pine for? 

     Well, yeah, but I think that it’s also because it’s been this way for so long, and a corporation making a NEW decision, even though it could make them even more money by getting more people invested in games, is unlikely if they have an incredibly likely way to make a shit ton of money doing the same thing.

     Also, writing real characters and not just the character descriptor of: “Has unrealistically perfect tits and ass.” Is difficult and takes skills that aren’t in abundance in the video game industry.

     Some people say that men are designed in a similarly exaggerated fashion.  I’d agree with that to a degree.  The bullshit there is that it’s still the MAN’s perspective that exaggerates their design.  It’s not a man that’s made to be fetishized as the perfect man women want; it’s exaggerated to be what MEN WANT TO BE.  It’s all male fantasy, and that’s wrong.  There’s nothing wrong inherently with male fantasy, or even objectification of women, or objectification of anything, it’s just that when that is nearly all that’s there in an artistic medium, or a culture, you have serious fucking problems on all fronts.

     Now add on that the community who are more invested in games than just games designed to be casual, are antagonistic towards women.  This is very well documented.  Anyone who hasn’t seen antagonistic behavior towards women in the video game community is either lying or dangerously deluded. 

After all of that, it becomes obvious why women don’t want to play these games that don’t seem to be made for them, and become engaged in a community that doesn’t seem to be embracing them to play equal roles in the community.  That’s okay though, because they’re totally cool with them being booth babes, sexy cosplayers, or hot commentators on G4. When that’s what’s available, it’s obvious why there aren’t many women fighting against those fighting to keep them out of the community.  And that’s a damn shame.  Video games have so many wonderful experiences to offer everyone.

All that aside, the aforementioned corporate side would definitely lead one to the conclusion that video games are mostly seen as a product by the people making them and not an art form.  I would agree.  Still.  One of the dumbest statements about video games is this: 

#2: “Video games aren’t art, you idiot!”

When a film critic is reviewing a movie, is the focus of their article whether or not the film in question should be considered art or not?  I don’t think so.  I think that they’re trying to communicate whether or not it is a piece of art that is of good quality, mediocre quality, bad quality, whether or not you should see it, if you would enjoy it and everything in between. 

Is Tommy Wiseau’s the Room art?  Why not?  Because it’s bad?  Does all art have to be good at the least?  How bad is it allowed to be?  Only a little?  Why?  If that’s so, then why is film considered to be an art form at all?  If the majority rule applies to whether or not film is art by how much it is good, then why not apply that to the whole medium, and consider it not an art form because most movies aren’t good?  Are most movies good?  I don’t know.  Have you seen all of them, and decided the quality of each of them as being more good than bad, thus giving it the right to be called an art form?  Should we just take your word on that?

It gets into a really muddy argument as you can see.  I opine that art should be considered as something made not of utilitarian value, but to communicate or evoke something.  Plain and simple.

Is architecture art?  Absolutely.  But doesn’t that have utilitarian value?   This is where art splits off into two worlds, and two words.  …Or I guess one word that means two different things: Art as a painting, a movie, a game, etc., and art as a building, a meal, a toilet, etc.

If the architecture is being analyzed by its aesthetics and such then the art that is being analyzed from the lens of it as a medium of expression and not its utilitarian value.  If it is being analyzed from its quality as what it does, how well it does it, etc., it is the OLD word art, a much more all encompassing definition that refers to works themselves.  This definition just refers to the craft someone works in.  In short, the same word meaning two things refers to two aspects of the work in question when it can overlap into a work of both utilitarian and non-utilitarian value.  Does a Frank Gehry building function well as a work of art from the perspective of how well it works as a building to house people?  No.  At least not from what I hear about his buildings.  But they aren’t made for that reason.  Can a building be both?  Can a meal be both?  I think most utilitarian things can be both. 

It’s a complicated conversation that has been going on and will be going on forever.  I think the above is the best way to look at things, and to get across that art forms that people don’t consider art forms, such as video game, or even FILM once upon a time are in fact art and help us get on with the discussion.

#3: “Ok smartass.  Well then, video games can’t be high (good) art!”

The above isn’t just the argument of MANY people I have talked to (strangely enough it seems like the default position of all people), but of an important figure in the art world.  Film critic Roger Ebert, an artist in his own right, and a man deserving of much respect.  Ebert started at #3, and then got a shitstorm of emails from the ever respectful and articulate video game community, after which he revised his position to #4.

After the shitstorm had cleared and Ebert redefined his position, he said this: “Why do you care what I have to say?”  Yes it’s nice that there is hypocrisy that rests in Ebert considering the art he has spent his career analyzing and reviewing was once not considered art for a reason that shouldn’t effect the matter (Because film is collaborative, it isn’t art.  If that’s true, then a painting made by two painters can’t be considered art.), and he is an important figure and he does deserve rebuttal just because it is an important issue…  But why do we care?  Why did everyone flip out so much?  He doesn’t play video games.  At least he hasn’t played enough video games to decide whether or not they could ever be high art.  He isn’t informed.  Debating him is useless and a waste of time.  We could debate him.  Use him as a platform to show the truth behind the art of game.  But he’s already lost, by not knowing ANYTHING. 

    

     Yeah, most video games are not high art, but that’s Sturgeon’s Law.  If these people were willing to understand the position of people who ARE informed, I’d tell them to play Missile Command, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Portal, and BIT.TRIP COMPLETE.  While they’re doing this, I’d tell them to read into video game history to provide context, and question every single thing that happens in the game they’re playing.

 

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     Why are there 3 missile towers to shoot from in Missile Command?  Why are you protecting both your missile towers and a city?  Why do so many missiles and planes and shit come from all directions of the screen towards you?  How come you can never beat the game, and the only end of the game is punctuated with a screen that says: THE END when you fail completely and the city is completely destroyed?  How did all of this make you feel?  What did it make you think about?

  Missile Command was originally in the arcades in the early 80's.

Some of the easiest ways to play it today is to buy it on the Xbox Live Arcade if you have an Xbox360 and I'm sure it's available on the PC. shouldn't be hard to find it online.

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     Why is all of Super Mario Bros.' progression directed completely from left to right?  How is it different from so many games before it, in particular relating to achieving a goal?  Why are the blocks placed where they are?  The cliffs?  The enemies?  The pipes?  The power-ups?  How does the placement change and how does it affect your experience?  Why does each world end with you seemingly defeating Bowser, and a little mushroom guy saying: “Thank You Mario!  But our princess is in another castle!”  How did all of this make you feel?  What did it make you think about?

Super Mario Bros. was originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 80's.

The easiest way to play it today is to buy it on the Wii Virtual Console for 5 dollars, or find it online.  You can also buy it on the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS if you have one.

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     Why is your character in the original Legend of Zelda’s continuous attaining of items effect how you play the game?  HHow could it relate to the growth of the character itself?  Why doesn’t the next level just start up after you’ve finished one, like Mario?  Why do you have to discover each of them through exploring the overworld?  How did all of this make you feel?  What did it make you think about?

  

 The Legend of Zelda was originally released in the 80's for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  The easiest way to play it today is to buy it on the Wii Virtual Console for 5 dollars, or find it online.  You can also buy it on the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS if you have one.

 

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     How could the gameplay mechanics of Portal relate to the character relationship between yourself and the only other character in the game?  How could this game be seen as a more feminine approach to the first person shooter genre?  How does this game approach female characters in different ways than most games?  What was up with the companion cube?  Why did the game end the way it did?  How did all of this make you feel?  What did it make you think about?

Portal is available for the Xbox360, Playstation3, and Mac and PC on Steam.

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     Why does the BIT.TRIP series progress the way it does?  Why does it start in BEAT with gameplay similar to pong?  Why does CORE change the gameplay to stationary, four directional shooting?  Why does it change in VOID to allow you to move anywhere you want on the screen? 

Why are there so fewer penalties in RUNNER?  Why are there no lives and no game over?  Why is there so little time between making a mistake and putting you back at the beginning of the level?  Why does the game over return in FATE?  Why is the tone so much darker?  Why did the gameplay change from jumping, sliding, and blocking enemies and obstacles, to shooting them and collecting hearts they drop?  Why are you stuck on a rail? 

Why is the game over gone in FLUX?  Why does the gameplay turn back to the simplicity of BEAT?  How do the new gameplay elements mirror gameplay elements from the previous games?  Why is the action directed to the opposite side of the screen? 

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How do the brief cut scenes provide context for the deeper meaning in the games?  What do the musical motifs mean?  Why is there always so much going on in the background?  Why are the graphics so simple and Atari-inspired?  Why is it all rhythm based?  Why is there occasional repetition of obstacles?  How does the progression of the series relate to the progression of Video Games, and how does the progression of the series relate to the progression of a human life from birth to death?  How did all of this make you feel?  What did it make you think about?

All six of the BIT.TRIP games are available on Wiiware for the Wii.  

BEAT and RUNNER are available on Steam.  

The ultimate collection of all of them along with an assload of extra challenges and features is available for retail on the Wii under the title: BIT.TRIP COMPLETE

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     If after all that they’re still on the side of: “Video games can’t be high art,” only then will they be deserving of debate. 

    

     Until then, they’re just being uninformed and stupid.  As opposed to just stupid.