I have never realized how sexism in video games were such a complex and questionable topic. Being a guy, I have never paid much attention to anything besides how eye catching and enjoyable the game was. I can see how games that stereotype females much like the Super Princess Peach games affect young kids. Kids from a young age learn things from what they do and when they start playing games that focus on female characters being stereotyped, kids will see things that way. Why do females portray that kind of role in video games? Is it because their are not enough females in the video game industry? Or maybe the majority of females that don’t play video games overcome those that do and don‘t really affect the outcome of the game for women?
Super Mario is definitely a classic! This game is what got me through elementary school with a smile on my face. I have occasionally played this game with my family and enjoyed every minute of it. I would have never thought that this family fun game or any of the Mario-related games would be a suspect in the matter of sexism! I am sure that there are females who find a blonde girl wearing a pink dress portraying the very symbol of women being stereotyped outrageous and unethical. Although, there are many games out there that cause a bigger impact than games like Mario or Super Princess Peach.
Video Games today are filled with violence, money and sex. Female roles in games have noticeably risen at a slow but steady rate often hurting the image of women. These games actually have females playing their own role in the game but they are far from being respectful to female gamers. When and if females are in video games such as Grand Theft Auto, they are occasionally portrayed very negatively. In Grand Theft Auto, females are walking along the city streets as prostitutes. These prostitutes play the role of a health pack… in a very sexual way. While you play as the criminal beating on police officers and stealing cars left and right, you can go to a prostitute to replenish your health when it’s low though you will have to pay the prostitute money. What makes it more disturbing is the fact that you can actually go and beat the prostitute and take your money back if you wanted.
Video games such as Tomb Raider and Blood Rayne actually have females as lead characters. These characters not only shoot, roll, jump and kick like the male characters, but it is noticeably obvious that their breasts are larger than average and tend to jump around with every step. Is this what the video game developers do to attract consumers? Whatever it is that they are doing, it seems to be positively impacting male consumers and negatively affecting female consumers. Who’s to say that because of games portraying woman as a sexual symbol has the average age of male gamers gone up? Disturbing and immature? Yes. Maybe in the near future the symbolism of women will change in video games. For now, we can only hope that kids don’t play games that disgrace the image of females or it may never be over.
This is a short video of male gamers finding Lara Crofts breasts highly amusing (no nudity). It's kind of hard to see but apparently he actually recorded this while playing the game because it was that interesting. Kind of hilarious if you ask me.
I think she has fake boobs :)
ReplyDelete- I think, as a guy, it's hard to think about women as portrayed in a sexist way since that is usually what you're seeing. Think about how in the film industry that nudity of women is common place but male nudity earns the film an NC-17 or X rating. It's something that, in many ways, you are encultured NOT to see.
ReplyDelete- You need to work on transitions between paragraphs/ ideas...this is pretty jumpy.
- I don't see you engaging the readigns for the week.