grinninfoole

On the tweeted advice of Delaney King, I tried out the video game Oxenfree (from Night School studios) on Stoic's PS4. I enjoyed it, and I wound up playing it several times through, but I did so in part because I mistook the underlying assumptions of the game design, which leads me to reflect on how this has been a life-long pattern for me.

I do not write any of this as a complaint–no harm=no foul, obviously. But it reminds me of other artistic interactions in my life, like the time in college I stayed up way too late watching an unevenly acted critique of the deep cynicism and sexism of professional country music that was airing on Cinemax, trying to figure out why it seemed to set up scenes like a porn film, but not have any sex. It wasn't until the next day that I realized that it was a porn film that had been thoroughly expurgated. I remember being baffled why 'skinemax' would show a movie like that, and then remove all the sex and nudity.

More recently, there was the Godzilla film with Bryan Cranston that used some music from 2001 in the trailer, getting me excited for a monster movie that was truly swinging for the filmmaking fences; alas, not so much.

Then there was my years long fixation on the early 2000s revival of Battlestar Galactica. I was completely hooked from the opening scene, and I was deeply invested in the characters and plot, trying to figure not only where the plot was going, but also the larger implications of this fictive world.  Ron Moore and his team were raising some interesting questions about what it would mean to actually confront a sapient alien species, to interact with inscrutable transcendent intelligences that nevertheless gave a shit about our grubby human lives, and maybe even share some profound insights on life and identity. The first two seasons were tightly plotted, superbly executed, and teased lots more to come; after all, as the opening credits assured us, "They have a plan."

As seasons 3 and 4 made abundantly and bitterly clear, they did not. Unlike most people, I'm still mad about it 15 years later. It seems clear that I am unusually attuned to responding to stories, and that I can find far more depth in something than anyone intended, simply by misunderstanding the creator's assumptions in making it.  All of which brings me to a new big question in my life: am I autistic?