One of the more interesting questions raised by EXistenZ is that of free will: to what extent are our actions, thoughts, feelings, and aspirations original to us, and to what extent are they constructed by external forces? In the movie, Pikul poses this same question in so many words while he and Allegra are in the world of the game. Forced to grapple with the uncomfortable feeling that they are being propelled along by an arbitrary external will, unable to choose their own responses to the events unfolding around them, Pikul complains:
Ted: "We're both stumbling around together in this unformed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistant, always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don't understand."
Allegra: "That sounds like my game, alright."
Ted: "That sounds like a game that's not gonna be easy to market."
Allegra: "But it's a game everybody's already playing."
The "unformed world" of the game is, according to the dialogue, not so different from the "unformed world" of existence. Most games are escapes: aesthetically, they simulate worlds, roles, and situations that are obviously imaginary or 'unreal,' and, in terms of their design, contain clear, easy-to-understand rules and objectives that allow the player to feel in control. Free will is very much apparent in single-player adventure games and RPGs -- there are rules and limits, sure, but ultimately, players are allowed to do as they wish, imposing their will on a responsive but passive environment. I remember being blown away by Super Mario 64 (1996), the first fully three-dimensional platformer and one of the first fully three-dimensional games; unlike in two-dimensional platformers, Super Mario players could veer off course and go exploring, spending hours away from the objectives of the game and building objectives of their own. In essence, Super Mario 64 was a groundbreaking fantasy of empowerment, uniquely suited to its time.
What's ironic about EXistenZ is that Allegra Geller has designed a game that is as unnervingly unlike a game as possible. The fantasies of empowerment are swift and fleeting because consequences are always close behind. In Grand Theft Auto, there are no 'real' or significant consequences for killing a cop. Sure, you'll have the entire police force hunting you down, but the worst they can do is kill you and give you a chance to re-spawn and start over. In EXistenZ, Pikul may have enjoyed killing the Chinese waiter, but in so doing he unleashes a chain of events over which he has no control. He cannot see what's coming next, and this causes him some serious existential angst. His complaint, then, is one stemming from feelings of disempowerment -- aren't games, after all, supposed to give us more control and more free will?
The answer is yes, but the funny thing is most of us don't see it that way. We maintain the fantasy that we're pretty much in complete control of our lives -- when we're happy, at least. Questioning this basic tenet of existence leads one down some pretty nasty thought tunnels. So we keep up the fantasy as much as possible. The virtual identities we construct online in digital spaces such as Facebook and World of Warcraft are extensions of this fantasy. They give us the power to conduct 'impression management' and control how the world responds to us as individuals. But ironically, as our technological capabilities catch up with our desire to be whomever we want to be, these identities will inevitably become more fully realized -- more real to us; and perhaps, for that very reason, less satisfying. Our various identities are only becoming more integrated; and the closer our avatars and our SNS profiles get to exposing things about us that we'd rather see left out of the fantasy, the more will we feel disempowered. It will be interesting to watch as these new identities begin to 'bleed through' into the real world, putting us in the uncomfortable position of having to determine our 'real' identities from those that may merely be 'fake' or 'manufactured.'
Ultimately, the lesson here as I see it is that any attempt to fragment existence between 'real' and 'not real' serves the purpose of making us feel better about the fact that there is much in life we can't control. But that's life. There is such a thing as reality -- it simply encompasses all those things we would prefer not to think of as reality, too. And it shouldn't be forgotten that at the end of the day, we do have control over some things. The decision to go online and build an entirely new identity is, after all, a choice -- an imposition of our wills on reality.
I think you make very interesting points about how eXistenZ disempowers its players instead of empowering them, like other virtual games do. People love to play video games because they know that if they play long enough, they will eventually win and they enjoy being able to do things in a game that they cannot do without consequence in real life. Why else would Grand Theft Auto, the Halo games, and other violent games be so popular? Because you can take out your aggression on fake characters in fake places with no consequence. There has been a lot of opposition to games like these and there are a lot of people who believe that these games encourage real violence when kids play them too much. I think there have been studies to show that result as well. I'm not sure what side of that argument I'm on, but it is just another example of how the "bleed" between virtual and reality exists. If who you are while playing a game affects who you are in real life, it gets even harder to fragment existence between 'real' and 'not real.'
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting how you pointed out that real fantasy worlds - like on Facebook or WoW - sometimes become less satisfying when reality leaks in. You hear people engaged in role-playing on games or message boards complaining of "out of character" incidents which break the 4th wall between the role-player and the fantasy world. No matter how hard most people try to immerse themselves in these electronic fantasy worlds, one computer crash or troll is enough to break the immersion and ruin the experience.
ReplyDeleteeXistenZ, with its literal immersion into the fantasy world, seems less prone to such degradation of the experience, until one begins to question whether one is still in the game or not. At that point, one almost wants to break out of the fantasy world and return to real life.
Yes, games are meant to give us more free will and more control over destiny. But this free will and control is manufactured by game designers. The fantasy world is maintained by manufactured social interactions that are designed by the game manufacturer.
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