Girls like games

Hi everyone:
Tuesday lecture on games and gender raise the question, once again, of who gamers are?. Well, what I know so far about gamer is that they are geeks, white skin and they are MEN. That is rigth, real games, that is to say hardcore ones are for guys and girls just dont enjoy them. Half of the women that perhaps enjoy playing games will look rather like guys with wigs and the other there are also will be highly sexualized object of desire. Unfortunatly today these two are the only profile available for women in video games , they are far away from reality but they are, with few exception, the only ones availables.

The MEDIA, of course, has to do with this steriotypes, perhaps not creating them but rather reinforce them in people minds. My example comes from my favorite show, The big ban theory. Penny lives across the hall of these two geeks, Leonard and Sheldon, whom not surprily play videogames all the time and whom introduce Penny to online gaming (AGES OF CONNAN) What caught up my attention in this episode, is how the show supports the male-geek gamer conception and convert the beautiful Penny into an ugly looking female player.

This videoclip also illustrate the other steriotype of women within the contex of videogames, the idealized and sexy women to be looked at. At the end of the videoclip there is a shot of Penny avatar, called Queen Penelope a middle earth blond amazon who is far way better looking than reality. This part also reminds me of Do you wanna date my avatar?, a videoclip that Mark showed us onfriday tutorial. Despite of the lyrcs I think that the visual concept of the videoclip pretty much support the second steriotype of women in videogames, the object of desire. That rigth , women are to be look at and videogames are just providing a different scenario to do so and the videoclip also shows this point of view. Although, this pattern is changing and there are few non- sexual idealized game characters outthere, they are not the majority becuase it is not profitable. Video games are not exclude of gender divisio,however, lets not forget that they are as any other type of media just reflecting and reinforcing ideas and concepts that already existe in society. There is a long way to go before we see those missconceptions disappear from people minds