Gender and Computer Games

,-Cambndge, Massachusetts-London, England i IustineCassell and Henry lenkins j “Complete Freedom of Movement”: Video Games as Today, each time I vmt my parents, I am shocked to see thatmost of those “sacred”places are now occupied by concrete, bricks, or asphalt They managed Gendered Play Spaces to get a whole subdivision out of Jungleloca and Freedonla’ Henry Jenkins My son, Henry, now 16, has never had a backyard He has grown up In various apartment complexes, surrounded by asphalt parking lots wlth, perhaps, a small grass buffer from the street Children were prohibited by apartment policy from playing on the grass or from racing their tncycles in the basements or from doing much of anything else that might make noise, annoy thenon-childbearing populatlon, cause damage to thefaclll- ties, or put themselves atrisk There was, usually, a city park some blocks away that we could go to on outings a few times a week and where we could watch him play Henry could claim no physical space as his own, except his toy-strewn A Tale of lko Childhoods room, and herarely got outside earshot Once or twice, when I became exasper- Sometimes, I feel nostalgic for the spacesof my boyhood, growing up in subur- ated by my son’s constant presence around the house, I would folget all this ban Atlanta in the 1960s My big grassy front yard sloped sharply downward and tell him he shouldgo outside andplay He would laok at mewith confusion into a ditch where we could float boats on a rainy day Beyond, there wasa pine and ask, “Where?” forest where my brother andI could toss pine cones like grenades or snapstlcks But, he did have video games that took him across lakes of fire, through together like swords In the backyard, there was a patch of grass where we cities in the clouds, along dark and gloomy back streets, and into dazzling could wrestle or play klckball and a treehouse, which sometimes bore a pirate neon-lit Asian marketplaces Video games constltute virtual play spaces which flag and at other times, the Stars andBars of the Confederacy Out beyond our allow home-bound children like my son to extend their reach, to explore, ma- own yard, there was a bamboo forest where we could play Tarzan, and vacant nipulate, and interact witha mole diverse range of imagmary places than con- lots, construction sites, sloping streets, anda nelghbonng farm (the last veshge stitute the often drab, predictable, and overly-familiar spaces of their everyday of a rural area turned suburban) lives Keith Feinsteln (1997),President of the Video Game Conservatory, argues Between my house and theschool, there was another forest, which,for the that video games preserve many aspects of traditional play spaces and culture full length of my youth, remained undeveloped A fnend and I would survey that motivate children to this land, cla~mlng it for our imaginarykingdoms of Jungleloca and Freedonla We felt a propnetorship over that space,even though others used itfor school- learn about the environment that theyfind themselves living In Video yard fisticuffs, smokmg cigarettes, or playmg kissing games When we were games present the opportunity to explore and discover, as well as to there, we rarely encountered adults, though when we did, it usually spelled combat others of comparable skill (whether they be human or elec- trouble We would come home from these secret places, covered wlth Georga tronic) and to struggle with them in a form that 1s similar to children red mud wrestling, or scrambling for the same ball-they are nearly matched, Of course, we spent many afternoons at home, watchmgold horror movies they aren’t going to really do much damage, yet it feels like an all- or acbon-adventure series reruns, and our motherswould fuss at us to go out- important fight for that child at that given moment “Space Invaders” side Often, something we had seen ontelevision would inspire our play, stalk- gives us visceral thrill and poses mental/physlcal challenges similar ing through the woods like Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolfman or “socking” and “powmg” to a schoolyard game of dodge-ball (or any of the hundred of related each other under the influenceof Batman kids games) Video games play wlth us, a never tiring playmate

Henry Jenkins “Complete Freedom of Movement” Feinstein’s comment embraces someclassical conceptions of play (such as spa- bodles bobblng and swaying to the on-screen action, and It’s clear they are cial explorauon and identity formation), suggesting thatvideo game play Isn’t there-in the fantasy world, battling It out wlth the orcs and goblins, pushing fundamentally dlfferent from backyard play To facilitate such lmmerslve play, their airplanes past the soundbarrier, or splashing theirway thlough the waves to achieve an appropnatelevel of “holding power” that enables children to tran- in their speed boats Perhaps my son finds in his video games what I found in scend their lmmedlate environments, vldeo game spaces requrre concreteness the woods behind the school, on my blke whizzing down the hllls of the subur- and vividness The push in the vrdeo game industry for more than a decade ban back streets, or settled Into my treehouse during a thunder storm wlth a has been toward the development of more graphically complex, more visually good adventure novel-intensity of expenence, escape from adult regulation, engagng, more three-dlmenslonally renderedspaces, and toward quicker, more in short, “complete freedom of movement” sophlstlcated, more flexible interachons with those spacesVideo games tempt This essay will offer a cultural geography of vldeo game spaces, one whlch the player to play longer, puttmg more and more quarters into the arcade ma- uses traditionalchildren‘s play and children’s literature as points of comparison chme (or providing “play value” forthose who’ve bought thegame) by unveiling to the digital worlds contemporary children lnhablt Specifically, I examme the ever more spectacular “mlcroworlds,” the revelatlon of a new level the reward “fit” between video games andtraditional boy culture and review several differ- for having survived and mastered the previous environment (Fuller and Jen- ent models for creating virtual play spaces for glrls So much of the leseaich kins 1995) on gender and games takes boy’s fascination with these games as a gwen As Video games advertwe themselves as taking us places very different from we attempt to offer video games for glrls, we need to better understand what where we live draws boys to video games and whether our daughters shouldfeel that same attraction Say hello to life In the fast lane “Sonic R” for Sega Saturn is a full- Video games are often blamed for the llstlessness or hyperactlvlty of our on, pedal-to-the-metal hi-speed dash through five 3D courses, each children, yetsociologists find these samebehavioral problems occurring among rendered in full 360 degree panoramas You’ll be flossing bug guts all children raised in highly restrrctlve and confined physical environments out of your teeth for weeks (“Sonic R” 1998) (Booth and Johnson 1975, van Staden 1984) Social leformers sometimes speak of children choosing to play vldeo games rather than playngoutslde, when, in Take a dip in these sub-infested watersfor a spot of nuclear fishin’ many cases, no suchchoice IS available More and more Americans hein urban Don’t worry You’ll know you’re in too deep when the water pressure or semi-urban neighborhoods Fewer of us own our homes andmore of us llve caves your head in (“Cntlcal Depth” 1998) in apartment complexes Fewer adults have chosen to have children and our society has become increasingly hostlle to the presence of chlldren In many Hack yourway through asavage world orhead stralght for the places, “no children” polmes severely restrict where parents can live Parents, arena Complete freedom of movement (“Die By the Sword“ 1998) for a variety of reasons, are fnghtened tohave their children on the streets, and place them under “protectlve custody” “Latch key” children return from school Strap in and throttle up as you whip through the most reallstlc and and lock themselves in their apartments (Kincheloe 1997) immerslve powerboat racmg game ever made Jump over roadways, In the nineteenthcentury, childrenliving along the fronheror on America’s and through passing convoys, or speed between 011 tankers, before farms enloyed free range over a space of ten square miles or more Elliot West they close off the track and turnyour boat to splinters Fmd a shortcut (1992) descnbes boys of nine or ten going camping alone for days on end, re- and take the lead, or better yet, secure your victory and force your turning when theywere needed to do chores around the houseThe early twen- opponent into a nver barge at 200 miles per hour (“VR Sports“ 1998) tieth century saw the development of urban playgrounds in the midst of city streets, respondmg to a growing sense of chddren’s dlmmlshlng access to space Who wouldn’t want to tradein the confinementof your room forthe lmmerslon and an increased awarenessof issues of child welfare (Cavallo 1991),but autobi- promlsed by today‘s video games’ Watch children playmg these games, thelr ographies of the period stress theavallablhty of vacant lots and back alleys that

Henry lenklns “Complete Freedom of Movement” 266 267

children could clalm as thelr ownplay environments Sociologists writing about velop as they map thelr fantaslesof empowerment andescape onto theirnelgh- the suburban Amencaof my boyhood found that childrenenloyed a playterrain borhoods Fredenck Donaldson (1970) proposed two different classlficat1ons of of one to five blocks of spaclous backyards and relahvely safe subdlvlslon these spaces-home base, the world which 1s secure and famlllar, and home streets (Hart 1979) Today, at the end of the twentieth century, many of our regon, an area undergoing active exploration, a space under the process of children have access to the one to five rooms inside their apartments Video being colonized by the child Moore (1986) wntes game technologes expand the spaceof their imagination Let me be clear-I am not arguing that vldeo games are as good for kids One of the clearest expressions of the benefits of continuity In the as the physical spaces of backyard play culture As a father, I wish that my son urban landscape was theway in which children used it as an outdoor could come home covered in mud or with scraped knees rather than carpet gymnasium As I walked along a Mill Hill street with Paul, he contlnu- burns However, we sometimes blame vldeo games for problems they do not ally went dartlng ahead, leapfroggmg over concrete bollards, hopping cause-perhaps because of our own discomfort with these technologes,which between paving slabs, balancingalong the curbside In each study were not part of our childhood When pollticlans like Senator Joseph Lleber- area, certain kids seemed to dance through their surroundmgs on the man, Democrat of Connecticut, target vldeo game violence, perhaps it 1s to look out for microfeatures with which to test their bodies Not only distract attention from the matenal conditions that give nse to a culture of dld he [David, another boy in the study], llke Paul, Jump over gaps domesbc violence, the economlc policies that make it harderfor most of us to between things, go “tightrope walking” along the tops of walls, leap- own homes, and the development practices that pave over the old grasslands frogging objects on slght, but at one point he went “mountaincllmb- and forests Video games did not makebackyard play spaces disappear, rather, mg” up a roughly bulk, nine-foot wall that had many serendlpitously they offer children some way to respond to domestic confinement placed toe and handholds (p 72)

These dlscovenes anse from children’s actlve exploration of and spontaneous Movlng Beyond “Home Base” Why Physical Spaces Matter engagement with their physical surloundlngs Children 111 the same nelghboi- The psychologcal and social functlons of playmg outside are as significant as hoods may have fundamentally different relations to the spaces they share, the impactof “sunshine andgood exercise” upon ourphysical well-being Roger cutting their own paths, giving their own names to features of then envlron- Hart’s Chlldren’s Expenence of Place (1979), for example, stresses the Importance ment These spaces are far more Important, many researchers conclude, than of children’s manlpulations and exploratlons of their physlcal envlronment to playgrounds,which can only beused in sanctioned ways, since the “wild their developmentof self-confidence and autonomy Our physical surroundings spaces” allow many more opportunities for chlldren to modify thelr physical are “relatively slmple and relatwely stable” compared to the “overwhelmlngly environment complex and ever shifting” relatlons betweenpeople, and thus, they form core Children’s access to spaces are structured around gendel differences Ob- resources for identlty formation The unstructured spaces, the playforts and serving the useof space within 1970s suburban Amenca,Hart (1979) found that treehouses, children create for themselves In the cracks, gullies, back alleys, boys enloyed far greater mobility and range thangirls of the sameage and class and vacant lots of the adult world constltute what Robln C Moore (1986) calls background In the course of an afternoon’s play, a typical ten-lo-twelve-year- “childhood’s domain” or Wdham Van Vllet (1983) has labeled as a “fourth envl- old boy might travel a distance of 2,452 yards, while the average ten-to-twelve- ronment,” outside the adult-structured spacesof home, school, and playground year-old girl might only travel 959 yards For the most part,girls expanded their These Informal, often temporary play spaces are where free and unstructured geographic range only to take on responslbllltles and perform chores for the play occurs Such spaces surface most often on the lists children makeof “spe- family, while parents often turned a blind eye to a boy’s movements Into prohlb- cial” or “important” places in their lives M H Matthews (1992) stresses the lted spaces The boys Hart (1979) observed were more likely to move beyond “topophllla:’ the heightened sense of belonging and ownership, children de- their homes in search of “nvers, forts and treehouses, woods, ballfields, hllls,

Henry jenktns “Complete Freedom of Movement” 268 269

lawns, sliding places, and chmblng trees,” while grls were more like to seek Putting Boy Culture Back in the Home commercially developed spaces, such as stores or shopping malls Girls were less likely than boys to physically alter their play environment, to dam creeks Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twlnklmg They or build forts Such gender differencesm moblhty, access, and controlover raged around Sld like a hall storm, and before Aunt Polly could collect physical space increased as children grew older As C Ward (1977) notes her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had takenpersonal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone He Whenever we discuss the part the environment plays In the lives of presently got safely beyond the reach of capture and punishment, and children, we are really talking about boys As a stereotype, the child hasted toward the public square of the village, where two “mlhtary” in the city 1s a boy Girls are far less vlslble The reader can venfy companies of boys had metfor conflict, accordlng to previous appomt- this by standing In a city street at any hmeof day and counting the ment Tom was the general of one of these armies, Joe Harper (a bo- children seen The malonty will be boys (p 152) som friend)general of the other Tom’s army won a great vlctory, after a long and hard-fought battle Then thedead were counted, pns- One study found that parentswere more llkely to descnbe boys as belng “out- oners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, doors” children and grls as “indoor” chlldren(Newson and Newson 1976) An- and theday for the necessary battle appointed,after which the armies other 1975 study (Rheingold and Cook), whichmventoned the contents of fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone children’s bedrooms, found boys more likely to possess a range of vehicles and (PP19-20) sports equlpment deslgned to encourage outside play, while the grls rooms -Mark Wain, Adventures ofTom Sawyer (1876) were stocked wth dolls, doll clothes, and other domestic oblects Parents of grls were more likely to express womes about the dangers theirchildren face What E Anthony Rotundo (1994) calls “boy culture” resulted from the growing on the streets andto structure girls’ time for productive household actlvlbes or separation of the male public sphere and thefemale private sphere in the wake educatlonal play (Matthews 1992) of the industrialrevolution Boys were cutoff from the work life of then fathers Histoncally, girl cultureformed under closer maternal supervwon and and left under the care of their mothers According to Rotundo, boys escaped grls’ toys were deslgned to foster female-specific skills and competencies and from the home Into the outdoor play space, freeing them to partmpate In a prepare grls for their future domesbc responslbllltles as wives and mothers semi-autonomous “boy culture”that cast itself in opposltlon to maternal The doll’s central place in grlhood reflected maternal desires to encourage culture daughters to sew, the doll’s china heads and hands fostered delicate gestures and movements (Formanek-Brunnel 1998) However, these skills were not ac- Where women’s sphere offered kindness, morahty, nurture and a qulred without some resistance Nineteenth-century girls were apparently as gentle splnt, the boys‘ wolld countered with energy, self-assertion, wlllmg as today’s glrls to mistreat them dolls, by cuttlng thelr hairor by drlvmg noise, and a frequent resort to vlolence The physical explosiveness nails into thelr bodles and the wlllmgness to inflict paln contrasted so sharply wlth the val- If cultural geographers are right when they argue that children’s ablhty to ues of the home that they suggest a dialogue in actions between the explore and modify their environmentsplays a large role in thengrowing sense values of the two spheres-as If a boy’s aggressive Impulses, so relent- of mastery, freedom, and self-confidence, then the restncbons placed on grls’ lessly opposed at home, sought extreme forms of release outside It, play have a cnpplmg effect Conversely, this research would suggest that chll- then, with stricken consciences, the boys came home for further les- dren’s declining access to play space would have a more dramatic impact on sons in self-restraint (p 37) the culture of young boys, since grls already faced domestic confinement The boys transgressed maternal prohlbitlons to prove they weren’t “mama’s boys” Rotundo argues that thm break with the mother was a necessary step

Henry lenklnr “Complete Freedom of Movement” toward autonomous manhood One of the many tragediesof our gendered dm- press a distaste for the games’ pulpy plots and lundimages As wnters like Jon slon of labor may be the ways that it links misogyny-an aggressive fighting Katz (1997) and Don Tapscott (1997) note, children’s relative comfort with digital back against themother-with the processof developing self-reliance Contrary media is itself a generational marker, with adults often unable to comprehend to the Freudian concept of the oedipal complex (which focuses on boys’ strug- the movement and colored shapes of the video screen Here, however, the loss gles wlth their all-powerful fathers as the siteof identity formahon), becoming of spacial mobility IS acutely felt-the “bookworm,” the boy who spent all of his an adult male often meansstruggling with (and in many cases,actively repudl- time inhis room reading, had a “mama’sboy” reputation In the old boy cultule ating) maternal culture Fathers, on the other hand, offered little guidance to Modern-day boys have had to accommodate their domestic confinement with their sons, who, Rotundo argues, acquired masculine skills and values from thew definitions of masculinity, perhaps accountmg, in part, for the hypermas- other boys By contrast, girls’ play culture was often “interdependent” with the culine andhyperviolent content of the games themselves The game player has realm of their mother’s domesticactivities, insunng a smoother transition into a fundamentally different image than the “bookworm” anticipated adult roles, but allowing less autonomy What happens when thephysical spaces of nineteenth-century boy culture 2 In nineteenth-century boy culture, youngsters gamed recognition from their are displaced by the virtual spacesof contemporary video games? Cultural ge- peers for their danng, often proven through stunts (such as swlngmg on vines, ographers have long argued that televlslon is a poor substitute for backyard climbing trees, or leaping from rocks asthey crossed streams) or through play, despite its potentlal to presentchildren with a greater diversity of spaces pranks (such as stealingapples or doing mischief aimed at adults) than can be found In their immediate surroundings, precisely because it IS a In video game culture,children gam recognitionfor their daring as demon- spectatonal rather thana participatory medium Moore (1986), however, leaves strated in thevirtual worlds of the game,overcoming obstacles, beating bosses, open the prospect that a more interactive dqgtal medium might serve some of and mastennglevels Nineteenth-century boys’ trespasses on neighbors’ prop- the same developmental funchons as backyard play A child playmg a video erty or confrontations with hostile shopkeepers are mirrored by the visual vo- game, searching for the path aroundobstacles, or looking for an advantageover cabulary of the video games, which often pit smaller protagonists against the lmagmary opponents, engages in many of the same “mapplng” activities as might and menaceof much larger rwals Much as cultural geographers descnbe children searching for affordances in their real-world environments Rotundo’s the boys’ physical movements beyond their home bases into developing home core clalms about nineteenth-centuryboy culture hold true for the “video game territories, the video games allow boys to gradually develop thelr mastery over culture” of contemporary boyhood This congruence may help us to accountfor the entire digital terrain, secunng their futureaccess to spaces by passmg goal the enormous popularity of these games with young boys This fit should not posts or finding warp zones be surpnslng when we consider that the current game genres reflect lntultlve choices by men who grew up In the 1960s and 1970s, when suburban boy cul- 3 The central virtues of the nineteenth-century boy culture were mastery and ture shll reigned self-control The boys set tasks and goals for themselves that requlred dlscl- The followmg are some pointsof companson between traditionalboy cul- plme in order to complete Through this process of setting and meeting chal ture and contemporary game culture lenges, they acquired the virtues of manhood The central virtues of video game culture are mastery (over the technical 1 Nineteenth-century boy culture was characterized by Its independence skills required by the games) and self-control (manual dexterity) Putting in the from the realm of both mothers and fathers, It was a space where boys could long hours of repetition and failure necessary to master a game also requues develop autonomy and self-confidence discipline and the ability to meet and surpassself-imposed goals Most contem- Video game culture also carves out a cultural realm for modern-day chll- porary video games are ruthlessly goal-dnven Boys will often play the games, dren separate from the space of their parents They often play the games in struggling to master a challenglng level, well past the pomt of physlcal and their rooms and guard their space against parental intrusion Parents often ex- emotional exhaustion. Children are not so much “addlcted“ to video games as

Henry Jenkins “Complete Freedom of Movement” 272 273

they are unwllllng to quit before theyhave met their goals, and the games seem and the emotional violence of bullying If at tlmes boys acted llke to always Set new goal posts, invlting us to best “Just one more level”One of a hostile pack of wolves that preyed on its own kind as well as on the lirnitations of the contemporary video game 1s that it provides only pre- other specles, they behaved at other timesllke a litter of playful pups structured forms of Interactlvlty, and in that sense, video games are more like who enJoy romping, wrestling and testrng newskills (p 45) playgrounds and clty parks rather than wlld spaces For the most part, vldeo game players can only explolt built-in affordances and preprogrammed path- Even feellngs of fondness andfriendship were explessed through physlcal ways “Secret codes,” “Easter Eggs:’ and “warp zones” function in dlgtal space means, including greetlng each other wlth showersof bnckbats and offal Such llke secret paths do in physical space and are eagerly sought by gamers who a culture IS as violent as the world depicted In contemporary video games, want to go places and see things otherscan’t find which have the virtue of allowing gowing boys to express their aggression and rambunctiousness through Indirect, rather than direct, means 4 The nineteenth-century boy culture was hlerarchlcal, wlth a member’s sta- tus dependent on compeuuve actlvlty, dlrect confrontatlon, and physlcal chal- 6 Nineteenth-century boy culture expressed Itself through scatologlcal hu- lenges The boy fought for a place in the gang’s Inner circle, hoplng to win mor Such bodily images (of sweat, splt, snot, shlt,and blood) reflected the boys’ admiration and respect growing awareness of their bodies and signified their relectlon of maternal Video game culture canalso be hlerarchlcal, with a member gaining status constraints by being able to complete a game or log a big score Video game masters move Video game culture hasoften been cntlclzed for its dependenceupon slml- from house to house to demonstrate their technical competency and to teach lar kinds of scatological Images, wlth the blood and gore of games llke “Mortal others how to “beat”partlcularly challenglng levels The video arcade becomes Kombat” (wlth Its “end moves” of dismemberment and decapltatlon), provldlng a proving ground for contemporary masculinity, whlle many games are de- some of the most oft-cited evldence In campalgns to reform video game con- signed for the arcade, demanding a constant turnover of colns for play and tent (Klnder 1996) Arguably, these images serve the samefunctlons for modern lntenslfying theaction into roughly two-mlnuteincrements Often,slngle- boys as for their nineteenth-century counterparts-allowlng an exploratlon of player games generate dlgtal nvals who may challenge players to beat their what it’s hke to live in our bodm and an expresslonof dlstance from maternal speeds or battle themfor domlnance regulations Like the earlier “boy culture,” this scatological imagery sometimes assumes overtly misogynistic form, directed against women as a clvllmng or 5 Nineteenth-century boy culture was sometimes brutally violent and physl- controlling force, staged toward women’s bodles as a site of physlcal difference cally aggressive, chlldren hurt each other orgot hurt trylngto prove thelr mas- and as the obJects of desire or distaste Some early games, such as “Super Met- tery and danng rold,” rewarded player competence by forcing female characters to stnp down Video game culture displaces this physlcal violence into a symbolic realm to their underwear If the boys beat a certain score Rather than beating each other up behind the school, boys combat imaginary characters, findmg a potentlally safer outlet for thelr aggressive feellngs We 7 Nineteenth-century boy culture depended on vanous forms of role-playlng, forget how violent prevlous boy culture was Rotundo (1994) writes often im~tatmg theactivities of adult males Rotundo (1994) notes the popular- ity of games of settlers and Indians durmg an age when the frontier had only The prevalhng ethos of the boys’ world not only supported the expres- recently been closed, casting boys sometlmes as their settler ancestors and slon of impulses such as dominance and aggresslon (whlch had evi- other tlmes as “savages” Such play mapped the competltlve and combative dent social uses),but also allowed therelease of hostile, violent boy-culture ethos onto the adult realm, thus exaggeratmg the place of warfare feellngs (whose social uses were less evident) By allowlng free pas- in adult male llves Through such play, children tested alternative social roles, sage to so many angry or destructlve emotions,boy culture sanctloned examined adult ideologes, and developed a firmer sense of their own abilities a good deal of mtentlonal cruelty, llke the physical torture of animals and Identitles

Henry Jenkins “Complete Freedom of Movement” 27 4 21 5

Video game culture dependsheavily on fantasyrole-playing, with different about the gamestogether, over the telephone or, now, over the Internet, as well genres of games allowing children to imagne themselves In alternative soclal as in person, on theplayground, or at the school cafeteria Boys compare notes, roles or situations Most games, however, provide Images of heroic action more map strateges, share tlps, andshow off their skllls, and this exchange of video appropnate for the rugged individualism of nineteenth-century Amencan cul- game lore provides the basis for more complex social relatlons Again, video ture than for the contemporary lnformatlon-and-servlce economyBoys play at games don’t Isolate children, but they fall, at the present tlme, to provide the being cnme fighters, race-car dnvers, and fighter pilots, not at holding down technological basis for overcomlng other soclal and cultural factors, such as desk Jobs This gap between the excitementof boyhood play and the alienahon working parents who are unable to bnng children to each other’s houses and of adult labor may explaln whyvldeo game Imagery seems so hyperbolic from enlarged school dlstrlcts that make it harder to get together an adult vantage point Rotundo (1994) notes, however, that there was always some gap between boys and adult males Far from a “corruption” of the culture of childhood, video games show strong contlnulhes wlth theboyhood play fondly remembered by previous gen- Boy culture emphaslzed exuberant spontaneity,It allowed free rem to eratlons There 1s aslgnlficant dlfference, however The nineteenth-century aggressive impulses and revealed In physical prowess and assertion “boy culture” enloyed such freedom and autonomyprecisely because the activi- Boy culture was a world of play, a social space where one evaded the ties were staged wlthln a larger expanse of space, because boys could occupy an duues and restnctlons of adult society Men were quiet and sober, environment largely unsupervlsed by adults Nineteenth-century boys sought for theirs was a life of senous business They had famlhes to support, Indirect means of breaking with their mothersby escaping to spaces that were reputatlons to earn, responslbllltles to meet Their world was based outside their control and engagmg In secret actlvltles the boys knew would on work, not play, and their sumval In It depended on patient plan- have met parental dlsapproval The mothers, on the other hand,rarely had to ning, not spontaneous lmpulse To prosper, then, a man had to delay confront the nature of thls “boy culture” and often dldn’t even know that It gratification and restrain desire Of course, he also needed to be ag- exlsted The vldeo game culture, on the other hand, occurs in plaln aght, In gressive andcompetltwe, and he needed an instinct for self- the middle of the famlly llvlng room, or at best,in the children’s rooms Mothers advancement But he had to channel those assertlve lmpulsesways in come face to face with the messy process by whlch western culture turns boys that were suitableto the abstract battles and complex Issues of into men The games and thelr content become the focus of open antagonism middle-class men’s work (p 55) and the sublect of tremendous guilt and anxiety Sega’s Lee McEnany (this vol- ume) acknowledges that the overwhelming malorlty of complaints game com-

Today, the boys are using the same technologes as their fathers, evenif they panies receive come from mothers, and Ellen Selter (1996) has noted that thls are using them to pursue dlfferent fantasies statlstlc reflects the increased pressure placed on mothers to supervise and poke children’s relations to popular culture Current attempts to pollce video 8 In nmteenth-century boy culture, play achvihes were seen as opportunitles game content reflect a long historyof attempts to shapeand regulate children’s for soclal mterachons and bondlng Boys formed strong ties that were the basis play culture, starting wlth the playDound movements of progresslve America for adult affiliations, for partlclpatlon In men’s CIVIC clubs and fraternities, and and the organization of social groups for boys, such as the Boy Scouts and Little for busmess partnerships League, whlch tempered the more rough-and-tumble qualltles of boy culture The track record of contemporary video game culture providing a basis for and channeled them Into games, sports, and otheradult-approved pastlmes slmllar social networklng IS more mixed In some cases, the games constitute Many of us mlght wish to foster a boy culture that allowed the expres- both play space and playmates, reflectlng the physlcal lsolatlon of contempo- sion of affection or the dlsplay of empowerment throughnonviolent channels, rary children from each other In other cases, the games provide the basls for that disentangled thedevelopment of personal autonomy from the fostenng of social interactions at home, atschool, and at the video arcades Chlldren talk misogyny, andthat encouragedboys to develop a more nurturmg, less

Henry lenktns “Complete Freedom of Movement“ 277

domlneenng attltude to thelr social and natural environments These goals are Gendered GamesICendered Books Toward a Cultural Geography of worth pursuing We can’t simply adopt a “boys will be boys” attitude However, Imaginary Spaces one wonders about the consequencesof such a policing actlon In a world that These debates about gendeledplay and commercial entertainment are not 11w no longer offers “wild” outdoor spacesas a safety valve for boys to escape pa- repeating (and ina curlous way, reversing) the emergence of a gender-speclllc rental control Perhaps our sons-and daughters-need an unpollced space for set of literary genres for children in the nmeteenth century As Ellzabeth Segl 1 social expenmentahon, a space where they can vent their frustrahons and (1986) notes, the earllest wnters of children’s books were mostly women, wllf imagne alternahve adult roles free of lnhlbltlng parental pressure The prob- saw the genre as “the exerclse of femmne moral ‘Influence”’upon chlldrel1’c lem, of course, 1s that unllke the nmteenth-centuryboy culture, thevldeo game developmg minds, and who created a literature that was undlfferentlated x culture IS not a world children construct for themselves but rather a world cordmg to gender but “domesticIn setting, heavlly didactic and morally or spn I made by adult companies and sold to children There IS no way that we can tually uphfting” (p 171) In other words, the earliest chddren’s books were “glll~7 escape adult lnterventlon in shaping children’s play environments as long as books” In everything but name, which isn’t surpnslng at a tune novel readlllv those environments are built andsold rather thandiscovered and appropnated was still heavily assoclatedwith women The “boys’ book” emerged, m the mlrl As parents, we are thus impllcated In our children’s choice of play envlron- nineteenth century, as “men of action,” mdustnahsts and adventurers, wloll ments, whetherwe wish to be or not, and we need to be conductlnga dialogue fictlons Intended to counter boys’ restlessness and apathy towards tladltlon.ll withour childrenabout the qualltles andvalues exhibited by thesegame children’s llterature The introduction of boys’ books reflected a desire to p’l worlds One model would be for adults and chlldren tocollaborate in the design boys to read Boy-book fantasies of action and adventure leflected the qualltltsl and development of vldeo game spaces, in the processdeveloping a conversa- of their pre exlstmg play culture, fantasles centering around “the escape frolll tion about the nature and meanings of the worlds bemg produced Another domestlclty and from the female domlnatlon of the domestlc world” (Segc.1 approach (Cassell, this volume) would be to create tools to allow children to 1986, p 171) If the grls’ game movement hasinvolved the rethlnklng of videl’ construct their own play spaces and then gve them the freedom to do what game genles (which initially emerged in a male-dommated space) in older tcs they want Right now, parents are nghtly apprehensive about a play space that make dlgtal media more attractive to girls (and thus to encourage the develolr 1s outside their own control and thatIS shaped according to adultspeclficahons ment of computatlonal skills), the boys’ book movement sought to remaht but without their direct Input reading (which lnltlally emerged in a female-dominated space) to respond One of the most dlsturbmg aspectsof the boy culture IS Its gender segrega- male needs (and thus to encourage literacy) In both cases, the goal seems 11 tion The nineteenth-century boy culture played an essential role In prepanng have been to construct fantasies thatreflect the gender-specific nature of chll boys for entry into their futureprofessional roles and responslbllltles, some of dren’s play and thus tomotivate those leftout of the desirable cultural practiw that same tralnlng has also become essentialfor erls ata tlme when more and to get more involved In thls next section, I will conslder the continuity tll

Henry lenklns “Complete Freedom of Movement” 278

killed The horse reared again, then he snorted and plunged straight Introspection In turn, such stones provided fantasles that boyscould enact for the boy (p 27) uponthelr own environments Rotundo (1994) describesnlneteenth-century -Walter Farley, The Black Stalhon (1941) boys playng pirates, settlers and Indlans, or Roman warriors, roles drawn from boys’ books The space of the boy book is the spaceof adventure, nsk-taklng anddanger, of The conventions of the nlneteenth- andearly-twentieth-century boys’ ad- a wlld and untamed nature that must be mastered if one IS to survive The venture story provided the basis for the current vldeo game genres The most space of the boy book offers “no place to seekcover,” and thus encouragesfight- successful console game senes, such as Capcom’s “Mega Man” or Nmtendo’s or-flight responses In some cases, most notably in the works of Mark Twaln, “Super Mano Brothers,” games, cornblne the iconography of multiple boys’ book the boy books represented a nostalgc documentation of nineteenth-century genres Their protagonists struggle across an astonishingly eclectic range of “boy culture,” its spaces, its actlvltles, and its values In other cases, as in the landscapes-deserts,frozen wastelands, tropical ram forests,urban under- succession of pulp adventure stones that form the background of the boys’ grounds-and encounter reslstance from strange hybnds (who manage to be game genres, the narratlves offered us a larger-than-life enactment of those anlmal, machine, and savage all rolled into one) The scroll games have built values, staged in exohc rather than backyard spaces, involving broader move- into them the constant constructionof frontiers-home re@ons-that the boy ments through space and ampllfymg horseplay and nsk-taking into scenanos player must struggle to master and push beyond, moving deeper and deeper of actual combat and conquest Wnters of boys’ books found an easy fit be- intouncharted space Action 1s relentless Theprotagonlst shoots fireballs, tween the ideolopes of Amencan “manlfest destiny” and Bntish colonialism ducks and charges, slugs It out, rolls, ~umps,and dashes across the treacherous and the adventure stonesboys preferred to read, which oftentook the form of terrain, never certain what lurks around the corner If you stand stlll, you dle quests, Journeys, or adventures into untamed and uncharted repons of the Everything you encounter IS potentially hostle, so shoot to kill Errors In ~udge- world-into the frontier of the Amencan west (or in the twentieth century, the ment result In the character’s death and require startlng all over again Each “final frontier” of Mars and beyond), into the exotlc realms of Africa, Asia, and screen overflows withdangers, each landscape 1s riddled wlth pltfalls and South Amenca The protagonists were boys or boy-like adult males, who had booby traps One screen may require you to leap from preclplce to preclpice, none of the professional responslbllltles and domestic commitmentsassociated barely missing falling into the deep chasms below Another may require you to with adults The heroes sought adventure by running away from home to loin swing by vines across the treetops, or spelunk through an underground pas- the circus (Toby pier), to sign up as cabin boy on a shlp (Treasure Island), or to sageway, all the while fighting it out with the alien hordes The games’ levels seek freedom by rafting down the rwer (Huckleberry Rnn) They confronted a and worlds reflect the set-plece structure of the earher boys’ books Boys get to hostlle and untamed environment (as whenTheJungle Book’s Mowgll must battle make lots of noise on adventure island, with the soundtrack full of pulsing “tooth and claw” with the hger, Sheer Khan, or as whenJack London’s protago- music, shouts, groans, zaps, and bomb blasts Everything IS streamlined the nists faced the frozen wind of the Yukon) They were shipwrecked on islands, plots and characters are reduced to genre archetypes, Immediately familiar to explored caves, searched for bunedtreasure, plunged harpoons into shck- the boy garners, and defined more through their capacity for actlons than any- skinned whales, or set out alone across the desert, the bush, or the ~ungle thing else The “adventure island” IS the archetypal space of both the boys’ They sumved through their wits, their physical mastery, and their abihty to books and the boys‘ games-an Isolated world far removed from domestic use violent force Each chapter offered a sensational set piece-an ambush by space or adult supervision, an untamed world for people who refuse to bow wlld Indians, an encounter with a coiled cobra, a landslide, a stampede, or a before the pressures of the clvllmng process, a never-never-land where you sea battle-that placed the protagonlst at nsk and tested skillshis and courage seek your fortune The “adventure island,” In short, 1s a world that fully ernbod- The persistent images of blood-and-guts combat and cliff-hanging risks com- les the boy culture and its ethos pelled boys to keep reading, making their blood race with promlses of thnlls and more thnlls This rapid pace allowed little room for moral and emotional

Henry lenkms “Complete Freedom of Movement” 280 281

Secret Gardens Girl Space mg influence on a family sufferlng from tragedy and loss (Rebecca ofSunnyblool2 Farm) Segel (1986) finds the most striking dlfference between the two genle If It was the key to the closed garden, and she could find out where traditions In the books’ settlngs “the domestic confinement of one book as the door was, she could perhaps open it and see what was inside the agalnst the extendedvoyage to exotlc lands In the other”(p 173) Avoiding the walls, and what had happenedto the old rose-trees It was because it purple prose of the boys’ books, the glrls’ books descnbe naturallstlc envlron- had been shut up so long that she wanted to seeit It seemed as if it ments, similar to the realm of readers’ daily experience The female protago- must be different from otherplaces and that somethlng strange must nlsts take emotional, but rarely physical, nsks The tone 1s more apt to be have happened to it dunng ten yearsBesides that, if she liked it she confessional than confrontational could go into itevery day and shut the door behind her, and shecould Tradltlonal gds’books, such asThe Secret Garden, do encourage some fol rns make up someplay of her own and play it qulte alone, becausenobody of spatlal exploratlon, an exploration of the hidden passages of unfamlllar would ever know where she was, but would thlnk the door was stlll houses or theredlscovery and cultwatlon of a deserted rose garden Norman N locked and the key buned in the earth (p 71) Holland and Leona F Sherman (1986) emphasize the role of spaclal exploratlon - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911) in the gothlc tradition, a “malden-plus-habltation”formula whose influence 1s strongly felt in The Secret Garden In such stones, the exploratlon of space leads Glrl space IS a space of secrets and romance, a space of one’s own in a world to the uncoverlng of secrets, clues, and symptoms that shed light on charac- that offers girls far too little room to explore Ironically, “girl books” often open ters‘ motlvatlons Hidden rooms often contain repressed memones and,some- with fantasies of bemg alone and thenrequire the female protagonist to sacn- times, entombed relatlves The castle, Holland and Sherman (1986) note, “can fice her pnvate space in order to make room for others’ needs Genres aimed threaten, reslst, love or confine, but In all these actions, it stands as a total specifically at girls were slower to evolve, often emergmg through lmltatlonof environment” (p 220) that the female protagonist can never fully escape Hol- the gothm and romances preferred by adult women readers and retalnlng a land and Sherman clalm that gothlc romances fulfill a fantasy of unearthing strong aura of instmctlon and self-improvement As Segel(l986) wntes secrets about the adultworld, casting the readerIn a posltlon of powerlessness and darlng them toovercome thelr fears andconfront the truth Such a fantasy The llberatlon of nineteenth century boys into the book world of sail- space IS, of course, consstent with what we have already learned about girls’ ors and prates, forest andbattles, left thelr slsters behmdIn the world domestlc confinement and greater responslblllhesto thelr families of chldhood-that IS, the world of home andfamily When publishers Purple Moon’s “SecretPaths in the Forest” fully embodles theJuvenile and writers saw the commercial posslblllties of books for gxls, it 1s gothic tradltlon-whlle slgnlficantly enlarging the space ope11 for glrls to ex- lnterestlng that they did not provlde comparable escape reading for plore Purple Moon removes the walls around the garden, turnlng It into wood- them (that came later, with the pulp series books) but instead devel- lands Producer Brenda Laurel has emphaslzed glrls’ fascination wlth secrels, oped books designed to persuade the young reader to accept thecon- fascination that readlly translates into a puzzle game structure, though “Secrct finementand self-sacnfice Inherent in thedoctllne of feminine Paths” pushes further than exlstlng games to give these “secrets” soclal and influence This was accompllshed by deplctlng the rewardsof submis- psychologlcal lesonance Based on her focus-group interviews, Laulel inltlally slon and the sacred JOYS of serving as “the angel of the house” (pp sought to design a “maglc garden,” a senes of “romantlclzed natural envlron- 171-172) ments” responslve to “girls’ highly touted nurturing deslres, theu fondness fm animals” She wanted to create a place “where glrls could exploie, meet, ~illtl If the boys’ book protagonist escapes all domestic responslblhtles, the grls’ take care of creatures, deslgn and grow magical or fantastical plants” (personal book heroine learned to temper her lmpuls~veness and to accept family and correspondence, 1997) What she found was that the glrls did no1 feel maglcLll domestlc obhgabons (Llttle Women, Anne of Green Gables) or sought tobe a heal- anlmals would need thelr nurturing, and in fact, many of the girls wanted Lhr

Henry lenklns “Complete Freedom of Movement”

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The world of “Secret Paths” explodes with subtle and lnvltlng colors-the colors of a forest on a summer afternoon,of sprlng flowers and autumn leaves and shlftlng patterns of light, of nppllng water and moonllt skles, of sand and earth The soundtrack IS equally dense andengagmg, as the naturalworld whls- pers to us In the rustle of the undergrowth or slngs to us In the sounds of the wlnd and thecalls of blrds The spaces of “Secret Paths”are full of hfe, as llzards shther from rock to rock, or field mlce dart for cover, yet even anlmals whlch might be fnghtenlng In other contexts (coyotes, foxes, owls) seem eager to re- veal their secrets to our explorers Jesse, one of the game’s protagonlsts, ex- presses a fear of the “creepy” nlghttlme woods, butthe game makes the anlmals seem tame and theforest safe, even in the dead of nlght The game’s puzzles reward careful exploratlon and observation At one polnt, we must cau- tlously approach a tlmld fawn If we wlsh to be granted the magc Jewels that are the tokens of our quest The guidebook urges us to be “unhurned and gentle” wlth the “easlly startled” deer Our goal 1s less to master nature thanto understand how we mlght llve In harmony wlthIt We learn to mlmlc Its patterns, to observe the notes (produced by slngmg cactus) thatmake a lizard’s head bob wlth approval and then tocopy them ourselves, to posltlon splders on a web so that theymay harmonize rather than createdlscord And, In some cases,we are rewarded for feedlng and canng for the anlmals In The Secret Garden (1911),Mary Lennox IS led by a robm to the anlmals to mother them The grls In Laurel’s study, however, were drawn to branches that mask the entrance to theforgotten rose garden the Idea of the secret garden or hlddenforest as a “grls only”place for solitude and Introspection Laurel explams Mary had stepped close to the robln, andsuddenly the gusts of wlnd swung aslde someloose ivy tralls, and moresuddenly stlll she lumped Glrls’ first responseto the place was that theywould want to go there toward It and caughtIt In her hand Thls she d1d because she hadseen alone, to be peaceful and perhapsread or daydream They might take somethmg under It-a round knob whlch had been covered by the a best fnend, but they would nevertake an adult or a boy They leaves hangmg over It The robm kept slnging and twlttenng away thought that the gardedforestwould be a place where they could find and tdhng hls headon one s~de, Ifas he were as excited as she was out things that would be Important to them, and a place where they (P 80) might meet a wlse or magxal person Altogether their fantasles wele about resplte and lookmg wlthln as opposed to frollcsome play (Per- Such anlmal guldes abound In “Secret Paths” the curser IS shaped llke a lady sonal correspondence, 1997) bug durlng our exploratlons and like a butterfly when we want to venture be yond the current screen Anlmals show us the way, If we only take the tlme to look and hsten Unllke twltch-and-shoot boys’ games, “SecretPaths“ encourages us to stloke and caress the screen wlth our curser, cllcklng only when we know where secret treasures mlght be hldden A magic book tells us

Henry lenklns “Complete freedom of Movement” As I pahently traveled along [through the paths], I found that every- where each confesses her secrets andtells of her worries and suffenngs Mlko thrng was enchanted! The trees, flowers and animals, the sun,sky and speaks of the pressure to always be the best and the alienation she feels from stars-all had magral propemeslThe more closely I listened and the the otherchildren, Dana recounts herrage over losing a soccer companlonshlp, more carefully I explored, the more was revealed to me Mlnn describes her humlllatlon because her lmmlgrant grandmother has re- fused to asslmllatenew-world customs Some of them have lost parents, others Nature’s rhythmsare gradual and recumng, a contmualprocess of blrth, face scary sltuatlons or ernotlonal slights that cnpple thelr confidence Their growth, and transformanon Laurel explalns answers lie along the secret paths through the forest, where the adventurers can find hidden maglcal stones that embodysocial, psychologlcal, or emotlonal We made the “game“ lntent~onallyslow-a grl can move down the strengths Along the way, the g~rls’ secrets areliterally embedded wlthln the paths at whatever pace, stop andplay wlth puzzles or stones, or hang landscape, so that chckmg on our envlronment may call forth memories or out m the tree house with or wlthout the other charactersI think that confessions If we are successful In finding all of the hidden stones,they magi- thls slowness is really a klnd of refuge for the glrls The game 1s much cally form a necklace that, when given to the rlght gul, allows us to hear a slower than televislon, for example One of the issues that glrls have comforting or clanfylng story Such narratives teach erls how to find emotlonal ralsed wth us in our most recentsurvey of thelr concerns IS the prob- resources within themselves and how to observe and respond to others’ often lem of feellng too busy I think that“Secret Paths” provides an anbdote unartlculated needs Solvlng puzzles In the physlcal environment helps US to to that feeling from the surpnslng sourceof the computer (Personal address problems in oursoclal environment “Secret Paths” 1s what Brenda Lau- correspondence, 1997) rel calls a “fnendshlp adventure,”allowlng young girls to rehearse their coping skills and try alternative soclal strateges Frances Hodgson Burnett’ssecret garden 1s a place of healing, and thebook links Mary’s restorahon of the forgotten rose garden with her repalringa family torn apart by tragedy, restonng a sickly boy to health, and coming togrlps with The Play Town Another Space for Girls, her mother’s death Harrlet was trylng to explain to Sport how to play Town “See, first you So long as Mistress Mary’s mind was full of disagreeable thoughts make up the name of the town Then you wnte down the names of about her dislikes and sour oplnlonsof people and her determination all the people who live in It Then when you know who lives there, not tobe pleased by or Interested in anything, she wasa yellow-faced, you make up what they do For instance, Mr Charles Hanley runs the

slckly, bored andwretched child Whenher mind gradually filled filling station on thecorner “ Hamet gotvery buslnessllke She Itself withroblns, and moorland cottages crowded with chll- stood up, then got on her knees m the soft September mud so she dren with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by could lean over the little valley made between thetwo blg roots of the day therewas noroom forthe dlsagreeable thoughtswhich af- tree She referred to her notebook every now and then, but for the fected her her and her dlgestlon and made her yellow and tired most part she staredintently at the mossy lowlands which made her (P 294) town (pp 3-5) - Louise Fltzhugh, Harrtet, the Spy (1964) Purple Moon’s “Secret Paths” has also been deslgned as a heahng place, where gxls are encouraged to “explore with your heart” and answer their emotlonal Harrlet the Spy opens wlth a descrlpbon of another form of spatlal play for dilemmas As the maglcal book explains, “You will never be alone here,for thls girls-I-Iarnet’s “town,” a “mlcroworld”she maps onto the familiar contours of IS a place where girls come to share andto seek help from one another”At the her own backyard and uses to think through the complex soclal Ielatlons she game’s opening, we draw together a group of female friends ~n the treehouse, observes In her communityHarriet controls the Inhabitantsof ths town, shap-

Henry Jenkins “Complete Freedom of Movement” 286

mg their achons to her desires “In thls town, everybody goes to bed at nine- der” “ChopSuey“ and“Smarty” takeplace insmall Midwestern towns, a thirty” (p 4) Not unlike a soap opera, her stones depend on Juxtapositions of workmg-class world of diners, hardware stores, and beauty parlors “Zero Zero” radlcally different forms of human expenence “Now, thls nlght, as Mr Hanley draws us further from home-into fin de slecle Pans, a world of bakeries, wax is lust about to close up, a long, big old black car dnves up and in it thereare museums,and catacombs These spacesare rendered In a distinctive style all these men with guns At thls same minute Mrs Harnson’s baby 1s born” somewherebetween the pnmitlveness of Grandma Moses and the colorful (p 6) Her fasclnahon mth mappmg and controlling the physical space of the postmodernlsm of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Far removed from the romantlc Imagery town makes her gamea pre-dlgtal prototype for “Slm City” and other slmula- of “Secret Paths,” these worlds overflow with city sounds-the cloppmg of horse tlon games However, compared to Harnet’s vivid Interest In the distinct per- hooves on cobblestones, barking dogs, clanging church bells in “Zero Zero’’- sonallties and parhcular expenences of her townspeople, “Slm City” seems and the narrator seems fascmatedwith the smokestacks andsigns whlch clut- alienated and abstract “Slm C1ty”’s classifications of land use Into resldentlal, ter this man-made environment As the narrator In “Zero Zero” rhapsodizes, commercial, and lndustnal push us well beyond the scale of everyday llfe and “smoke curled black and feathery llke a horse’s tall from a thousand chimney In so dolng, stnps the landscapeof its potential as a stage for chlldren’s fanta- pots” In thls world “before popslcles and paperbacks” While the soclal order

sles “Slm C~ty”offers us another form of power-the power to ‘‘play God,” to i has been tamed, posmgfew dangers, Duncan has not nd theseworlds of their design our physical environment, to sculp the landscape orcall down natural I more dlsreputable elements The guy In the candy shop in “Chop Suey” has disasters (Fnedman 1995), but not the power to imagmatlvely transform our covered his body with tattoos The Frenchmen In “Zero Zero” are suitably bored, I soclal environment “Slm Clty” embraces stock themes from boys‘ play, such as Ill-tempered, and insulting, even flowers hurl abuse at us The man In the ant- building forts, shapmg earth withtoy trucks, or dammmg creeks, playmg them lered hat smgsrowdy songs about “bones” and “guts” whenwe vlslt the cata- out ona much larger scale For Hamet, the mappmgof the space was only the combs, and the womenpuff on clgarettes, wear too much make-up, flash their first step In prepanng the ground for a rich saga of life and death, JOY and cleavage, and hint about llllclt rendezvous Duncan (this volume) suggests sorrow, and those are the elements that aretotally lacklng in most sirnulabon games There’s a sense of bittersweet experience in “Chop Suey:’ where not As Rtzhugh’s novel continues, Hamet’s Interests shiftfrom the lmaglnary everyone has had a perfect life but they’re all happy people Vera has events of hersimulated town and Intoreal-world spacesShe “spies” on threeex-husbands all named BobVera has problems,but she’s people’s pnvate social interactions, stagmg more and more “danng“mvestlga- also filled with love And she’s lust a very vibrant, alive person, and tlons, tyng to understand what motlvates adult behavior, and wntmg In her that’s why she fasclnates thelittle girls notebook her mterpretatlons of adult lives Harnet’s adventures take her well beyond the constncted space of her own home She breaks and enters houses Duncan relects our tendency to “prolect thls fantasy of punty and Innocence and takes ndes on dumbwalters, sneaks through back alleys and peeps Into onto chlldren,” suggestingthat all this “niceness” depnveschlldren of “the rich- windows She barely avoids gettmg caught Harnet’s adventures occur m public ness of their lives” and does not help them come to grlps wlth their “compll- space (not the pnvate space of the secret garden), a populated environment cated feehngs” towards the people in their lives (not the naturalworlds visited In “Secret Paths”) Yet, her adventures are notso Duncan’s protagonlsts, June Bug (“Chop Suey”) and Pmkee LeBrun (“Zelo much direct struggles wlth opposmg forces (as might be found ina boys’ book Zero”), are smart, curlous girls, who want to know more than they have been adventure) as covert operations to ferret outknowledge of social relatlons told Daring Plnkee scampers along the roofs of Paris and pops down chimneys The games of Theresa Duncan (“Chop Suey,“ “Smarty,” “Zero Zero”) offer a or steps boldly through the doors of shops, questlonlng adults about thelr VI- dlgtal verslon of Harnet’s “Town” Players can explore suburban and urban sons for the new century Yet she IS also interested in smaller, more intunate spaces andpry into bedroom closets in searchof the extraordlnary dlmenslons questlons, such as the ldentltyof the secret admlrer whowrltes love poems to of ordinary life Duncan (this volume) citesHarriet the Spy as an influence, hop- Bon Bon, the smger at the Follies Clues unearthed in one locatlon may shed ing that hergames wll grant young grls “a sense of lnqulsltlveness and won- light on mysteries posed elsewhere, allowing Duncan to suggest somethmg of

Henry lenkinr “Complete Freedom of Movement” 288

take particular pleasure in anarchlstlc Imagery, in ways we can dlsrupt and destabilize theenvironment, showenng the baker’s angry faces with white clouds of flour, npplng off the table cloths, or shaking up soda bottles so they will spurt thelr corks Often, there IS somethmg vaguely naughty about the game actwltles, as whena visit to Polre the fash~ondeslgner has us matchlng dlfferent pairs of underwear In that sense, Duncan’s stones preserve the mls- chlevous and sometimes anhsoclal character of Harnet’s antics and the trans- formatwe humor of Lewis Carroll, encouragmg the younggamers to take more nsks and to try things that might not ordmanly meet their parents’ approval Plnkee’s first act as a baby IS to rip the pink nbbonsfrom her had Duncan likes her characters free and “unladylike” In keeping with the pedagogr legacy of the girls’ book tradition, “Zero Zero” promises us an introduction to French history, cultule, and language, and “Smarty” a mlxture of “spelhng and spells, math and Martians, grammar and glamour,” but Duncan’s approach 1s sassy andIrreverent The waxwork of Louis XIV sticks out Its tongue at us, whlle Joan D’Arc IS rendered in marshmallow, altogether better suited for toasting The breads and cakes in the bakery are shaped like the faces of French philosophers and spoutlncomprehenslble argu- ments Pmkee’s quest for knowledge about the comlng century cannot be re-

Ftgure 12 2 Eon-Buns Boudolr In ‘Zero Zero ’ Copyrlght Theresa Duncan 1997 Used wllh perm~ssion ducedto an approved curriculum, butrather expresses an unrestramed fascmatlon with the stones,good, bad, happy or sad, thatpeople tell each other about their lives the “mterconnectedness” of life within a close community Often, as In Harrlet, Harrlet, the Spy IS ambivalent about its protagonist’s escapades her misad- the goal 1s less to evaluate these people than to understand what makes them ventures clearly excite the book’s female readers, but the character herself IS tlck In that sense, the game fosters the character-centered reading practices socially ostracized and dlsclplmed, forced to more appropnately channel her which Segel (1986) associates with thegirls’ book genres, reading practices that creativity and cunoslty Plnkee suffers no such punishment, endlng up the thnve on gosslp and speculation game watching thefireworks that mark the changeof the centuries and taking Duncan’s games have no great plot to plopel them Duncan (thls volume) pleasure in the knowledge that she will be a central part of the changes that sald, “‘Chop Suey’ works the way that real llfe does all these things happen to are coming “tonlght belongs to Bon Bon but the futurebelongs to Plnkee” you, but there’s no magical event, like there 1s sometimes in books, that trans- forms you” Lazy cunoslty invites us to explore the contents of each shop, to flip through the fashion magazines InBon Bon’s dressing room, to view the Conclusion Toward a Gender-Neutral Play Space’ early trick films playing at Cinema Egypt, or to watch the cheeses in windowthe Brenda Laurel and Theresa Duncan offer two very different conceptlons of a of Que1 Fromage that are, for reasons of their own, staging the major turning digital play space for girls-one pastoral, the other urban, one based on the points of the French Revolution (She also cites mspiration from the more sur- ideal of living in harmony wlth nature, the otherbased on an anarchlstlc plea- real adventures of Ahce In Wonderland ) The interfaces are flexible, allowing us sure in disrupting theorder of everyday life and makmg the familiar “strange” to vwt any locatlon when we want without havmg to fight our way through Yet, in many ways, the two games embrace remarkably similar ideals-play levels or work past puzzlmg obstacles “Zero Zero” and Duncan’s other games spaces for grls that adopt a slower pace, are less filled with dangers, invite

Henry lenklnr “Complete Freedom of Movement” gradual lnvestlgatlon and discovery, foster an awarenessof social relations and lively exploits, it was harder tokeep them from accompanying theirbrothers on a search for secrets, and center around emotlonal relatlons between characters vicarious adventures through thereading of boys’ books” (p 175) Readmg boys’ Both allow the exploratlon of physical envlronments but are really about the books gave grls (admittedly limited) access to the boy culture and Its values lntenor worlds of feellngs and fears Laurel and Duncan make an Important Segel finds evidence of such gender-crossing in the nineteenthcentury, though contnbutlon when they propose new anddifferent models for how dlgtalme- grls were actively discouraged from reading boys’ books because theircontents dia may be used The current capabllltles of our video and computer game were thought too lund and unwholesome At other times, educational authon- technologes reflect the pnontmof an earlier generatlon of game makers and tles encouraged the assignment of boys’ books in public schools, since girls their conceptlon of the boys’ market Thelr assumptlons about what kinds of could read and enJoy them, whde there was much greater stlgma attached to dlgtal play spaces were desirable defined how the bytes would be allocated, boys reading grls’ books The growing vlslblllty of the “quake girls:' female valuing rapld response time over the memory necessary to construct more garners who compete in tradltlonal male fightlng and action/adventure games complex and compelling characters Laurel and Duncan shift thefocus-gving (Jenkmsand Cassell, this volume),suggests thatthere has always been a pnorlty to character relations and “fnendshlp adventures”In dolng so, they are healthy degree of “crossover” Interest In the games market and thatmany grls expandmg what computers can do and whatroles they can play In our lives enjoy “playng with power” Girls may compete more directly and aggresslvely On the other hand,m our desire to open digtal technologes as an alterna- with boys in the video game arena than would ever have been posslble in the tive play space for grls, we must guard agalnst simply duplicating in the new real world of backyard play, since differences in physlcal size, strength, and medium the gender-specific genres of chlldren’s literature The segregatlon of agility are irrelevant And they can return from combat without the ripped chlldren’s reading ~ntoboy- and grl-book genres, Segel (1986) argues, encour- clothes or black eyes that told parents they had done something“unladyllke” aged the developmentof gender-specific reading strateges-wlth boys reading Unfortunately, much as grls whoread boys’ books were llkely to encounter the for plot and grls readmgfor character relatlonshlp Such differences,Segel sug- misogynistic themes that mark boys’ fantasies of separatlon from their moth- gests, taught children to replicate the separatlon betweena male public sphere ers, grls whoplay boys’ games find the games’ constructlonsof female sexual- of nsk-taking and a female domestlc sphere of caretaking As Segel (1986) ity and power are designed to gratify preadolescent males, not to empower notes, the classlficatlon of children’s literature into boys books and girls’ books girls Girl garners are aggresslvely campalgnlng to have their tastes and Inter- “extracted a heavy cost in feminine self-esteem,” restnctlng grl’s lmaglnatlve ests factored Into the development of action games expenence to what adults percelved as Its “proper place” Boys developed a We need to open up more space for grls to loin-or play alongside-the sense of autonomy and mastery both from then reading and from their play tradltlonal boy culture down by the nver, In the old vacant lot,wlthln the bam- Girls learned to fetter their imapnatlons, lust as they restncted then move- boo forest Girls need to learnhow to explore “unsafe” and “unfnendly”spaces, ments intoreal-world spaces At the same tlme, thls genredlvlslon also hmlted and to experience the “completefreedom of movement” promised by the boys’ boys’ psychological andemotional development, lnsunng afocus on goal- games, If not all the tlme, then at least someof the tlme, to help them develop onented, utlhtanan, and violent plots Too much Interest In soclal and emo- the self-confidence and competltlveness demanded of professional women tlonal life was a vulnerablllty in a world where competltlon left little room to They also need to learnhow, In the words of a contemporary bestseller, to “run be “led by your heart” We need to design dlgtal play spaces that allow gxls to with the wolves” and not lustfollow the butterflies Girls need to be able to play do more than stltch doll clothes, mother nature, or heal their fnends’ hurts, games where Barble gets to kick some butt and boys to do more than battle barbanan hordes However, this focus on creating action games for girls still represents only Segel’s analysis of “gender and childhood reading” suggests two ways of part of the answer,for as Segel(l986) notes, the gendersegregation of chlldren’s moving beyond the gender-segregationof our vlrtual landscape Flrst, as Segel literature was almost as damaglng for boys as it was for girls “In a soclety (1986) suggests, the deslgnatlon of books for boys and grls did not preclude where many men and womenare allenated from membersof the other sex, one (though certamly dlscouraged) readingacross gender llnes “Though glrls when wonders whether males might be more comfortable wlth and understanding they reached ‘that certainage’ couldbe prevented from Jolnlngboys’ games and of women’s needs and perspectives If they had lmaglnatlvely shared female

Henry Jenkins “Complete Freedom of Movement” 293

tunnels The game’s 3D deslgn allows an exhilarating freedom of movement, expenences through books, beglnnlng in childhood” (p 183) Boys may need to enhanced by design features,such as wmdresistance, that gwe players a play In secret gardens ortoy towns Just as muchas gds need to explore adven- stronger than average sense of embod~ment“Nights Into Dreams”reta1ns some ture Islands In the llterary realm, Segel points to books such as Llttle House on dangerous and nsky elements that are assoclatedwlth the boys games There the Prame and A Wrwkle In Tme that fuse the boy and grl genres, rewarding are spooky places, includlng nightmare worlds full of day-glo serpents and both a traditionally mascullne interest In plot action and a tradltlonally femi- wmged beasties, and enemleswe must battle, yet thereIS also a sense of un- nine interest In character relations constrained adventure and the expenence of floating through the clouds Our Sega Saturn’s “Nights Into Dreams” representsa similar fuslon of the boys’ pnmary enemy IS time, the alarm clock that wlll awaken us from our dreams and grls’ game genres Much as In “Secret Paths,” our movement through the Even when we confront monsters, they don’t fire on us, we must slmply avoid game space 1s framed as an attempt toresolve the characters’ emotionalprob- flymg directly into their sharp teeth When we lose “Nlghts”’ maglcal, gender- lems In the frame stones that open thegame, we enter the mindscapeof the bending garb, we turn back Into boys and girls and must hoof It as pedestrians two protagonlsts as theytoss and turnIn their sleep Clans, the femaleprotago- across the rugged terraln below, a sltuatlon that makes it far less likely we will nist, hopes to gam recognition on the stage asa singer, but has nightmares of achieve our goals To be gendered 1s to be constralned, to escape gender IS to being relected and ndlculed Elhot, the male character, hasfantasies of sconng escape gravity and to fly above It all big on the basketball court, yet fears beingbullied by blgger and more aggres- Sociologist Barne Thorne (1993) has discussed the forms of “borderwork,” sive players They run away from their problems, only to find themselves in which occurs when boys and grls occupy the same play spaces “The spatlal Nightopla, where they must save the dream world from the evil schemes of separation of boys and gds [on the same playground] constltutes a kmd of Wileman the Wicked and his monstrous mlnlons In the dreamworld, both boundary, perhaps felt most strongly by lndlvlduals who wantto ]om an actmty Clads and Elliot may assume the ldenbtyof Nights, an androgynous harlequin controlled by the other gender”(pp 64-65) Boys and glrls are brought together figure who can fly through the air, transcending all the problems below The In the same space, but they repeatedly enact the separatlon and opposition game requires players to gather glowng orbs that represent dlfferent formsof between the two play cultures In real-world play, thls ”borderwork” takes the energy needed to confront Clans’s and Elllot’s problems-punty (whlte), WS- form of chases and contests on the one hand and "cooties" or othel pollution dom (green), hope (yellow), mtelllgence (blue), and bravery (red)-a structure taboos on the other When “borderwork” occurs, gendet dlstlnctlons become that recalls the magic stones In “Secret Paths In the Forest” extremely ngld and nothlng passes between the two spheres Something slml- The tone of thls game 1s aptly captured by one Internet game cntlc, Big lar occurs In many of the books Segel identifies as genderneutral-male and Mltch“The whole expenence of “Nlghts” IS in soanng, tumbling, and free- female reading interests coexlst, side by slde, hke chddren shamg a play- wheeling throughcolorful landscapes, swooplng here and there, and lust losing ground, and yet they remaln resolutely separate, and the wnters,If anything, yourself in the moment ThisIS not a game you set out to win, the fun1s in the exaggerate gender dlfferences In order to proclaim their dual address Wendy Journey rather than the destlnatlon” Blg Mitch’s response suggests a recognl- and the “lost boys” both travel to Never-Never-Land, but Wendy plays house bon of the fundamentally differentqualltles of thls game-its focus on psycho- and the “lost boys” play Indians or prates The “llttle house” and the “pralne” lopcal Issues as much as on action and conflict, Its fascination with almless exlst side by side in Laura Wilder’s novels, but the mother remains trapped exploratron rather than goal-driven narrative, Its movement betweena reallstlc inside the house, whde Pa ventures into the frontler The moments when the world of everyday problems and a fantasy realm of great adventure, and Its line between the llttle house and the prame are crossed, such as a scene in mixture of the speed and mobility assoclated wlth the boys‘ platform games which a native Amerlcan penetrates into Ma Wllder’s parlor, become moments unth the lush natural landscapes and the sculpted soundtracks assoclated wlth of intense anxiety Only Laura can follow her pa across the threshold of the the prls’ games Spnng Valley IS a sparkling world of rainbows and waterfalls little house and onto the pralne, and her adventurous spmt1s often presented and Emerald Green forests Other levels allow us to splash through cascading as an unfemlnlne trait sheIS likely to outgrow as she getsolder fountains or sal1 past icy mountalns and frozen wonderlands, or bounce on pillows and off the walls of the surreal Soft Museum, or swim through aquatic

“Complete Freedom of Movement” Henry lenkins 2911 295

As we develop dlgltal play spaces for boys and grls,we need to make sure References this same pattern Isn't repeated, that we do not createblue and pnkghettos On the one hand, the openmg sequencesof "Nlghts Into Dreams:' wh~hframe Elliot and Clans as possesslng fundamentally different dreams (sportsfor boys and musical performance for glrls, graffih-laden Inner-cltybasketball courtsfor boys and pastoral gardensfor gds), perform thls hnd of borderwork, defining the proper place for each gender On the other hand, the androgynous"Nlghts" Cavalla, D 1981 Muscles and Morals Organrzed Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880-1920 ~htl embodles a fantasy of transcendlng gender and thus achlevlng the freedom adelph~aUnwerslty of Pennsylvania Press and moblllty to fly above It all To win the game, the player must becomeboth the male and the female protagonlsts, and they must loin forces for the final "CntIcal Depth" 1998 Adverhsement, Next Generatlon, Ianualy level The penalty for failure In thls world IS to be trapped on the ground and kedInto a slngle gender "Dle by the Sword" 1998 Adverhsement, Neyt Generatlon, January Thorne finds that aggresslve "borderwork" 1s more hkely to occur when children are forced together by adults than when they find themselves Inter- Donaldson, F 1970 "The Chlld In the Clty" Unlverslty of Washngton, mllneograph, clted acting more spontaneously, more llkely to occur m prestmctured lnstltutlonal In M H Matthews 1992, Maklng Sense ofplace Chlldren's Understandlng ofLarge Scale Enwon settlngs like the schoolyard than m the mformal settlngs of the subdwlslons ments Hertfordshlre Barnes and Noble and apartment complexes All of this suggests that our fantasy of deslgnlng Farley, W 1941 TheBlack StQlhOn New York Random House games thatwill provide common play spaces for gds and boys maybe illusive and as full of Its own compltcatlons and challenges as creating a "prls only" space or encourapg grlsto venture into tradltlonal maleturf We are not yet sure what such a gender-neutral space wlll look hke Creatlng such a space would mean redeslgnmg not only the nature of computet games but also the Fltzhugh, L 1964 Harrlet, the Spy New York Harper & Row nature of soclety The danger may be thatIn such a space, gender dlfferences are going to be more acutely felt, as boys and grls wlll be repelled from each other rather than drawn togetherThere are reasons why thls1s a place where nelther the femlnlst entrepreneurs nor the makersof boys' games are ready to go, yet as the grls' market IS secured, the challenge must be to find a way to move beyond our exlstmg categones and to once agaln Invent new klnds of vlrtual play spaces

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“VR Sports” 1998 Advertlsement, Next Generation, January

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“Somc R” 1998 Advertlsement, Next Ceneratlon, January

“Complete Freedom Movement” Henry lenklnr of