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WELCOME TO MY CAPSTONE WIKI!
Hello! My name is Meghan Burrows. I am a senior creative writing major (and sociology minor) graduating Colby-Sawyer College in 2015. Storytelling has always been my passion , but I have another love as well: video games.
A PERSONAL INTRODUCTION:
The first "real" video game I remember playing was Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell. The game was released by Humongous Entertainment, Inc. in 1998 for Windows and Macintosh, although I played it on the prior. The game (and the rest of its series) followed the misadventures of Freddi Fish, a bold yellow fish who takes on mysteries saturated in morals and riddled with educational puzzles. Often tagging along with her is her pal Luther, and together they go on all sorts of adventures. To this day, Freddi continues to be one of my biggest inspirations as far as female role-models in video games go: despite being small and the "weaker" sex, she proves herself time and time again to be more than a match for many of the series' male antagonists.
A PERSONAL INTRODUCTION:
The first "real" video game I remember playing was Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell. The game was released by Humongous Entertainment, Inc. in 1998 for Windows and Macintosh, although I played it on the prior. The game (and the rest of its series) followed the misadventures of Freddi Fish, a bold yellow fish who takes on mysteries saturated in morals and riddled with educational puzzles. Often tagging along with her is her pal Luther, and together they go on all sorts of adventures. To this day, Freddi continues to be one of my biggest inspirations as far as female role-models in video games go: despite being small and the "weaker" sex, she proves herself time and time again to be more than a match for many of the series' male antagonists.
I continued being a "casual" gamer for many years. I graduated to harder mystery games like the ones in the Nancy Drew series by Her Entertainment, although I never managed to beat any of them (I was playing these in grade-school, and they're considerably harder than the Freddi Fish series). I also liked playing Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko and Glover on my Nintendo 64, which I got for my birthday one year. I even got my hands on a copy of Pokémon Ruby after saving my money for three months (notably, it was the second game in the main Pokémon series to finally allow players to play as a female character). Through all of this, I never considered myself to be a "hardcore" gamer. This was until I reached high school and became involved with a small group of my closest friends. They played notably more "intense" platform games like Bioshock, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Fallout 3. Unfortunately, I was severely outclassed when it came to gaming talent: I struggled with the PS3 controller, failed miserably to use Fallout 3's automatic targeting system (V.A.T.S.), and pretty much got mopped by every enemy I encountered, low-leveled molerats included. In a thinly-veiled attempt to impress my friends with something, I begged my mom to let me rent a game from the video-store (those still existed back then) so I could learn how to play a game none of them were familiar with: an M-rated game that my brother once showed me called Dead Space.
Despite lacking a strong female lead like in my previous gaming experiences, Dead Space became something akin to "my baby" fairly quickly. It had a compelling story arc, interesting characters, just the right amount of horror to keep things interesting (I love jump-scares, too), and a dark mystery concealed in the shadows of a government cover-up and corrupt religious organization bent on the ultimate "evolution" of the human race through its literal extinction. While still being clearly inspired by The Thing and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dead Space was captivating enough that I was driven to play it every night whenever my younger brother went to bed, and I was finally able to get my hands on the Xbox controller from eleven to midnight. This didn't go without problems, though: I usually found myself at the opposite end of sharp criticisms from my parents. This was either because they were worried I was playing video games in the first place or because I wasn't reading or doing something else "productive" instead.
One night that sticks with me in particular is when my stepfather confronted me during my nighttime gaming slot for the first time. He accused my generation of being invalid when it came to focusing on educational literature, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In an attempt to prove him wrong (because we HAD been reading the play in school at the time), I asked him to ask me a question about it, and he wanted to know the names of the houses. While I was able to remember the Capulets, I couldn't remember the Montagues. My stepfather laughed at me and left the room, and I was so upset that I stopped playing Dead Space for the night.
Despite lacking a strong female lead like in my previous gaming experiences, Dead Space became something akin to "my baby" fairly quickly. It had a compelling story arc, interesting characters, just the right amount of horror to keep things interesting (I love jump-scares, too), and a dark mystery concealed in the shadows of a government cover-up and corrupt religious organization bent on the ultimate "evolution" of the human race through its literal extinction. While still being clearly inspired by The Thing and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dead Space was captivating enough that I was driven to play it every night whenever my younger brother went to bed, and I was finally able to get my hands on the Xbox controller from eleven to midnight. This didn't go without problems, though: I usually found myself at the opposite end of sharp criticisms from my parents. This was either because they were worried I was playing video games in the first place or because I wasn't reading or doing something else "productive" instead.
One night that sticks with me in particular is when my stepfather confronted me during my nighttime gaming slot for the first time. He accused my generation of being invalid when it came to focusing on educational literature, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In an attempt to prove him wrong (because we HAD been reading the play in school at the time), I asked him to ask me a question about it, and he wanted to know the names of the houses. While I was able to remember the Capulets, I couldn't remember the Montagues. My stepfather laughed at me and left the room, and I was so upset that I stopped playing Dead Space for the night.
WHY DID I CHOOSE TO FOCUS ON VIDEO GAMES FOR MY CAPSTONE?
Despite how upset I was with that conversation, it planted the first seeds that ultimately led me to wanting to pursue this capstone topic. While my primary focus is how women are portrayed in cyberdramas, there's the matter of cyberdramas themselves not being considered a "legitimate" narrative art form: and how can we even begin to focus on the disparities of women in video games if we're not taking it seriously?
Despite how upset I was with that conversation, it planted the first seeds that ultimately led me to wanting to pursue this capstone topic. While my primary focus is how women are portrayed in cyberdramas, there's the matter of cyberdramas themselves not being considered a "legitimate" narrative art form: and how can we even begin to focus on the disparities of women in video games if we're not taking it seriously?
- I want to prove that any video game can have academic merit over "superior" literature, like Romeo and Juliet. For example, just to prove that point, I would argue that Dead Space is a better love story than Romeo and Juliet (a romantic farce at best), both in terms of academic benefit and delivery. Romeo was an idiot who pursued Juliet despite lusting for Rosalie only seconds earlier. He "fell in love" and married Juliet after knowing her less than a day. That's not sweet: that's creepy. Romeo also talks about how he scaled the wall of the garden to see Juliet during the balcony scene. It's not romantic: it's disrespectful. That courtyard was a private area of the Capulet home, and Capulet built the wall around it to protect his (thirteen year old) daughter. This was a time when a woman’s virtue was the most important thing she owned. If Juliet was found with a man in this very private part of her home, everyone would think she was no longer a virgin, her reputation would be ruined, and it would be much harder, if not impossible, for her father to make a good marriage. Did I forget to mention that Romeo was seventeen? Their relationship lasted three days, defied their parents, and ended in a lot of people being dead for no reason. That is not true love, and idolizing Rome and Juliet as such is a travesty. Meanwhile, Dead Space has a captivating romantic plot that doesn't pointlessly command the attention of the entire narrative. It has multiple moral lessons without depending on the romance plot as well, balancing themes of religious freedom, government/corporate corruption, and isolation. One of my favorite things about Dead Space is its ability to combine Edgar Allen Poe's themes of loneliness/desperation with H. P. Lovecraft's themes of cosmic horror: and rather than having the player "read" about these themes, the game-world forces the player to actually endure them. Rather than having a cast of one-dimensional characters that may or may not be too dumb to legally exist (i.e. Romeo, Mercutio, Juliet, etc.), Dead Space and its overall series has a wide array of two-dimensional characters, each with strengths and weaknesses that contribute to the story arcs in several ways. Oh: and it's still a better romance than Romeo and Juliet. So what better way to prove my point than by focusing my capstone on the creation of my very own cyberdrama?
- From a sociological (or even psychological) standpoint, I want to show that cyberdramas are a unique medium because they allow us to analyze human behavior. As a sociology minor, I am interested in the study of human behavior. Unlike films and literature (which are static and cannot be interacted with), video games offer us the ability to analyze our own behavior as well as the game as a creative-work. On top of analyzing characters within the story, we can also analyze ourselves as human beings when it comes to choices we have to make while playing the game.
- As a female player, I have always felt a deep connection to how women are portrayed in video game "geek" culture, as well. I have been told (many times) that I cannot be a "real" fan of Dead Space and its themes because of my sex, which really doesn't make much sense since art shouldn't be stereotyped or labeled to cater for a certain gender. That's like saying only girls can like Mean Girls because it happens to have "girls" in the title (this nod goes out to my boyfriend, Brandon, who LOVES this movie). One of the most recent real-world applications I can apply this idea to is the "Brony" My Little Pony craze that swept the internet in 2010. Despite the show being catered to a young female audience, the fan base ultimately consists of males: some of them being almost thirty-five years old. While no one has a "problem" with this, it is still largely considered "taboo" for women to show a genuine interest in video games without intense criticism or backlash for suggesting video games cater more to women as well as men. This disparity has bugged me for a long time, especially considering I know Skyrim's landscape and Fallout 3's Capital Wastes like the back of my hand, more so than many of my male gamer friends do.
THE COMPONENTS OF MY CAPSTONE:
The entirety of my capstone includes several major components, including...
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WHAT I HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH MY CAPSTONE:
With my capstone's creative and critical portion (including the creation of this website to showcase my final products), I hope to be able to:
With my capstone's creative and critical portion (including the creation of this website to showcase my final products), I hope to be able to:
- create better awareness for cyberdramas as a "real" narrative form (on the same tier as film and literature).
- create awareness for the state of feminism/female representation in video games.
- write a video game novelization that includes a strong, non-sexualized woman lead (as well as features other POC/sexually/religiously/ethnically diverse characters in a way that allows a video game to have some desperately needed representation).
IN MEMORANDUMThis capstone's creative portion ("HOWL DOGS"), is dedicated to my grandfather, GEORGE LAURENCELLE, who helped fuel my love for mecha and science-fiction. He also taught me that gendered stereotypes are for losers, and that I can do whatever I want so long as I put my mind to it.
He was taken off life-support on November 4th, 2014 at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Meyers, Florida, after falling from a roof and hitting his head. He was helping neighbors put up new shutters. He was 73 years old and a Navy veteran. Thanks a ton for always believing in me, Pepere. I know you always wanted to see me publish something, and while this isn't quite it, this still goes out to you. I love you so much. You're the best. |