eXistenZ

As decades pass, we as a society depict our fears in society thru film. The film eXistenZ directed by David Cronenberg is no different. This film takes our society's obsession of video gaming and really puts in under the microscope in a unique way. Many things can be taken a way from this film as to what our fears are about video gaming. One of the things I found the film was saying is that video gaming has made our society lazier than we have ever been. A perfect example is when Allegra tells Ted "C'mon you know no-one skies in real life anymore", they simply do it in their video games. We do not do anything physical anymore because we can have it at our finger tips right in our living room. As a result of a lot of our time being spent on playing video games we are lazy and in some cases overweight. Kids do not go outside and play football anymore, they sit in the living room playing the latest version of Madden. Kids spend so much time playing games that their work ethic and drive is non-existent which in turn creates lazy adults who do not contribute to society. Another thing that was seen in the film was video gaming as a addiction. Through out the game Allegra, one of the main characters in the film was constantly wanting to play every chance she got. Even when she was being hunted all she wanted to do was plug in. When they did port into the game they got such a sense of satisfaction that could not be beat. Video gaming is actually being treated now in clinics as an addiction and I think Cronenberg is trying to show us that this can be a leisurely thing but it can also be a dangerous thing. In the film the characters had ports which were installed right into their backs. True gamers I believe, would want something they could port into whenever they wanted. It helps show that now video gaming is so much apart of us, it is apart of everyday life for many people and is truly an addicting thing. What also got me thinking was the end of the film. Are they still in the game? or is this is fact reality? I think that since our video games are so realistic and people get so into it they do actually forget what is real and what is not. Especially for our younger generations it is troublesome because they try and mimic what they are doing in these games and think there is no consequence for their actions. Our society gets caught up in what we see, television, movies, as well as video games. We have trouble differentiating what is real and what is not because the technology is so realistic and simply because we give ourselves mentally so freely to video gaming and media.

I'm glad we saw this film. It's a given, this is something I would have never seen if not for my video game analysis class.I really enjoyed it, I loved how Cronenberg touched on so many different issues about of fears of video gaming so intelligently. He does not want to tell you exactly what he is trying to say- you have to think about it and work for it, which I love. Video gaming is going to continue to expand and become more and more realistic, there is no stopping it especially for those hard gamers out there. The question is, when is the realism of a game to realistic? I believe we are going to reach a point where video gaming is going to look a lot like eXistenZ. When that time comes, I think we are only going to be more destructive to our bodies, more addicted, and have even more trouble differentiating between real and fake. One can only hope that when that time comes we are able to deal with the blurred line between reality and virtual reality better than we do now.