Photo Assignment

From: Cedar

For this assignment, the subtopic I chose to focus on is how highly gendered video games are, specifically violent/warfare type games. It is often talked about how repulsed we are as a country by the senseless violence of mass shooters, but then, “... There’s the America that can’t seem to get enough of violence as a form of entertainment and ritual, a seemingly endless appetite for ever intensifying spectacles of all out brutality and carnage” (Tough Guise 2). The picture I took is of my 17 year old brother just playing video games in his room. It’s a very intense game (I know because he plays very loudly and has little volume control) so he was focused when I took the picture. He has LED lights in his room that had been set to blue while he was playing and it was the perfect chance to take the picture, as blue is often associated with the male gender from the time the gender of the baby is found out through things like gender reveals to when the boy grows up and is given a room painted blue and blue accessories (pacifier, stuffed animal, toys, etc.). Along with the color association, another element of the picture I took into consideration is how my brother was the center of the picture. We live in a very male dominated world, with men’s needs, wants, hobbies, and jobs being at the forefront. Men are also more likely to be scouted for and enlist in the military, which is the theme of the video game he was playing. Boys are more likely to engage in these types of games and activities because,  “aggression is a strong theme of boys' play” and,  boys “tend toward greater assertiveness, overt competition, and physically rough play” (The “Two Cultures” of Childhood) . I saw this as the perfect metaphor for boys being overly physical and oftentimes violent in their lives, if not through their jobs or relationships then through fantasy play such as in video games.