One of my good friends and ex-classmates posted This on Facebook earlier today. It talks about the creator of "Mario" video games and why a lot of his games are "damsel in distress." The creator of this blog post interviewed Miyamoto Shigeru and asked him about why he didn't include playable female characters. This conversation and recent controversial studies not only reflect the female interests of and in gaming, but also how women are more involved in pop culture than ever before. Instead of being marginalized or just not involved in this piece of culture.
In focusing on women's growing population of female gamers, Japan has not only influenced a degree of self awareness in America on the media taken in by the general populace, but started many conversations (and quarrels) on whether x percentage of women are "real gamers," whether women are engaged in the community, and what media coming from Japan is shaping our perceptions. Kotaku's questions and Miyamoto's responses show that there is a wide opening for many changes to Nintendo's current gender roles in games. Instead of coming off with a "timestamped," age-related response, Miyamoto instead states that there are possibilities for everything, ignoring the fact of whether or not they're just aiming for a larger market.
Sorry for the brief blurb, but this caught my eye. I will have to do more research into this as I do not know much about video games, video gaming community, or Nintendo (save for signature games). Sorry if this seems like garble, but I think it is impressive that pop culture in America has become so self aware of what its ingesting and why.
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