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Exergames and the “Ideal Woman”

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Exergames and the “Ideal Woman” Make Room for Video Games: Exergames and the “Ideal Woman” by Julia Golden Raz A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) in the University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Christian Sandvig, Chair Professor Susan Douglas Associate Professor Sheila C. Murphy Professor Lisa Nakamura © Julia Golden Raz 2015 For my mother ii Acknowledgements Words cannot fully articulate the gratitude I have for everyone who has believed in me throughout my graduate school journey. Special thanks to my advisor and dissertation chair, Dr. Christian Sandvig: for taking me on as an advisee, for invaluable feedback and mentoring, and for introducing me to the lab’s holiday white elephant exchange. To Dr. Sheila Murphy: you have believed in me from day one, and that means the world to me. You are an excellent mentor and friend, and I am truly grateful for everything you have done for me over the years. To Dr. Susan Douglas: it was such a pleasure teaching for you in COMM 101. You have taught me so much about scholarship and teaching. To Dr. Lisa Nakamura: thank you for your candid feedback and for pushing me as a game studies scholar. To Amy Eaton: for all of your assistance and guidance over the years. To Robin Means Coleman: for believing in me. To Dave Carter and Val Waldren at the Computer and Video Game Archive: thank you for supporting my research over the years. I feel so fortunate to have attended a school that has such an amazing video game archive. Thank you to the original members of the Fall 2009 cohort, and in particular, Ed Timke. Ed, your friendship and words of wisdom are invaluable. All the brisk walks, weekly trips to our favorite restaurant, and marathons of the Golden Girls made grad school life fun. Another fellow graduate student, Sarah Erickson, has been such a supportive friend. I will fondly think of the nights of Red Vines and “chick flicks.” To iii my undergraduate research assistants: Lindun Lai, Josh Poirier, Nick Millado, and Rachel Haas. Your eagerness and willingness to assist me in this research process has been invaluable. Additional thank you to the Infrastructure Lab for all your feedback and my writing group, PhDs in L.A., for helping me find a regular schedule and structure for writing. I would also like to thank my college roommate and friend, Saiqa Qureshi, for all your moral support. Finally, I cannot emphasize enough how much my family assisted in my success. Thank you, Mom, for being my biggest cheerleader. And last, but certainly not least, to my loving husband, Oded. You make all this worthwhile. iv Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature .................................................................................. 17 Chapter 3: Methodology ................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 4: The Construction of Women as Exer-Moms .................................................. 62 Chapter 5: Women’s Game Play and the Hardcore/Exergame Dichotomy .................... 112 Chapter 6: Contextualizing Exergames .......................................................................... 149 Chapter 7: Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 170 References ....................................................................................................................... 178 v List of Figures Figure 1 Martha Stewart on the cover of a special edition of Wired magazine (2007) ....... 11 2 Celebrity model, actress, author, and mother, Jenny McCarthy standing in a kitchen while promoting YSFJMC (Ubisoft, 2009) in a scene from a TV commercial ............................................................................................................ 62 3 Screen shot from the “Dear Sophie Chrome Ad” (2011) ..................................... 71 4 Screen shots from the Wii Fit Plus “Working Mom” (2009) TV commercial ..... 73 5 Screen shots from the Wii Fit Plus “New Mom” (2009) TV commercial ............ 75 6 Print advertisement for Wii Fit Plus, found in various magazines in 2009 .......... 80 7 Labor force participation rates, by sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity, 2012 annual averages ................................................................................................................. 82 8 Through direct address in the TV commercial, Jenny McCarthy and stay-at-home mother, Claire, explain why YSFJMC (2009) is perfect for mothers .................................................................................................................. 84 9 Close up shots from the YSFJMC (2009) commercial ......................................... 85 10 Barbie’s thought bubble found in the introduction in the Barbie (1991) user’s manual ................................................................................................................... 90 11 My Baby Girl (2008) for Nintendo DS. ................................................................ 91 12 What girls should want to grow up to be, according to various Imagine games by Ubisoft for the Nintendo DS ................................................................. 91 13 Girls/women seemingly empowered to undertake what used to be traditional career realms for men (doctors and business owners) (Imagine Family Doctor, 2009; Imagine Boutique Owner, 2009) ................................................................. 92 14 Screen shots of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) playing the Perfect Mom video game in the 2014 film, Her .............................................................................. 93-94 vi 15 Wii Fit Plus (2009) menu depicting the preset routines that are grouped into different categories ................................................................................................ 96 16 Options to justify weight gain in Wii Fit Plus (2009) ........................................... 97 17 Four images of various screens in the in-game world of YSFJMC (2009) ..... 98-99 18 Game boxes for Wii Fit Plus (2009) ................................................................... 101 19 Front and back of game box for YSFJMC (2009) ....................................... 102-103 20 Demonstrating the new feature of Wii Fit Plus, whereby you can weigh a baby while standing on the balance board ................................................................... 106 21 “Wii Fitness Team.” Southern Living magazine online edition (November 2010) ................................................................................................ 108 22 “Hardcore Maleness” article by Rowan Kaiser (2010) explaining the hardcore/casual dichotomy in allegedly simple terms ........................................ 112 23 A dominant narrative that exergames are not real video games ......................... 121 24 Screen shots from the Dead Space 2 (2011) advertising campaign ............. 123-124 25 Screen shots from the “Gaming With My Mom” “best of” videos that appeared on the talk show, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (2013) ............. 126-127 26 Beat a Bitch Up game, instructing players to “CLICK TO HIT HER!” ............. 128 27 Print advertisement for the Wii Fit U that appeared in Fitness magazine (April 2014) ........................................................................................................ 134 28 Healthy, Fit, Happy Mom Prenatal Exercise Routine DVD ............................... 136 29 Celebrity fitness DVDs ....................................................................................... 139 30 Selecting the silhouette option in GFWMB ................................................. 140-141 31 “Dear PlayStation” commercial titled, “She Smells Like Strawberries” (2009) .................................................................................................................. 163 32 “Family Time” Wii U commercial (2013) .......................................................... 164 33 “Work and Kids.” Time magazine online NewsFeed (2014) .............................. 166 34 “Eating and Working.” Time magazine online NewsFeed (2014) ...................... 167 35 “Eating Salad.” Time magazine online NewsFeed (2014) .................................. 167 vii 36 “Are You Mom Enough?” (Time, 2012); “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” (The Atlantic, 2012); “The Fantasy Life of Working Women” (Newsweek, 2012) ............................................................................................... 168 viii Chapter 1: Introduction In September 2014, feminist culture critic Anita Sarkeesian received death threats from the online gaming community. She had been threatened since launching a Kickstarter campaign for her video series in 2012, “Tropes versus Women,” a web series analyzing the depictions of women in video games (Martens, 2014). The FBI took the threats seriously; Sarkeesian had to leave her home and go into protective
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