That much is true.
I’m currently playing the first video game I’ve purchased in years: Winning Eleven 8…a Japanese Soccer Sim….and before that, last January I guess, I finally completed Final Fantasy X, a Japanese Role Playing Adventure game, after…uh…about two and one half years, and 140 hours of game time. So I’m old and slow and nerdy. Kill me.
What does this have to do with anything?
Well, I was going to a family get together a few years back and had purchased a video game magazine in the airport….
and when I got home it was just hanging out randomly by my bedside one morning…
and one of my sisters passed by, saw it, and gave me the eyebrow. You know, the EYEBROW.
You see, there was this HUGE-boobed cartoon woman staring out of the magazine. Some kind of “Red Sonja”-with-a-sword gal….who…uh…was actually a playable character in a game that…ergh…I’ve also completed: Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance.
Background: I grew up in what I guess folks would now call a feminist household. Nothing fancy. My mom and my dad just believed in the, gosh, radical notion, that women should have equal rights…that my sisters and I should see each other as equally capable of doing or being whatever the hell we wanted to do or be. We were probably on some level…a low level…influenced by radical academic feminists…and on a higher level Dr. Spock and Dr. Suess and Sesame Street and, more importantly, my grandmothers and aunts who had fought like Hell through the first half of the century to define womanhood as something more than cooking, doing laundry, raising children and saying “yes, sir.”
Again, so kill me.
So, I guess part of my family’s feminist shared “ethos” comes down to what you might call….I guess…”white, middle-class, bourgeois” notions of what acceptable depictions of women AND men are…well, that mixed with my parents more impoverished and religious (read “old fashioned decency”) background and the media environment we kids grew up in.
And let’s just say, simply put, that Baldur’s Gate is a juvenile, raging-id, rejection of that “surface standard”. The women in the game have huge boobs. Their boobs jiggle. They kill things. Everyone kills things. But regardless…the whole thing was both, uh, offensive on some level and moreover, juvenile…in the extreme…and uh….male-oriented…so sadly and pathetically male-oriented that I cringe at it for what it says about some large realm of my subconscious.
(But not that much, friends…come on, I’m not insane…a cringe is a cringe. I mean, I have not burned my copy of Baldur’s Gate, I know who I am, it’s a basically fun game…and, whatever….the whole thing IS ludicrous on so many levels.)
So…when my sister gave me the EYEBROW all these thoughts went coursing through my head. But the core one would be this:
We’re on a new adventure in my family….I’ve got two nieces and a nephew…and I have some responsibility to enunciate what kind of world I would like to make for them, all of them…in conjunction with my sisters, their husbands and my parents…and building on the legacy of those who’ve come before. I for one, hope that feminism’s promise has something to do with that world…and I hope it would influence how I present to them as their uncle…all of them…as an example of a man and a person and a friend.
Because for me feminism isn’t about women…or children…it’s about all of us. It’s about what roles we embrace..and what assumptions influence every last thing we do…and it’s about, on some level…despite all the BS spewed by whiny insulting sophistic airheads the last few days… EXACTLY why we are at war in Iraq right now.
Why does Cowboy George Bush make folks feel safe? Why was war the answer? Why did they make fun of John Edwards by calling him the “Breck Girl?” Why does GWB strut and talk like he does? And why do his daughters giggle and dress up totally “debbed” out?
So no. The huge-boobed fighting woman is not the biggest barrier our kids face…to put it lightly. There are bigger issues. Thousands of them. But they are all interwoven in basic issues that feminism addresses because feminism, at the end of the day, is NOT just about women, or some small little topic to be relagated to a new blog…it’s about changing the world by empowering all of us to live in a new way, free from the BS of old patterns and roles, even as those patterns and that history surrounds us on all sides.
At the end of the day, feminism is about how the assumptions about gender we take for granted shape the world we live in. It’s about how the blinders that shape how we see things…man/woman…war/peace…are actually prison bars that lock us in. And the way we find this out is often to get called on it, to get criticized. Especially us men. I mean, sometimes the only way us guys see how BULLSHIT out mindset is…well…is for someone to give us the EYEBROW and point it out to us…to say, “hey, that’s not ok.”
So, what happened, you know…after my sister’s EYEBROW.?
Well, in different cultures and contexts I know that large breasted fantasy warriors like Sheena / Red Sonja might be cool…might be funny and empowering even…but not in my parent’s house that day…
and, more importantly, and this IS the point I’m getting at…it says more about the respect I have for my sister as a woman, as a parent and as my friend and ally….that when she gave me the EYEBROW…
I put the goddam magazine away.
Perfect answer…’nuff said.
Nothing to add. Just Wow, you are good.
If some people would learn to PUT THE FRICKING MAGAZINE away in inappropriate contexts
I think there would be far less liberal dissension over sexual images and themes in and of themselves(we’d still have Dobson to contend with).
I like a naughty movie sometimes, but I don’t insist on watching it at Christmas at my grandmother’s house.
Kid O, Your writing ALWAYS knocks my socks off. Today is no different.
and makes a good read
A big issue w/ this whole flap is how advertisers influence a media, even if they aren’t trying to. Kos probably didn’t think twice before putting that ad up, he saw it as a way to increase funds, which make the site go.
But, newspapers run into this same problem. How do the ads any media source reflect back on the media source? Even if you don’t want them to, they will.
As blogs evolve, so will the blogger business model. A community blog requires turkee to function, so where is that turkee going to come from? Then, in some bloggers case, as they get more popular, how do we generate revenue to allow people to make a life out of blogging?
I am the master at the eyebrow, as was my mother before me.
If we would all just learn to hide our indulgences in the dark, where they belong, the world would be a happier place. Kind of kidding.
I don’t believe in censorship. But I do believe in self-censorship. If I know something I say or do offends you, I will not say or do it in front of you.
In our home, “the eyebrow,” or its logical equivalent is typically followed by “Yes, Dear.” – no matter whose “eyebrow” is raised.
Even if you don’t believe the eyebrow needed raising, first you defuse the situation, “Yes, Dear,” then you discuss.
It’s a way of saying “I respect you,” and it creates the opening for follow-on discussion, if one is needed. It doesn’t always happen this way. The times when it doesn’t tend to be the most painful.
was fun. My son and I completed it in a couple weeks. You, me, and Jon Stewart: old farts who can’t put the controller down. If only they wouldn’t make the games so good…argh. You’re going to be playing Winning Eleven forever, dude.
I didn’t think BG had so much frivolous boobage, but maybe I’m jaded by playing other games. You can find some of the worst examples of exploitation in video games of course, but also some surprisingly respectful treatments of heroines. IT’s pop culture, but in a peculiar niche that–at least until recently–allowed for more experimentation.
I knew my son was going to play video games when he got older, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop. So we just have an agreement that you can’t play one-player games except in rare cases (home from school with a cold is the only exemption we seem to use). And we have to go walk the dog or jump on the trampoline afterward. So far we’ve kept things in their place, and kept the focus on doing things together.
The hard part has been watching him get better, to the point where I’m a hindrance to him in some games. Now that hurts!
I love Baldur’s Gate (well, the two that are available for PlayStation). The women were a little underdressed, but it wasn’t as bad as some games I’ve played (Tomb Raider, for example, which I also love). The thing about BG, TR, and a lot of other video games is that the playable female characters are just as tough, if not tougher, than the male characters. I appreciate that.
Other games, like Half Life 2, feature female characters that, while they might need a little protection now and then, are strong and well-written and don’t wear metal bras. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
The thing is, game companies think that these images sell games. I’m not so sure. I won’t play games that feature really awful depictions of women, and I encourage my husband not to buy them. Personally, I’d rather have a good game with interesting characters and puzzles (and lots of killing, of course). I don’t care what the characters look like.
Memories of some good times with my better half. A couple of winters ago, we were holed up in the house a lot. I had my Xbox so I bought the Baldur’s Gate game and said to my (game hating) wife – ‘just try it with me for five minutes’.
She picked the female (sometimes jiggly) sorceress character, and struggled to be effective at first. Weeks later, as we finished the game, she easily had the ‘better’ team player and was kicking electron butt in most of the fights. She loved it, but to this say will say, ‘yeah, I guess that was OK’.
I think the cooperative nature of the game appealed to her the most. She wasn’t a fan of the jiggle, and I agree with you that the game companies over emphasize the importance.
Just a simple story for this diary, not much of a point, but thanks for the memories!
I bought my daughter a Gamecube a couple of years ago. I ended up getting hooked on the thing myself, including a long stint with Baldur’s Gate. I was obsessed with that game and played it through several times before I got adicted to some other game. At any rate, she and I played together and had much fun with that. We used to laugh and joke about the skimpy outfits worn by the female character. I mean, really, what good is leather armor is your belly and thighs aren’t covered?
We’ve talked a lot about women in video games. I think in that respect, even though they can be pretty sexist, they can still be used as a jump off point for discussions on sexism.
That’s what my SO and I call the “Magic Armor of Distraction.”
ROFL! We got a real laugh out of that one. Thanks!
Jon Stewart is a gamer, too?
That just adds to his yumminess 😀
Did you see his interview with The Rock? All Jon cared about was Quake, the game, not Quake: The Movie which is what Rock was there to promote. Let’s just say Jon demonstrated intricate knowledge of weaponry, levels, and terminology, and a childlike overexuberance.
And in the last two weeks he’s alluded to staying up until 4 in the morning until his thumbs kill him. Don’t know what game he’s currently playing, but he’s clearly part of the video game generation.
Oooo, I’d hope it was Guild Wars (my latest obsession) but that’s a PC game.
Regardless, I think I’m in love! Sorry honey (to my boyfriend), but I have to go live outside of Jon Stewart’s doorstep to show my devotion to him! I’m sure his family won’t mind! *weird smile*
Right now, the card-RPG Baten Kaitos for Gamecube is keeping me up at night. It’s spectacular, and I don’t usually get into card-based battle games, but this has an excellent story line, a vast world, gorgeous graphics, and very interesting strategy aspects.
My home computer is a 2001 Dell laptop with missing keys, Ubuntu Linux, and about 40 “Howard Dean for America” stickers covering it. It works great for python and PHP web development, but I’m kinda locked out of the PC game world, which was partly intentional.
Kid Oakland, I was just saying yesterday how much I missed your always insightful diaries.
Thanks for getting the core issue at hand these last few days. Everything you do as a male (or female) reflects on those around you. We do not live in a vacuum. Every action tells other who we are and what we value, whether we wish to or not.
My husband and daughter play Neverwinternights together as father/daughter time. He has her make up the character, so right now they are playing a female dwarf named Kimli.
There are simple and respectful ways to deal with a disrespectful world. Compassion is cool.
Eclairs? Never could deal with all that soggy choux pastry…
And for your always fine insight and talent.
Baldur’s Gate rules.
You can be female. And yes the female you are is fabulous – like the guys.
Compare that to say “Fable” the super MS game that was all about a dynamic experience based on your moral choices. In the beginning your mother and sister are mutilated. Later you find out you mother has been tortured for a decade. In the final fight movie, she is murdered for her blood. Then you can choose to kill your sister or not.
It’s just a crappy game. It is short and stupid. And you are stuck being one version or another of supermale.
But it is true despite two decades of playing these games I have yet to buy a magazine, subscribe to a game site, or join a discussion area for gamers. Because they are so aggressively butch. And the more narrow they make the market, the more the market is narrow.
redwagon.
I had no idea you were here!
Well said.
Catering to the adolescent market of video games.
The PC version didn’t have those images for me, probably due to the different engine and graphics.
and I know from years of experience in the industry that the people that make games and those that play them are overwhelmingly male and youngsters. The people I work with populate their cubicles and office bookshelves with Star Wars and Anime action figures, so it should be no surprise to anyone that the games they make can be immature. The industry itself is pretty young, if you consider that the first video game was invented in 1972, and it started out as a toy for young kids.
Over the years those young kids of the early 70’s have remained fans to some extent and the games have grown older and wiser with them, and will continue to. Honestly, I don’t see much of a difference between popular video games, TV shows and Movies in terms of maturity and enlightenment. You’ll find prurient examples of all, just like you can find profound artistic examples. Is the video game covergirl any different than the real life Pamela Anderson? The problems of sexist stereotypes are societal.
The real issue for video games is that the people that are going to play video games the most like this sort of stuff, so companies are going to continue to make games and advertisements that appeal to them.
BTW, if you are only going to get one sport game, Winning Eleven is the one you should get. It is the best sports game I’ve ever played, and I make sports games, so I ought to know.
Thanks for the tip about Winning Eleven. I’m trying to get my 7yo daughter to do something more active than watching the Disney Channel. Perhaps a soccer game could be a bridge towards actually getting out there and playing soccer…
release Winning Eleven for the PSP…you will never hear from me again.
So far it’s been Lumines and Hot Shots Golf which have been bad enough, but WE8 on PSP might just get me fired for not coming in to work in the mornings.
I was doing online games… and when I looked for a subsequent job (as a lead programmer), mostly you are interviewing to make murder sims of various kinds.
I gave up on it.
Plus if there is an industry that needs a union, Game Programming is it.
OTOH, I’ve just gotten addicted to a simple online game from .nl called domainationgame, which is really speed risk, basically.
My god, I should never have found that site. My daughters bailed on a game of Risk (I offered to let the dears off the hook after mom brought home some new toys, new toys! weehoo)… and I searched online thinking maybe I could satisfy my Risk desires on the net.
And unfortunately I could. Now if I can start going to be before 2am I’ll be all set.
Video Games are great, we are in the dark ages right now, however. IMNSHO.
twitch..
speed risk online…..
I used to play the board game by myself… (twitch)
HS friends and I played double board risk 72 hours a shot (ok, with 5 hour sleep breaks and some food prep time – but after a couple 2 liters of Dew….)
It’s best for my sanity and to do list if I don’t find that link)
(google field already filled in….
🙂
to not give the link.
Multiple board Risk games… yes… me too.
sigh. I’ve got it right here if you dare….
I just clicked on this because I like video games too, and Kid O’s stuff is usually worth a look </massive understatement>. And then there’s this analogized approach to the rifts of recent days, that ends so appropriately, peacefully, and reasonably. I wish that the other situation could end up like this too (i.e. the putting away of the magazine).
I think a major factor working against that desired outcome is that there has apparently been a long history building up to the current imbroglio. I don’t know what to say about that except that reconciliation has got to start somewhere.
One point from this diary that I found especially enlightening is this:
feminism, at the end of the day, is NOT just about women, or some small little topic to be relagated to a new blog…it’s about changing the world by empowering all of us to live in a new way, free from the BS of old patterns and roles, even as those patterns and that history surrounds us on all sides.
At the end of the day, feminism is about how the assumptions about gender we take for granted shape the world we live in. It’s about how the blinders that shape how we see things…man/woman…war/peace…are actually prison bars that lock us in. And the way we find this out is often to get called on it, to get criticized.
Before this, my working definition of feminism was “the radical notion that women are people too,” as a bumper sticker puts it. In other words, it’s anti-sexism, or anti-gender discrimination. But it is more than that, and until now I didn’t begin to understand the deeper aspects highlighted here. And, I totally agree that being called on something is frequently either the best or only way to become aware of something that’s not OK, especially for us men. There is a lot in this culture of ours that needs to be unlearned, and those of us who have only recently started down that road would very much appreciate the patience of those further along.
Froggy, you brought tears to my eyes.
You are so right about the analogy involved in KO’s (as usual) beautifully wrought story.
And I like your frankness about the need for ‘unlearning’, as well as your bumper-sticker definition of feminism. I like & support men like you.
Can I give both you and KO an ‘8’?
“…those of us who have only recently started down that road would very much appreciate the patience of those further along.”
Froggywomp, seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive. Your willingness to ask for patience, and to listen to those who’s positions take you outside your existing comfort level is the place where change, and growth, will be found.
We move to a higher place by being challenged and expanding our knowledge. Confusion is a high state of being. To grow from confusion-illumination.
The journey of a thousand miles……
Hey kid. glad to see another friendly face here. (ok, I knew you posted here, but, I’m glad to see you again, today-like)
although I love “wiseguys” (and grls), I like the actual wisdom thang, too!
But you’re the one who brought up video games. The July 2005 Discover Magazine (Vol 26, No. 7) has an article entitled “Your Brain and Video Games: Could they actually be good for you?” Sorry, but it’s not online yet.
Basically, the article states that several recent studies suggest that many of today’s video games actually build cognitive skills, rather than impairing them. And were not just talking hand-eye coordination, either, but higher functions like problem solving, spacial relationships, exploration and internalized mapping, tracking and synthesizing multiple data sets, etc. Of course, it depends on the game, and video game addiction may be a very real concern (fMRI during video game play shows a dopamine surge). A second concern is the lack of physical exertion a person sitting in front of a game system for hours every day gets (but the same is true of the internet, the TV, or even a book).
He wrote a whole book about that: Everything Bad Is Good For You. I have a review copy of it at my desk at work.
It’s…interesting. Pretty decently written, but the book feels painfully like a feature article streeeeeeetched out to fill a hardcover. Like he had a failure of imagination – most of his book hinges on gaming on gaming or on the increasingly complex plots used in TV or movies. And there’s a lot more (badness) to life than just those things.
Me, I game when it’s in front of me. We have a testing room at work with twigged boxes – Xbox, PS2, Gamecube – (so we can run review copies of upcoming games). We get into Editors vs. Interns battles. It’s neat how I can start out terrible, and noticably improve over the course of an hour.
Yep, Steven Johnson.
He does make a few silly comments like this one: “The majority of video games on the best-seller list contain no more bloodshed than a game of Risk.” Well, Risk is a war sim, so in a way he is right… but Risk is not graphic the way video games tend to be. You don’t actually see anyone get shot, blown up, decapitated, bayonetted, and I have never seen blood pour out of the little risk pieces.
> I have never seen blood pour out of the little risk pieces.
Man. I should really lay off the acid.
😉
Wonderful KO. It’s all about respect for women in the end, pure and simple.
I am a pc video game player and currently playing an older game, Empire Earth,, it has many campaigns and I get to rule the world. It helps to ease my tension over the real world.
I also have played Age of Kings, Diablo, Lionheart and others and can’t tell you the hours I put into those games until I discovered blogging. Now I don’t play so much, but still love it.
I have gone all the way to the end many times on each of these games.
I also play Diablo. My nephew, who’s fourteen, gets a kick that his aunt sits in the back room playing Diablo late into the night. It’s this cool connection we share talking about equiptment, how he cheats to get new gear, how I don’t, how I work for hours to raise the level of my character and he spends one hour and bypasses me. The only times I really think about our unique relationship is when he talks to his friends about his Aunt! lol.
that “take the small, and make it universal” thing very, very well with your writing.
I’m a video game addict. In fact, though I’ve enjoyed many role playing games, I am ADDICTED to first person shooters and violent action games. Nothing makes me giggle more than a solid headshot with my sniper rifle in Halo.
Now, this probably sounds, well, incongruous given how much I harp on humanism, but …
I was raised as a boy in this culture during the ’60s. This primal, very male, very ugly drive is part of who I am. In fact, that aggression is, to some extent, is in all of us. Indulging my less enlightened mental parts only make me appreciate more the people who helped me grow, and enables me to maintain that connection with where I started. That, and you never know when you might NEED some aggression. I find it can be helpful when a certain excitable someone is making BS attacks in some comment threads, for example.
Or maybe that’s just a bunch of pseudo-intellectual self justification.
Anyway, as you so ably demonstrate, the important thing is context. There is a time and place for everything, and it is only a matter of respect if we don’t rub our childish ids in front of people who ask us, even if only a raised eyebrow, to please play outside.
Whoever thought that I would posting a comment with this as the title. What I want to say is that I think it is important to put boobs in perspective. These video games and many children’s toys have figures that have really exaggerated features. The women have big breasts and impossibly small waists and the males have enormous biceps and chests and slim hips. Why? Well maybe because they are iconic archetypal type figures. One of my favorite science fiction books is Gene Wolfe’s “There Are Doors.” It switches back and forth in time and a Barbie doll serves as a Mother Goddess figurine. Does anyone remember those prehistoric Mother Goddess figurines dug up in the Danube region–with the huge breasts and buttocks? Anyway, after reading this novel I never looked at a Barbie doll in the same way again.
I don’t want to sound like anyone’s mother but I think that there is a time and place for everything. Some people play video games featuring these figures with boobs and biceps in their spare time. That doesn’t bother me, as long as the sound isn’t turned up too high. Some people read or watch pornography featuring whatever body parts they’re particularly fond of. Fine. Some people even have sex sometimes. Great! But there is a time and place for all that, your private leisure time. A political blog doesn’t seem to me to be the best place to display boobs. That’s all I am going to say about the, ahem, current controversy.
Now if people play video games in which women with big boobs are killed themselves, and dismembered or raped, I am afraid I would have a knee jerk reaction to that.
I agree that there is a place for everything. If I saw naked nuns at church (although I’m not sure how I’d know they were nuns if they were naked) I would be so much more shocked than if I saw a naked dancer in a strip club. If I saw a dildo on my teacher’s desk I think I’d be pretty upset (and really grossed out) but I think I’d find it funny if it were found on my best friends dresser. I don’t want to ban the ad, but it is out of place for the type of discussions that are usually addressed on the site.
by their menacing rulers, no?
Now if people play video games in which women with big boobs are killed themselves, and dismembered or raped, I am afraid I would have a knee jerk reaction to that.
————————————–
The vast majority of opponents in video games are male.
Yes, my son played an awful lot of those shooter games and I don’t remember the targets being female, or if they were they just crumpled up and fell down when they died. Some TV shows seem to get into fetishizing violence against women more. There is a lot of dreadful suspense and then a women screaming a bloodcurdling scream. I am a just a little sensitive about sexualizing violence. On the other hand, what’s wrong with breasts? They are why we are called mammals, after all
Why is a naked woman generally considered — at least in the US — more obscene than naked violence?
Nice diary.
I am a recovered Q2 and Q3 player, but man those online matches were great!
amazing how simple common courtesy can be. astounding how offensive the idea is to some. thank you for the painfully needed introspection.
as for video games, i’m lucky not to have fallen for them, with the exception of civ III, which lies in exile at the top of my bookshelf until summer vacation arrives. blogs are crack enough as it is, if i played video games i wouldn’t get anything done.
I love video games too!! I’ve been playing them since my first atari (PACMAN!) back when I was, oh maybe, 10 years old. I got a nintendo next which augmented the various computer games I enjoyed (remember castle wolfenstein?). When I went to college (1994) I got seriously into arcade fighting games (streetfighter was old skool by then, I loved any game by capcom but my fav was the little-known “Dark Stalkers”). In fact, I liked a certain character so much I had her likeness tattood on my arm.
After college, we had the Sony Playstation (Tekken Tag and Gradius were my favs). Sadly, I don’t play anymore because life just gets so busy. My video gaming ended abruptly with the birth of my son in Nov 2002.
It’s funny how these games are so obviously targeted to adolescent boys. Every game does not feature busty “babes” but I did start to notice some grody stuff during the era of Quake and Doom. One in particular that my ex-boyfriend and I played literally had a scene in a strip club with dancing chicks getting naked. I suppose I just rolled my eyes at the time, as I always do, but there is something rather offensive about it, as a female game player. (not to mention all the fucking killing!!)
Not only do I love video games, but I am also a female mechanical engineer. So, I went to school with ALL guys (ok, 80-90% guys) and I also work with ALL guys. In fact, at the company I just left I was the first female engineer they’d ever hired!!
This places me in the rather precarious role of having to change the person that I am in order to survive! I know that sounds dramatic but I really feel that my personality has changed over the years working in a male-dominated field. It’s not that I’ve had to become more aggressive (I’m somewhat aggressive and competitive to begin with, though absolutely feminine)… it’s more a change in my threshhold for offense. That is, I CANNOT get offended by much working with all these dudes. It also seems that men tease each other a lot more than women so I’ve had to develop a rather thick skin and my own quick wit.
It’s kind of fun trying to figure this shit out. Living and working with men while maintaining my self. Tolerating reality and still wishing for a better day. Looking forward to a time when I can be respected and heard in my field rather than marginalized.
As for the whole pie-fight bullshit, I was first surprised, then saddened and finally, appalled at the downright anti-female brigade. For someone like me, who’s entire personality has inadvertently changed in order to deal with dudes, to get so insulted is just altogether sad.
about men teasing more, or at least I think I do. My son and I were driving somewhere together last week and listening to a sports radio talk show. The men on it were arguing (natch) and finally they were yelling insults at each other and my son (21) and I started to laugh.
I said, “Is that what you and your friends sound like?”
He said yes, and then he mimicked his friends. “You’re an IDIOT!”
I said, “It must be hard to argue with a girl after being around guys.” And then I mimicked a girl saying, “Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry!!” he yelled, continuing his role playing. Then he hit himself in the head with his baseball cap. “It’s just so FRUSTRATING to try to TALK to you!!!”
It was really funny, and you want to know the weird thing? Yesterday I had nearly that same conversation with a man visiting this blog. “Why are you so angry?” I asked him. “I’m not angry,” he told me. And I think he probably was finding it damned frustrating to try to talk to me/us, just as I was finding it frustrating to talk to him. Pretty funny to see this played out in real life.
Sometimes I envy guys their ability to yell at each other and then just go on from there. But I know I’m not like that and never will be. Neither are 99% of my friends. So I deeply appreciate it that my darling boy and his adorable friends are respectful of me and don’t yell, “You’re an IDIOT!” when they think I say something dumb. I think they’d be pretty shocked to hear it from me, too.
And p.s. When he was still living here he would put his magazines away in a drawer in his room when he wasn’t looking at them. I didn’t mind that he had them, and he knew I didn’t mind. But it felt good to know he respected me enough to keep them out of my face.
Wonderful diary, Kid Oakland.
Unless she has Jermack (sp?) bounce-back beautiful hair. My girlfriend would sing that jingle every time he appeared on TV, and still voted for him as veep.
I fell off the video-game wagon after my 8-bit Nintendo crashed in 10th grade (in 1992). Came back via group games one could play drunk in college like 007 and MarioKart on N64. I’m much more of a fan of those sorts of group games than first-person shooters, even though I always lost.
My mom refused to buy us kids video game-related things. Except for Tetris, which my little sister promptly got herself addicted to. Cazart!
Yes!!!
Putting the magazine away is simply about respect and good manners. I just cannot understand the mindset that leads some people, on seeing the eyebrow, to get in one’s face and scream insults.
Excellent diary – reccommended
Some might have deep seated resentment at what they take as someone’s moral judgement about them.
but a response that it a tad out of proportion, surely?
I’m with Second Nature – no need to display your fetishes. It gives me the creeps to know that at such moments I become a virtual republican in my desire to return to the fifties.
That’s where I grew up – a princess in a protected cocoon. It wasn’t my parents who sheltered me, they kept me on a strict level of equality with my brothers. They gave us every chance to find truths by ourselves, and as much freedom as we needed for that. Our society saw things differently.
Imagine my horror after raising a boy in such complete freedom; to find he has joined the navy, and likes to play those attack and kill video games. I love him, he is SO not-me.
Perhaps you can explain it with the theory that each generation tends to rebel against their parents? Or perhaps he’s just a boy… 😉
Being female, very passionate about women’s issues, and ALSO a gamer can be an interesting experience.
Gaming is a male-dominated industry that mainly makes male-dominated games. Over the years it’s gotten better in some ways (the women take a more active role in the story, and are occasionally the main protagonists, versus just being supporting characters or window dressing) and worse in others (better graphics technology means more jiggle-jiggle).
I frequent a site called womengamers.com, which is a community mainly of females (but also of more progressive men) who critique games and the gaming community based on women’s issues. The content doesn’t get all that deep, as there are a lot of young users, but it’s worth a look maybe if you’re curious.
There have been many very compelling storylines with female characters playing an integral part in recent years, which has been very exciting to take part in as a gamer. Game developers finally seem to be realizing that there are more markets than hormone-crazed adolescent boys and are starting to develop their titles accordingly (from very kid-friendly titles to titles that actually provide you with an in-home virtual fitness trainer). I except to see continued improvemt over time, though there will always be that subset of gamers who’ll count how many times a character’s breasts jiggle in a certain scene.
*improvement
Typos…gah! Gotta get used to having spellcheck available.
I have kept out of the raging pie wars (although the brouhaha over at dKos did cause me to sign up here, but I didn’t abandon dKos — yet), mostly because it had long since degenerated into a shouting match with little or no dialogue taking place: the string in Armando’s front-page diary yesterday was particularly nauseating: a number of people made heart-felt pleas for understanding and reconciliation, and Armando responding like an arrogant asshole lawyer (gee, I guess that’s what he is). Lost a lot of respect for him over that.
What resonated with me in what KO has written is how “feminism” in its broadest sense is a liberation movement for ALL of us.
As a child growing up in the fifties and a young man in the late sixties, I was utterly trapped in the stereotypical male role that society expected of me: sports, guns, physical strength, competition. The fact is I loved to read, enjoyed writing poetry, and gardening, and doing macrame, and other “non-manly” things — not to the exclusion of sports and guns and competition, but in addition to. But I had to hide this side of myself — indeed, I fought against it — because such interests were not “allowed” for normal boys.
So I played the role as it was written, and joined the army and went to Vietnam, and did all the “manly” things that I must now regret for the rest of my life.
And now I see my ten-year old son struggling with the same things — a deeply senitive boy, who writes wonderful poetry, and enjoys playing with his sister’s dolls, and doing little creative things to please his mother. He’s also reasonably good at sports and is fast becoming — against my determined opposition — a video game addict. In short, a “normal” boy on one level, but with a whole other really beautiful side to his personality that he has so much difficulty feeling comfortable with or expressing anywhere other than in the safety of his own home.
It took me until I was in my late twenties before I was able to begin to feel comfortable with who I am — in all the various manifestations of my personality. I want that my son can fully embrace his whole self sooner than that.
It is still not easy. We still have a long way to go.
Women’s rights are indeed about human rights and your struggle against sex stereotypes with both yourself and your son shows tremendous thoughtfulness.
In our household many of the traditional sex roles are reversed, others are not. Our relationship is very much egalitarian and we work together raising our 2.5 year old son using the talents that we have, not the ones we’re supposed to have.
My husband cooks for us almost every night and does all the dishes. I am the handy-“man” around the house working on projects and lusting after power tools. I love fast cars and decide which ones to buy and monitor their maintenance. We have both been up many nights with our son and changed our fair share of diapers. He is an absolute computer geek and I love knitting and ballet. He is a black belt in karate while I am just a beginner.
Interestingly, he and his father are both self-proclaimed “feminists”. His mother is a doctor and attended medical school with three young children back in the day when women were not accepted to medical school!
My father always encouraged me to do anything I wanted. He played board games with me (and never let me win!), he bought me mitts and basketballs and took me to the park to practice catch. He took me to my soccer games and my ballet classes.
I feel so fortunate to have some of the best of both worlds, a strong interest in math, science, engineering, cars, video games, karate, ballet, knitting, literature, parenting, etc. etc. etc.
It is truly empowering to release the bonds of sex stereotypes and discover the real you.
I played Baldur’s Gate on the PC for waaaay too many hours. I just can’t get the hang of an xbox controller, though.
Now, my boyfriend is an xboxophile. He took a day off work when Halo 2 came out. He especially loves 1st person shooters.
Sometimes I feel that shooters poke a certain part of his brain that I don’t have. They stimulate some primal hunting mechanism that allows him to enjoy for hours what seems unsufferably repetative to me.
We both laugh at the big boobs. But KO, you summed it up so well. I wouldn’t hang a painting in the living room that my partner thought it was crap. Why? Because I love him. And he has graciously moved his AT-AT to the bedroom.
I don’t know if the whole First Person Shooter thing comes down to male or female, though.
Some of my most hilarious gaming memories stem from multiplayer sessions of games like Unreal and Quake. There’s something viscerally satisfying about sniping the dickens out of an opposing team or managing to sneak away with the flag in a game of Capture the Flag.
The only genre that I’ve never really been able to “get” are the sports-based games. *shrug*
there are trends, but not absoulte rules. Most of the gaming men I know are way more into the first person shooters than the gaming women. But there is always some crossover. And I like playing first person shooters with other real people – it’s like tag, without breaking the furniture in your living room. But I just can’t get into playing them solo.
Me either – single player FPS is about the lamest kind of gameplay there is. But I am an Unreal Tournament (online with other people) addict! It’s all about the team games for me, I’m not a real deathmatcher.
What’s funny is that I introduced UT to my wife (girlfriend at the time), and she’s a squeamish hippy chick, the “kids can’t ever have a squirt gun!” type. But she LOVES to snipe peoples’ heads off. She likes it with the blood turned off – she has a real gut disgust with seeing blood spew – but she loves to get those head shots.
War games, to be specific.
I hate it. I’m so not into violence. Frankly, I’d prefer, if violence MUST be shrieking out of our computer every night, a few one on one fights between huge-breasted women.
I’m probably in the minority, but I am FAR more offended by these hyper-realistic war simulation games than by bouncing breasts.
I get it, I do — and the bouncing breasts DO make my eyebrow go up. But the war games, the shouting, the screaming in pain — that makes me vomit.
There seems to have been an increase of those types of games in recent years, and I’d wager heavily that it’s because of the war and what it’s done to the gaming population.
The biggest demographic in gaming is still…hmmm, I’d say 14-25 year old males. Many of them are going to be going to war, are at war (and they play games over there to kill the time a good bit from what I hear), or returning home from war.
I guess they wouldn’t sell if they weren’t fulfilling a need for some of this population, but I’m sure they’re as traumatizing on some levels as they may be cathartic or others.
*on others
Gah!
I’d move that 25 into the 30’s – the generation that grew up with Atari didn’t just “grow out” of gaming.
That’s true!
I’m pushing thirty myself, so I know older gamers are out here 😀
I think we’re the “old fuddy-duddy” demographic, though, and not the main one they’re marketing towards in general.
I think video game demographics are trending older these days, as we who grew up with the original games age. Kids are still into it too, but in the past, nobody old liked games, and now we’re getting old and we still like them!
The other interesting and BIG trend in games is old ladies who play casual games. I get lots of older women at my site, and I’m not even the main type of game they play. Bejeweled, Zuma, etc – those super casual puzzle games. They’re changing the face of games, a huge crowd of middle-aged and older women are moving in, absolutely mesmerized by clicking on matching colors. I’m in the industry (the outer fringe of it…), and I see this going on. It’s like a seismic shift that started with us indies (independent developers, selling our own games direct to consumers), but the big boys are catching on now and buying everyone out, as they see the crazy success of Popcap and others. EA bought some casual house, Microsoft started one (or bought one?).
I don’t know where it’s going, but I think games may be getting more mainstream, more broad-based, and a lot less T&A&V. There will always be the set aimed at teenagers, but there’s a world more opening up.
My games seem to appeal almost equally to all people – I have a forum on my website where 8-11 year old boys are routinely having conversations with 50-70 year old women. It’s a little trippy. And it’s because my games are “family friendly”, and they aren’t overtly fantasy, or sci-fi, or some other niche appeal (and they don’t suck!). Well, I guess a couple are pretty fantasyesque, but they also mock all the fantasy conventions. They’re just dumb.
(sorry if that’s an ad… but not so sorry I don’t want you to buy my games! My customer base does seem to be inordinately Republican, I could use some fair balance! And an increase in my checkbook balance)
I will check out your site. I am pushing 40 and love video games. My current obsession is Civilization III. It’s a turn-based stratgey/war game, but more like Risk than a shooter game. I get a kick out of taking over the world!
I’ve also been known to spend time at Popcap and Pogo when I want to just play something mindless. You are right. I’ve learned to avoid talking too much because the base seems to be skewed towards Republicans. There are also quite a few older guys, but I do think more women, than men.
My daughter gets into it sometimes. But, I discourage her from chatting because she is young and there are some pretty scummy guys in cyberspace.
Ha! I’m visiting at my Mother’s house and she is talking to her sister on the phone right now, hooking her up with info on some online Mah Jong game or another. Popcap games too.
There’s your 70++ demographic in action!
If you have children, you can see clearly that the marketplace for toys as well as videogames has shifted heavily towards the G.I. Joe side of the spectrum in the last couple years. Very heavily.
I agree completely, Maryscott. There is much more damage done by games like “Rome: Total War” and “Battlefield: 1942” than by “Beach Spikers” or “BMX: XXX.”
We had an XBox and eventually sold it. A solid diet of first-person-shooters made me throw up. The Gamecube still has a more creative library, although you can find a lot of decidedly family-hostile games there too. But the impending domination of the industry, with the PC game market arguably drying up in favor of consoles, by Sony and Microsoft guarantees that non-violent, creative games will become rarer and rarer.
The abundance of killing games is similar the bumper crop of “action” (aka, “gun”) movies at the video store. I’ve played and watched them to excess, but increasingly find both genres to be somewhat depressing. I’m absolutly against banning, just a bit burned out.
If you want experience a game that is really different, try the PS2 game “Katamari Damacy”. It was a huge hit in Japan and has been very popular in the US as well. Basically, you wander around pushing a kind of sticky ball (katamari in Japanese) and rolling-up whatever items you encounter. As the ball gets bigger, you can roll-up increasingly larger items. It sounds strange but is insanely fun and addictive. There is a cute backstory regarding the “King of the Cosmos” and how he broke/lost* all of the stars in the sky. For each stage you roll the katamari into a suitable size that can be transformed into a star, and so you return the constellations. I think it was intended to be a kids game, but seems to have been hijacked by adults, who spend hours straight playing until they finish it and then make ringtones from the earworm-ready music in the more energetic final stages and then replay the stages trying to roll-up bigger katamaris and… What?
*Supposedly, in the original Japanese version the King went on a bender and lost the stars. In the English version he has an “accident” and breaks them.
I love SSX3 and Amped2 (both snowboarding games). I also like golf and soccer games for the most part. Racing games can be pretty good if they have dirt bikes-personal interest counts for a lot I think in gaming.
I’m not so much for shooters or hack and slash. Just not my style.
However, my brother, a medical doctor just loves them! I think it’s his release from stress. He thoroughly enjoys kicking my @$$ at a number of shooters when I visit him.
As always – you give me hope!
It’s difficult to describe, but it’s a non-violent, challenging, addictive game that I brought home for myself — and now I have to trade off time with my wife playing Katamari after the kids go to bed.
Aw, hell, I’ll take a shot at describing it: you roll a ball around a fantastic landscape, and when it touches an object smaller than about half the current size of the ball, the object sticks to the ball, making it larger. You start off with a very small ball, picking up (Japanese) household objects like push-pins and coins, and work your way up to cows, cars, and apparently, jet planes and the Eiffel Tower.
-AG