I'm incredibly psyched about the Kinect (a.k.a. Project Natal), Microsoft's upcoming motion controller for the Xbox 360. Many of its titles do indeed look like updated EyeToy titles, and in my book, that's great---if Sonic Free Riders is basically EyeToy Antigrav with a (finally!) working control scheme, I will be overjoyed.
I loved the EyeToy, even with all the gimmicky minigames. Like any sensible person, I found it incredibly immersive to make my body into a controller, and I was delighted by the total concentration induced by the physical gameplay. It's not unlike the effect of playing Rock Band (music, with its deep evolutionary origins, is a handy shortcut to physicality)---instead of the tunnel-vision concentration of most games, you get a kind of effortless oneness.
Unfortunately, a lot of gamers don't seem to feel that way---the comment sections over at Kotaku and Joystiq are full of whining from people who think all this flailing is the opposite of what games are for. Some of this is simple fat-ass don't-wanna-get-off-the-couch laziness, which is worth what it's worth. Some of this is horror at the idea of looking silly, though for those who complain that the people playing the games look like morons, I'd like to ask them if they think people look less moronic while staring slack-jawed at the TV with a controller in their hands.
But what's most prevalent is the typical North American Male horror of being made aware of their body in any way at all. The list of things that completely freak out typical North American Males includes dancing, being cruised, going to the doctor, and, apparently, motion controllers. What all these things have in common is that they make the body cease to be a tool, to be used as transparently as possible, and make the body instead an object in itself, a thing to be considered and evaluated.
In fact, it might be that part of what's driving gamers' horror at the Kinect (and the Wii before it) is a sense that they're losing an essential aspect of video games ---the mediation of an avatar. For a lot of hardcore gamers, much of the appeal of their entertainment of choice is the change to get out of yourself. You get out of your living room and into another, better art-designed world. You get out of your daily grind and into a bunch of challenging yet surmountable tasks. And maybe most exciting for those already deeply alienated from their bodies, you get out of your own meatsack and into a body vastly more responsive, agile, and capable. That sitting on the couch playing games makes your own body even less like that of your digital avatar is a classic irony of addiction.
As Douglas Copeland's Microserfs so ably dissected, much modern tech culture is built upon a foundation of body-horror, and a desperate need for body-escape. Video games ably meet this need, offering the player the chance to become an NFL star, a beefy marine, or a sexy babe gunfighter (and really, what guy hasn't wanted to be in the body of a hot chick, if only so they could play with their own boobs?). But if your body is the controller, then your body has to be subjected to the same sort of stress-testing and evaluation that every new gaming system is subjected to---it's like being cruised by the cattiest of queens! No wonder so many gamers look on motion control with a desperate, frozen sneer, hoping no one dares to glance below their necks.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Time-Traveler's Wife
Given its immense book sales, a movie of "The Time Traveler's Wife" was inevitable, despite its lack of climax, conflict, or drama. The book is actually a pretty good time, despite being chock-full of moments where characters must accommodate the demands of the plot by behaving like completely different, mostly brain-dead people, most prominently in the heroine's out-of-nowhere whining about wanting to be pregnant despite the high likelihood of "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex"-style complications. Though I suppose one could defend this sudden, senseless, self-destructive shift in attitude as quite realistic.
For those who don't know the plot: The book's about a guy who, like Billy Pilgrim, is permanently unstuck in time. Every couple of days, he's suddenly shot into the past for a few hours, but his journeys seem to center around a particular woman. He first appears to her when she's a little girl and he's a man in his thirties, which is about the age he remains for all the visits to her in childhood, as well as when he appears during her horny teenage years (fear not, he remains entirely gentlemanly). When she's in her mid-20s, he tells her that they're going to meet soon---that is, she's going to meet him in his actual linear life, and he won't know her yet. When they do meet, he's actually a few years younger than she is, and much more awkward than the older man she's known up until now. But love blooms, and they have some beautiful years together.
It's all very sweet, and not too badly written. But what really sells the book is its ruthlessly perfect wish-fulfillment fantasy. Not just the predestined love aspect, though that's certainly no small thing; no, it's the traveler who's a projection of a man too perfect to exist outside of fiction(which makes casting Eric Bana, who's played a lot of too-good-to-be-true men, appropriate, though how I'd love to see him in a remake of "Suspicion"). For the (largely female) readership, the time traveler is both the suave older man who won't fuck you no matter how hard you beg, and he's also the stumbling younger guy you can slyly seduce, and he's the sweet, bumbling hubby who you can mold into the aforementioned suave older man (and he'll happily go along with it, because you're trying to make him into the man he already is/was/will be). The fact that the heroine's actual father is barely-glimpsed and seemingly unlikable only further underscores the time traveler's role as simultaneous daddy and boytoy. And his chronological unreliability gives the story the vital "sisters must do it for themselves" aspect that any successful piece of female-oriented pop fiction needs.
Of course, such wish fulfillment is a vital part of all popular fiction---witness detective novels' endless procession of men who are tough, independent, hard-living, and seemingly irresistible to hot babes who conveniently disappear. But it's sort of rare to see a piece of popular women's fiction so eager to dive into genre devices (and sci-fi devices at that) in the interest of crafting a shamelessly perfect fantasy scenario. It has some of the glassy-eyed intensity of very specific fetish porn, the sense that you're reading something carefully crafted to fit perfectly in the keyhole in someone's brain.
For those who don't know the plot: The book's about a guy who, like Billy Pilgrim, is permanently unstuck in time. Every couple of days, he's suddenly shot into the past for a few hours, but his journeys seem to center around a particular woman. He first appears to her when she's a little girl and he's a man in his thirties, which is about the age he remains for all the visits to her in childhood, as well as when he appears during her horny teenage years (fear not, he remains entirely gentlemanly). When she's in her mid-20s, he tells her that they're going to meet soon---that is, she's going to meet him in his actual linear life, and he won't know her yet. When they do meet, he's actually a few years younger than she is, and much more awkward than the older man she's known up until now. But love blooms, and they have some beautiful years together.
It's all very sweet, and not too badly written. But what really sells the book is its ruthlessly perfect wish-fulfillment fantasy. Not just the predestined love aspect, though that's certainly no small thing; no, it's the traveler who's a projection of a man too perfect to exist outside of fiction(which makes casting Eric Bana, who's played a lot of too-good-to-be-true men, appropriate, though how I'd love to see him in a remake of "Suspicion"). For the (largely female) readership, the time traveler is both the suave older man who won't fuck you no matter how hard you beg, and he's also the stumbling younger guy you can slyly seduce, and he's the sweet, bumbling hubby who you can mold into the aforementioned suave older man (and he'll happily go along with it, because you're trying to make him into the man he already is/was/will be). The fact that the heroine's actual father is barely-glimpsed and seemingly unlikable only further underscores the time traveler's role as simultaneous daddy and boytoy. And his chronological unreliability gives the story the vital "sisters must do it for themselves" aspect that any successful piece of female-oriented pop fiction needs.
Of course, such wish fulfillment is a vital part of all popular fiction---witness detective novels' endless procession of men who are tough, independent, hard-living, and seemingly irresistible to hot babes who conveniently disappear. But it's sort of rare to see a piece of popular women's fiction so eager to dive into genre devices (and sci-fi devices at that) in the interest of crafting a shamelessly perfect fantasy scenario. It has some of the glassy-eyed intensity of very specific fetish porn, the sense that you're reading something carefully crafted to fit perfectly in the keyhole in someone's brain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)