Tomb Raider

Mikula brings up an interesting point that Lara Croft is a role model and a sexual icon.   However I don't think she has the influence over young girls that Mikula does.  I am not an avid video game player but I don't see how someone would choose an animated character as a role model over a real person who has role feats and accomplishments to account for.  Also even though Lara's character is of an idealized womans body, I fail to see how that is significant seeing how all the male characters in games are idealized men.

gender & video games

I disagree with Mikula's claim that Lara is a positive role model for female players. I don't think anyone would want to be this character if she was overweight or if she wasn't pretty, even if she could still fight and shoot and play just the same. This leads me to believe that female players specifically choose to identify with Lara while playing the game because of her looks, and because they want to look like her. Girls idolize a body type that doesn't exist, which is unhealthy! If Lara was more natural looking (in size, shape, proportions, etc.) then I think she would be considered a positive role model for female players. It is because of the unattainable looks that I disagree with Mikula.

Gender and Videogames

I thought Mikula brought up an interesting topic relating gender roles to videogames. One claim Mikula makes in her essay is that Lara is both a sex idol and a role model. I agreed with her claim because while Lara is sexually attractive, Lara is also immensely independent and invulnerable. I thought Lara was developed to appeal to both genders. While male gamers like Lara for her attractiveness, female gamers like Lara for her capabilities. This dual symbolism enable gamers to both identify with and objectify Lara while playing Tomb Raiders. Overall, I think Lara Croft is a well-developed character who is liked generally.

Lora Croft

One claim that Mikula makes is that women tend to play Tomb Raider in order to be Lara, rather than controlling her. Women want to be her because she symbolizes "adventure, independence, possibility, and strength" (184). Although this claim may seem as though Lara is an empowering figure, I would have to disagree because of the fact that she is  video game character. Because she was created to fit the stereotypical "hot" woman, I find that the woman tend play in order to live under a facade of fitting these stereotypes. They live in a virtual world where they are physically perfect. Through this, I feel like they fail to see imperfection, which is counter intuitive to what I believe is adventure and strength. Women should be able to see their flaws or their troubles and use them to their advantage, rather than hiding behind a perfect specimen like Lara. If women get too caught up in Tomb Raider because they're living vicariously through a fictional, flawless character, then what are they doing in the real world to become truly adventurous, independent, and strong?  

Tomb Raider

In Mikula's essay about gender roles and video games she brings up important points about the player/character connection. Lara Croft, the protagonist in the tomb raider video game falls into gender roles while defying them at the same time, her appearance is very exaggerated (large breasts and hips), yet she is strong and has fighting skills. The gameplay involves the player controlling Lara but seeing her as well. Mikula compares the playing experience of men vs women with interesting results. Men who play feel like they are watching and looking out for Lara while women feel like they are controlling and identifying with Lara.

Not having ever played the game, I can't say if I would be connecting with or watching Lara Croft, but I definitely do understand the double point of view that players can have of their characters.

Lara Croft

As I read Maja Mikula's essay relating gender with video games, I realized that she made many good points and brought up various arguments having to do with the main character of the game, Lara Croft. One that I found stuck out the most was one that was brought up at the beginning which was is Lara Croft a good role model? There are many people that would think that she is a good role model. She has a perfect body and her job is to fight off harm. What is wrong with that? Unfortunately, that is the problem. Nothing is wrong with her and she is perfect. I think that this makes her a poor role model. Girls who look at Lara will compare themselves to her and they will feel degraded. They may try to be as good as her which will be impossible because Croft is a fictional character. It is almost like Lara gives real girls false hope.

Lora Croft

One claim that Mikula makes about gender and video games using Lora Croft is that men and women have different reactions and desires when faced with a female character such as Lora Croft. Men feel that they must protect, care for and control Lora who for them is a sex symbol that they develop a personal "relationship" with. For women they tend to want to identify with her, using Lora Croft as a way for them to access their inner strength, femininity, and fearlessness. The article says that Lora Croft is both heroine and sex symbol, she is what you want her to be and that regardless of gender people developed personal connections to her character. I would agree that men and women would look at a dominant female and have different ways of interacting with such a character. Men, who would be intimidated by someone like Lora Croft, seek to control her and sexualize her, whereas women endeavor to become her and seek to embody her "all in one" personality.

Gender and Videogames

     One claim that Mikula makes is that when a man plays as Lara "His experience of the game thus encapsulates the patriarchal rhetoric of 'control' and 'care', by a male subject of a female object.  Ironically, even when offered empowerment to view themselves in the position of the subject and see Lara as the object of their 'control' and 'care', with her exaggerated sexuality subjected to their disciplining gaze"(Mikula 183).

     This claim bases itself off of the basic instinct of a man to protect the woman.  I do not agree that all woman need protecting and that it is solely the man's job to protect and care for women, but it does play  on the male's instinct to be the protector and provider.  In a lot of cases this is true, but it is not entirely true, and this video game is a way to let men act on this urge to feel "manly" and protect something, even if it isn't real.  I think it shows that women can be strong, and despite that fact that she is "hot" and says sexual things, she does things that many men cannot do.  She is the ideal woman to many men, but there is nothing wrong with this, because it is a video game and it is not real, and most people that play games know that it is not real.

Gender and Videogames

Maja Mikula makes many interesting claims in her essay about the role of gender in video games, and it is a world I cannot be further removed from. Her views on what video game characters represent and how players relate to them I can empathize with.
Firstly, by reading just this essay alone, I am surprised at how closely relate to fictional video game characters. I thought you just play the game, and in the stretch of time that you are playing the game you delve into the character and that's it, it does not affect yourself at all when not playing the game. That is no the case however, when Maja cites people relating to the character Lara in ways like wanting to spend more time with her and protecting her. My previous thoughts to this essay was that video game characters were left more on the vague side in their characteristics to focus more on the player themselves and what the game entails, not just the character.
Another point she makes is how unrealistically Lara is portrayed in the game, with many sexual attributes enhanced and it is not accurately portraying women. I can understand this point but as a rebuttal I say, how can anybody in a video game accurately represent a person? It is a world of fantasy where everything is embellished and enhanced, every male character isn't an accurate portrayal of men in either. In any video game, realism and accuracy is not going to exist and for a reason, because it is a videoGAME, not a virtual reality.

Lara Croft

In her essay, Mikula makes the claim that male gamers prefer to feel like they have control over their female avatars while females prefer to identify with their icons. She goes on to say that within the context of the game Tomb Raider, Lara allows both males and females to play out the game in the context that they see most fit (the women choosing to identify and the males choosing to control). Because Laura is physically attractive, this compels males to want to look at her, “spend time” with her and control her. Mikula argues that women appreciate the fact that Lara is so worldly and tough. I have to disagree with her idea; I think that men are much more comfortable controlling Lara than women are identifying with her. Her “hotness” outweighs her intellect in terms of where the attention of the gamer is going. If she retained the same “personality” but she wasn’t hypersexualized, I doubt that males would have much interest in the game. Since male customers make up most of the game’s profit, I think the game is much better tailored to suiting male fantasies, no matter what the makers claim. 

Gender & Videogames

"Lara shocks feminist writers; Lara excites feminist writers. There are many Laras, and many positions hat can be taken on her politics. She is indeed a sex object, she is indeed a positive image and a role model; and many things in between."(189).

Lara is a representation of many things, nothing, and essentially anything you'd like her character to be. She is a fictional character seen as several things which makes her unique. She was the first female heroine; so, some see her as influential, others see her solely as an object of their pleasure and then there are those that see her character as someone they'd need to protect further because she's a woman. In the market for entertainment, sex is primarily advertised, and then influence and lastly for the gamers (if it's a game, like Lara/Tomb Raider). One claim that Mikula makes is that the makers target both genders with Lara. I agree with this because they make fair arguments for both sides, for women, there weren't really any girl gamer icons as Lara, and for men, it's another game for them to play but in a different perspective, playing as a woman. Both men and women win playing this game.

Gender and Videogames

"She is a drag queen and female automaton, dominatrix and queer babe, at the same time, in different ways, for different audiences. We cannot simply answer the questions: 'is she a feminist icon or a sexist fantasy?'; a 'male fantasy' or a positive image'? But we can state, with some certainty, that she has certainty been taken up by feminists, and used for feminist ends." (188).

As the quote clearly displays, Lara is a confusing character. She is neither a sex nor feminist icon. If I had to choose though I think I would say she is more of a sex icon. The producers of the game know that they were targeting a male audience, and used this fact to their advantage. They knew that since boys are attracted to "hot" girls they could use Lara as an advertising tool for the game. Also based on what the people who played and talked about the game said they did not see her as a powerful women but rather as someone they had to "care" for.

Megaphone

I think that the purpose of the megaphone essay was to display how social media controls the world around us. The megaphone is an analogy to social media because whatever is loudest--aka said on the megaphone--is followed. Thus we are all being controlled by the media subconsciously. I agree with the essay to a certain extent. Certain trends such as fashion, which is always rapidly changing, could be easily controlled by celebrities seen in the media most often. This fact is rather disconcerting because it shows how little impact a normal individual has in comparison to someone who is seem in the media often.

Megaphone

Saunders very clearly sets up the metaphor of the man with the megaphone to represent today's media. I think this is a very well-crafted metaphor because it has different parts.
(1) "He's not the smartest person at the party, or the most experienced, or the most articulate. But he's got that megaphone." The media does not always feed us correct information, but we listen because it wouldn't be on TV, or in the newspaper, or in a magazine if it weren't important, right? The people at the party can't help but listen because all they hear is the megaphone over everything; we can't help but listen, too, because the news and media surround us. News stations broadcast every hour, the newspaper is updated each day, and advertisements on buses and benches and billboards catch our attention all the time. The media is everywhere.
(2) "These responses are predicated not on his intelligence, his unique experience of the world, his powers of contemplation, or his ability with language, but on the volume and omnipresence of his narrating voice." The people at the party slowly started listening to the guy with the megaphone and changed the topic of their conversations as he changed the topic. Did the guests do this on purpose? No, they couldn't help it. All they could hear were the cues of the megaphone which brought ideas and topics to mind and then infiltrated them into their conversations. We hear weather predictions, breaking stories, bad news, good news, war stories, etc. everyday and, like the guests at the party, infiltrate them into our own conversations. As new stories come out to the public, the old stories are left behind, and the subject of conversation follows the patterns of the news.
(3) "Let's say he hasn't carefully considered the things he's saying. He's basically just blurting things out... Because he feels he has to be entertaining, he jumps from topic to topic.." The guests at the party would be fed false information that was decorated, if you will, to make the information more appealing to them. Today's news sums up very complex stories in two minutes, cutting out anything that isn't exciting or compelling to viewers. How can we really understand what's going on if we're not given the full, detailed, true story?
(4) "This yammering guy has, by forcibly putting his restricted language into the heads of the guests, affected the quality and coloration of the thoughts going on in there." The guests have no choice almost but to think about all the false, unconnected information the guy with the megaphone has thrown at them. They interpret his feelings and opinions as fact and believe every word he says. We watch the news to "be in the know" but we don't learn much about what's really going on unless we ask questions and contact different sources. The news affects the way we think about problems in the world by including subtle connotations into the presentation of information.

Purpose of a College Education

In this day and age, everything is about money. How much you make and how much you spend. More importantly, it is about who you know. However, who you know tends to come from how much money you have so the two are intertwined.I believe that a college education is to help establish a very strong network with very powerful people. Otherwise everyone would go to a regular community college where they can receive basically the same education for much less as opposed to a private and Ivy League schools. Its not about what you know but who you know that makes people successful (and by successful I mean to a higher rank in their chosen field of study). Well, all this with the exception of those extremely rare cases like Mark Lederberg's where he dropped out of school and made it bigger than anyone his age had ever done before. Although he did go to Harvard so that might have given him a bigger boost as compared to a lonely student who left a regular community college.