… but sadly it’s not the good kind. I don’t have a PS3 because other than Metal Gear Solid 4, I find Sony’s game library to be quite lacking and one game does not justify the cost of entry for me. Also I’m not ready to jump on the BluRay bandwagon just yet. I am, however the proud owner of a PSP which makes a great portable emulation station.
Today I heard about an online, multiplayer game that Sony will be releasing for the PS3 that caught my eye: Fat Princess. A quick blurb from the official site:
Frantic and fun, Fat Princess pits two hordes of players against each other in comic medieval battle royale. Your goal is to rescue your beloved princess from the enemy dungeon. There’s a catch though: your adversary has been stuffing her with food to fatten her up and it’s going to take most of your army working together to carry her back across the battlefield.
With up to 32 players fighting over the titular Fat Princess, this sounds like it could be a really fun game.
Or could it?
Soon after I read about the game I was clued in by Kotaku about a minor "controversy" that surrounds this game. As is inevitable in a world where online communication makes everyone with an opinion a syndicated columnist (like me), someone somewhere was offended by the content of the game.
I found the article on Feminist Gamers to be interesting though implying that the game objectifies women or promotes "fat-bashing" to be a bit of a stretch. I suppose the princess is objectified as a prize to be won either with cake or with an army to bring her back to the castle… but this is hardly the "objectification" we get from game or the media in general today. But I suppose that when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
It wasn’t until I read the linked post from the shakespearssister blog and I found myself compelled to dust off my blog and give my two cents. I was astounded by the author’s amazing ability to read subtext from the extremely sparse description of the game:
—but the only thing I can’t figure out is why anyone would want to rescue a fat princess in the first place, since everyone knows that fat girls are unlovable human garbage at whom any sensible bloke would sooner hurl invective than cast a longing glance.
Nobody likes to be ridiculed for their gender, race, sexual preference, or physical attributes but to make such a statement only implies one thing: You are really trying to make yourself mad about this. In the end you’re a being as much a troll and the very people you condemn.
My absolute favorite part:
I’m positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It’s not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery.
I did have to look up heteronormative, and learning a new word I suppose wasn’t a total loss. Is the game going to create a new breed of heterosexual elitists because the princess is (by virtue of title) female and the knights male? That notion collapses under the weight of it’s own absurdity.
But why am I spending any time writing about a game I will likely never own or play? Because it’s not about the game. It’s about bigotry.
In the spirit of full disclosure I’ll say that I’m a heterosexual, monogamous, caucasian male who is fairly in shape. Clearly there’s a little bit of me for everybody to hate. Before you call me a fat-hating homophobic racist I’ll say that for more than ten years, the love of my life was a latina who referred to herself as "pleasantly plump." Regardless of whether or not you believe this, one of my closest and best friends is a feminist (I’m looking at you hedgehog).
Now then, back to the ranting…
Bigotry disgusts me in all its forms save for one: Bigotry-ism. I absolutely despise bigots of all kinds. I suppose that makes me a bigot but I don’t lose any sleep over it.
Even though the post on Feminist Gamer seemed intelligent and thought out, any sympathy for the plight of women who are tired of the media stereotyping and objectifying them quickly evaporates when one reads the comments by the author in reply to her commentators. I appreciate that 99 out of 100 comments came from assholic trolls who revel in stirring trouble and in essence validate the author’s views, but her replies to the comments that she let through are just infantile at best. When your best retort includes mocking the other’s grammar, know that you are losing the argument or just running out of steam. I’m not totally unsympathetic. Sifting through hundreds of hateful comments of questionable literacy is bound to make anyone testy.
It was amusing to read the comments on the other site though. Nowhere is the pack mentality more evident. To disagree one mystically gets transmogrified into a troll, a douchebag, a bigot, or worse… a man. The highly-caloric irony here is that you come off the biggest bigot of the lot. Fire and brimstone! Damn all those who hate women, large or small. If it’s bad to "fat-bash" (your words) why is it better to "man-bash?" (my words).
Any argument containing "White heterosexual Christian men have persecuted [insert group here] for generations" instantly boards the failboat which rams against a failberg, sinking into the failsea. But since DiCaprio dies in the end, I suppose we can all agree it’s a win-win.
You cannot "fight" bigotry with more bigotry. It doesn’t work that way. Unless, of course, it’s the aforementioned bigotry-ism.
Objectification of women will always exist in any medium as well as a slew of other unpleasant -isms. The world is not here to make you comfortable or to make you feel better about yourself, only you can do that.
Getting up in arms about Fat Princess is tantamount to a slow news day.
Probably one of the most well written and level headed response to this “controversy”. While I still think it can be summed up with you saying “It’s not a big deal” the way you addressed it worked well.
I was thinking the same thing while reading the comments (and responses) at FG.
Well said.
Thanks,
It’s really easy to get upset one way or the other, and when you start “frothing” at the keyboard you lose all ability to discuss this like an adult.
But you’re right, in the scheme of things, this really isn’t a big deal.
I don’t normally leave comments anywhere, but I just wanted to say that your response was very level-headed and full of common sense- representing more the point-of-view of the silent majority. Kudos. I actually felt a bit like I wrote it myself considering the point of view expressed, heh.
Also, the following paragraph absolutely made my day:
“Any argument containing “White heterosexual Christian men have persecuted [insert group here] for generations” instantly boards the failboat which rams against a failberg, sinking into the failsea. But since DiCaprio dies in the end, I suppose we can all agree it’s a win-win.”
Haha, thanks!
Hey darlin,’
You had to know I was going to respond lol. I totally agree with your general sentiment here. I personally hate hate hate when folks who have less privilege in the current social system feel it is appropriate to lash out at the folks they *perceive* as the enemy or whatever. The reality is we all are conditioned by society and therefore are all “victims” of the biases and assumptions and set ups that go with it. We just struggle in different ways. Everyone has an “other” they belong to.
I’ll be honest: the game does seem to have misogynist undertones. Just like the bulk of video games on the market do.
But this one is a little harder to look at for me. Not only does it reinforce the myth that women are incapable of taking care of themselves (which is super common), but now there is an element of humiliation introduced that you don’t normally see so blatantly.
Food and body image issues are in my opinion at the forefront of many of the issues women face in this country. And as a female there is something very visceral about the picture of a woman being force fed against her will like cattle. And then shlepped around… yeah I just cringe.
I am not sure how many of your readers are women, and I clearly do not speak for all of my gender here, but I wonder if polled how we who do have to deal with a constant onslaught of dehumanizing comments, behaviors, and perceptions, would feel about this issue. And this is NOT meant as a way to point fingers at men… I just think when a person isn’t in it it might be hard to understand how others might be affected.
Like I would never understand what it means to be targeted as Italian since I’m not. So it is more about that…
This whole thing really reminds me of the convo we all were having at my place over the weekend, when the comments about the “fat obnoxious” woman were made. As if the two were synonymous. It is sexist. Women are constantly referred to as if they aren’t people who have feelings and stories.
These kinds of games in my opinion subtly reinforce the sexist recordings I think are prevalent in our society. That is my problem with it.
I hate you because you invoke the spirit of full disclosure.
I love you because you invoke the spirit of full disclosure.
Nuka makes excellent points, and I agree wholeheartedly. I certainly have no intention of suddenly cussing out All Men Everywhere for being Dirty Pigs, or similar nonsense, but “Fat Princess” does give me pause as a game, not the least because it comes so close to being a harmlessly funny concept.
If there were, for example, a few girls amongst the team working to protect the princess, I might flinch less than I do at the idea of a game where the only woman is a helpless ball of flesh being carried around as a literal trophy.
If there was, for example, another mechanic to slow her down, it might disturb me less than the image of a girl being kidnapped and force-fed, and the process being played for laughs. (But then again, what are our other options? Loading her up with jewelry? Tying her down with chains?)
If there wasn’t, for example, a really long tradition of active male player characters and hapless female NPCs in video games, to the point where games that break this pattern are lauded with trumpets instead of accepted as a matter of course, I might feel less annoyed about yet another game continuing the tradition.
Sadly, none of these are the case–and there are more ways to “objectify” a female character then inflating her breasts and dressing her in a miniskirt. Cake or no cake, this game leaves me with a lingering bad taste in my mouth.
Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your view with us.