“This one lands hard in “not for me, but great for someone else.”
I was pumped to see Mike Drucker, whoâs hilarious, was writing a book about a video game. Iâve been following him long enough that I knew he worked for Nintendo (I think doing localizations for a Kid Icarus game(?)), and this seemed like a match made in Heaven. Wait…Icarus wasnât an angel, was he? Does that Heaven/Icarus thing actually work? I think Kid Icarus is an angel, but the real Icarus was just a guy, right? And when I say âreal Icarusâ I feel like Iâm on thin ice…wax wings?
The first half of this book is mostly what Iâve come to call âThe Academic Gaze.â Youâre probably familiar with âThe Male Gaze,â which is a way of writing women as they are seen by a sort of predatory male viewer.
The Academic Gaze is looking at everything as though it requires deconstruction, and as though any deconstruction of a thing is interesting.
Does everything require deconstruction?
No. The experience of the game Silent Hill 2 is a lot more powerful than its deconstruction, and thatâs the sign that something doesnât require deconstruction. If your deconstruction provides a different but less compelling take than the original material, itâs not my jam.
Is deconstruction always interesting?
No. For example, I think deconstruction of video games, pre-2015, that look at female side characters and use a lot of words like âagencyâ are not interesting. A lot of the points people make in these deconstructions are correct, but theyâre not super insightful, and itâs nothing you couldnât come up with on your own. And…I feel like Iâve seen it, understood it, and when I go through a game now, itâs ringing in my head. Pointing out that a female side character in a video game only exists as a carrot on a stick for a male character is a point well and thoroughly made.
When does deconstruction leave me bored?
Applying deconstructionist ideas and academic rigor to something of low culture, like a video game, usually leaves me bored. It was a very novel concept in the 90âs, around the time of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, but by now it feels a little tired.
Some deconstruction feels like English class when the teacher would wax on about potential hidden meanings in Shakespeare, and at some point youâre like, âOkay, when something is vague, ANYTHING could be a correct interpretation. Can we talk about LIKELY meanings?â It almost feels like a contest, who can come up with the most compelling idea and then scrape the original material to give it just enough scaffolding to stand. It feels academic-y and show-off-y, and letâs just measure dicks and move on.
What makes deconstruction work?
I think deconstruction CAN work, and it works best when:
A)The original work hasnât been discussed to death
B)The original work has an abundance of evidence to prove that the theory is reasonable
C)The theory feels âorganic,â as though any reader going through the material might draw a similar conclusion
D)The original work wasnât obviously intending for the reader to draw the conclusion being posed as theory
E)It doesnât pose theories as fact
F)The theory brings something new to the table
G)The theory preserves the mysterious or ambiguous nature of a work without attempting to resolve it, provided thatâs a key component of the original text.
H)The theory isnât an attempt to discuss an outdated idea with modern lenses.
I)The theory makes the material more interesting, not less.
How does this one measure up?
A)I think itâs fair to say Silent Hill 2 hasnât been discussed to death in average circles. However, the abundance of referenced academic papers in the book make me suspect it HAS been the subject of many a thesis or dissertation. I could see a more read-able translation of these works being of interest, but…
B)Drucker has several theories, and I think they oscillate between very supportable and super-not. I reckon itâs a mixed bag thatâs appropriate.
C)I guess the theories are organic enough. I think most people whoâd be inclined to write a book about a video game from that era can make a pretty good organic case for mose of whatâs in the book.
D)This is where things go off the rails a bit. I think a lot of the theories in the book are really just summaries of the intent of the game designers.
E)One KEY theory posed by Drucker involves the main character murdering his wife as opposed to participating in her assisted suicide (which is a common theory, the game leaves it ambiguous). I am not a fan of this because I think Druckerâs other theories rely on this being true. Iâm not on board with this theory, so many of the others that build on this one fall apart.
F)So far, I think that though these theories arenât bad, they donât go terribly deep. un-fleshed-out female characters, bullying, whiteness, the familiar/unfamiliar, these donât feel like new territory to me.
G)I do think, for this set of ideas to work, the ambiguity of the game, which is a key component, has to be resolved. I think the experience of a one-way discussion of what those ambiguous items are and what they mean is uninteresting.
H)Lots of folks disagree with me on this one, but I think looking at something older with modern lenses lacks, for me, that feeling of âCan you believe this shit?â I donât require further evidence to agree that there was some sexism and whatnot in regular practice in gaming culture, but I think that discussion is worn out for me. Maybe for me, this act is like the difference between developing a photo in a darkroom and applying an Instagram filter. There is a lot involved in that development process, and no two people will wind up with the same final product, even if they go in with the same film negative. Two people with the same original, applying the same Instagram filter, will wind up with an identical product. So…the discussion of topics like gender politics in video games might be important for that cultureâs future and whatnot, but I do not consider myself part of that culture. Iâve never played anything online, I donât follow gaming journalism. I mostly play the occasional game, by myself, for funsies. Itâs like sneaker culture. I wear shoes, but Iâm not involved in sneaker culture, Iâm not a mover and shaker there, a tastemaker, or a creator in that field. So even if these discussions and theories do good in the industry, they arenât of interest to me as a reader.
I)I found that by trying to resolve the unresolved, the theories in this book make the gameâs narrative less interesting rather than more interesting. Especially the theory about the murder/assisted suicide because the assisted suicide is a far more interesting idea than murder. It’s more complicated. When someone is in a longterm medical situation, the feelings you have about them and about yourself are unbelievably complex and horrible. And assisted suicide is such a terrible thing because it so often relies on the person’s loved one to participate and be on-hand, and that is an impossible thing to live with. I shouldn’t say that assisted suicide is terrible, I don’t think that, I just think it’s unfortunate that we feel the way we do about our participation in it, and there’s no way around that. I think the town of Silent Hill acting as a punishment, but maybe the character shouldn’t be punished, maybe he should, maybe it doesn’t matter because it’s not about whether or not the player agrees, it’s what the character feels- all of these factors are, to me, a lot more interesting than the theory that the guy murdered his wife.
All of this said, I think Iâm not the right audience for Boss Fight Books for now. Their initial run was to my liking, and the books had a video game at the core, but they werenât always about the deconstruction of a video game using critical theory.
Earthbound was more like a coming-of-age story that revolved around a game, Galaga was almost a comic attempt to write an entire book about a very simple game, ZZT was a fascinating exploration of gender through the framework of game design, and Jagged Alliance 2 was a deep dive through the back end of a gameâs code. They were all a little different, and they were pretty interesting.
Iâll also just put in a quick plug: NBA Jam and Spelunky are fucking amazing.
The last couple Iâve read have been more centered on politics and the politics of narrative, and maybe itâs because I was an English major that Iâm so burned out on those sort of discussions. Iâve just read a lot of them, and itâs a little like reading zombie books: Thereâs a lot of âem out there, and once youâve read a dozen, youâre good.
I know thereâs a big audience for this stuff, and I do hope this book and Mike Drucker find that audience, because I think this book is deserving of that, and I think the audience thatâs hungry for this book will be very pleased by its contents.
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