Halfway through The 40 Year Old Virgin is a thoroughly remarkable scene. It’s got nothing to do with first-time sex, though. No, it’s about gaming: David and Cal, two of the virgin’s twenty-something slacker friends, are sitting in his apartment playing Mortal Kombat: Deception.
What’s so unusual about that? It’s that their behavior is so oddly realistic: They slouch in chairs and stare at the screen with nonchalance and intensity, while a sardonic stream of trash-talk flows between them. « You know how I know that you’re gay? You like Coldplay, » David snarks. Cal responds by pulling off a classic Mortal Kombat « fatality » move. « I’m ripping your head off right now, » he says coolly. « It’s off. And now — I’m throwing it at your body. »
The vaguely self-parodying homophobia. The Zen-like calm of the violence. The casual profanity. You have to give director Judd Apatow props: He shot a pitch-perfect evocation of how gamers actually behave when they’re playing. And it makes me wonder — has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture?
From Gamers Get a Hollywood Makeover, by Clive Thompson in Wired.