A Fat Princess Causes Stir (Just Give Her Pudding)
By: John Vinson
When you usually hear of video games and controversy it’s usually over violence (GTA IV) or sex (GTAIV) or alien lesbian makeout scenes (Mass Effect, wish I could say GTA IV again). The newest controversy is over a game titled Fat Princess, which made its debut at the E3 conference. The game was beginning to receive praise from many different gaming sites, as being creative and fun. Then a feminist blogger comes along and starts spewing out hatred about how the game is degrading and offensive to women (fat women that is).
Call Me Crazy But I Think The Character Is Cute….In A Fat Sorta Way
Of course when the feminist bloggers start reigning in on the hatred, video game bloggers respond. Then the flaming starts, with video game bloggers calling feminists whiners and other words I won’t mention. And the feminist bloggers call gamers objectifying pigs, and other words I won’t mention. For someone that tries to look at things cool-headed and rational, I’d like to step in and express my thoughts on the situation. While the game Fat Princess might be offensive to some, is it anymore offensive than alot of games out there? How about how GTA IV makes alot of their immigrant characters act? Or how about Call of Duty 4 that has stereotypical bad guys for your enemies?
**The Dark Knight Spoiler**
I think the Joker’s statement to Two Face while in the hospital about how to implement chaos plays here. The Joker talks about people aren’t too shook up when gangsters are reported killed, or if a carload of soldiers are blown up, but kill one mayor and everyone starts losing their minds…I kind of went along way to make a statement (I just love the Dark Knight), but the same kind of thinking applies in this situation. You make a game involving an immigrant blowing up other immigrants, or killing stereotypical terrorists and everyone is kosher. But if you create a game involving an overweight female character, and everyone starts losing their minds. I mean really? An overweight princess character has caused this much of a stir?
What I find most funny, is how people are missing out on the truly sick part of the game. To me the most offensive part of the game is that you’re force feeding someone into gluttony. The last time I saw something like this was in the movie Seven, when John Doe force fed a victim to death to prove his point about the sin ‘gluttony’. So the fact that a character is eating to death is no nevermind to alot of dissenters, but the fact she’s portrayed as being fat is the problem. That has to be the most backwards part of the argument against the game in my eyes. Eating to gluttony is all fine and dandy; we just don’t want to be shown the effects of it. If anything this game might be a stark reminder to people, that stuffing cake into your mouth might cause your stomach to expand.