Fat Princess

[kuwisdelu]

All those who have complained that the media glamorizes uber-thinness and scorns weightier women finally have a video game they can play. Sony has come out with a game where the goal, in fact, is to make the beautiful princess fatter.

She's Fat Princess, the star of Sony's upcoming video game of the same name. Debuting at last week's E3 expo, the colorful Fat Princess is a capture-the-flag game with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess in a dungeon and stuffing her full of cake, thereby increasing her girth and making her harder for your enemies to haul back to home base.

But for some reason, some feminists are upset about the new game:

Feminist Gamer's "Mighty Ponygirl" rings in diplomatically, suggesting a new way to play the game altogether.
"Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry," she said, before adding, "Oh, but that's not as "cute" as cake and fat chicks. Right."

Over at Shakesville, however, writer Melissa McEwan cuts to the chase, telling Sony she's "positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative ---holes."

Personally, I'm puzzled. A game that finally begins to break down all the "unattainable," "unrealistic" female body images in the media, and feminists hate it? Is there simply no pleasing some?

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/feminists-cry-foul-over-fat-princess/1232315

[mab]

Maybe they don't like the way the fat princess is essentially an object to be fetched and carried rather than an active character. Fat princess! I love it, its sounds so cute!

[maestrowork]

I thought you meant this fat Princess:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-44-pound-cat-princess-chunk-080730-ht,0,334609.story

[smoothseas]

perhaps, one day, it'll be uber-rubenesque



smoothseas, who's only gained 10-post menopausal pounds, and is only 20 pounds heavier that she was in high school...

[Toothpaste]

I think this has nothing to do with good images for girls. The whole purpose of the game is to make someone too fat to carry. Ah yes, how flattering to larger women. It's meant to be funny, "See she was skinny and pretty and now we are making her fat!" There's also that whole, "You must be a pig if you are fat" thing going on there which isn't always the case. She's also, as someone else pointed out, just an object to be played with and not active in her own adventure.

Now I don't see this as truly harmful in and of itself, but it's one more small thing with all the other small things out there, that each contribute to a larger problem. If they really wanted to promote good body image, have the lead in a video game be slightly overweight, or heck even just a size 8/10, and not mention the fact at all. She's just the size she is, in the same way all the other female leads are the sizes they are.

Ah but that wouldn't be funny now would it.

[mab]

yeah, I agree toothpaste, having a fat (or normal sized) female protag would be very positive for young girls used to seeing skinny female (and often non-playable) videogame characters...but unfortunately this ain't gonna happen...

by the way, when you said size 8/10 I freaked out a little...our (UK) size 8 is tiny...then I realised you're Canadian, so your 8 is our 10, your 10 is our 12...still fairly skinny but not for a game

[kuwisdelu]

The big deal some are making about it is definitely making it out to be more of a problem than it is.

Since the maestro brought it up, perhaps this fat princess deserves her own thread, too:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/07/31/chunk_wideweb__470x437,0.jpg

[Sheryl Nantus]

The big deal some are making about it is definitely making it out to be more of a problem than it is.

Since the maestro brought it up, perhaps this fat princess deserves her own thread, too:



not really - the gaming community has always bemoaned the fact that they can't get women to play/buy their products. Then, of course, they toss in things like this to pretend that they *care* about half the purchasing population.

meanwhile the booth babes and the like prance around and sell games to hyperactive teenage boys...

[kuwisdelu]

not really - the gaming community has always bemoaned the fact that they can't get women to play/buy their products.

What kinds of video games do most women really want to play? Because I know plenty of girls who love Zelda, Halo, and Grand Theft Auto. It's something interesting to talk about. I'm not so sure that there aren't enough games that appeal to women, as much as most women aren't to video games in general.

[maxmordon]

Remember that Simpsons Episode where Homer and Marge where in a Feminist Convention and Homer told Marge to say there while he was going to rescue Lisa from the Volcano, got booed by Feminists, told him and Marge to go together and got booed again by feminists? think about that.

The bottom line is, you can't please everyone. That's why most children's movies suck nowadays

[smoothseas]

The big deal some are making about it is definitely making it out to be more of a problem than it is.

Since the maestro brought it up, perhaps this fat princess deserves her own thread, too:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/07/31/chunk_wideweb__470x437,0.jpg


me thinks, that this fat princess has been photo-enhanced.

[BenPanced]

The big deal some are making about it is definitely making it out to be more of a problem than it is.

Since the maestro brought it up, perhaps this fat princess deserves her own thread, too:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/07/31/chunk_wideweb__470x437,0.jpg
Actually, that's a fat prince. His owner came forward to the shelter where he's staying and said she abandoned him because her house was being foreclosed.

Back to the game. If this princess started out fat and stayed fat through the game and you played her as fat, I don't think there'd be too much of an issue. However, the whole locking her in a tower and force feeding her is just too creepy for me.

[maxmordon]

Ask yourself this. Would this be diferent if the main character were a male?

[BenPanced]

If the character were male, he'd be free to roam about the game.

[Kitty Pryde]

All those who have complained that the media glamorizes uber-thinness and scorns weightier women finally have a video game they can play. Sony has come out with a game where the goal, in fact, is to make the beautiful princess fatter.

But for some reason, some feminists are upset about the new game:

Personally, I'm puzzled. A game that finally begins to break down all the "unattainable," "unrealistic" female body images in the media, and feminists hate it? Is there simply no pleasing some?

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/feminists-cry-foul-over-fat-princess/1232315



Duh. It's not a yay-healthy-people-of-all-sizes game, it's a ha-ha-laugh-at-fatties-because-it's-fun-to-degrade-fat-people game. It isn't 'breaking down stereotypes about size' at all. Beautiful women in pop culture who are larger than twig-thickness are doing that, like Beth Ditto or Sara Ramirez. This video game is yet one more opportunity to have a laugh at the expense of a group of people who are continually ridiculed in our society. That's not to say this is the biggest social problem in the world of video games (I would say that title goes to video games featuring rape as a fun activity), but it's just more of the same negative garbage.

[whistlelock]

Well, the interesting thing about this game is you could accomplish the same thing with a box you fill with rocks.

But, there's no free press about a game called Box of Rocks.

[Tirjasdyn]

What kinds of video games do most women really want to play? Because I know plenty of girls who love Zelda, Halo, and Grand Theft Auto. It's something interesting to talk about. I'm not so sure that there aren't enough games that appeal to women, as much as most women aren't to video games in general.

Girls don't play as many war games and shot em ups as boys. Unless it has a good story.

Otherwise everything is fair play in video games. BUT in table tops...girls play war games too.

[Toothpaste]

I would say that title goes to video games featuring rape as a fun activity

Seriously?? Is there really such a game??

[mab]

I don't know about rape but in GTA you sleep with and kill prostitutes (or so I seem to have heard, never played it so maybe I'm wrong...)

Its a pretty sick notion either way

[sassandgroove]

I like Star Wars Battlefront best. (not SWB2 so much.) And Il ike racing games. My husband plays lots of RPG's, which have good stories. I like being in the room because it is neat to watch the stories unfold - a bit like watching a choose your own adventure novel- but I don't much like playing them myself. To much detail - when can I shoot?



Toothpaste and Kitty Pryde explained my own position pretty well so I won't add to it.

Sass- sharing what this not thin girl likes in Video Games.

[Kitty Pryde]

Seriously?? Is there really such a game??

Yup, that would be the delightful Grand Theft Auto series.

[Plot Device]

Am I the only one here who sees a very sick and twisted sexual undertone to forcibly stuffing a female so full of food that it results in her extreme obesity?

Am I also the only one here who sees this game is yet another subtle avenue being afforded by modern society for causing the eating mechanism in a person (espeically in a female) to go perversely wrong?


DO NOT CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING TWO LINKS UNLESS YOU CAN DEAL WITH AN EXAMINATION OF WHAT I HAVE JUST STATED ABOVE:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445965/

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1723437568/tt0445965

[Tirjasdyn]

Am I the only one here who sees a very sick and twisted sexual undertone to forcibly stuffing a female so full of food that it results in her extreme obesity?



Yes.

[sassandgroove]

Yep.

[Plot Device]

Talk to Mr. Freud then, after you've read this excerpt from a "love" letter he wrote to a woman he was courting.


"Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you until you are plump. And if you willfully resist you will see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man with cocaine in his body."

http://books.google.com/books?id=0PIXlpKU0IIC&pg=PT57&lpg=PT57&dq=%22Woe+to+you,+my+Princess,+when+I+come.+I+will +kiss+you+quite+red+and+feed+you+until+you+are+plu mp.%22&source=web&ots=sgSOlxy34k&sig=tG9J9F_owtBQO7gKjhHr7fncsvc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

[sassandgroove]

Ok- When my husband sees famous women that are supposed to be beautiful but are very thin, he calls them a bag of antlers. He yells at the TV that they "need a sammich!" He pointed out to me the other day when we were flipping channels and "Next Top Model" was on and they were emmaciated - "why do women listen to other women and gay men? I want a real woman with curves." Thank God, cuz I have lots of curves. ;)

I say this, Plot Device, because your excerpt doesn't alarm me in the slightest. Food - sharing food - can be very sensual and pleasureable with a lover. That doesn't make it evil and alarming and I don't see that in the video game. Sorry. I do see the -let's all make fun of the fat chick- element. Maybe because I am a fat chick. who knows?

ETA I got a reppie from a gay guy. :) I just want to say he said that because the show had women and gay men as judges. Nothing against gay men. :)

[Plot Device]

I say this, Plot Device, because your excerpt doesn't alarm me in the slightest. Food - sharing food - can be very sensual and pleasureable with a lover. That doesn't make it evil and alarming and I don't see that in the video game.

I'm not talking about the pleasurable sharing between two lovers, I'm talking about force.

I have not seen the video game, so I do not know if the game involves actual force. But the letter that Sigmund Freud wrote to his girlfriend overtly implied he would force her to undergo whatever it was he wanted to do to her. Some commentators have said that Freud was really just talking about sex with her (forcing his penis into her) and not about the forcing of food. But if that symbolic take is correct, then that right there says two thngs:

1) He was "joking" about raping her.
2) He was making an overt association between food and sex.

That to me says that the psychoogy of the video game could be a potentially damaging thing.

[Tirjasdyn]

I'm not talking about the pleasurable sharing between two lovers, I'm talking about force.


Force and/or rape isn't about the sex.

Still all you. And Freud was a nutball. No doubt about that.

[Plot Device]

Force and/or rape isn't about the sex.

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which is why anything that is forceful --and yet also associated with sex-- is just sickness!



Still all you. And Freud was a nutball. No doubt about that.

That I mostly agree with. The man had his merits as far as getting the ball rolling in the field of psychology. But yeah --a little nutty.

[sassandgroove]

a) why are we reading private letters?
b) being private, how can we - as outsiders- interpret it correctly? We don't know what their relationship was like, we don't know their private jokes, we don't know if she was too thin and needed to eat more, we don't know if he was serious or not.
c) what does this have to do with a video game?

[Danger Jane]

Sounds like kind of a dumb game. But then it could be the next Katamari Damarcy, right?

I don't think girls game in smaller numbers than guys because of objectification of women. I think it's more likely that games are marketed toward the male market, it's more encouraged for boys to game than girls, and maybe some girls that envy their brother's Zelda or Warcraft or whatever are too embarrassed to ask for the controller.

Luckily, I was socially weird enough as a kid to play as much Zelda as I wanted :D

Btw, every other girl I've ever played, for instance, a rousing match of Super Smash Brothers with has totally loved it, whether or not she was a gamer.

[Plot Device]

a) why are we reading private letters?
b) being private, how can we - as outsiders- interpret it correctly? We don't know what their relationship was like, we don't know their private jokes, we don't know if she was too thin and needed to eat more, we don't know if he was serious or not.
c) what does this have to do with a video game?

Sass, I honestly feel like you're looking for ANY angle to discredit what I said.

Fine.

[Tanatra]

I would say that title goes to video games featuring rape as a fun activitySeriously?? Is there really such a game??

Yes. In fact, there is an entire series of games in Japan where the objective is to stalk and rape women. My college newspaper got themselves a copy and wrote a review on it a few years ago.

http://www.thesting.org/article.php?id=1644

[sassandgroove]

Sass, I honestly feel like you're looking for ANY angle to discredit what I said.

Fine.
I am not trying to discredit what you said. I don't see what you said. I don't see how you can equate a private letter to general psycology or to the game. It is a private letter. TO me it doesn't read as "I'm going to force myself on you." It reads as, "I want you and I'm going to try and persuade you." It is just a lovers letter. If it was something he wrote that had to do with his work, some hypothesis about food and sex I'd be more convinced. But this to me just doesn't help me see a correlation between the game and sex and violence that I think you are seeing.

What I'd like, PD, instead of the statement above, is a discussion, not a 'well you are just trying to discredit me.' because I really am not seeing the correlation you are drawing. At least you responded this time.


What I mean is, don't just give up and walk away.

[Plot Device]

I made an appeal to the realm of psychology by using a letter written by "The Father of Psychology."

[Don]

I made an appeal to the realm of psychology by using a letter written by "The Father of Psychology."
But you took his love words and psychoanalyzed them. That's like quoting the love talk of Ben Franklin's and trying to extract his political philosophy.

If he was discussing psychoanalysis with his lover, I'd understand where you're coming from. And although I see stuffing someone full of food as aggression, I don't see any sexual component at all. Hasn't Freud and his 'everything is sex' approach to life been discredited by now anyway?

[Lyra Jean]

I like Zelda, Tetris, and MarioKart. Otherwise I haven't found any games that are geared toward girl gamers unless you count "dress up Barbie" type games.

Fat Princess sounds like something I would rent to see what it is and then never buy.

[Christine N.]

I honestly thought that's what this thread was about. But that's because the cat was found about five miles from where I live.

The big deal some are making about it is definitely making it out to be more of a problem than it is.

Since the maestro brought it up, perhaps this fat princess deserves her own thread, too:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/07/31/chunk_wideweb__470x437,0.jpg

[sassandgroove]

What Don said.

[Plot Device]

Well, I see a connection. A Fruedian connection. And I'm sticking with it.

[Ol' Fashioned Girl]

What kinds of video games do most women really want to play?

When Doom, Quake, and Rise of the Triad first came out, I could kick ass and make 'em love it. First person shooters were just fine by me. This 'Fat Princess' sounds like a real POS.

Am I the only one here who sees a very sick and twisted sexual undertone to forcibly stuffing a female so full of food that it results in her extreme obesity?

Am I also the only one here who sees this game is yet another subtle avenue being afforded by modern society for causing the eating mechanism in a person (espeically in a female) to go perversely wrong?


I agree with the first paragraph, not so much with the second. I lean more toward its being just another way to make fun of fat folks.

I had been following this story, a bit, over at the Shakespeare's Sister blog, last week when it happened. If you've seen some of the incredibly nasty comments that Melissa received after her comments were posted on a gamer's board, the misogyny underlying the idea of a "Fat Princess" is all too obvious.

And I agree with Plot Device. The notion of locking a woman in a dungeon and stuffing her against her will in order to take away her ability to move is creepy and suggestive of rape.

And control.

[Danger Jane]

I don't understand the logic of this release. Sony has all these other major titles coming out soon. I mean, they debuted God of War 3 at e3. And somehow this blip of a game, Fat Princess (which is apparently downloadable so probably not the biggest deal to Sony), gets through and takes up all this publicity. Somewhere along the line, somebody wasn't quite thinking clearly about the ramifications of the game.

Granted, a game like God of War 3 has a huge fanbase, but this game grabbing so much unexpected attention diminishes the possibility of new fans picking up the God of War franchise at all...

Fat Princess just sounds like a controversial Lemonade Tycoon type of game to me. Gimme God of War over FP any day.