Do video games cause violence? That’s the sanitary form of the question; what everybody really means is, ‘Do video games kill kids?’ It’s hard to ask this question with a level head. Dead kids get everybody’s temper running hot. Indeed,
If you have brushed with YouTube media criticism recently, at least in more right-wing or culturally disaffected circles, you’ve inevitably encountered a certain complaint: ‘The women in these new movies just aren’t hot enough.’ It’s touted as a reason for
Christians who pay attention to what their media is saying have a lot of concerns. Fantasy in particular has a lot of critics,1 and a particular trope in more modern fantasy seems worrying: good dragons. Should we write dragons as
If you’ve read much G.K. Chesterton, you’ve probably realized that some of his stories are better starting places than others. Father Brown, generally speaking, is a much gentler introduction to his style and philosophy than Manalive or The Man Who
Redemption arcs have a difficult problem: how do we deal with the (often horrific) history of the character being redeemed? It’s a real-life problem too. How do we deal with the man who is repenting of a long history of
If you want to find out what it feels like to be unpopular online, AI art (and whether it’s art) is your fast track to the top.1 Of course, the real firestorm is around image generating AIs, but the same
John’s Gospel opens thus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” While perhaps not the first passage we think of for Christmas,1 John 1:1-14 is John’s nativity story, his declaration
Some parts of life require more care than others to depict. Last week I covered the depiction of sins, particularly the lurid sins that make us wince: rape, adultery, murder, jaywalking. These sins, we concluded, are not wrong to write
Are there parts of life it is wrong to imitate in art? The question may rise in your mind when you’re writing a story and come to the part with the triple murder-suicide that ends in a catastrophic genocidal explosion,
Due to its c. 5500 word length, I’ve split this paper into three parts. This is Part Three of three (find One and Two here). Works Cited & and the full paper can be found here. The benefits of art