July 19th: Shakespeare and Video Games

​Ken Fleming
Teachers College
Columbia University
New York, NY

At the climax of most slasher films, a scrappy group of survivors—typically led by the “final girl”—is faced with a decision: they can run out the front door and toward freedom or they can barricade themselves in a room on the second floor and hope the maniacal killer won’t find them; or, at the very least, the killer will be thwarted by a flimsy door and walk away from their murderous tour, knife low, with an “aw, shucks!” dampened by a tight-fitted hockey mask.

Watching a slasher film, however, we know that the killer won’t be thwarted, won’t walk away from their murder spree by their own epiphanous volition, will get through the flimsy particle-board door, and will inevitably kill everyone except the one, virginal, tom-boyish female character who appropriates the killer’s overtly phallic murder tool—typically a larger-than-ever-practically-useful kitchen knife—before using that tool to kill the killer by penetrating his body in a way that would make Freud giggle gleefully from the grave. So, when we see a group turn to run up the stairs, we shift to the front of the couch and start pulling at our hair as we rock back and forth and scream at the television, lacking any agency to stop the tragedy that we know is coming. As Kim Hall contends in the introduction to American Moor (2020), “There is something unbearable about watching [something] with knowledge that could stop the tragedy unfolding in front of you” (i). And we do that again in parts two, three, and four, and for every remake, reboot, and reimagining. (This trope is so pervasive that is has been theorized, parodied, and subverted. It has even been used to sell car insurance.) 

​I draw upon these slasher film tropes to illustrate a major issue w/r/t dynamic texts that have been reduced to banal, read-along and watch-along, experiences in classrooms across the world wherein all individual character and audience agency has been removed. Reading along or even watching along, we’re always passive observers in a story bound for the second-floor flimsy door. And, eventually, that hair pulling and that nervous rocking disappears behind a jaded curtain. The films get old, and we stop enjoying them in real time, only looking back when nostalgia dictates or when an edgy art-house director helms the newest installment of the horror series that subverts gender roles, deconstructs racial structures, and elevates marginalized voices.
 
And they promise new takes on the old classics but hit the same notes.
 
And even with those bold, progressive choices, we still arrive at the bottom of a staircase.

​And after the death, we leave the theater or theatre wondering the different ways in which the stories could have been different: how everyone could survive the night, how Prince Hamlet and Ophelia could have grown old sitting side-by-side in the throne room of Elsinore as their children played at their feet, how Romeo and Juliet could walk proudly through the farmer’s market in a peaceful Verona, and how Tamora could go on for another five minutes in life not knowing that she ate her own children.

By way of a long digression, we finally come to the question that started Jenny’s slide deck: “What can games teach us?” Or, restated in the context of our class-discussion, “How might we use the agency and choices that certain games provide to open new-and-exciting experience, understandings, and thoughtful critiques of Shakespeare’s very old, hermeneutically-picked-bone-dry plays?”

Together, we explored games which situate the student-player in the world of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as active participants rather than as passive observers. For example, in To Be or Not to Be (2015) players explore Shakespeare’s Hamlet in “the way it was meant to be experienced: In a non-deterministic narrative structure where you end up thinking maybe you made a wrong decision.” The game allows student-players to “explore other options” and “go on a different adventure” each time you revisit the story. Situated around moments of choice in the play, To Be or Not to Be allows the student-players to (almost) fully immerse themselves in the plot of the text by providing real-world (as it pertains to the world of the story) consequences for each decision.
 
In a way the consequences of our choices seem wholly disconnected from the texts as it was meant “to be” (ba-dum-tss!) but in the exploration of those choices in the text that were “not to be” (I’ll be here all week, folks!), the consequences and new storylines defamiliarize the text and allow the student-player the necessary critical distance from the play to see the importance of those individual moments. Given that critical distance, the player can more fully critique the form or structure of the play, itself. Tired plot points become teachable moments in a fresh way.
 
So, the question became: “How might we use these adaptations in an authentic and equitable way?” Or, phrased differently: “How can we introduce videogames in a manner that isn’t cheesy for our students and so all students can play?”
 
The accessibility of the game was a major concern in the discussion. After all, district budgetary constraints will dictate the ability of our students to play games on school devices. Moreover, personal budgetary constraints might limit their ability to play these games at home. Even within this class, some of us were unable to play To Be or Not to Be due to incompatible operating systems.
 
Luckily, To Be or Not to Be is available in book form, so students might get the same experience without technology. Another avenue of access might be utilizing Twitch TV or YouTube streams. Introducing Twitch and YouTube brings familiar technologies and experiences into the classroom as a means for students to engage with complex texts. Likewise, these technologies level (in some regard) the issues of equal access—most of us experienced the text through play-through videos.

​We also discussed the ways in which other game forms might be used in the texts. Following on the heels of the “Hellfire Club,” I wonder the ways in which a Hamlet D&D campaign might be used as a pedagogic tool? I wonder how Hamlet Clue might work.

​I leave this discussion thinking of how I can introduce games into my discussions of Shakespeare’s plays in class, thinking of ways to have my students experience the play, experience the decisions each character makes and the consequences of those decisions.
 
Perhaps, as they reach the bottom of the stairs with a killer at their heels and choose, instead, through an analysis of the consequences, to run out the door to safety, my students will be better equipped to realize why running up the stairs was such a horrible idea in the first place.