John: Explain to me how Barbarella is more innocent than Bayonetta.
Pete: The innocence of that movie comes from it being forty years old, so, whatever the authorial intent, it will always be perceptibly innocent. But beyond that, I think the innocence mostly comes from Jane Fonda's performance. There's just a sort of goofy sweetness to the sex, it’s more playful than smirkingly gynecological. Barbarella makes me feel like Jane Fonda is the subject, a "relateable" character, for whatever that's worth. Bayonetta feels like I'm molesting a Barbie Doll.
(We then consulted this original trailer for Barbarella)
John: I see a pretty strong corollary here, just in the first forty seconds. "Did I tell you what I would like?" *flash to the vixen* "I think I know." I think you're splitting some serious hairs.
Pete: I disagree. I think the corollary is facile. I'm smiling just watching this. I think there's an earnest quality to Barbarella—which is an artifact from a pre-knee-jerk-irony world—that is absent in Bayonetta. Subtleties are important.
John: Yes, but i don't think there are subtleties at work here outside of your fondness for one work and your associating a different medium with slothful behavior. You might see Bayonetta as spiritually bankrupt not because it is, but because you sometimes associate videogames with emotional emptiness.
Pete: Sometimes videogames are emotionally empty. Most of the time they are. Most media are emotionally empty a large part of the time. I’ve come to a point where I kind of recoil from this sort of media—which i might once have embraced—because i know that it'll leave me feeling a little empty.
John: I actually think I'd disagree on your first point there. I don't think most media is emotionally empty. I think most media is poorly made. That’s a shame. Saying you can’t enjoy something a little trashy is like saying you can't enjoy a nice shot of whiskey every now and again, something sweet, impermanent, and a little bad for you.
Pete: I think that metaphor is flawed. Surely you recognize that in the bar inventory of gaming, this game is surely not the whiskey. Bayonetta is the kiwi-fruit sexmopolitan, the big, fruity tropical blended cocktail. Whiskey is smoky, bitter, subtle and adult. I don't even think it's the humble Schlitz, a distinction that surely belongs to the likes of, say, Wonder Boy in Monster Land. A good, solid drink that gets the job done, simple and unpretentious.
John: There's the word I've been missing: pretension. Bayonetta has no pretensions.
Pete: See that's the thing—i think this kind of winking "unpretension" is absolutely a kind of pretension.
John: It's brazen, it isn't winking at you.
Pete: Tell me that camera pan through her legs isn't a wink.
John: A tiger growl plays when the camera pans through her legs. Subtlety isn't exactly at play here.
Pete: Exactly. That's a wink. It's, "Ha ha, look how trashy we are!" Bottom line, I would no more play this game than would I rent, say, Van Helsing. A point on which i suspect we differ.
John: That’s a funny corollary, I was actually very excited about Van Helsing when i first saw a preview for it. It just so happened to be terrible.
Pete: Uh huh.
John: You are a shady ball-licker. Not to derail, but it appears we have accidentally just written our first face-off piece.
Pete: Be sure to keep "shady ball-licker" as your totally non-desperate parting shot.
John: Oh, eat me.
Pete: Maybe throw that in too.
Part 1
Related links:
Independent at a Price: Sega and Platinum Games
Clover Returns, Heavy as Platinum
Rebuttal - Say What About Metroid: Zero Mission?
Rebuttal Rebuttal – I Stand With Metroid