“FATE IS NEVER FINAL?” WHY MOVIES REENACT RPG EXPERIENCES
“FATE IS NEVER FINAL?” WHY MOVIES REENACT RPG EXPERIENCES

Summary/Abstract: Starting from a complex debate in a focus-group with four teenagers (aged between thirteen and fifteen), on why and how they enjoy or dislike the movies based on role-playing games (RPG), this paper tries to raise some questions about the differences and relationship between the condition of the spectator and that of the computer-gamer. Its central focus is on the circular road of selfpresence representations, from linear narrative to level-stratified experiencing of the computer game, and back. After a short summary of the current tendencies in interpreting the mutations from spectatorship to game-controlling representations, the paper will try to sketch a hypothesis-theory concerning the displacement of the moral and aesthetical values, as classical foundation of audience motivations in cultural consumption, towards the “experience” value, seen as a chance to identify, build and consume different and alternative constructs of the Subject/Self. The paper-essay constitutes a small part from The Everyday Drama Research and Creation Program, a complex interdisciplinary research project conducted over the last five years by the author and by C.C. Buricea-Mlinarcic PhD, both from the Theatre and Television Faculty of the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania. The actual theme/field of this program – “The X-Men & Women Generation”- focuses on the young people’s representations of self based on their cultural consumption. The Everyday Drama Research and Creation Program was awarded a two year grant from the Romanian Ministry of Culture (2007-2008) and produces empirical and theoretical studies, video-productions, written journalism, plays and theatre productions.

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