Scruffy Draft

I hit a huge rough patch this week on my topic, kind of getting tired of my own enthusiasm, if that makes sense. I almost had done too much research and thought about too many different angles to be able to get back to my initial point and brings things to cohesion. Doing this mini-paper really helped me find one way to bring it all together. I hope it works.

Brave New Worlds: Shakespeare’s Perspective on Video Games

            For several years, the debate has raged over “video games as art.” Roger Ebert, the acclaimed film critic, famously declared on his personal blog that “in principle video games cannot be art” (“Video games” 2010, emphasis in original). Ebert ranked up 4,936 comments from readers responding to this post, the overwhelming majority “united in opposition” against him (“Play” 2010). For many, video games won the battle in 2011 when the US Supreme Court overturned a California law banning violent video games, with Justice Scalia writing for the majority that “like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world)” (Sutter 2011). Despite the Supreme Court ruling, however the debate rages on.

            In a follow-up reconciliation post, Ebert conceded he was wrong to judge video games without ever playing them himself, but maintained that he believed in principle and theory it just didn’t work for video games. Interestingly, he cited a conversation with filmmaker and game auteur Clive Barker where they ran into discussing Romeo and Juliet. “Sooner [or] later,” he writes on his blog, “these arguments all get around to Shakespeare, and have a way of running aground on him” (“Play” 2010). This paper seeks to let Shakespeare have his own say on the matter. Taking what we know of the Bard and how he approached his own medium, I will cordially request he give us his own insight on the matter. The Tempest—his final, fantastic work about a self-made sorcerer living in exile and seeking revenge—will constitute the basis for much of my discussion.

            In 2010, EA Games released a video game adaptation of The Divine Comedy entitled Dante’s Inferno. Jonathan Knight, the game’s executive producer, said in an interview when asked about how Shakespeare would be as a video game designer, “Shakespeare would have been on the forefront. He was an innovator and not just a great story-teller. Arguably, he’s more of a medium innovator” (Brophy-Warren 2010). Knight makes a valid point here. All scholars (and most students) realize that Shakespeare wrote very few original plots (The Tempest excepted, perhaps) and mostly just converted stories from other mediums to the stage, or even from other stage productions to his own. Knight specifically sites Hamlet, but King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and several others also have very clear source material—not to mention all of the history plays. Shakespeare’s genius was not in plot, but style. Theater in Shakespeare’s time was viewed as “ephemeral and even somewhat disreputable entertainments by some contemporaries” (Wikipedia). Public concern grew along with the popularity of the new drama of Shakespeare’s age as theaters were seen as places for pick-pocketing, lewd performances, and other immoral acts. Shakespeare’s theater in his own time was literally not much removed from such cheap entertainments as bear baiting, thus Shakespeare’s famous stage direction from The Winter’s Tale: “Exit, pursued by a bear” (3.3). While classical drama of Greek and Roman times was worthy of repute, Shakespeare’s own medium in his own time—English theater—was viewed in much the same fashion as video games of our own time. In many ways, Shakespeare not only innovated the theater, but the English language itself, adding to it or altering it whenever it couldn’t serve his purposes fully. Therefore, if we take his track record as any pattern, it is not difficult to believe that Shakespeare would indeed be innovating with the newest medium of our own day that is commonly seen as base and crass—specifically, video games.

            Apart from his pattern of innovation, the very themes he dealt with lend themselves to video games better than other mediums. Most of Shakespeare’s plots—and certainly his most famous plots—center around a single, strong character’s crucial decisions in crucial moments. King Lear’s reaction to his daughters, Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s ghost, Othello’s reaction to Iago’s words, Romeo’s reaction to Juliet’s beauty—the plots of every play hinge on these single choices, and all their choices lead to the ultimate tragedy of each. The Tempest’s Propsero takes this principle even further as he has more power than perhaps any other Shakespeare character over the course of the story thanks to his magical powers and his control of the spirit Ariel. Prospero essentially crafts his own entire plot through his magic, leading his family and friends through the island in a veritable maze, guiding them step by step to their final decisions and his own eventual relinquishment of power. The art and emotion of these stories comes from the audience-member identifying with these central characters and wrestling in their own heart with the choices these characters face, then, ultimately, coming to understand and sympathize with the character’s decision despite the tragedy it caused. Video games are better equipped than any other medium to take on this theme of choice and consequence because they literally put that choice in the hands of the audience like no other medium can. Because Shakespeare was so obviously and consistently concerned with this subject, he most certainly would be tempted by the ability of video games to put this theme and its accompanying questions right in the hand of the player.

            Many might make the argument that Shakespeare would enter the world of film-making over video games. Film seems a more obvious descendant of theater, after all, just expanding the possibilities of visual effects and providing several new nuances to the art of acting, lighting, script-writing, and more. Shakespeare himself working as an actor would love the ability the camera has to enhance the actor’s performance and open new doors and possibilities. All of this is true, and there is no reason why Shakespeare wouldn’t dabble in film, but I argue that ultimately video games would have been more intriguing to him, as video games actually share as much if not more in common with theater than film does. One major drawback of film from theater is loss of audience. While films can reach millions, those millions can’t fit in one theater, and Shakespeare loved an audience. Even today, Shakespearean actors often reach out to the audience directly, asking them to participate some way in the performance, whether it be to fill the ranks of Henry V’s armies or fill the audience of the players’ play within Hamlet, the audience fills specific roles and fuels the production. Any stage actor can attest to the effect the audience has on the performance, as audience interest and participation ultimately bring the art of the theater to fruition.

Though interaction in theater is limited, Shakespeare sought it always—often explicitly through speeches like those of the chorus from Henry V or Prospero’s own final speech from The Tempest in which he says “Let me not, / Since I have my dukedom got / And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell / In this bare island by your spell; / But release me from my bands / With the help of your good hands” (5.1.2408-2413). The audience participation obviously cannot be literal here, but the invitation is very real. The Tempest deals throughout with the theme of vision versus reality, and even cleverly refers to Shakespeare’s own theater while doing so: “And, like / the baseless fabric of this vision, / The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great globe itself, / Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind” (4.1.1881-1886, emphasis added). Prospero essentially invites the audience to let go of theater after the curtain closes, to move into real things—all that theater isn’t. So while the audience can’t literally “release” Prospero, the invitation to interact is very real because Prospero is suggesting how they should think about and consider the play after it ends (and, considering that this is Shakespeare’s last play, after all plays end). Consider the impact of such an invitation on a player that could literally release Prospero by dropping the controller. Shakespeare clearly saw this audience interaction as essential. Video games would give Shakespeare the opportunity to reach as many millions as film, yet keep an interactive, participatory audience.

What side of the “video games as art” debate would Shakespeare himself fall on? From evidence of his own history and his own central themes, it seems that Shakespeare might find a mind-blowingly elegant way to put that loggerheaded flap-mouthed hugger-mugger in his place and show us all how a derided and devalued medium can host the greatest art of a century—just like he did last time he was around.

Works Cited

Roger Ebert, "Okay, kids, play on my lawn"

Roger Ebert, "Video games can never be art"

John D. Sutter, "Supreme Court Sees Video Games as Art"

Jamin Brophy-Warren "Dante’s Inferno: Do Classic Poems Make Great Videogames?"

Wikipedia, "William Shakespeare's reputation"

Shakespeare lines and line numbers from Open-Source Shakespeare