In 2004, Nintendo announced its new console, codenamed Nintendo Revolution. The Revolution was eventually renamed and released as the Wii in 2006 and proved to indeed be revolutionary. The early 2000s had been largely dominated by the Sony PlayStation 2, still the best-selling gaming console of all time. Microsoft followed up on its original XBOX console by releasing the XBOX 360 in 2005. While Sony and Microsoft marketed mainly to the “traditional” gamer, Nintendo’s goal was entice families and casual gamers with their new Wii console. To accomplish this goal, Nintendo took a huge risk and dedicated much of its resources to developing the WiiMote, the first console controller ever to have motion control technology. Nintendo’s big bet paid off; the Wii attracted its target audience and out-sold both the PS3 and the XBOX 360. Since then, Sony and Microsoft have released their own motion-control solutions, the Playstation Move and the XBOX Kinect. While Sony’s Playstation Move closely resembles the WiiMote, the Kinect is only a motion sensor that detects the player’s movements in real time. Since its release, not only has the Kinect sold more units than the Playstation Move, but the Kinect has also proven to be the best motion control solution available today.
The lack of a physical controller is actually the Kinect’s biggest strength. Using a sophisticated array of cameras and sensors, the Kinect captures the player’s skeletal movements at multiple points and translates these movements to actions in the video game. In Child of Eden, for example, the player uses both hands to attack enemies. The player can lock onto enemies by waving his or her right hand over the enemies. After the player has locked-on to an enemy or multiple enemies, the player can then fire missiles simultaneously at all of the targeted enemies by moving his or her right hand toward the screen. Additionally, the player can use a machine gun-type weapon by moving his or her left hand toward the screen. Lastly, if the player moves both arms above his or her head, the action triggers a massive explosion that destroys all on-screen enemies. Since the Kinect version of the game requires the player to use both arms, the game as described can only be played on the XBOX 360. The PlayStation Move version of Child of Eden is similar to the XBOX version, but is ultimately hampered by the Move controller. Unlike the Kinect which tracks all of the player’s body movements, the PS3 can only track the movement of the Move controller. Instead of using your left hand to fire the machine gun in Child of Eden, the player pushes one of the buttons on the Move controller and moves it toward the screen to perform the same action. Thus, the Move substantially detracts from the gameplay experience of Child of Eden because the player can’t use his or her entire upper body to play the game.
The Move controller is relatively awkward and difficult to use even with games that are specifically designed for the system. In Heavy Rain, the player moves the on-screen character with either the PS3’s Dualshock 3 controller or with the optional Move Navigation Controller (similar to the Nintendo Nunchuk accessory). The problem with Heavy Rain is that the player can’t easily use both the Move controller and the analog stick simultaneously. This means that the player has to perform a somewhat lengthy list of commands to do even the simplest of tasks in Heavy Rain. For example, the player must perform several steps in order to open a door in the game. The player has to use the analog stick to walk to the door, stop using the analog stick, correctly position the Move controller, and then carefully maneuver the Move controller in the appropriate direction. In the case of opening a door, the player has to point the Move controller’s light ball toward the screen and then move the controller away from the screen. This may not sound too cumbersome at first, but the truth is that it’s easy to make mistakes during any of these steps. If the character is not completely facing the door, then the player can’t open the door with the Move controller. Similarly, if the player doesn’t correctly position the Move controller or doesn’t pull the controller back far enough, then the character can’t open the door. If Heavy Rain was ported to the XBOX 360 for the Kinect hardware, the game would run much smoother. The only issue is that the game in its current form requires an analog stick. If the game allowed the player to use a traditional XBOX 360 controller, then he or she could move around with the controller’s analog stick and then perform the motion control actions with his or her right hand. In this setup, opening a door would be fairly simple. The player would use the analog stick to position the character next to the door and then use his or her hand to perform the relevant action. This would enhance Heavy Rain’s gameplay because allowing the player to use his or her hand would more natural and therefore simpler than using the Move controller stick.
The Wii may have introduced the world to motion control gaming, but ultimately the Kinect’s controller-free setup is the future of the platform. The Kinect brings players closer the game by almost removing the controller altogether and translating real life movements into the game itself. However, the WiiMote and the Move controller shouldn’t be completely ignored; both can provide unique gaming experiences (such as WiiSports and Datura for the PS3). Nevertheless, the ceiling for the Kinect is much higher because it can track many different points of movement compared to just one point of movement. As a matter of fact, some of the most highly-praised Kinect games are dance competition simulators such as Just Dance 3 that can track each player’s unique dance moves. The PS3 and Wii versions of Just Dance 3 are simply just not as accurate when it comes to tracking the player’s movements because both can only track one point of movement. Occasionally, the player may need to use controller-esque accessories in order to play certain games (like a gun controller or some sort of analog stick), but overall the motion control experience provided by the Kinect is still best on the market.
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Nikhil Bontha
In his 1938 book Homo Ludens, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga coined the term “magic circle” to make the argument that there is a boundary between the world of a game and the outside world. Huizinga’s theory, therefore, suggests that events in any game do not affect real world experiences and vice versa. Of course, Huizinga lived in a much different era of gaming. Since his book was published, video games have been invented and the video game industry has grown into a global and multi-billion dollar industry. Since the rise of the rise of the video game era, scholars and writers that study the industry have raised the question of whether or not Huizinga’s concept of a “magic circle” applies to video games. A host of video game writers have attempted to discredit and disprove the magic circle theory and its application to video games. These scholars primarily argue that the boundary between the video game world and the outside world is blurred because video games are interactive forms of entertainment, not passive ones. Thus, video games are not confined to magic circles because the player actively controls the events and actions in a video game. And, furthermore, video games can serve as simulations for real world activities. For example, a flight simulator is functionally a video game for flying airplanes and it actually prepares pilots for real-world flights and missions.
Writer Eric Zimmerman agrees with these arguments and says that “games are a context from which meaning can emerge.” In addition to the flight simulator example, the critically-acclaimed and best-selling EA Sports series FIFA is a video game that has changed the meaning of soccer, or “football” for millions of the game’s players. For example, before its release, millions of Americans only knew the sport of “world football” as “soccer” because of the popularity of American football in the United States. Before FIFA hit the American market, soccer was not only unpopular in the U.S., but some important figures actually resented the very existence of the sport. Even in 1994 when the U.S. was selected to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup tournament, an event that was expected to generate millions of dollars in profit, former U.S. House of Representative Jack Kemp from New York said that “[American] football is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport.” (BusinessWeek). Of course, not everyone shares or shared this belief, but most Americans certainly had very little interest in soccer at the time. Even though soccer was founded before American football, baseball, and basketball, the United States did not have an extensive, big-money professional soccer league until Major League Soccer was founded in 1993. And, even today, Major League Soccer is still not nearly as big or as a profitable as the National Football League, Major League Baseball, or the National Basketball Association. Additionally, high school and college athletics programs across the country produce only a handful of professional soccer players each year.
However, the trend in America has been changing. In his recent study, social scientist Rich Luker said that soccer is now America’s second most popular sport for people aged 18-24. Luker says that not only are more young people playing soccer and participating in both formal and informal leagues, but they are also starting to watch live and broadcasted professional soccer games at a much higher level than ever before. The availability of high-quality content for both domestic and foreign leagues has improved substantially over recent years due to the advent of new Internet and cable services. For example, big media networks such as ESPN and FOX Sports now devote more air time to professional soccer games and soccer news. Twenty or so years ago, these channels would maybe set aside a minute for coverage of foreign soccer leagues. Now, thirty minute episodes of soccer-specific shows regularly air on these channels. These shows cover the MLS as well as the English and Spanish leagues.
In addition to increased coverage of the sport, Luker also notes that he was surprised by FIFA’s impact on the rise of soccer in the United States. He says that “for the longest time, [he] believed that video games and fandom of sport were not connected…but games like FIFA have done more to advance the popularity of soccer than [he has] seen with any other sport” (ESPN FC). However, video games should not be thought of as a minor factor for the rise of soccer’s popularity in the U.S. A video game analyst even examined Luker’s findings and said, that according to his own research, “the American audience enjoys interacting with our game more than watching soccer passively on television” (ESPN FC).
In the video game, the player controls a professional soccer team during a simulated game against another professional soccer team. The game has a selection of hundreds of teams from over thirty different countries. Each player on a team is modeled to physically resemble his real-life counterpart. Furthermore, each player in the game is assigned a numerical rating from 1 to 100 (1 being the worst rating, 100 being the best) that is determined by evaluating the player’s real-life strengths and weaknesses on a football field. An overall rating for each team is also calculated by averaging the individual player rating. The game also, more or less, knows all of the teams’ strategies. The result is that each team has its own unique characteristics depending on the combination of its players and tactics. Thus, each game is always different because no two teams are the same. The game is also just as difficult as the real sport, so it is not uncommon for games to end in a low score or even a 0-0 draw (yes, that can happen in soccer).
Since the game is an incredibly accurate simulation of a professional soccer match, FIFA really can break down the boundary between the game world and the outside world. More specifically, the video game has the ability to break down the stereotypes Americans have about soccer in general. For years, Americans have thought that soccer players are weak and therefore not as athletic as a football or basketball players. Jamie McKinlay, an avid FIFA player, says that the game “destroys everything an average American has been taught to feel about soccer” and “it made [him] realize the power of netting a single goal, which feels like scoring 12 touchdowns simultaneously” (ESPN FC). While more access to content may be a big reason why Americans are getting interested in the sport, the impact of video games cannot and should not be understated. FIFA has given gamers the ability to learn about the ins-and-outs of soccer and bring their own strategies to the sport in a way that has never been possible before. The next time a FIFA player sees a goal scored in real life, he or she will know how much effort and skill went into making that goal happen.
Back in March I went to the Emory’s showing of The Vagina Monologues. I ended up going on my own as opposed to with a group of friends and I sort of felt like it would have been better if I had been able to share my excitement and joy with my friends throughout the show. However, I still had a great time and all the acts were great. I particularly enjoyed the act entitled “My Angry Vagina”. This act made me think about how much women go through to almost eliminate the existence of their vaginas. I remember one of the performers saying that she didn’t like tampons because it was literally shoving dry cotton up her vagina and that a little lube would be nice. At first it was awkward being there and listening to all this especially since I ended up sitting next to a man and his daughter. I wasn’t particularly uncomfortable sitting there, but the man seemed uncomfortable which in the end made me uncomfortable. However, toward the end of the show he seemed a little more open and less intimidated by the acts. Toward the end there was an act entitled “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” which had me on my neck the entire time! It was about a woman who literally liked to make vaginas happy. However, during part of the skit she was re-enacting different types of moans people have and by this point the entire audience was laughing and having a good time. I really enjoyed the show and cannot wait to see what they will have in store for next year. I recommend that everyone get a chance to at least go once before graduating from Emory.
When it comes to immigration and the idea that coming to the US is going to bring forth many opportunities, Latinas get the short end of the stick. I came across a blog (link below) that talked about the DREAM Act and how it would particularly help undocumented immigrant women and girls. For the most part undocumented immigrant women in the US have low paying jobs such as housekeepers, nannies, farm or sweatshop workers where their potential to get an education is shot down. What’s even worse is that these jobs do not guarantee that their wages will be fair, that they’ll have health care or a retirement plan, and most of these jobs also put in jeopardy their health and safety. “History has shown that improving educational opportunities for girls improves the quality of life of the entire family, especially for the children. Conversely, limiting the prospects for immigrant girls increases the likelihood that they will drop out of school, experience unintended pregnancy as teenagers, or struggle to financially support their children.” So although Latinas may be able to come to the US they don’t really reap the benefits as a Latino would.
The content of the blog post I read reminded me of a film called “Maria Full of Grace” which is about a Colombian woman who gets a job offer in the US which she readily takes in order to help her family. However, she was not aware that the job entailed being a mule to transport drugs. Although this is probably not as common now as it used to be, there are still women in developing countries that have to sacrifice their health in order to support both themselves and their families. They travel most of the time illegally into the country in the hopes of having more opportunities for work than in their homeland but in the end it’s either the same or even worse than the conditions they used to live and work in.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/09/10/young-immigrant-women-have-a-dream/
The film “Illegal Tender” starring Rick Gonzalez (Wilson Jr.), Wanda De Jesus (Millie), and Dania Ramirez (Ana) is about a woman planning to get out of the ghetto with her drug dealing husband and unborn child in order to lead a better life. One night before her husband goes off to make a business transaction she tells him that she has put all the money he has made into a stock, so that they can actually use it and not be carrying around “illegal tender”. That same night her child is born and her husband is killed. She was devastated, but in the end she moved out of the ghetto in order to raise her son well.
This film is relevant to my topic because Millie is not the typical Latina woman. From the very beginning of the film she is smart and makes a great legal business deal in the hopes of getting her husband out of the drug dealing business. She is not submissive and does not hold her tongue. After the death of her husband she protects Wilson Jr. from the past. She does not want him to live the same life so she shelters him in a way. This in the end causes a reversal of roles between mother and son. She takes on the role of protector and guardian while Wilson Jr. takes on the role of a weak and helpless individual.
One day Millie is at the grocery store with her youngest son and she is spotted by one of the goons that were present during the murder of her husband. From this point on she becomes the protector and keeper of her children. She has hidden certain facts about her life from Wilson Jr. and in the end made him somewhat incompetent. Millie suggests that they move away immediately and Wilson Jr. decides he doesn’t want to move anymore and wants to instead stay at home with his girlfriend. However, that same night, some goons come to the house and he is unable to defend himself or his girlfriend. Since his mother never told him about the past he did not know how to use a gun and even more so did not have the balls to shoot someone. In contrast his mother is more than capable of shooting not just one person but anyone who comes between her and the safety of her children.
The differences in the roles that Millie and Wilson Jr. play are contradictory to the Latino household norms. Millie has become the father figure for both her children and is able to handle and protect them accordingly. She knows how to shoot a gun and she knows how to be aggressive and straightforward when necessary. Even when some goons caught up to her and her son she was able to handle all the talking and made a deal to protect the both of them. Meanwhile, Wilson Jr. just stood behind his mother and let her handle everything. It is rare to see this kind of behavior from Latino families in real life. Usually the mothers, even if they are single mothers, do not take on masculine characteristics. They remain submissive, obedient, and domestic as opposed to the qualities Millie holds which include aggressiveness, knowledge of weapon use, physical dominance, and stubbornness. Millie is an example of an exaggerated attempt at equality between Latinos and Latinas. Latinas should not have to feel like they need to become more aggressive and like a man. They should instead attempt to be treated equally in their relationships both romantic and familial.
While doing some research on machismo I came across an article that talked about machismo and how it contradicts the Christian norms for men within the family. The idea of machismo is exaggerated masculine pride, and a machista is a man who holds several characteristics of machismo. A typical machista can be “cocky, masculine, tough, sexist, and self-important”. Machismo is very dominant in Latino culture, which is ironic because most Latinos are Christian and the characteristics of a machista go against what the Bible teaches.
In this article, newly ordained pastor Gladys Mejias-Ashmore at Vino Nuevo Church focuses on teaching about family and parenting and the dangers of machismo within the family. When she lived in Honduras she was not really taught about the dangers of machismo and she thought that Christians allowed men to do whatever they wanted including having extramarital relationships. However, upon being “born again” and studying passages in the Bible on marriage she was able to confront her first husband about his drinking and adultery. I find this empowering in her position because Latinas don’t usually confront their husbands about issues in their marriage. This comes from the Latin American religious idea of Marianismo, the cult of the Virgin Mary. Marianismo is characterized in two ways. In one, “the Virgin Mary is the image or symbol for resignation, for acceptance of your lot, and the victim”. In the second way, the Virgin Mary “can be a symbol of strength for women during crisis”.
Latino families can be very religious but it is also very common for families to attend church every week, and not really listen to what is being preached. If men studied the Bible more with their wives and learned about the equality needed in a marriage there wouldn’t be an issue of machismo and marianismo. There would only be familismo, which puts an emphasis on family and community for past and future generations. The idea of childbearing and family obligation would help Latino families to take care of one another and fully have everyone benefit from the relationships within the family instead of one sex gaining everything. However, this brings up another issue of, does the wife really want to have children or is this something that the family alone wants for her? In the end the family decisions should be made in unison so that no one’s needs and wants are left out.
Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-09-24-hispanic-machismo-church_N.htm
Soul food is a movie that depicts the life of a family that is female headed. The mother, big mama, is the head of the family and makes sure the family is together. She is the matriarch of the family and is the dominate force that makes the decisions that appear to keep the family entack. Within the movie the family deals with issues that are common to families, health issues, financial responsibilities, and issues with the men of the family. Most of the men within this family, even those who have married into the family are opposing the patriarchy that their society is in. The men take on more childlike positions wihtin the family. The men work but look to their female spouses to determine what they should do and how they should react.
For example in the beginning of the movie when big mamas youngest daughter gets married big mam has to intervene when the bride and the groom are cornered by their exes. She takes on the masculine role and makes sure that the problems are stopped and the tension is alleviated. But, the movie still adheres to the patriarchy because men are who the story circles around.
Big mamas husband, although deceased, still plays a viital role in the film. his hard work as well as his poor decisions are brought forth as a means of teaching life lessons. Also, the men are given their own identites within the story. there are two successful men and one unsuccessful man that is trying hard. the story isn’t male dominated but it is male centered. The story even has a side story that shows that big mamas brother pulls the family together. also, the grandson of big mama plays a large role in making sure the family sticks together.
Waiting to exhale is a movie that is filled with the patriarchy we have discussed in class. Throughout this film women are manipulated by men and are constantly relying on men for the betterment of their lives. The women: savannah, bernadine, gloria and Robin, are all women who allow men to dominate thier lives. these women are from all walks of life; from younger mother to older mother and even business women. these women are the ideal women who should have power and lead happy lives but this is far from the truth. These women are examples of Allen Johnson’s definition of how women are only small details in the complexity of patriarchy. These women have the power but lack the autonomy from theri male counterparts to be happy and successful women.
For example when bernadine finds out that her husband is divorcing her for another women , she soon reflects on all that she has sacrificed for his happiness. She is a women who had a business degree but accepted a lower level postion in order to her husband acquire his power and assert himself wihtin his new field. She allowed her husband to be the dominate male. he was the provider and he had the power to make the decisions involving not only his business but also the family matters.
Berndines story was the story that stuck out most to me because she was a women who was educated but put all her faith in her husband. She did not use her educate as a means of bettering her placement in society but instead used her knowledge to advance her man. She was a women who embodied the gender roles of the time. She was a devoted wife and mother. She supported her husband in all his endeavors and went so far as to put her dreams on hold for the success of her family. She was a character that i feel came to the best conclusion.
Although, she was divorced she came away with just as much as she put in.This i believe can be used as a means of empowering women that although they are housewives, they are still working and contributing to society. overall, this movie is a classic example of how women may improve themselves but still fall into their gender norms in their lives.
Two weeks ago, I went to a event hosted by professor Kimberley Wallace-Sanders and 4 of her graduate students in the Institute of Liberal Arts. Her students were presenting their final research papers and a few other undergraduates also attended the event. The papers discussed important issues such as Brown vs Board of Education, the new Iranian revolution, and the hoodies and hijabs movement. Unfortunately, I got to the event a little late and missed the presentations, but I participated in the Q&A session for the last hour of the event. Here are the three most interesting things we discussed:
1) One woman wrote a paper that critiqued the hoodies and hijabs movement. This movement started because of two separate events. Some women started wearing hijabs as an act of solidarity for an Iraqi woman after she was brutally beaten in her California home. The perpetrator left a note that said “go back to your own country.” People also started wearing hoodies as an act of solidarity for Trayvon Martin, the boy who was killed in a neighborhood watchman for acting “suspicious.” Many people suspect that he was killed because he was black. The woman who wrote the paper said that these movements aren’t genuine because the people who wear the hoodie or the hijab don’t really understand the struggles of these two individuals or their families. In other words, no one can really sympathize with the families of Trayvon or Shaima (the Iraqi woman) because most people haven’t had the same experiences. The paper says that awareness may be important, but also says that if these people really cared, they would push for greater legal protections and actively try to prevent these acts of violence.
2) The second woman that presented talked about social media in Iran. Last year, the American media labelled the protests in Iran as the “Twitter Revolution” because it appeared as if many Iranian people were using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to spread their anti-government messages. However, according to her research paper, this is not true and Iranians did not actually use these Western sites. Instead, most Iranians used other, non-American sites such as Orkit to spread their messages. Facebook and Twitter made up less than 0.1% of the communications sent. Most of the Facebook and Twitter traffic was from the Iranian diaspora based in the US, not from the people who actually live in Iran. Her argument is that Americans want to promote their own technologies to make it seem like we somehow contributed to the spread of democracy in other countries. She says that these people do not look to the US as a model of democracy but instead have their own visions for what their country should look like.
3) The paper I found most interesting was a paper that analyzed de-segregation in public schools. This woman’s paper argues that during Brown vs Board of Education, the defense lawyers chose Linda Brown as the plaintiff because she looked the most “American.” There were other possible plaintiffs for the case, but Linda Brown was picked because she looked the most “American.” She was dressed up to have pigtails and had the fairest skin color out of the other plaintiffs. The paper argues that looking the most “American” would make the issue of desegregation less threatening. Additionally, the paper says that no boys were chosen because they could have been seen as a threat to white womanhood. The issue of inter-racial marriage was very contentious, and according to the paper, the lawyers didn’t choose a boy for that reason. Not only did I not know the reason why they chose Linda Brown for the case, but I never considered how gender played a role in selecting a plaintiff.
A few weeks ago, I attended an event hosted by the Italian department. Two women, Rosetta D’Angelo and Barbara Zaczek, from Clemson university talked about their new book called “Resisting Bodies, Narratives of the Italian Partisan Women.” During WWII, there was a movement called the Partisan Resistance that fought against the rise of fascism in Italy. The book chronicles the contributions of several important women during the movement. Below is a picture of the two authors.
The authors of the book said that they wrote the book primarily because many people, including many Italians, didn’t know that women played a significant role during the movement. The two authors spent many months in Italy researching the contributions made by women during the resistance movement. They had a difficult time finding hard evidence for their book. They cited a few reasons for their difficulty. First, they said that the Italian archives were incredibly disorganized and bureaucratic red tape prevented them from getting access to many documents. Additionally, they had difficulty in tracking down many of the women for interviews. For example, one of the most involved women during the resistance is thought to be alive but the Italian government has been unable to locate her and its records haven’t been updated for years.
Picture of the Italian resistance flag.
The third and most important reason the authors had difficulty when writing the book is that the post-resistance Italian government failed to recognize the contributions of women during the movement. The authors said that as many as 35 thousand women participated in the partisan resistance, but only 16 women won awards for their service. The proportion of men that won awards for similar contributions was significantly higher. Many women risked their lives during the movement by taking up arms and supporting the resistance in several different ways, yet only 16 women were recognized for their contributions. Furthermore, after the war and the fall of Italian fascism, women weren’t allowed to participate in post-war parades. The omission of women’s contributions during the resistance reminded me of our discussion of the word “HIStory” at the beginning of the semester. According to Allan Johnson, our society is patriarchy in that it is “male-centered, male-dominated, and male-identified.” The women in the partisan resistance movement were basically written out of the history books. The contributions of men during the movement were emphasized, yet theseof women were ignored because only men are expected to fight and resist. Women were only expected to assume domestic roles and passively go along with the change. However, this new book has brought attention to the issue and tells the story of the resistance movement in a more balanced and fair manner.
Picture of women in the resistance movement.
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