Game Over Player One (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Saturday, April 07, 2018, 15:38 (2211 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Kermit, Saturday, April 07, 2018, 15:43

I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned anything about Ready Player One on here especially given the Spartans cameo.

Given the talk about video game movies, on a plot and story level it was fairly entertaining and well done. Not perfect; I felt like Wade’s home situation could have factored into things a little more, but whatever.

But the biggest thing that stood out to me was the downright regressive treatment of gender. Holy smokes was this movie troubling. It pretty much brought back the 80s action movie notion of women as trophy and accessory. Halliday completely eliminates any agency or humanity for Kira, who spends her existence literally on a pedestal waiting as a quest reward. She was almost exclusively seen and treated though his male gaze.

In true 80s fashion, the hero wins the girl just because he did something heroic, despite her initial rebuffs. I was wondering if Samantha had had a horrible disfigurement instead of a minor birthmark, or if she was a quadriplegic or something, Would Wade have been disappointed then?

Yeah the movie was fun, but it was shockingly backwards socially.

You weren't playing attention. The Kira subplot was explicitly pointed out as a false narrative. Your eagerness to take some regressive message from the movie is on you, but it makes me sad that you've adopted that filter. Thank goodness this film doesn't hit you over the head with a hamfisted agenda (one that I often do find regressive, because it's turning us all into chauvinists). Yes, a female character was impressed by a male's heroic acts, but that can't happen in fiction? It happens in real life and has happened and will continue to happen as long as human beings exist (men are impressed by the heroic acts of women, too, of course--and so it is in this movie, the female character is shown as more capable than the hero through most of the film). All of the gamer characters are heroic in this film--everyone ends us saving everyone else at one point or another. The fact that it takes a clan is part of the point. I think it's a gross misreading to say Wade claims Samantha at the end. Yes, his having the courage to kiss her is a triumphant moment, but importantly, there is a pause, and then she kisses him--they claim each other . On reflection I think I can understand why certain people might not like the movie--it goes against their religion which holds as sacred the view that what you are is the most important thing about you. A primary message of this movie is that what you are does not matter--what you do matters.

It was a good movie based on a better book. A lot of its appeal is based nostalgia for popular culture, so I'm not sure that it's great art, but it's fun.