Offhanded comments

I just figured I'd write a short blog post about something that recently has been bothering me a bit. It's usually a off handed comment, but I feel like off handed comments hold more sway over the opinions of others than people realize.
The off handed comment is usually something along the lines of, "...And then we go play violent video games" or, "...And then we go blast people's heads off in video games."
Much like saying, "There are starving children in Africa" the concept of saying "playing violent video games" implies that the thing being spoken about has no good values.
      We do this with plenty of things, so it's not uncommon to hear it, and I'm not trying to be so presumptions as to assume that the people who say that sort of thing about video games hate the industry, but I do want to point out the slight respect issue.
     We talked about beauty being close to the truth, and about how we should attempt to break out of the mold that we see so often that is depicted to us by Hollywood. In so many cases, video games have done that. I'm well aware the class is not about video games, (nor do I want it to be) I simply feel the need to assert that video games belong in the category of art.
     They may be a fairly new media in the field, but they deserve the respect of those who are entering this genera. Regardless of if you like them or not, artistically and technologically, they are making advances in the media world. Games like Fable deal with what is moral, or what is good. Fallout questions American ideals and beliefs  Bioshock digs deeply into our history and questions what the point of humanity is. Then we have slightly more obscure games, such as Limbo, or Journey. The meaning behind those games is much more open, searching for more of the universal truths. (And the list goes on, but you get the idea)
     Video games have a special element to them that neither animator, nor film has. It is the element of achievement. Although you can relate to a character you are watching on the screen, you cannot do their actions with them. In a video game, you can.
    I'm not saying one if better than the other, I am merely saying that they are different, but both of them deserve equal amounts of respect for the time and energy being put into them. Both categories have something unique to offer the media world, and both should be allowed to exist in the realm of art.
      I just felt the need to write about it, since it's been getting on my nerves lately. I'm aware most people think that video games are art, and have respect for them. It's just one of those things that grates on me when I hear people say it.