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Hollywood's Depiction of Gamers Getting Better?
Wired is reporting on the Hollywood depiction of games and gamers, and how it has improved (or not) over the years. From the article: "... has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture? For years, they've been achingly bad at it. Gamers have long been accustomed to seeing incredibly weird, off-key portrayals in TV and movies. The trouble began with the first wave of TV ads for video games. They'd inevitably portray the player as a spastic in mid-seizure, flailing away on a joystick while jumping and twitching."
None better gamers than Shaun and his buddy Ed!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365748/
Yep, and those violent twitches and screams is how a lot of kids who get into their VG's act. I certainly did between the age of 10 and 15. Then all of a sudden I started getting laughed at by my peers for my violent struggles with the controller and my attempts to peer around buildings in gta. So now I've adapted the standard gamer zombie pose, everything tense, but very little movement, dead to the world and a hugely intense expression pointed at the screen. The latter is probably a more commonly found visual gamer profile, but it's no where near as good for tv/movies, it's just not very theatrical/emotive and only a gamer would really understand what they're experiencing.
I think Hollywood has had its moments where gamers were portrayed in an appropriate light. Take The Wizard for example. What better movie is there where a gamer takes his skills all the way to the top, not to mention along the way being jealous of other mens hardware.... Ooooh damn do I miss the powerglove =P~
TV and movies don't portray anyone accurately. There is nothing special about "gamers" here.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
"has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture?"
Anyone who thinks this is a recent trend needs to check out what I call the "Video Hockey Trilogy." The movies "Swingers," "Beautiful Girls," and "Chasing Amy" all had pretty prominent scenes where main characters in the movie sat around and played video hockey. These weren't the guys from "War Games" or "Cloak and Dagger." They were just normal people who enjoyed playing hockey on the Genesis ("Beautiful Girls" MIGHT have been an SNES). They also played it pretty realistically. Nobody looked like they were having seizures except for a character from "Swingers." The seizure like movements there were in line with what you would expect from the character.
The O.C isn't great. The O.C is the equivalent of junk food at best. Acceptable from time to time but only a tasteless person wouldn't get tired of it very quickly.