Watching The King of Kong recently, I was struck by how, in the independent mini-universes that people inhabit all over the world (in this case, the world of vintage video gaming with Donkey Kong the battleground of preference) there exists epic battles and monumental failures being slogged out with very healthy competitive spirit.

Particularly in the creative world, there is a compelling argument for the positive force of rivalry. Force  can seem more vigorous when placed alongside counterforce. Kind of like how ying needs yang to realise its… yinginess. It may sound like the stuff of Star Wars but it has cut and carved history since Noah was a boy… or at least since David and Goliath were.

Similar to the John Lennon/Paul McCartney dual (though probably less hostile at the end) that could be summed up by Lennon’s remark when asked in 1971 what McCartney would think of his new album “I think it’ll probably scare him, into doing something decent. And then he’ll scare me into doing something decent and I’ll scare him … like that” Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso both partook in a synergetic expression of one-upmanship across canvasses for decades.  From its beginning in Paris in 1906 to the period after Matisse’s death in 1954 where Picasso continued to pay tribute and reference Matisse in his work.

These two art giants were very different in nature, Matisse was reserved and respectable to Picasso’s bullish egomania but their influence on each other marked a huge contribution to 21st Century art. “No one has ever looked at Matisse’s painting more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he.”

The infamously paranoid writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau seemed to make enemies of everyone but in 1750 an historic mudslinging began between him and rival philosopher, Voltaire. It was set off by Voltaire moving onto Rousseau’s home-turf, Geneva, and thumbing his nose at the puritan ban on public spectacles that the city maintained by putting on plays and stirring up city officials to do away with the rule.

Rousseau penned a public letter condemning theatricals in a fury and Voltaire replied by writing that Rousseau had only criticized the theatre because he had written an unpopular play.

Rousseau did his nana and scratched out a letter to Voltaire that began, “I do not like you, sir” and concluded with the not-so-subtle, “In a word, I hate you.”

Voltaire publically suggested Rousseau attend to his mental health. He then continued, at every opportunity, to publically mock Rousseau in bitter vengeance, ridiculing his plotlines, characters and books as “silly, middle-class, dirty-minded, and boring.” Finally, in 1764, Voltaire executed a final, furious blow by writing an open letter claiming Rousseau had abandoned each of his five children at the door of an orphanage. Society was shocked and the accusation proved to be true.

There has always been a rivalry similar to that of siblings between Sydney and Melbourne. The culture wars played out between the two cities in the art, film, literature and architectural arenas has lately leant decidedly towards Melbourne as the more sophisticated city.

Happy Feet director and native Sydneysider, George Miller, says the trouble in the past has lay with leadership. Complaining to The Australian Financial Review that Victorian state government was very supportive of the arts but former NSW premier Bob Carr “pretended he was some kind of patron of the arts – he was anything but. There was the rhetoric, but very little was done.”

US academic Richard Florida says Melbourne and Sydney both have “innovative, diverse and prosperous urban cores”, boasting “hotbeds of high art, fashion, music and street-level culture” but that Sydney is becoming a “playground for the rich” with its inflated property prices making it unaffordable for less wealthy artists, actors and creatives.

Melbourne is UNESCOs 2nd city of literature in the network of 12 creative cities, including Berlin, Buenos Aires and Montreal as Cities of Design and Bologna, Seville and Glasgow as Cities of Music. But not all is lost, what it lacks in culture is made up for in liveability with the Mercer 2009 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey releasing this week Sydney has hung onto its ranking of 10th ahead of Melbourne’s 18.  Perhaps the burst of teh property bubble will level out the playing field between these two competing towns.

Along with pirates versus ninjas, the USSR and USA racing to the moon and Apple versus PC, even Design Federation has its arch nemesis but the creative impetus this provides for us to strive makes it easy to laugh these things off.

After all, as mum said, they’re just jealous.

Article by Estelle Pigott