Have you read this thing?
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html
I have a pet peeve. I think everyone’s entitled to one or two, and this is mine: I cannot stand it when someone apologizes, but they’re not sorry. You know the apology that I mean, we’ve all gotten it from girlfriends and drinking buddies, it’s normally something like, “I’m sorry that bothers you.” You see that? You see what they did there? They’re sorry…that you’re upset. They’re sorry…that you’ve overreacted. They’ve turned an apology into an indictment. It makes my blood boil.
That’s pretty much exactly what Roger Ebert has just done. He “apologized” for his stupid, insensitive comments in as much as he regrets the repercussions he unwittingly brought on himself. He “apologized” that we just had to get our panties in a collective wad. He does not apologize, however, for believing the things that he said, and he knows damned well that’s what everyone wants.
There are unspoken rules about apologies. One of the most basic is this: with intense remarks, you have to repent the action as well as the thought. If I were to call you “stupid” or “ugly,” your feelings would likely be hurt, and not without good reason. Now if I wanted your forgiveness for that, it would not be sufficient to say, “I still think you are ugly and stupid, but I should have waited till you left the room to say anything.” The impetus for the action must also be removed, or no reasonable person would accept it. So why does Ebert think we will be satisfied by his recent comments? He has opened the ball now, we all know his mind, and it’s no comfort to us to keep his opinions “private” from now on. He cannot retroactively keep his stupid opinions to himself, so now he owes us more than that. He may say that’s unfair, and he’s right, but that’s why most people keep stupid opinions to themselves.
Now, he basically made three points in this new “apology” of his: he doesn’t know anything about video games, video games are still not an art form, and my personal favorite: maybe they will be someday. A keen observer might notice something funny about this new confession: it’s not new at all. All three of those points were made last time, and they were every bit as stupid then as they are now.
The part that infuriates me, is that he expects me to be impressed because he admits he knows nothing about video games. He goes out of his way to say, “You’re right, I’ve barely ever played video games, I know nothing about them.” I can tell he expects me to be taken with his honesty. And yet, somehow, he retain his point anyway. He won’t back down from the position that “video games aren’t art.” He won’t even say, “I don’t know if video games are art.” They’re not. He’s decided. Maybe someday, but not now. I don’t understand how an intelligent journalist can confess to ignorance on a topic, and then insist that a blanket assumption he’s making must somehow still hold water. If you know nothing about it, then you don’t get to declare it one thing or another.
It’d be one thing if this was an obvious debate. I know nothing about submarines, but I’m almost positive they aren’t airplanes. Fine, I can say that. But art, by his own definition, is a murky thing, almost impossible to define, and in each example of true art that he provided, he had to exert some level of expertise on the medium before he could weigh in on its status. So what is it, Roger? What is it that you know about video games that we don’t?
And so help me God, if he spends one more second trying to wrangle my sympathy because he got so much negative feedback, I will do something drastic. I’m not warming up to you because you get tons of site traffic, dude. You made stupid, ignorant remarks in plain view of the open public, and you know damned well what the direct result of that is. The man has been writing for the masses since before I was born, I refuse to believe he failed to comprehend what happens when you voice a controversial opinion.
What he really wants is for us to go away. He ran his mouth about something very precious to us, he trashed an art form that has transformed our lives, and now he’d like to politely excuse himself from the repercussions. He doesn’t want to change, he doesn’t want to consider the possibility that he’s wrong, he just wants us all to shut up and leave him alone. The idea that this self-important, tepid little piece of junk he’s put up on his website is supposed to make me feel better is actually more insulting than the first post he did. The first time around, he was just ignorant; now he’s ignorant, and he knows it, but he’s not sorry.
I take apologies very seriously. When someone says, “I’m sorry,” and I feel genuine remorse in it, I never turn them down. I believe in forgiveness. And because that act is so precious to me, trying to cash in on its benefits without sincerely paying its cost is particularly offensive. I cannot abide half-hearted, disingenuous, cowardly apologies that are meant to hoodwink instead of heal. Let me see you say, “You’re right, video games are art.” Or at least, give me, “They may be art, I don’t know, because I’m uneducated on the topic.” I hardly think agreeing to defer to experts is somehow beneath anyone.
Until then, you remain a great film critic and a fine journalist, but you can bite me, Roger.
