Digiraces: Menu Choices

(PBS, 2010)

    Race: the power of illusion (PBS, 2010) site has not moved past the "menu driven" (Nakamura, 2002) concept of race when identifying the people in the game where you separate them into categories you can only choose one category to put them in because that is the category they identified with. This leads me to believe that when they were asked to identify their race they were given a menu driven concept for identifying there race in the beginning. This could lead to incorrect identification in the game because several of those people do appear to be of mixed race. Many people I know are mixed and if a form asked for them to identify their race and the do not allow them to choose more than one answer they do not answer it at all. The other problem that I have witnessed in regards to identifying race more so in interview than in self-report people will ask what are you most of, which discounts the other part of you and if your half and half you just have to choose a race. One section I noticed on the Race: the power of illusion website that they went away from the "menu driven" (Nakamura, 2002) concept of race when they showed the map of the world and differences between the features of the people in different countries on a continuum rather than a menu style where there is no gray area (PBS, 2010) .



Nakamura, Initials. (2002). Cybertypes: race, ethnicity, and identity on the internet. New York:

    Routledge.

PBS, . (2010). Race-the power of an illusion. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

DigiRaces

(Free online games, 210)

    Cybertyping is the same as stereotyping but on a cyber-level. Cybertyping describes how cyber culture is promoting stereotypes more so than helping to break them (Nakamura, 2002). Identity tourism often times promotes Cybertyping. Identity tourism is when someone uses a cyber-identity to explore a different culture, race, or part of the universe (Nakamura, 2000). The problem with identity tourism is people do not research the race or cultural they are trying to portray. This results in inaccurate pretrial of that race and generally people fall back on the stereotypes. People tend to represent themselves as stereotypical caricatures of the race or culture being portrayed. For example in the game street Fighter 2 an Asian female with black hair, straight cut bangs, with her hair in a bun, and chopsticks holding it in place, while wearing a kimono. In reality most people in Asia do not walk around wearing this in everyday life just like the stereotype that all Asians know karate which also is not true. The game Street Fighter 2 demonstrates several types of identity tourism. The first type is gender exploration you can choose what gender of character you would like your fighter to be. The second form of identity tourism that the player can choose the persons race. The race you choose in this game can also dictate the way your character looks so the race you choose is coupled with the attire the character will be wearing. This limits that amount of choice available to the player to control the amount of identity tourism. The third factor of identity tourism is that as you fight other players the setting changes to different locations around the world. So although people do not mean to promote stereotypes they do often times without even realizing it. Just by doing the simple act of choosing of an avatar to represent them in a game they promote these cybertypes.

References:

Free online games, . (Photographer). (2010). Street fighter 2. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/central/

Nakamura, L. (2000). Race in/ for cyberspace. London, England and New York, New York: Routledge.   

Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes: race, ethnicity, and identity on the internet. New York: Routledge.


 

Mario the Princess and Luigi

Mario Characters

("Super-mario-bros-2-usa-characters.jpg‎," 2009)

    I am going from memory here my computer was blocking me from playing. The princess of course represents the stereo typical needy female that can't do anything for herself she has to be rescued and led to safety. She has a pink dress on with a crown, pink pumps, and jewelry this is totally inappropriate dress if you are being held captive and are trying to escape. In real life even if that is the outfit someone was wearing when they were captured they would figure out a way to tear of the bottom of the dress to make it more manageable and they would have probably used of the torn of skirt to tie back their hair, broke the heels of the shoes, and defiantly ditched the tiara and jewelry or at the very least stashed it somewhere where they could find it later. So not only is the princess helpless and weak she seems pretty stupid too I don't think you can get any more stereotypical than that. On the other hand Mario is your stereotypical Jersey Shore Italian meat head he has a stockier build and seems to take the lead on getting the girl. He fights the King and takes the girl with him. Mario always seems to be leading the way. On the other hand Luigi is the classic side kick role he needs to be friends with the meat head for protection and so maybe he will get a girl by association. He is tall and gangly kind of like the awkward kid on the playground kids use to bully. He tends to be the follower and is softer he doesn't get the blue overalls with red shirt he gets the second best color green shirt with the blue overalls. Toad is the brains of the group he is the one that does all the work and Mario gets the credit for.

    I think this game has limited gender subject configurations the only one that I believe may relate is the positive role model (Schleiner, 2001) for the time the game came out. The princess may have represented how parents wanted their daughters to be prim and proper really girly. I definitely don't believe that she represents the Frankenstein monster, a drag queen, or a dominatrix, or a queer female gaze. (Schleiner, 2001)

References:

Schleiner, A. M. (2001). Does lara croft wear fake polygons. Leonardo, 34(3), Retrieved from    http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576939


Super-mario-bros-2-usa-characters.jpg‎. (2009). [Web]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Super-mario-bros-2-usa-characters.jpg    

Virtual Courage

                                     ("Which is avatar and which is actor")

I think Avatar does a good job representing gender roles. They have strong male roles as well as strong female roles at times they show both the females and the males having stereotypical emotional outburst. I do not think that showing those are good or bad I think they are stereotypes for a reason because they hold some truths. However the sex roles seems to be blurred for example Dr. Augustine's character has a lot "masculine" characteristics she sits with her legs open, slouching, demanding her cigarette. Her actions are not those you would equate to being lady like. In contrast to her Dr. Dileep Rao is softer, gentler person, he seems to be patient and takes into account the feelings of the people he is talking to he is not aggressive and in your face not even when he was helping them escape. So no I do not believe Avatar dichotomizes gender roles or sexes at least not stereotypical sense. Avatar definitely supports Stone's idea of "cyborg envy ("Sociology Environment of Cyberspace")" The perfect example of this is when Jake first gets into the avatar and is supposed to be getting tested by the Scientist but instead he gets up and starts walking around and ultimately ends up running outside(James). For him to go from being wheelchair bound to be able to move and run around even if it is through the use of an avatar feels good to him to the point that in the end he decides to stay that way preeminently. The payoff for cyborg envy is that people get to experience something different than they would in their normal everyday life whether it is a different world, meeting new people, or running instead of having liquid courage they have virtual courage.

Works Cited

James, Cameron, Dir. Avatar. Twentieth Century Fox: 2009, Film.

"Sociology 304." Sociology Environment of Cyberspace. Sociology 304,Winter, 1999, 01Apr1999. Web. 1 Oct 2010. <http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/m3099.htm>.

"Which is avatar and which is actor." SciFi Pulse.Net. Web. 1 Oct 2010. <http://scifipulse.net/?p=18564>.