This week in class, we discussed the effects that video games have on youth along with the effects of media. This week, I actually learned a lot from the student presentations and gained a new perspective on the topics that were being discussed. I especially enjoyed the ones about video games. I am not a big video game player. I actually don’t play any at all. However, it was so cool listening to students who were gamers share some of the problems they have noticed in video games relating to race and gender.
When I was younger, I use to play video games with my brother. One of my favorite games was SuperSmash Brothers, Mario Kart and Super Mario Brothers. Each time I played these games, we had to choose a character, and each time I chose Daisy or Peach. However, I never noticed how much of a “damsel in distress” female characters they were that needed saving from men. I just loved that they were girls and wore dresses, so I always picked them. After listening to the presentation given about the lack of or misrepresentation of females in video games, I realized how skewed the representation of females is in games.
In Super Mario Bros, the famous female character Peach is seen as a damsel in distress who is always rescued my Mario. This gives both males and females playing video games a limited view of females and associates the role of a female as someone who always needs to be rescued or is not strong or smart enough to pull herself out of trouble.
Another way that females are misrepresented is through a focus on their body parts. For example, the infamous Lara Croft from Tomb Raider is known for her huge boobs and sexy body. It is not bad that they made a sexy character with big boobs, however, it is wrong that she is only or mostly known for this. She is not known for her other amazing traits like being smart enough to solve puzzles and strong enough to fight whoever gets in her way. Her heroism is only associated with her body and that’s a problem.
Along with gender, there is a misrepresentation, or better yet lack of representation of colored people in video games. The most popular games involve white male characters as the heroes and this is a problem because these are the games most kids are playing. It is not good that African American, Native American, Hispanic, Asian or other groups of minorities are not seeing themselves in these games, and when they are they are seeing themselves as the bad guys.
I am grateful to have been able to sit in on this presentation, because I am not a gamer and was really not aware of this problem. This really made me think of the future and how I would like my children to interact with video games. I honestly don’t know if I want my children to play these types of games at all. They are filled with violence, some with inappropriate language and misrepresentations of people they will interact with in real life. I just don’t see the benefit of playing these types of games, so I don’t think they will be playing at all.
Along with the misrepresentations of people in games, I realized how dangerous video games can become to children. I did not know they could be so addicting. It’s scary to know that more and more kids are spending more time playing video games and can possibly die if it is taken to an extreme. This is scary to know and is something I will definitely remember for the future when deciding how my children will interact with games.
As always, I learn a lot from this class and I really value all that it has taught me, and I appreciate that I will actually use what I have learned in real life on a daily basis. I am grateful to become educated on so many different topics and learn media literacy at the same time.
