Bonne Rueberg has a fascinating take on the game Portal:
3) We're dealing with a reshaping of a highly masculine genre, the FPS. If that itself weren't "queering" enough, there's the whole holes issue. We've talked before about how the guns in first-person shooters act as phallic avatars–that is, as penises. But in a world of women, this gun doesn't shoot bullets. It shoots orifices. Openings. Fine, vaginas. Vaginas you, a female character, have to enter/exit to solve puzzles. I don't say this often, and almost never with so much support and enthusiasm, but that is so gay.
I love the idea of FPS-subversion, but personally I think one shouldn't get too Freudian in symbolism... that's a tangled mess right there!
That is possibly the greatest thing I have heard in a super long time.
Posted by: gillman | 10/19/2007 at 04:34 PM
Interesting, particularly since one of the lead developers on the game happened to be a female. However, I think Freudian stuff like this is complete bunk.
Besides, there's no way a game like Portal could begin to undermine the traditional FPS, as games like Portal would get too boring the longer they were dragged out.
Posted by: cesarano | 10/21/2007 at 06:33 AM
Don't try and relate video games to your life. They're supposed to be an escape from who and what you are. You take on the role of heroes and save the world instead of taking on the roll of server and serving the food.
If you try and associate yourself with a video game or a video game character, you've missed the point entirely.
Posted by: Andy | 04/22/2011 at 08:36 PM