Blog - There's Drama in a Haircut
Wednesday, February 20, 2008A while back, a friend linked me to this video of Fred Rogers (of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood fame) speaking at a US senate hearing to try and keep PBS's funding from being cut.
In it, he has one line that I loved:
"We don't have to bop someone over the head to make drama on the screen. We deal with such things as getting a haircut."
First of all, this is already a great message for game developers, as, well, games are often very violence-heavy, and it's a huge criticism of our art. So is the fact that, as games are often all about violence and power fantasies, so too are the stories in those games, making them seem rather lame to many non-gamers.
He actually has a later line where he says that showing two men working out their anger can be far more dramatic than showing gunfire. That's another powerful line, and one that, seen through game developer eyes, can make one wonder what values we're teaching in our art.
But one of the things that struck me most about the line about the drama in a haircut is that I was talking about this video and that line to my mother and she said that's why she loved having me watch his show when I was a kid. She pointed out a memory I had completely forgotten, that when I was a kid I was terrified of getting my first haircut. So, as a mother, my mom loved that Mr. Rogers had that amazing power of empathy and insight to find things like that in a child's life and disarm them.
As an adult, I had completely taken haircuts for granted as a non-terrifying thing. I'm assuming most adults would. I realized that as a parent I probably wouldn't have even thought about that when my hypothetical kid would be getting their first haircut.
Its a case of assumed knowledge, something that plagues game designers often.
Coincidentally, back on the "what values are we teaching?" question, I don't know if I can think of a children's title that does teach kids that haircuts aren't terrifying.
Labels: audience, design, writing
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 6:13 PM
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