Abstract
Cinematic adaptations of videogames are an increasingly common feature of film culture, and the adaptive relationship between these mediums is an increasingly common subject of film and videogame studies. However, our ability to historicize and theorize that relationship is hampered by a failure to fully define the generic character of our object of study. This essay asks, what is a videogame movie? It argues that film scholars (1) have not considered the full range of ways videogames have been represented in film; (2) have not attended fully to the historical, technological, figurative, and social dimensions of videogames; and therefore (3) have limited the set of possible texts that comprise the genre “videogame cinema.” The essay recommends a tropological approach to the problem, defining six tropes that comprise the “videogame movie” as a genre, and applying them to two films, Her and 1917, neither of them a direct adaptation of a videogame, the latter not “about” or referencing videogames in any way, yet both exemplary of a broadened concept of “videogame cinema”.
Highlights
IntroductionThough I have found no evidence that children’s author Crockett Johnson was influenced by Winky Dink and You (or vice versa) when he created his popular Harold and the Purple Crayon series, the story of a little boy altering his reality with a magical drawing implement is curiously similar to what the producers of Winky Dink envisioned and implemented
While I agree that it is important to look to the imagined future to find visions of videogames that are not constrained within current technoculture, I suggest that we look to the past as well
Diegetic representation: Videogames, players, designers, game play, and game culture that appear in a film and serve a narrative function
Summary
Though I have found no evidence that children’s author Crockett Johnson was influenced by Winky Dink and You (or vice versa) when he created his popular Harold and the Purple Crayon series, the story of a little boy altering his reality with a magical drawing implement is curiously similar to what the producers of Winky Dink envisioned and implemented Both texts reflect a shared interest in the idea that a child, liberated from the constraints of everyday responsibilities, could use a handheld device and a screen to achieve narrative agency and shape the storytelling world in non-trivial ways.
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