I've never seen a movie that deals with identity as strangely or as in-depth as Being John Malkovich. If I tried to explain the plot of the movie to someone who hadn't seen the movie before, they would probably think I was making the whole thing up. It seems to explore identity in two ways. The first is more of a sci-fi/fantasy exploration of the question, which is directly explored in the movie. Given this portal that lets you experience the identity of another person, the movie decides that anyone who enters this portal will be integrated into that person's consciousness. Like a little voice in the back of one's head, it is revealed that you can influence their decisions. If you have enough manipulative control, you can even gain complete control over all their actions. Trying to enter one's consciousness while it is already occupied causes you to enter realms of their subconsciousness.
While those concepts are interesting theoretical rabbit holes to explore, they remain purely theoretical, with no practical application or resonance in the viewer's lives. However, the movie has the human aspect identity as well. The main character is an exaggerated version of what many people have been at some point or another during their lives. He becomes enamored with a girl at his workplace, and becomes someone else to gain her love and acceptance. The main difference between the film and reality is that he literally becomes another person instead of just acting different. This turns out to be a very poor decision on his part. His wife, although a smaller focus of the movie, deals with identity issues as well, although hers focus more on gender identity.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Spiritual Education
Revisiting the novel The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman was an intriguing and somewhat nostalgic experience. I was introduced to the story by my father, who rented the audiobook of it for me from the library. The story was the first audiobook I ever listened to, and it fascinated me so much that I soon bought the book and re-read the story multiple times. When I discovered that there were sequels to the book, I managed to quickly devour those as well. The movie was somewhat of a disappointment, but that's another matter entirely. Needless to say, the book had a large impact on me at the time, and probably still maintains some of its impact on me to this day.
I find it somewhat humorous – although completely understandable – that the book is situated in the category "Spiritual Education". Seeing as how the book (and the rest of the series) denounce organized religion, it at first seems odd that the word "spiritual" would be associated with it. However, even though the book does not look to religion to derive its morals and lessons on growth, it does include quite a few morals and lessons of its own. Independence, questioning authority, and critical thinking are all values viewed favorably in the book. While I didn't really pick up on the anti-religious sentiments in the book initially, those values came across pretty clear. And looking at how I began independently developing games during high school and continue this practice today, I can say that at the very least the values of independence and critical thinking managed to stick.
I find it somewhat humorous – although completely understandable – that the book is situated in the category "Spiritual Education". Seeing as how the book (and the rest of the series) denounce organized religion, it at first seems odd that the word "spiritual" would be associated with it. However, even though the book does not look to religion to derive its morals and lessons on growth, it does include quite a few morals and lessons of its own. Independence, questioning authority, and critical thinking are all values viewed favorably in the book. While I didn't really pick up on the anti-religious sentiments in the book initially, those values came across pretty clear. And looking at how I began independently developing games during high school and continue this practice today, I can say that at the very least the values of independence and critical thinking managed to stick.
Heroic Journey
As someone with more than a passing interest in game design, when I engage myself with a piece of media, I usually tend to attempt to figure out how aspects of that experience can be applied to games. Ever since a text adventure version of The Hobbit was released in 1982, Tolkien's world has been translated to games commercially an additional 25 times. On top of that, many unofficial games have been made based off of Middle Earth, usually in the form of Multi-User Dungeons and Roguelikes. I thought that it might be interesting to take a deeper look at The Hobbit and figure out what it is about the series that compels people to reconstruct the stories in a virtual space.
After some analysis, I came to the realization that games are often made of Tolkien's world because game designers and Tolkien have generally similar goals. Tolkien had a strong interest in creating deep cultural and linguistic systems. Many game designers like having a deep, consistent aesthetic system to build their interactive system off of. There are few better candidates for this than Tolkien's world. It not only has a rich history, but also geographical mappings of the world, a variety of interacting cultures, and fully formed languages for the different races that inhabit Middle Earth. The possibility space for exploration offered in his world is staggering, and will probably never fully be explored by game designers.
After some analysis, I came to the realization that games are often made of Tolkien's world because game designers and Tolkien have generally similar goals. Tolkien had a strong interest in creating deep cultural and linguistic systems. Many game designers like having a deep, consistent aesthetic system to build their interactive system off of. There are few better candidates for this than Tolkien's world. It not only has a rich history, but also geographical mappings of the world, a variety of interacting cultures, and fully formed languages for the different races that inhabit Middle Earth. The possibility space for exploration offered in his world is staggering, and will probably never fully be explored by game designers.
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