Another counterexample: many people of my generation (i.e. currently
college students) were raised on Mario Brothers by Nintendo. I never had a
Nintendo game machine, because I had a computer, but my friends did. I
have previously finished the game.
Although I am a young man, I said people in the previous paragraph because
I knew many girls at the time who were also engrossed into the game.
Nintendo's Mario Brothers came with the game system, and it was an
excellent generally non-violent arcade game. For those who haven't seen
it, it involves navigating a little character through a variety of
"worlds" in order to save a princess. Compared to today's level graphics
in games, Mario Bros. is a joke. Nonetheless, the storyline and the skills
involved were enough to capture the imagination of my male and female
friends.
The ownership of the game was relatively unbiased. All one had to to was
purchase a Nintendo game system. Irrelevant of the games that you bought
in the near future which usually appealed more to your un-gender-neutral
instincts, you got Mario Brothers. And Mario brothers became somewhat of a
standard across gender dissimilar peer groups; i.e. you were able to talk
about your accomplishments in Mario Bros. to both guys and girls. It
certainly wasn't one of the more popular topics, but it occasionally came
up.
The virtual world of Mario Brothers, then, gave our generation an abstracted
playground for our imaginations, where male or female didn't make a
difference.
Luke Szyrmer
--
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
-- Paul Beatty