Ready Player One (2018) is the latest movie from Steven Spielberg, adapted from Ernest Cline's homonym book released in 2011. If you're a big fan of video games and the 80's, this movie will surely appeal to you. Here is the plot. In 2045 the world suffers from several problems: energy crisis, climate change, misery, famine. The only escape for humans is a virtual world called “OASIS” accessed through virtual reality helmets. When James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the eccentric creator of this reality, dies, he releases a video in which he challenges the OASIS's players to find his “easter-eggs”. Whoever finds them will inherit his fortune and consequently possess the OASIS. The problem is that Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the ambitious owner of a large company, wants to find these easter-eggs to destroy the OASIS, when it will belong to him
Ready Player One and Pascal
The narrative is focused on Wade (Tye Sheridan), who besides from being an excellent OASIS player has great admiration and deep knowledge of this alternative reality. With the help of his virtual friends and the mysterious Samantha (Olivia Cooke), with whom he falls in love, Wade can find all the easter-eggs and inherit Halliday's fortune. But behind this simple story lies a central question: the old problem “real world vs. virtual reality”. While in the real world people live in crowded small shacks and walk through dirty streets, in the world of OASIS players can become whoever they want. Faced with the depressing reality in which they live, people turn to the world of OASIS in search of escape. This context allows us to better understand the character of Wade, who struggles to win the game and preserve the OASIS precisely because he recognizes the importance of this space as something that helps people to better endure a life that is miserable. In addition, Wade's attachment to OASIS is also the result of a certain nostalgia he feels for classic games that are still present in this virtual reality. This nostalgia is by the way a central point for the aesthetic construction of the film. If the narrative does not surprise us, the form conferred to the film by Spielberg is admirable. The mix between the virtual and the real is well constructed, and the film reproduces the style of the 1980s films, whether through the caricatured ton of the villain, the multiple references back to this period or the manner the story unfolds in a similar way of 80’s classics like Back to the Future (1985), The Goonies (1985) or Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), mixing adventure and humor.
In this context, how could we interpret the function of the entertainment provided by the OASIS in the world of Ready Player One: relief or escape? In order to think about the question, I propose that we take a look at the definition of diversion of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) – who according to the picture below seem to have never had fun in his life. “Let's hit the road, Jack!”. Normally we understand diversion or entertainment as a term that refers to fun and distractions, but according to Pascal in his work Thoughts it is a more comprehensive term that encompasses all kinds of activity that allows us to ignore the awareness of our misery. This misery derives from the fact that our nature is mortal and that our existence is contingent. To be able to endure this condition we try to distract ourselves to think as little as possible about these facts. We act as if our actions seek specific goals. But for Pascal all diversion is basically just a way to escape the boredom that oblige us to reflect, forcing us to become aware of our condition: "When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home […] I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely" (Pascal, Thoughts) . Consider the example of a trip. We believe we travel to see other parts of the world, to relax, to meet other cultures or meet new people. But according to Pascal all these reasons are collateral objectives, we believe that we travel to expand our horizons, but deep down we travel mainly to avoid staying at home and rethink the tragedy that is our finite existence. Thus, four centuries ago Pascal already noticed our need for distraction, something that was never more evident than in the present times in which we come up with more and more excuses not to think about our miserable reality. So we close our eyes and literally open our wallets to pay for activities that allow us to avoid every type of reflection.
The OASIS as a positive distraction
Given that the OASIS is a form of diversion, should it then be viewed as harmful? A way to ignore the misery around us? Not necessarily. According to Pascal there is a positive aspect of entertainment. Even though it is a form of escape from reality, it presupposes that if we try to escape, it is because we have a minimum of awareness of the condition from which we run away. In this sense, diversion is a form of progress, since there isn’t a total neglect of reality. It is precisely because we are aware of our miserable situation that we distract ourselves and this minimum of lucidity is already something positive. This awareness is necessary because it is the first step towards an acceptance of our condition and this acceptance allows us to live in peace. In addition, it protects us from the despair of our condition. Therefore, diversion is completely justifiable for Pascal.
The perspective of Wade regarding the OASIS is precisely this one, of a distraction that is essentially positive. It is clearly an escape from reality, something we can perceive in the various scenes in which the characters literally close their eyes to the dirty world out there and wear their alternative reality helmets. But this escape happens precisely because the characters understand the concrete reality in which they live. Samantha, more than any other character, seems to be aware of the misery of the real world in which she lives. And even she seems to see the OASIS as a needed distraction, which allows her to deal better with herself (for example, regarding the shame she feels for her scar). For these reasons the OASIS seems like an acceptable distraction. In the face of the reality in which the characters are, we understand the need to resort to a world where we are free. Spielberg's multiple references to elements of pop culture (games, books, movies, comic books, etc.) can be seen precisely as recognition of the value of these elements in our daily lives as well. Like the OASIS, they serve as something that gives us strength and hope, making us believe that at least as long as we are connected to these elements, our existence has some purpose and is even fun. That's why the OASIS isn’t a distraction that is entirely bad, since the players do not seem to be completely alienated. They simply see in that escape a way to endure reality and to deal better with the condition in which they are.
The OASIS as a dangerous escape
But even if the alienation caused by the OASIS is not total, the characters of Ready Player One do not seem really concerned with dealing concretely with the world that surrounds them. They do everything they can to save the life they created in the OASIS, but they never actually live the real world outside of it. This happens because there is a dangerous side to diversion, which Pascal calls “passive entertainment”. This aspect of entertainment makes it work as an escape that prevents us from living the present moment: "The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death (Pascal, Thoughts). If on the one hand our quest for amusement arises from a minimum of awareness, on the other hand, in itself, entertainment tends to hide reality from ourselves. In search of illusory goals imposed by distraction, we let time pass and we don’t concentrate on the present moment we should be living. As Pascal says, we take seriously what should be just a “game”. Who has never preferred to stay home watching a romantic comedy, dreaming of an illusory love, rather than going out and really trying to meet someone of flesh and blood in the real world. Someone who will certainly never be like the hero of the movie, but with whom we could live pleasant moments, who knows. Consequently, entertainment makes the possibility of real happiness escape us because we are “trapped” in a fictional distraction that removes us from the concrete reality and all the things in it that could make us happy. It deprives us thus of the possibility of living the present and it is only in the present that we can truly be happy. After all the past has already been defined and the future can only be achieved through the actions we carry out ... in the present: "Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so" (Pascal, Thoughts).
It is to the danger of this aspect of diversion that Halliday warns Wade at the end of the film “I created the OASIS because I never felt home in the real world. I never knew how to connect with people there. I was afraid for all my life. Until the day I knew my life was ending. That’s when I realized that as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place you can get a decent meal. Because reality is real”. The OASIS poses a danger to the extent that the players tend to ignore real-world events for the sake of life in that reality. Wade himself is presented to us as someone who neglects the world in which he lives, privileging the life he has created for himself in a fictional reality. Even his friendships were all forged at OASIS. But in the end Wade seems to take Halliday's advice into account and claims that from time to time he tries to concentrate in the real world, where he seems to live “happily ever after” with Sam. The lesson is that, as Pascal says, diversion can become an obstacle to happiness, when because of it we lose sight of what can really bring us happiness: the present moment. Certainly the OASIS remains a sort of barrier to actually building a better world, because even if Wade becomes aware of the importance of the present moment, he doesn't actually seem to change his attitude towards the reality in which he lives. People remain poor, the world remains polluted and Wade continues to ignore the misery of his reality. But according to Halliday's speech, we realize that the diversion offered by the OASIS never meant to keep the players from gaining consciousness and accepting their reality.
Ready Player One's approach to diversion in our society is extremely ambiguous. If on one side the final dialogue between Halliday and Wade implies that entertainment can be a threat to our happiness and therefore we should treat it carefully, on the other side it seems to us that the life of the characters only makes sense while it is linked to the distraction provided by OASIS, which is why it should be “saved” at all costs. We find an explanation for this ambiguity in Pascal's writings, where diversion appears as that which relieve us from the burden of human misery, but which also prevents us from experiencing happiness. Even if Ready Player One does not seem to solve this paradox but only expose it, it may fall upon each one of us the task of rethinking our relation to entertainment through the clues offered by the film. The world certainly has many pleasures to offer us, but distinct reasons motivate us to enjoy them, and many of these reasons may be misleading. The entertainment we choose for mere distraction is detrimental, for in the end our goal is simply to forget our suffering, which does not make this suffering really disappear. The attempt to ignore a reality that we do not want to accept is understandable, but dangerous insofar as this distraction also prevents us from actually living the present moment. Diversion should be something we do precisely to better enjoy the present moment, taking advantage of something that gives us pleasure simply due to the genuine happiness that results from this activity. After all It is the pleasurable moments of entertainment that make all suffering worthwhile. We bear the burden of a finite existence better if we take advantage of this existence fully, both enjoying what is pleasing and accepting its tragic aspect. This awareness is essential insofar as it is what which motivates us to act and change our reality, making it more bearable. Since the distraction does not alter the fact that death is inevitable for all, we might as well at least make this waiting as tolerable as possible, not using entertainment as anesthetizing, but as a stimulation for actions that can make this ephemeral existence more comfortable for us all. Let us not take refuge in the fun enjoyed yesterday or run to the distractions of tomorrow, but let us be aware of the tragic, but sublime life that happens today.
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