Humorless

“Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile.”

That quote from David Edelstein’s review of Inception has been with me since I first read it, kicking around in my mind as something I knew I'd have something to say about at some point.

Edelstein's review, despite his protests to the contrary, reads as if he went into the movie looking for reasons not to crack a smile. That aside, though, the above complaint stood out to me as particularly unreasonable. Edelstein makes no effort to support it, which leads me to believe he takes it to be self-evident that artists owe their audiences a smile here and there.

Or rather it would lead me to believe that, if I didn't find it unbelievable. Surely nobody actually believes that all movies ought to have comedic elements. Even those who leap to decry any work which treats its subject matter seriously as "self-serious" (there seems to be no worse sin in contemporary art) are probably inconsistent. Would Schindler's List have benefited from more ironic winks at the audience? If not, why? Surely it's not only that it's a movie about the Holocaust. Surely artists can treat other subjects seriously without being mocked for taking themselves too seriously.

A reasonable argument would be that Inception's subject matter is too fantastical to be treated as seriously as Nolan treats it. But that opens up its own can of worms. Is it ever acceptable to treat fantastical subject matter completely seriously? I see no reason to believe that it's not, though I would agree that it's incredibly difficult. The Twilight movies are an extreme example of why. Their dour-faced teenage vampires and werewolves mope about the perpetually rainy Pacific Northwest as if immortal creatures have nothing more important on their minds than high school romances. Even if you can get caught up in such a story while it plays out, spell out the premise objectively, and it sounds ridiculous.

The reason Edelstein's criticism stuck with me all these months is that it could be directly applicable to a lot of video games. So many games these days take place in worlds so full of grizzled faces and grim architecture that it's nearly impossible not to laugh at them. But that doesn't mean that games should always break up the angst and oppression with some laughs. It just means that they should be more self-aware. In turn, self-awareness in art doesn't entail ironic detachment. It just means having an understanding of where your story fits in the big picture. The story of Killzone is closer to Inglourious Basterds than Saving Private Ryan, but it's up for debate whether its developers understand that. On the other hand, the subject matter of Metal Gear Solid could be handled seriously, even solemnly, but Kojima constantly breaks the mood with stupid and inappropriate humor.

So maybe the problem isn't that artists won't "allow" audiences to smile. Maybe it's that artists and critics alike need to think more about when smiles are really needed.