Monday, February 28, 2011

Games and Soapies



In the wake of the so called “Gamer Revolution” questions are raised of who the participants of the revolution are. Is the revolution gendered? Games are considered to be in the masculine space and are hence marketed and constructed as such. What is interesting is that the gaming realm is reified in the domestic space which is considered to be the feminine space “Technological autonomy meets the domestication and appropriation of it” (Thornham, 128: 2008).

The question of audience and the gaze play a central role in the formation social activities such as gaming and the viewing of soap operas. Gone are the days of the hypodermic needle notion of media reception and consumption. Often women are discussed and grouped as one monolithic subculture ignoring the issues such as race and class “Women cannot be considered as a homogenous category” (Ang, 115: 2006). “The basic assumption of women as objectifiable, somehow a unified whole, a group” (Ang, 117: 2006).

Both the gaming world and the world of soap operas belong to the realm of entertainment and are gendered that is targeted at the two different genders. The industry depends on this codifying of genders in order to ascribe to its target audience what and how to consume. It relies on the already existing gender stereotypes and reinforces them through their products.

The category of women and consequently genders is restrictive in norms and roles that the categorization prescribes or dictates. The narrow space is negotiated through interactions between the genders and the products. Soap Operas and yet many of the plots are centered on a relationship theme meaning that the main protagonists are both male and female. However, men will deny being part of the audience of something considered to be so girly when they in fact are represented in the Soap Opera. The same complexity that exists within the categorization of a gender I terms of class, colour etc. is also present in the industry that targets the sexes. Often gaming companies have women at the helm of game design and programming “’Women’ is a volatile collection in which female persons can be very differently positioned, so that the apparent continuity of the subject of ‘women’ isn’t to be relied on” (Ang, 118: 2006). Said games have both male and female representatives meaning both sexes can inclusively participate.

The sexes are set up in opposition to each other instead being complimentary however, in the interaction with gendered goods and spaces the members of both sexes work around the dictation of interaction by their performance. In relation to either the games or the Soap Operas they challenge the prescription of relations and interaction through their performance for example girls playing video games. In the end performance which is the monitoring variable for the conspicuous panopticon of gender becomes the tool used to subvert gender ‘norms’. The subversion does not change the gender of the performer it merely changes the perception of interaction and of gender roles. Additionally the subversion also changes the changes the discourse of the activities that attempt to maintain and feed into the gender stereotypes in theory. “I didn’t bother to improve as a gamer because that was my role” (Thornham, 133: 2008) indicates that theory of subversion is null and void when by such statements because they illustrate that gender continues to be defined by already existing notions of stereotyping and disingenuous performance than reinforce the status quo. Activities and interactions become cultural markers for what is considered to belong to a specific gender defined by de Lauretis as technologies of gender for example watching Soap Operas is for women and computer games are for boys “Gender performance is figured along other social power dynamics” (Thornham, 133: 2008). Continuing along the same lines, computer gaming needs to exist within a socially accepted context because despite the ability to perform the gendered activity, doing so out of context also incurs negative consequences. Men who play games on their own or do so too often are considered to be geeks and perverts. In some instances men above a certain age who play games are given the same social status.

The relationships between genders that exist are about interest groups and the maintenance of a particular status quo in order to enable the proliferation of certain privileges referred to by Henriques as investments. “Investments suggest that people have an often unconscious stake in identifying with certain gender positions” (Ang, 120: 2006) the quote clearly explains how identification and classification of genders carry consequences on social relations. The identification with a gender can be empowering in one context and disempowering in another, which speaks to the multi faceted nature of gender construction and performance. Gender is not a static construction and is fluid depending on the context and the social immersion of the performer. To consider it as fixed essentially traps the performer in one role no matter what context they operate in which limits life opportunities and experiences. Therefore the function of gender performance can be limiting or enhancing and is linked to identity formation performance. This is contradictory because the whole argument in gender theory and global documents such the UN Declaration of Human Rights is that the identity of a person is not founded on social constructs such as gender, race or class. Hence no should be treated in a particular way either preferentially or discriminatorily based on any of the a fore mentioned categories. The argument is then that the only relevant category should be that of humanity and categories arise out of the desire for attaining social power in the present day through the creation of consumerist societies. The fact that gender has become a social norm and a value is perhaps the greatest deception of the drivers of production and consumerism. C. S Lewis is quoted as saying “The devil’s greatest accomplishment is convincing people that he does not exist” similarly the unconscious internalization of gender is a fallacy.