[UA] Myths Over Miami

[Stuart Anderson]

Richard Pace wrote:

> From
>
> http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1997-06-05/feature.html
>
> I included the entirety of the article since it may be down . . .

    Thanks for posting that. I had not been able to get the link to work.
Kids are great. I did a paper in college comparing current grizzly stories
(including the Bloody Mary--man, I wish I'd had the 'exiled God' angle) to
the grizzly, unsanitized versions of the Western European stories we know
and love (Hansel & Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood) before The Bros. Grimm
and Disney and generations of parents got ahold of them. My thesis was that
kids tell stories to explain their experience, and parents tell stories to
indoctrinate children to a lifetime of being exploited by The Man. I made my
point, but now that I'm older and have kids, I might revise the thesis, but
only slightly.
    My other point was that kids are small and predisposed to being
trusting, and thus are one of the ultimate disenfranchised groups. Their
lives have been hard through history, and just seem to stay hard, despite
our best efforts. The horrible stories are healthy, though. That is an
enormous coping mechanism. Working with kids that are pre-schizophrenic or
otherwise damaged, you'd think I'd get a lot of these kinds of stories. But
I don't.
    I hear transcripts of hallucination. I hear some pretty icky dark
fantasies. But there's very, very little folklore floating around. A couple
of ghost stories (which even a very skeptical guy like me may lend some
credence to) and some distorted history about the murder of the woman who
started the school. But that's about it. Because those guys aren't healthy.
The idea in our culture that crazy art is created by crazy people who can't
help themselves is a rank, evil lie. With only a very few prominent
exceptions, people who are genuinely sick don't have the wherewithal to
express themselves.
    Anyway--I didn't mean to ride off on that horse, but someone had posted
a response to the article that seemed sort of sad in tone. These kids' lives
are a mess, it's true. And it's sad that it's like that. But those creepy,
horrid stories are good medicine. If those kids can maintain the imagination
and camaraderie and humor that they're developing there in the trenches,
they'll have a better shot at exploiting the rare opportunities they'll have
to get out of the mess.
    Taking a coat or a blanket to a shelter would be a good thing this time
of year.

    A UA kids' adventure would have to be carefully done for me to find it
appealing. I don't say that about most games--I love playing kids and some
of the best adventures I've had as a player were playing kids. But there's
things about UA that seem inherently adult and exploitative. That's not a
criticism. And frankly, it's a pretty shaky opinion that I would abandon if
shown the carefully done kids' adventure that was neither trivial nor
exploitative.
--Stu


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