We recently talked with the Game Dame and decided to include links to her best stories every Friday here on the site. You may be wondering who the Game Dame is. She just happens to be one of the coolest gamers we know. We thought it would be a great idea to add a little female perspective to our blog. She has her own blog called “The Game Dame” that’s always full of interesting articles, posts and opinions of hers. Check out the links below and leave comments! Be warned that “MY EYES!!! THEY BURN!!!” may be something you don’t want to see. I’ve been trying for about an hour to get the image out of my mind.

Frag: A Gamer Documentary Worth Watching
MY EYES!!! THEY BURN!!! (pic)
Podcastic: Game Dame Level-Up News
Never Ignore Fido While Playing Your Wii (video)
Dave’s Sweet Home Arcade
Legos Meet Double Dragon
Kid Stages Abduction for a Wii: Epic Fail
Mario: Game Over (video)
When Bowser’s Minions Revolt

written by Will Snizek \\ tags: blog, BURN, coolest, Dame, Dave, Fido, Friday, game, hour, idea, image, Mario, MY EYES, Nintendo Wii, perspective, site, something, video, Week

[Editor's Note: In the first part of our two part interview with Ragnhild Mogren, teacher at Stockholm University, we specifically discuss the Resident Evil 5 trailer, why historical baggage can never be divorced from certain imagery and ask what it means to live in the "global village".]

What do we see when we play videogames? What implications do games have on our society, and do games get a free pass because they’re “just games”?

Riding on the wave that is the Resident Evil 5 debacle about racism and culture understandings about mediums that we consume every day, we spoke to Ragnhild Mogren, teacher at the educational programme Multimedia Education - Technology at Stockholm university, about these issues to figure out why not just gamers, but our entire society, should care about what games are portraying and contributing to our culture.

What does a person with no understanding of the Resident Evil franchise, as a game series, think about this piece of film? When asked about what feelings and emotions that comes up just from the trailer alone, Mogren’s response is quite clear.

- If I should interpret this trailer from a hermeneutic perspective, that my previous understanding and knowledge plays a huge part in what I actually see here, then this piece of film is very racist.

Her arguments echo the words of N’Gai Croal and his MTV Multiplayer blog interview, that there are images in this trailer that are perfectly sound to be concerned about.

- This trailer says to me that the black people here are portrayed as Neanderthals, quite frankly. This white figure, on the other hand, is very good looking in terms of the norms and rules of what a good looking man is supposed to look like in our society, even if it’s completely unrealistic. The trailer shows political power in that it presents a sense of historical colonial suppression.

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written by Jesper Sellerberg \\ tags: Africa, Chris Redfield, Evil, fact, Features, game, Gender, Interview, part, person, perspective, Racism, Ragnhild Mogren, Resident, society, South Africa, Stockholm, teacher, Today, Trailer, university