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The perennial Christmas classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a powerful commentary on the effect of external authority on the social customs of a small population. Though most versions have a lot of unnecessary material at the introduction (particularly the overdrawn Harry Connick Jr. version), the message of the song can be found in the last three stanzas:

All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names
They would never let poor rudolph join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say:
“Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeer loved him, and they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’ll go down in history.

Though wrapped in jingly bells and drenched in eggnog, this story is actually a grim condemnation of “reindeer games”, or what Nietzsche would refer to as a “slave morality”. Though the reindeer initially shun the mutated Rudolph in order to preserve their social order, a single nod of approval from Santa, their employer and presumably their owner, we are supposed to believe that these formerly vicious cliques suddenly not only accepted the former outcast, but “loved” him. The reindeer are not only content to drag that fat red bastard around like their Sysiphusian weight, they also allow him to dictate their social mores and, one can assume, their sexual selection. Like the horses who affectionately nuzzle the same riders who dig into their underbellies with spurs and whip them with crops, the reindeers have created a morality completely flexible and dependent on the approval of a force outside of their own society. Rudolph is no better than his fellow slaves to external influence; he is unable to defend himself or assert his sexual and social fitness upon his population without the help of an outside influence; even Santa is not swayed by any outstanding personality traits or qualities that might recommend Rudolph as a good reindeer other than the simple mutation that caused his nose to glow.

If the reader then extrapolates beyond the limited lyrics of the childrens’ song, it will quickly become apparent that this kind of behavior describes a mechanism in which the traits exhibited in a limited population can be dramatically changed in response to a non-environmental vector. “Santa” so subtlely influences the impressionable reindeer that Rudolph will necessarily be the prime stud in the next reindeer mating season, and in two or three generations, the mutated red-nose phenotype will be widespread in the limited gene pool. While Santa will no doubt tire of this night-light trick, it will have unforeseen repurcussions on the reindeer population when the clumsy beasts are now easier targets for predators such as polar bears and raptors. As the population of reindeer dwindles in the coming decades, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will certainly “go down in history” along with the rest of his soon-to-be-extinct race, murdered by their own folly. In this manner Santa poses the problematic role of the malicious or indifferent intelligent designer, who has shaped the formation of a certain culture not to be better adapted for survival, but for his own arbitrary whims.

In a recent review of Doom, film critic Roger Ebert dismissed the entire platform of video gaming in the context of art. When questioned about it in his answer column, he responded:

I believe books and films are better mediums, and better uses of my time. But how can I say that when I admit I am unfamiliar with video games? Because I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa, and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense.

Now, the arrogant tone of this blurb has drawn ire from the blogosphere round. I really don’t care about Ebert’s opinion on video games; for that matter, I wouldn’t ask Roger Ebert to review literature, opera, or rock and roll either. He’s a reviewer of a niche artform, and an extremely mainstream one at that. Ebert can only appreciate art forms that lay themselves out before him, and not ones that allow a user to interact and test the scenery. There are games like “Metal Gear Solid: 2″ that present a storyline that draws the user in and challenges the viewers’ expectations in ways that M. Night Shamalan could only dream of. Games like “Silent Hill” will thrill users more than any horror movie, as the user is forced to assume the role of the main character, down to feeling her heartbeat in the controller vibration. In its relatively short lifetime, the video game industry has already crafted works that are unarguably artistic in nature, and have the capacity to surpass movies or books as captivating storytelling tools.

However, I ultimately have to agree with Ebert at some level. Although he fails to mention it, there is a serious difference between video games and more persistent artworks like literature, music and even movies. Video games are linked to video game systems, which compete with each other for market share and are obsoleted and replaced every five years or so. While certain titles have been “ported” to many platforms, most video games can only be enjoyed by maybe half of the video gaming at any given time, and will not have replay value five years down the line. While my Dad and I can sit down and enjoy a Clint Eastwood movie, it is unlikely that I will be able to recommend “Chrono Trigger” to my own children. I’m not saying that the ephemeral nature of video games invalidates it at an artform, but i do think that there is a fundamental technological problem that needs to be solved in order for video games to be respectable as a persistent work of art that can stand the test of time.