Deus Ex Eracism and the Aesthetics of Skin
Posted: December 23, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: deus ex human revolution, eracism, letitia, racism, scribblenauts, videogames Leave a comment »As a baby I used to scream when black people held me. This was awkward for my parents because we lived in Tanzania and the number of proximate black people with an interest in holding me was high. I can imagine them handing me over to their friends and neighbors who’d thought to come by with felicitations for the newest addition to the family, wondering whether or not I would convulse in a spasm of racism when delivered into the onyx arms of neighborliness.
Citizen Prime: Why Ask the Question?
Posted: October 8, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abc, charlie gibson, cinema, Citizen Kane, citizen prime, comparative analysis, comparisons, controversy, cutscene, half-life 2, hitchcock, Metroid, Metroid Prime, michael thomsen, Orson Welles, truffaut, video games, videogames, world news 7 Comments »Earlier this week the ABC World News Posted a segment I recorded with them in which I described Metroid Prime’s achievements in game design as a breakthrough, equivalent in importance to Citizen Kane’s coalescence of cinematic techniques. While the piece is predictably terse and mostly confined to broad assertion, I think it presents my case pretty well. If you’re interested I’ve published a longer, more detailed version of those arguments in an editorial for IGN.
It’s been interesting to follow the reaction to this piece, which has broken down along the familiar lines of sarcasm, big media cynicism, disagreement, and personal derision. Another response has been to reject the very idea of cross-media comparison. I wanted to address this particular reaction a little more openly since I think the application of that criticism is misguided and a bit dishonest.
