BLOG 5

I am choosing Henry Jenkins strategy on my paper about Mario Kart, the video game.  He is an expertise in gender and video game culture.  Many believe that children should not be allowed to sit in front of a TV or computer and play video games for any extended period of time, that children should be outside playing whenever time allows.  This may have been true years ago, but we live in a different time now and things have definitely changed over the years.  It is not as easy to just let your child run the streets as they use to. I think that Jenkins says it best when describing the changes in our society.  He explains how many kids do not have a backyard to play in, many children grow up in big cities living in high rises, they can not just walk out their back doors and play in a luscious back yard.  The use of playing video games gives them the opportunity to experience situations that they may not have been able to otherwise. The can play soccer, football, find prince charming or even chase villains.  He also talks about boy space and girl space.  One can easily argue that the more violent games would be geared to the boys and the more brightly colored less violent would be for the girls.  The games that are more of a fairy tale like story would be categorized a girl space, while a game involving racing may be considered boy space.  The game I have chosen is Mario Kart.  I believe that this game is appealing to both boys and girls of any age.  It has both racing and fantasy.  With that said I would right my paper on the claim that Mario Kart is a game geared towards both male and female genders.

Video Game

Blog Post #4

            I have chosen the game Mario Kart for our Applying a Critical Eye to the Web paper.  I chose this game for different reasons.  I think that this game is great for all ages, everyone in my house plays it and the age gap is 5 years old to 44 years old, and know I am not on the highest end of that gap. I also think it shows that the game is for both the boy gamer and the girl gamer.  There is a variety of boy, girl and even animal characters to choose from. With this game you can pick a character and race in many different environments, there is the Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Shell Cup or even the Banana Cup.  Each race provides it own excitement and entertainment. You can choose from a variety of characters whether it be Mario himself, the blond Peach, the villain Waluigi or even Bowser, these are just a few of the fun characters you will endure while playing Mario Kart.  Each character brings something to the race, they all have there own strengths and powers, which you are able to see on their profiles.  Throughout the race you can acquire extras to help you beat your opponents.  They can be knocked out by shells or even spun out by bananas.  Depending on what system you play this game on you can even use a steering wheel to give the illusion of actually steering a car. This game is very colorful and definitely gives an unrealistic cartoon feeling. I think the claims to use here is that the game is for both boys and girls of all ages and that the game is not to be taken seriously by its player.  The game is a bit silly, with all the extras, but is rather enjoyable to play.