When it comes to the culture of power I have been lucky enough to be in most of the dominant groups. I find it to be very true that the culture of power in society has played a large role within video games. The majority of the characters that you play are white males, and this was the case virtually until Tomb Raider was created. As the notes suggested if ever there is one group that accumulates more power than another then they place themselves at the cultural centre and force other people to the boundaries otherwise known as "margins."
Most of the time those who are in the culturally powerful group fail to realise that they are, for instance a white male may play computer games and see that most of the main characters of the game are white males and not give it a second thought whereas those who are not in the dominant group may think, why on earth are all of the either white or male, where are the females, where are the other characters, whether they are Asian, African etc. A game may come along such as Grand Theft Auto San Andreas which had an African American as its main character, Tomb Raider which had Lara Croft a female character at its central, but these games are few and far between just indicating who is making these games, who is calling the shots and making the decisions, plus it shows how the culture of power in the real world does affect that of the gaming world.
Only when we become aware of the culture of power do we actually realise these things about video gaming and I should imagine that if the culture of power in society was different then I believe that this would reflect in the gaming world. Going back to the film eXistenZ, apart from an Asian individual and a single woman, the rest of the characters all fitted in with the culture of power as Paul Kivel suggests white adult christian males are currently in the hot seat of power and this was reflected in the movie.
One hopes that in the future the trends set by the current culture of power will diminish in the world of video games but in my heart of hearts I cannot see this happening and feel that no matter what,even if people from the margins are introduced into games more frequently they will still be subject to the stereotypes or fantasies of those in power, just as Lara Croft was completely subject to the fantasies of the men that created her.
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Excellent.
ReplyDeleteYou make great points. I believe though that as more minorities start working in the video game developing business, we will start to see more diversity. However, that makes me think of other industries, like broadcast television. If you look at today's prime time shows on the main three networks and you will see that a lot of minorities are absent. The hispanic, asian, native americans, blacks, and gay and lesbian presence on ABC, NBC, and CBS shows is minimum. Yes, we have a come a long way from the days of "Father Knows Best" and "Leave It To Beaver," but still these minorities do not have a huge presence on prime-time television of the three main networks. Despite the fact that a lot of minorities work in the industry. The story is a little different for cable networks. What will happen to the video game industry? Will it take the road of mainstream broadcast TV or the cable TV multicultural road?
ReplyDeleteJorge
It's interesting that you bring up the movie because I had not thought of it in that aspect. I guess it goes to show how the culture of power, as we are learning in this class, will not only be applicable to video games, but in all areas of media. Jorge brought up a great point about minorities on TV and I'd like to bring in a article I recently read showing the amount of gay programming on TV. Like you say, it is not until you are in the minority group that you begin to notice, so it is important for those in power to learn to recognize what is going on.
ReplyDeletehttp://popwatch.ew.com/2006/08/23/as_kathy_griffi/