Feminizing Games

Throughout McKenzie Wark's vehement defense of video games as a legitimate form of entertainment, and the debate in readings over whether video games constitute an art form, I was reminded of earlier notions applied to TV and even film as exerting a "feminizing" influence over its viewers. The stereotypical gamer is pale, soft-bodied, physicaly-unfit, and spends exorbitant amounts of time and money buying and playing games---feminized by the addiction to sedentary activity, and by constant, untempered consumption. (I remember reading an article about South Korean boot camps for teenage boys who'd become obsessed with video games. The camps were boyscout-type outdoor excursions, clearly re-masculinizing their pliant, stumbling campers into alert and active boys.) However, as we've also read in relation to TV, the feminization of the viewers of this new medium are in danger of hyper-masculinization by the overflow of violent characters and plotlines, which (it has been argued) normalize violence, and, in the case of video games, literally require simulated violence by the gamer.