Return of the Cremaster

Well, kind of. Danny found a comparative study of Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 and—not making this up—original Donkey Kong. The criticism is earnest and professional, at least in its execution. I read about half, and it makes some surprising observations, but, to throw my two cents into a dry well, it literalizes the connection too much. I think the article is most useful in pointing out a major influence on Barney's visual representations of struggle and conflict, which were probably formulated at an early age and shaped by the fascinating (to a child) first-gen, 2-D games. It's a stretch, however, to connect Monkey, Scourge of Kart, with Barney's greater thematic concerns.