Roger Ebert is at it again, declaring that videogames can’t be art. It’s a bit of an odd choice for a crusade, given that the topic is not up for a vote or anything. There isn’t a Secret Treehouse for Real Artists that Ebert — as the screenwriter of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — gets to hang out in and Will Wright doesn’t.
Ebert’s central argument seems to be that if it’s interactive, it can’t be art, which is silly because that excludes pop-up books, Choose Your Own Adventure stories and Mister Potato Head, which are clearly the best forms of art.
First off, cutscenes are nearly always the worst part of the game. Secondly, they’re the only part of a videogame that isn’t actually a videogame. Trying to prove a videogame is art by pointing to the cutscenes is like trying to prove a bacon double cheeseburger is delicious by pointing to the lettuce.
You know what’s one of the finest pieces of videogame art of all time? Pac-Man. Aesthetically, it’s a masterpiece of techno-primitive color, sound and interactivity. I’m not just talking from a retro/grognard point of view, though; the same could be said of Katamari Damacy. And Portal isn’t just one of the best videogames of all time — it’s one of the best comedies of all time.
I can’t get behind any theory of videogame art that excludes these games just because they don’t have at least six hours of cutscenes where a guy with pointy hair and a sword the size of a side of beef muses about the nature of being.
True Art Timeline
In the end, though, nothing Ebert or I have to say about videogames and art matters one tiny bit. Ultimately, what’s generally considered True Art by academics and critics is a simple matter of the age of the creation.
Let’s examine:
0 to 25 years old: Almost nothing is true art. Certainly nothing common or popular. Art is created by a few geniuses denied popular acclaim by their own uncompromising vision.
25 to 100 years old: Not everything is art, but a lot is, even some of the popular stuff. At the time, people thought they were just enjoying something fun and entertaining, but actually they were in the presence of true brilliance.
100 to 2,000 years old: Any creative work made by anyone is worth investigation, preservation and in-depth academic criticism. Every painting, poem and rustic folk song is indicative of the ineffable zeitgeist of the cultural disposition. People were surrounded by art all the time and didn’t even realize it.
2,000 to 30,000 years old: Everything is art. Not just words and pictures, but pottery and baskets and huts. Even if they just wanted to make something to boil the tannins out of their acorns, these artists were actually participating in an age-old ritual where the creative soul and utilitarian necessity united into a singular expression of their culture’s unique viewpoint. And if they scratched a little picture into the rock that meant “stand here to watch the women bathe without them seeing you,” they were the Michelangelo of their time.
The point here is that if you want to see videogames considered seriously as true art, all you have to do is not die. Videogames are right on the cusp of being recognized as something that might be art sometimes. Another 75 years and all videogames will be considered art, even those porn games for the Atari 2600 where eight pink blocks meant boobs.
If you can make it to the year 4000, you’ll find that not only are videogames art, but so are videogame ads, videogame controllers and those stress balls with the names of videogame publishers on them that you get at trade shows. And, God help us, even snarky humor columns about videogames.
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