Some examples from youtube:
From Japan
From America (mentioned in the lecture)
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
due to popular demand...my tute discussion notes
For those of you who couldn't make it to the tute last Friday :)
Mia Consalvo’s article, ‘Hot Dates and Fairy-tale Romances’ takes a look at two popular games, Final Fantasy and The Sims, and discusses the construction of sexuality and gender within them. Discussion about Final Fantasy was mostly tied up around the idea that the game player automatically inhabits the male character Zidane, who engages in a romantic discourse with the princess Garnet, and who is ultimately responsible for ‘saving her’. Consalvo also discusses the interesting notion of the ‘erotic triangle’- which exists within FF and how it is weakened when the game player is female.
In discussion of The Sims, Consalvo focuses on the wording of the user manual which states things like ‘a same-sex relationship does not have the option of marriage’, but at other times goes to great lengths to use vague language in discussions about the characters- which is supposed to reduce pigeon holing.
Overall, I found the most interesting part of the article was when she spoke about how within the game ‘The Sims’, sexuality is considered an activity, rather than an unchangeable aspect of personality chosen when the character is created. Consalvo outlines that some gay activists have a problem with this- saying that by making sexuality ‘merely’ a choice, it gives weight to the argument that homosexuality is optional. On the other hand, some support the way the Sims game is structured in this aspect, because they believe that saying the body is ‘innately’ sexual is too essentialist.
The second article in this weeks reading ‘From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games’ opened with (in my opinion) a very bold statement; “today, few worry about women’s access to cyberspace- the gap between the sexses in online participaton has largely closed… we scarcely think about [the web] as a male-dominated space”. As this is central to my research essay, I have done quite a bit of reading around this issue and the general consensus seems to be that the web still is considered a male-dominated space. Does anyone else find the above extract a bit unstable?
I won’t write any more on this article because my copy in the course reader is missing what looks like every second page and thus is very hard to get any sense out of!
Third article: ‘as we become machines’: talks about body as cyborg. Old Haraway argument.
Thinking like a computer
2D to first person perspective- making the body ‘grunt’ in pain etc... screen shudder, fade to red etc...
Occupy role of camera operator as well- shifiting postion.
Arcade games- actually sit on a replica motorbike.
Wii- extention of this idea. Using body as the apparatus, not a joystick.
While you can change skin colour in a game, your character and the world around still behaves in the same way.
Mia Consalvo’s article, ‘Hot Dates and Fairy-tale Romances’ takes a look at two popular games, Final Fantasy and The Sims, and discusses the construction of sexuality and gender within them. Discussion about Final Fantasy was mostly tied up around the idea that the game player automatically inhabits the male character Zidane, who engages in a romantic discourse with the princess Garnet, and who is ultimately responsible for ‘saving her’. Consalvo also discusses the interesting notion of the ‘erotic triangle’- which exists within FF and how it is weakened when the game player is female.
In discussion of The Sims, Consalvo focuses on the wording of the user manual which states things like ‘a same-sex relationship does not have the option of marriage’, but at other times goes to great lengths to use vague language in discussions about the characters- which is supposed to reduce pigeon holing.
Overall, I found the most interesting part of the article was when she spoke about how within the game ‘The Sims’, sexuality is considered an activity, rather than an unchangeable aspect of personality chosen when the character is created. Consalvo outlines that some gay activists have a problem with this- saying that by making sexuality ‘merely’ a choice, it gives weight to the argument that homosexuality is optional. On the other hand, some support the way the Sims game is structured in this aspect, because they believe that saying the body is ‘innately’ sexual is too essentialist.
The second article in this weeks reading ‘From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games’ opened with (in my opinion) a very bold statement; “today, few worry about women’s access to cyberspace- the gap between the sexses in online participaton has largely closed… we scarcely think about [the web] as a male-dominated space”. As this is central to my research essay, I have done quite a bit of reading around this issue and the general consensus seems to be that the web still is considered a male-dominated space. Does anyone else find the above extract a bit unstable?
I won’t write any more on this article because my copy in the course reader is missing what looks like every second page and thus is very hard to get any sense out of!
Third article: ‘as we become machines’: talks about body as cyborg. Old Haraway argument.
Thinking like a computer
2D to first person perspective- making the body ‘grunt’ in pain etc... screen shudder, fade to red etc...
Occupy role of camera operator as well- shifiting postion.
Arcade games- actually sit on a replica motorbike.
Wii- extention of this idea. Using body as the apparatus, not a joystick.
While you can change skin colour in a game, your character and the world around still behaves in the same way.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What?? No discussion???
Just a quick note to remind everyone that this week we are back in the classroom for the tute (friday)- incase everyone was wondering why I haven't posted yet, as this is my week for presentation.
I had a beautiful blog all written out too, but now I have to come face to face with your ugly muggs instead! :)
I hope everyone has got something out of this blog- I think that althought it can be harder to remember to log-on every week, it promots much more considered and interesting discussion than you get in a classroom when everyone is just watching the clock and throwing the odd comment into the room :P. Depends upon the tute of course.
Anna xxx
I had a beautiful blog all written out too, but now I have to come face to face with your ugly muggs instead! :)
I hope everyone has got something out of this blog- I think that althought it can be harder to remember to log-on every week, it promots much more considered and interesting discussion than you get in a classroom when everyone is just watching the clock and throwing the odd comment into the room :P. Depends upon the tute of course.
Anna xxx
hahaha..i remember last semester i was not a 'member' of facebook. it was like facebook added the wow factor to a person's life...so well, i joined facebook and ya was impressed for a while...why for a while..simply because i'm not a facebook person and wasnt able to fit it into my life...unfortunately for my friends and for me too!!
Response to Culture Jamming
Technology has played a huge role where it comes to the influence of culture jammers…well at least in my opinion! With the advancement of technology, information is not at one’s fingertips. Gone are the days where one has to meticulously look up the encyclopedia or dictionary. At the age of the internet era, the internet now allows one to put up one’s beliefs and activities so that others can read or experience. The world has become particularly small and literally all can be done, at the movement of the fingers. Gone are the days where one wrote journals (of course there are many who still do)….but when I was ‘trying’ to encourage my 9-year-old daughter to start journal writing, she suggested creating a blog instead…so that she can be seen and heard ‘all the time’. What advancement in technology
Monday, October 13, 2008
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