The Beginning of The End

Here's my intro and first 1/2 of a body paragraph. I haven't really utilized my sources yet; I felt like I needed to get my intro done while I'm still kind of hyped up about the paper (not that I plan on getting bored with it; I just plan on being more scholarly later).

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The artistic community has a somewhat confusing attitude towards innovation. On one hand, it is a realm of discussion that constantly searches for the next creative leap—a subversion of the norm, an exotic perspective or a non-traditional artistic process. On the other hand, the world of art also tends to suffer from a deep mistrust of the unknown. Whether it is the result cultural elitism, xenophobia or a something else altogether, the fact is that new media is often shunned and ridiculed when it first attempts to join the artistic discussion. Both the novel and cinema, for example had to fight the uphill battle to take receive their laurels of artistic relevance, but their acceptance did little to change the way society perceives art; for all their innovation, these mediums upheld the traditional artist-audience relationship. The former party creates, the latter absorbs. This relationship has been standard, even sacred, ever since humans have had the cranial capacity to create and conceive art. That is, until the advent of video games.

            We live in an age of technological momentum that is so potent that our very concepts of society and culture are no longer consistently valid. Before the advent of computers, artistic endeavors were limited to the manner in which the physical world could be manipulated and subsequently perceived. Now, however, humans have the capability to create practically anything their minds can conceive and display it for other people. Our perception, as a species, has changed. Thus, our perception of art must change as well. This is where video games come in. They represent the bleeding edge of artistic creation, the latest medium in which creators work to bring joy, despair, and everything in between to their audience.

But video games meet exceptional resistance at every turn and lack sufficient support in the realm of academia. In fact, some of the medium’s most important figures actively subvert the plight to achieve artistic acknowledgment. Hideo Kojima, for example, is a major videogame writer and producer who stated rather categorically that “its not art.” (Eurogamer) I wish to refute this type of criticism, as well as the general stigmata surrounding videogames , by using another medium of ill repute: Shakespearian theatre. By comparing the themes, context, and rhetorical strategies of Shakespeare to those found in video games, I will demonstrate how video games are the most important art form of the modern age.

            Time has a strange way of warping perception. Shakespearean drama is frequently taken out of its historical context and canonized so thoroughly that even scholars sometimes forget its humble beginnings. Contemporary plays of the 17^th century were generally frowned upon by the classically-minded critics of the day, but were ravenously attended and anticipated by the common people. Far from the current reverence they now receive, Shakespeare’s plays are analogous to today’s videogames—they achieved commercial success, but critical condemnation.