Sunday, February 21, 2016

Jenny Tate


 It is always interesting looking at gender roles while playing video games. Growing up I was always exposed to Super Mario- more importantly I always played as Princess Peach. With Princess Peach you see the 'real' girl in her-pink dress, jewelry, hair done-and the only way to rescue her is if a man came to her rescue-or her prince charming. For this blog, I took a different approach and uploaded a picture of Jenny Tate a character from the video game Primal. This goes against our culture where you do not see the save the princess- you see the princess saving the male. My fiancé told me about this game, I personally have never played it. Jenny is a waitress at a coffee shop and her boyfriend is a lead singer in a rock band. Sounds pretty accurate with gender roles, right? Later in the game Jenny and her boyfriend are attacked by demons. Guess who gets taken by the demons? If you said Jenny you're wrong. Her boyfriend gets taken by the demons and it is Jenny's role to rescue him. I chose this because it is out of your everyday norm. In every case the man is always categorized as the "stronger" person but this case shows you different. For once the female is rescuing the male. Although this game was released in 2003, it goes to show you how far women are coming in the world. Every woman is growing into their strong, independent self they wish to become. The stereotype of man vs. female is reversed in this video game-it is out of your everyday norm; showing women that there is a chance for them in the world. You can do anything you put your mind to, male or female. Jenny did not give up-she knew her role was to rescue her boyfriend and she did everything to make that happen.
Will we see more videogames in the future like this? Does anyone see anything problematic about this? Am I being too biased because I am female?

Bethany G

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