Fair Play: Gender

Even when women receive a leading role in video games, they are still influence by men. They are hyper-sexualised, whereas men are hyper-muscularised, female characters are often accentuated with increasingly revealing clothing, a prime example of both of these is Lara Croft from Tomb Raider as she as hardly any clothes and the clothes that she wears have a very hard time covering up her enlarged breasts and other sexualised features. Other stereotypes included in games were that men showed more aggression without the aid of a weapon and seemed more unaffected by violence than women. It seems ridiculous that in order for a female character to even be considered as taking the leading role she has to be subject to the fantasies of men as otherwise they will not succeed. Games lean tremendously in males favour in terms of characters, players, designers, etc and one cannot forsee that changing anytime soon.

The gender argument in video games reflects that of the culture of power in everyday life, no matter what way you look at it female characters in video games are few and far between, especially playable female characters. There was a study of 1716 video game characters and the percentages of male characters completely overshadow that of the female characters and even the non-human characters. The study found that 64% or 1106 characters were male (human), 17% or 283 were female (human) and the rest were non humans, which still numbered higher than female characters.

Mentioned in the article was how gender stereotypes were incorporated, such as male characters showing more physical aggression than female characters, whereas it was the other way round when it came to that of verbal aggression, ridicules, screaming and other behaviours that are more likely to be associated with females. Seldom do you see a main female character, Tomb Raider has been one of the few games to break this trend, not even giving you an option of choosing a male character, and yet it has been a very successful game, so why have we not seen more games like this? Truth is that the culture of power in society does not reflect that, therefore it is not reflected in video games, which can be seen as infuriating at times, yet it not only concerns women but also ethnicities as well, something that was later addressed in the article.

Fabric Of Oppression

Another theory of socialisation that "describes the structural arrangement of privileges, resources and power," but it is based on the liberal view of how institutions can create inequities. The Fabric of Oppression itself creates some groups that are dominant by it and others that are oppressed by it, which has a slight Culture of Power ring to it, as once again there is a central group that profits and a marginalised group that does not. The similarity becomes even more apparent when the article explains that once again males have more access to power than what females do, which was another proponent of the Culture of Power argument. The theory contains definitions such as bigotry, discrimination, prejudice, social groups, social power, resources and privileges and oppression.
The Fabric of Oppression relies heavily on Institutionalised oppression, which refers to "the web of organisations and systems that perpetuate unequal access." This can be both legal (overt), illegal (covert) or self perpetuating and systematic. Targeted members of groups may be subject to internalised oppression, this occurs when "an individual takes external misinformation, stereotypes and negative images about their group and turns them inward. A term used to explain how those in power secure the social submission of those who are not in power is called hegemony.
The fabric of oppression is summed up with a diagram that looks like a cage, with those in power at the top, and those targeted at the bottom, no matter what, somehow you end up in the cage and are placed into a certain category, most people would end up either 50-50 or mostly in the targeted area, showing that once again, like the culture of power, those in power or in the 'in' groups are in retrospect a very small margin, whereas the targeted group is overcrowded.

The Connections: Life, Knowledge and Media

After an interesting read, you discover that there are many different theories regarding the article 'Connections'. At the start of the article it asks the reader multiple questions and then refers to the individual answers that you provide as being the "critical element in the establishment of your personal identity, and your sense to where you belong within your culture etc." At times I must agree that I fell in with the ignorant in terms to as the article says "groups that are predominantly white, middle class and Christian often assume that Christmas is the December holiday" and my obvious narrow mindedness put me in with that crowd. It is only since venturing to the U.S and opening my mind to other traditions that I have become aware of the other holidays that take place in December.
As with any subject there are theories, Connections have multiple theories such as the Social Learning theory, Social Life, Liberation theory, Cultural Competency theory, Fabric of Oppression and Cycle of Oppression, all of which offer very interesting viewpoints to the issues, some of which ring more true than others. The theories also apply themselves to the impact of the media, and with computer games being a part of the media these days in both good and bad aspects it helps greatly with applying them to our chosen video games.

Underlying details

Prince of Persia looked like a fun yet rather tricky game, I especially found it funny that a game which has a main character that is Persian stills speaks with an English accent, maybe it was to make him sound more sophisticated, that or the research team did a very bad job!

It is hard to comment on the culture of power of the game as during the class I was able to see so little of it as we restarted the game just as we moved into the second level. Yet from the first level it was noticeable that there were no women portrayed which reflects that once again men are in a position of power and also grasped from the first level is that the Persians are in power as they seem to be demolishing the Indians, yet this could be subject to change later in the game as a cut scene suggested that an Indian was in charge of the Persians actions, telling the King of Persia where the treasure vaults were, maybe suggesting that he is one of the power elite and is actually calling the shots, yet I will have to research the game further to find out if that is the case.

Ethnic tensions were suggested within the game as there was two waring factions in the shape of Persia and India. The clothing in the game also suggests that the Persians were in power as their officers were dressed in full suits of armour and their soldiers had matching uniforms that were in good condition in comparison to the torn ragged clothes worn by the Indian troops, which varied in colour and style showing no formalities.

The madness and ignorance of race and ethnicity

Quite the debated topic as one would see, as the argument generally becomes quite heated when surrounding either one of these topics. On one hand there are views where there is only one race "the human race," and on the other race is chopped up into subcategories so to separate people, black race, white race and the list continues and so to does the madness! Created mainly to suggest power and to keep others in their place so to speak, it is now an old philosophy with its roots so dug into the ground that is may be nearly impossible to destroy the misconceptions of race completely.

Ethnicity, despite in some cases where it overlaps race actually differs considerably on key issues, it may not necessarily be about power, they create categories for themselves plus an abundance of other things. However when the two arguments come together most people find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I am quite sure that there would be a large number of people who if asked their view on the matter would innocently reply that they are one and the same, yet after an interesting read one could surely dismiss that statement. Yet despite this, whenever has it been so easy to convince people otherwise on this topic as has been found out through the ages and even in the discussion in class.

Power and the gaming world

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.

A matter of complicated affairs

The film eXistenZ showed how the distinction between reality and fantasy is fast becoming narrowed. The aim of game companies today is to make gaming more interactive and seem more real to the point that I expect that we can expect virtual reality like the film to eventually hit our home gaming. For long points of the film I was struggling to realise whether they were in fantasy world or the real world, then at the end it came as a shock to see that the entire film had been staged and just some damn computer game.

The two different worlds of reality and fantasy colliding shows a complete loss of control, people are confused for they don't know what is going on, as Jude Law stated, "the game seems more like reality and reality more like a game." There truly is no distinguishing features between the two worlds, as they are just as messed up as each other. The film was like an intense game of Sims, freewill is not required as you have to stick to the plot, yet despite the fact that they were in the game it was still as if somebody else was clicking the buttons on what they had to do, when it comes to freewill Allegra simply put it as "just like real life, just enough to make it interesting. The character Gas pointed out another point "thou the player of the game ArtGod," and during games that is how people playing want to be, in the Sims you virtually are God, just as any other strategy game. For example you are playing a game which is just about life, but you get to make the decisions, you get to give them a house, destroy it etc, as it is all about being in control as if you were a god.

The technology itself in the game makes a move towards the environmental as the bio ports that people are having shot into them, as to show that technology is so important that it truly is a part of us, they are made from dead fish or whatever those things were some mutated kind of frog. The whole film was some dramatic ride which culminated with a couple of crazies shooting the creator, just as the aim of the video game had been, showing that we can impact everything around us, including video games. As much as I thought that the film was good on a whole, it wasn't quite my cup of tea, games like that in the future would be cool, but I am content with what I have now for the time being.