While GTA IV’s sales predictably are going through the roof and the game is garnering some of the consistently highest reviews across the board (an incredible 99 per cent on metacritic) there is one slightly more critical response – from the Guardian’s art and architecture blog, of all places.
It’s mainly of interest because the writer of the blog, Peter Lyle was, for years, a videogame writer and reviewer for a number of high profile magazines including The Face and Edge.
Lyle’s main point of contention is with Greg Wood on Radio 4’s Today, who claimed this week that GTA IV "established videogames as a serious artform, worthy to be ranked alongside cinema".
While Lyle agrees with BBC technology editor Darren Waters' claim that GTA IV felt "more like a cultural event than a marketing event", he thinks the claim to being "art" is taking things too far.
But is it art?
"Art?" questions Lyle. "Other games might be - I always thought of Sega legend Yu Suzuki as an artist, because of his design philosophy and aesthetic - but GTA never was.
"It's art in the same way the first cave paintings were: a crude, unmediated celebration of the urges to fight, have sex, and make fire."
"On Today, a trade magazine editor said that the game's inclusion of 'adult themes' proved it was artistically mature. This is, of course, tripe: 'adult themes' is just like stamping 'Mature Content' on a shlocky comic, or 'Parental Advisory' on a rap record, to ensure teenage boys buy it. It is the opposite of the way mature art works."
Pornoviolence
Instead Lyle likens the GTA phenomenon to what Tom Wolfe called "Pornoviolence" which Wolfe defined as:
"The new pornography depicts people acting out another, murkier drive: people staving teeth in, ripping guts open, blowing brains out, and getting even with all those bastards... the old pornography was the fantasy of easy sexual delights in a world where sex was kept unavailable. The new pornography is the fantasy of easy triumph in a world where status competition has become so complicated."
Since GTA went 3D with GTA III, Lyle feels that it can be summed up as "a technological marvel, a cultural juggernaut, an entertainment phenomenon, a detail-packed pop-culture pastiche that brilliantly repackaged outlaw tropes for a videogame world previously hung up on, and ghettoised by its allegiance to, the geeky realms of sci-fi and fantasy."
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Reader comments (8) Jump to Add Comment
james
May 1st
8. Just thought I would point out that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the greatest actor of his generation, and his movies will define our culture for years to come. His work is on a par with Monet and Picasso, in my book.
It upsets me when people insult The Governer.
Saying Schwarzenegger movies aren't highbrow artistic masterpieces is a bit like saying Steven Seagal's mullet is an abomination - it's just not true.
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thehesh
April 30th
7. we might all want to be careful! - if the Guardian is calling this 'Porno-violence' we could be subject to arrest and/or imprisonment under the new Criminal Justice Bill for possessing images of a violent/sexual nature! lol!!
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nicolasmerritt
April 30th
6. Thought it was interesting that Rockstar invoked the 'Elvis defence', saying all the hype was just this generation's moral panic.
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tholmewood
April 30th
5. This is totally art in the postmodern sense of the word. The GTA universe is an intertextual universe where pastiche and parody are the primary modes of representation, therefore adhering tightly to the PoMo aesthetic. Rockstar's use of metatextuality is second to none! We now have TV's inside TV's, video games within video games, all serving as a metacritique of the hypereal society we all live in today.
As for the 'pornoviolence' tag, being the amateur Lacanian I am, I tend to agree with Slavoj Zizek in that our videogame selves are often more real than our 'real' selves. The GTA sandbox, where the terrifying presence of the reality principle or 'the big Other' no longer watches over us as we perform our actions, allows us to enact our desires unhindered by any fear of consequences that could limit those same desires. That is not to say that games which allow us to enact these desires will surely lead to licentious behaviour outside of the game. Those rare few who do perform illegal actions and are GTA players must have already suffered from a lack of regard for the reality principle in the first place due to their own socialization, which of course brings on a much larger debate and one that has raged on and on since the dawn of video gaming.
To pick up an important part of Thom Wolfe's definition of Pornoviolence, "The new pornography is the fantasy of easy triumph in a world where status competition has become so complicated." The world Wolfe identifies here is no better than a game, a game in which an incessant 'status competition' rages on between its players who are fuelled solely by their will to power. A world where direct and indirect,physical and symbolic violence is carried out unchallenged everyday in its accepted channels. In order to get 'real' sex, don't we have to play games? We have to play by the rules of attraction; I'll stress how 'I'm not like all the other guys' by my talk of a deep appreciation of all things feminine, and playfully titter on the edge of bisexuality with comments like 'I can appreciate another mans good looks', constantly keeping in line with current metrosexual vogue--which has apparently been made illegal in Liberty City... according to the radio.
GTA has always offered a fantasy outlet for this 'drive' in us all, those of us who may not wish to engage in the power plays outside of their TV screens for whatever reason, be it fear or disgust--if the two are at all distinguishable in this context. For me at least GTA is a black mirror which reflects the real world in all its beauty, in its obscenity, its rationality and its absurdity. For those who wish to commit the violent act of destroying that outlet, I am sure that they are driven by that very same destructive drive.
Now leave me alone and let me masturbate in peace!
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nicolasmerritt
April 30th
4. GTA is art in the same sense as an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is art - it's art in a technical sense, but it's poor art when judged against the standards that define other artforms.
Not that this makes games less entertaining, or interesting, but games have a long way to go before they get taken seriously as offering insight or originality about the human condition.
That's my load of rubbish for the day.
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zoydwheeler
April 30th
3. Genius! Mr Lyle, I salute you. Clearly a man who knows what he's talking about (the reference to Yu Suzuki gives it away...). GTAIV, I'm sure is a lot of FUN, but it's a long way from being art.
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