Sexualized Gaming and Historical Hacking

This week’s readings in Critical Cyberculture Studies cover a broad spectrum of topics, and a couple of them caught my attention. The focus of this week’s entry is to look a little more closely at each of them, and to raise some questions I have after reading about them.

O’Riordan (2006) focuses her contribution on the visual presentation of female video game heroines in, including characters like Lara Croft and Ananova. She makes the claim that this presentation of women with large breasts and narrow waists is an attempt to sexualize the characters and to commodify the product. This argument seems tautological and an unnecessary inclusion in the conversation. The programmers are infusing sex appeal in the characters, and the morally questionable practice seems to be driven by the desire to make a profit. That said, I am pretty confident that the average consumer can look at a Lara Croft and think “sex symbol for profit” the same way they look at the run of the mill Hollywood actress. This is a problem that exists on a larger scale than the gaming industry. Whether it is movies, games, television, or magazines, we see it everyday in more perspectives than video gaming.

She precedes her argument about image and profit with the claim that creating these young, almost innocent, and attractive female characters for the user to control fulfills a paternalistic function. I have two criticisms of this statement. First, I find it highly doubtful that the average consumer who is swayed by the sex appeal of these characters will think of themselves as their father. Second, what about a Lara Croft or Ananova makes the declaration of “almost innocent” feasible? This perspective seems like a reach on O’Riordan’s part, and one the article could do without.

In general, I think O’Riordan’s (2006) arguments are valid, though I question the meaningful contribution they make. Female characters do suggest an absurd acceptable body image for women who play. A closer examination of female characters in gaming might help to show that the character development does create positive social characteristics for these characters as well. Lara Croft of Tomb Raider is a survivor, is educated in archaeology, beyond the image provides a positive female role model for women because she is portrayed as independent, strong, and confident in her pursuits (Kennedy, 2002). Samus Aran of Metroid fame is a female bounty hunter that tries to save the universe (http://cube.ign.com/articles/096/096588p1.html). Granted, these examples are a bit oversimplistic, but a young girl playing these games gets a positive message from female characters independent of the image that O’Riordan criticizes. I agree we need to broaden the image specturm of pro-social video game heroines. That said, this will not happen without a viable market.

Turner (2006) presents a historical account of the first Hacker’s conference, discusses the code of ethics, and presents an often-discussed element of concern in our readings lately, the debate over presenting innovations to improve society against the need to make a profit. These are both great elements to discuss, but he oversimplifies what it is to be a hacker in a complex context of modern interpretation. Granted, there are those out there who are computer enthusiasts who focus on coding in order to present a better world through computing innovation (e.g., Steve Wozniak).

There is, however, a very viable grouping of hackers that is more directly interested in cracking security systems that may or may not be computer-related, as a form of subversion. Turner references Theodore “John” Draper (a.k.a. Captain Crunch), who had little to do with computers in gaining fame. Draper, in fact, hacked telephone lines for free access to long distance calls. In addition to telephone hacking, many hackers now are engaged in computer hacking for a variety of good or bad purposes.

Hacking for benevolent purposes is typically called white hat hacking, and they will hack a system to determine its weakness and promptly report their findings to the company so they can improve their system. Hacking for criminal (and more subversive) purposes is referred to as black hat hacking, and they engage in hacking that results in personal profit, damage to the system they hack, or general mayhem to promote the decentralization of society that Turner refers to in the hackers’ ethic. A notable figure surrounded in controversy is Kevin Mitnick, who engaged in what he called social engineering from the age of 12 in gaining bus access up until his federal conviction for illegal computer access in 1995 (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/10/07/kevin.mitnick.cnna/index.html). Grey hats are the go between of the above two groups in the culture who may or may not take something, but will never profit and sometimes report the problems they see to companies they deem reputable.

For a brief interview of these three figures in hacking history, check this link out:
http://www.maniacworld.com/original-hackers.htm