The website “Race- the power of an illusion” is fairly interactive and the overall design is pretty good. Some of the features are nice; it has a lot of flashy rollovers and graphics that make it appealing. Many pages use interactive quizzes and activities to present the information and are lot more enjoyable than the “go deeper” text pages. The modern design and interactivity helps add to the presentation of the subject matter. The target audience of the site is more than likely young(er)) adults so most of the formal and apparently scientific data is presented in a more user friendly manner than on most sites.
In “Menu-Driven Identities: Making Race Happen Online,” the author, Lisa Nakamura suggests that, “even websites that focus on racial identities and communities often possess interface designs that force reductive ways of defining race.” Nakamura believes that, “this produces a new kind of cybertyping that encompasses the user’s racial identity within the paradigm of the “clickable box”- one box among many on the menu of identity choices. When users are given no choice other than to select the “race” or “ethnicity” to which they belong and are given no means to define or modify the terms or categories available to them, then identities that do not appear on the menu are essentially foreclosed on and erased. This limits the ways that can happen in cyberspace.” (Nakamura 2002)
I think that the site does a good job of going beyond a “menu-driven” concept of race. I think the drop down menu theme is suggestive of a racial lumping that occurs online. Typically a webpage is considered diverse if it has representations of the major races, or at least the major American races. On the sorting people section only five classifications are given and the pictures used for the activity don’t really fit in that closely with the categories. After completing the activity a window informed me of how the census was previously limited to those racial categories and that everyone was lumped into one of those categories. The rest of the site wasn’t as all encompassing and focused on the African American race and the white race.
Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity
on the internet. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Blog 8
Blog #8
Cybertyping is a term coined by Lisa Nakamura in the text, “Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet” to describe the distinctive ways that the internet propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism (Nakamura 2002). Cybertyping is a modern form of gender and ethnic or racial stereotyping that occurs online.
Identity tourism is when the typical white and westernized user of the internet adopts an online persona different from their own and most often based on cultural stereotypes. The user interacts with others online as the adopted persona would in order to enact gratifying scenarios.
The most notable form of identity tourism taking place in the awesome game, “Street Fighter II” is in the way that selecting a character allows the user to “become” the character. Players view an elaborate back-story that gives them the impetus to fight. Then they take control of a monstrous automaton stereotyped by their country of origin and essentially live out a horrendous life of hyper realized violence.
Cybertping happens when players take on the life of characters that fit into very easternized (Japanese) notions. All of the world’s people who are represented are done so in very stereotypical ways. Every character and even their fighting location or home turf is cybertyped. The game was produced by the Japanese so they may be given the fairest treatment in terms of character traits and back stories, but the Japanese culture is typed as well. There are cybertypes of Americans: the rich white punk and Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, who fights in his own dojo and Balrog the egregiously named black boxer from Las Vegas who has his own red carpet and legion of gambling supporters in stretch limousines. The fighters from Japan are portrayed in stereotypical ways as well. There is the karate hero who fights for honor, not fun and a fat sumo who quests for honor as well but fights in a sweaty bath house with pictures of kimono wearing people draping the walls. Even the end of fight trash talk features very typical wordings.
Works Cited
Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
on the Internet. New York Rutledge, 2002. Print.
Cybertyping is a term coined by Lisa Nakamura in the text, “Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet” to describe the distinctive ways that the internet propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism (Nakamura 2002). Cybertyping is a modern form of gender and ethnic or racial stereotyping that occurs online.
Identity tourism is when the typical white and westernized user of the internet adopts an online persona different from their own and most often based on cultural stereotypes. The user interacts with others online as the adopted persona would in order to enact gratifying scenarios.
The most notable form of identity tourism taking place in the awesome game, “Street Fighter II” is in the way that selecting a character allows the user to “become” the character. Players view an elaborate back-story that gives them the impetus to fight. Then they take control of a monstrous automaton stereotyped by their country of origin and essentially live out a horrendous life of hyper realized violence.
Cybertping happens when players take on the life of characters that fit into very easternized (Japanese) notions. All of the world’s people who are represented are done so in very stereotypical ways. Every character and even their fighting location or home turf is cybertyped. The game was produced by the Japanese so they may be given the fairest treatment in terms of character traits and back stories, but the Japanese culture is typed as well. There are cybertypes of Americans: the rich white punk and Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, who fights in his own dojo and Balrog the egregiously named black boxer from Las Vegas who has his own red carpet and legion of gambling supporters in stretch limousines. The fighters from Japan are portrayed in stereotypical ways as well. There is the karate hero who fights for honor, not fun and a fat sumo who quests for honor as well but fights in a sweaty bath house with pictures of kimono wearing people draping the walls. Even the end of fight trash talk features very typical wordings.
Works Cited
Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
on the Internet. New York Rutledge, 2002. Print.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Blog 7, "It's me, Mario!"
For this blog, you are going to travel into the past and
“map the bit girl.” In other words, play Super Mario Bros. 2
and perform a gender critique. Describe how Princess, Mario,
Luigi, and Toad reflect and complicate gender stereotypes
The gender representations in Super Mario brothers 2 are generally reflective of society’s idea of gender roles but are complicated by the games limited ability to present a character in a detailed and complex manner using more than a few colors, and some form of audible dialogue. Mario and Luigi both play the stereotypical role of the Alpha male running headfirst into battle, not afraid of anything, even walking mushrooms and talking dinosaurs. They are determined to rescue whoever from wherever even at the cost of their own lives. Because they both have thick mustaches always wear their cheap work clothes, overalls, Mario and Luigi are portrayed as the working class. An integral part of the story is that Luigi and Mario are typical hard working males that, because of their male gender roles get caught up in something big. Toad complicates the gender role being that he is a mushroom from another world that acts like a male. Even though he is not human he is anthropomorphized as a type of human male. His round body and his pained expressions when digging for turnips are not usually associated with tough males who go on adventures or do battle with monsters. Further complicating the gender role is Princess. She wears a pink frilly dress that identifies her as female and plays a large part in the game by allowing the princess to fall slowly. Usually Princess is in danger but in this Mario adventure she is a trooper, she is part of the action, she is a playable character and not the stereotypical helpless princess in a castle. She is the tallest character and jumps the highest but is still depicted in a very feminine way, but doesn’t act in the traditional feminine way and this complicates the role of gender in Mario because they all look like different characters but all perform the same basic actions.
I think this game offers multiple gender subject configurations because the characters look different but perform in the same ways. The princess is both a femme fatale when she destroys bad guys in the game and also a positive role model because of the combination of her feminine appearance and tough actions.
“map the bit girl.” In other words, play Super Mario Bros. 2
and perform a gender critique. Describe how Princess, Mario,
Luigi, and Toad reflect and complicate gender stereotypes
The gender representations in Super Mario brothers 2 are generally reflective of society’s idea of gender roles but are complicated by the games limited ability to present a character in a detailed and complex manner using more than a few colors, and some form of audible dialogue. Mario and Luigi both play the stereotypical role of the Alpha male running headfirst into battle, not afraid of anything, even walking mushrooms and talking dinosaurs. They are determined to rescue whoever from wherever even at the cost of their own lives. Because they both have thick mustaches always wear their cheap work clothes, overalls, Mario and Luigi are portrayed as the working class. An integral part of the story is that Luigi and Mario are typical hard working males that, because of their male gender roles get caught up in something big. Toad complicates the gender role being that he is a mushroom from another world that acts like a male. Even though he is not human he is anthropomorphized as a type of human male. His round body and his pained expressions when digging for turnips are not usually associated with tough males who go on adventures or do battle with monsters. Further complicating the gender role is Princess. She wears a pink frilly dress that identifies her as female and plays a large part in the game by allowing the princess to fall slowly. Usually Princess is in danger but in this Mario adventure she is a trooper, she is part of the action, she is a playable character and not the stereotypical helpless princess in a castle. She is the tallest character and jumps the highest but is still depicted in a very feminine way, but doesn’t act in the traditional feminine way and this complicates the role of gender in Mario because they all look like different characters but all perform the same basic actions.
I think this game offers multiple gender subject configurations because the characters look different but perform in the same ways. The princess is both a femme fatale when she destroys bad guys in the game and also a positive role model because of the combination of her feminine appearance and tough actions.
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