Reevaluating media: how one class helped me rethink the value of different art forms

| Contributing Writer

This semester, I’m enrolled in a class called Horror Across Media. I took it because I have loved scary stuff since I was a kid, but I never suspected it would completely change how I view art. This may sound dramatic, but I write it with complete sincerity. 

Let me explain: I watched my trusted YouTuber of choice, Jacksepticeye, play a video game called “The Quarry.” I found it entertaining and scary, but I wouldn’t have talked about it in the same way I would talk about a book I loved. I don’t go out of my way to recommend it to friends, let alone my peers, like I do with my favorite books. Why? 

I didn’t realize it was because I thought of video games, and plenty of other media, as a lesser-than art form until this Horror Across Media class addressed it in an academic setting. 

In the class, we discussed video games, comics, TV, and films and the media-specific qualities of their form. During the week that we discussed video games, I realized the weight The Quarry holds. The storyline includes a character discovering their sexuality and allows the player to experience it with them. One decision you make for the character is whether he will pursue a female or male love interest. This moment cuts through whatever identity the player has in real life and invites them to put themselves in this character’s shoes. 

I ignored this moment when I originally watched the playthrough, but it now stands out as monumental to me. It was this instance of player interactivity that made me realize books can’t do it all and that other forms of media can be respected from an academic and critical thinking perspective. But how did this prejudice even form?

I have found comfort in novels ever since I was an awkward, friendless middle schooler. Escaping to the fantasy worlds of Cassandra Clare and Sarah J. Maas made my sh*thole of a school a little more tolerable. It even led me to find equally awkward middle school girls to befriend in a book club. 

I think we all have experiences like this; maybe for you it was a video game you and your friends would play together after practice or a TV show all your friends would watch and talk about the next day at lunch. We all found solace in some type of media growing up. It has likely stuck with us, even now, because it not only gives us comfort, but also teaches us about life and creates a stronger community in our small, isolated worlds. As we’ve grown up, we’ve started to carry this protective, almost elitist feeling about the media we love; we disregard other artistic mediums because of the personal attachment we feel to a specific form. 

Experiencing video games tackling realistic themes like sexuality in The Quarry blew my mind because I viewed it as a novel’s job, not something a “lesser-than” art form could do. I pictured all games as mindless entertainment played by annoying misogynistic men, not a storytelling form that could comment on human experiences. 

We group other art forms like comic books, graffiti, digital art, and more as lesser-than as well, but when we perpetuate this stereotype on these types of media we cut ourselves off from the power of their art. In doing so, we simultaneously cut ourselves off from different perspectives. 

I was talking about this with a friend, and she asked me, “Why can’t I just read a variety of books and be well-rounded that way?” Because we aren’t well-rounded if we are keeping ourselves contained to one form of art. We miss the opportunity to make connections across different forms of media. 

In my Intro to Psychology class, I learned that when we critically think about something, we remember and understand it better. One way to become a critical thinker is to make connections. 

I experienced an example of this the other day at the Kemper Art Museum. A video piece by Peter Campus titled “Three Transitions” reminded me of a scene in a film I recently watched, called “I Saw the TV Glow, a horror movie about identity. I then began to think about “Three Transitions” through the lens of identity, which I never would have done before.

When we make connections across media and think of how they compare, we develop a more meaningful connection with the art forms.

If we can embrace this more in our everyday lives, we will become more cultured and ultimately better humans. If we expose ourselves to media outside our comfort zone, we get to connect with people we may have never been able to before. 

So what path will you choose in the video game of college? I encourage you to take the weird classes about comics, novels, film, or whatever. Visit the museum, buy the book, watch the movie, play the video game. Experience the art you have dismissed in your life thus far.

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