MediaSmarts

With Christmas approaching, video games are the one media industry that seems recession-proof, with games topping many wish lists. Parents, though, can find it difficult to tell just what they’re buying for their children. They may know about Grand Theft Auto, for instance, but may wonder what kind of sins are in Sins of a Solar Empire. Of course, nobody wants to disappoint their children: if parents decide not to buy Gears of War, will little Johnny be happy with Rock Band instead? Fortunately, there are both tools and techniques at hand to help parents identify games they might find inappropriate and also to pick appropriate games their children will like.

The recently released Pew Report Teens, Video Games and Civicshas revived the question about whether video games can be a worthwhile activity. Another recent entry in this debate is Jim Rossignol’s This Gaming Life, a survey of computer gaming culture and a chronicle of its role in the author’s life.

It’s been a rough couple of months for a brat. Or rather for Bratz – the giant-headed, almond-eyed, scantily dressed dolls that have been giving Barbie a scare for the last few years. One of the toy success stories of the last decade, the Bratz juggernaut now shows signs of slowing down: first, a $100 million judgment against the dolls’ manufacturer, MGA Entertainment, which ruled that the original designer first drew them while still under contract at Mattel; then a successful campaign by parents to keep Bratz books out of the Scholastic catalogue, which places books in thousands of schools across North America; and, most painfully, reports that stores have cut shelf space for Bratz by as much as 50 per cent.

An alien anthropologist, studying North American culture, might wonder why it is that despite the increasing economic and political power of women over the last forty years, appearance and behaviour seem to be more gender-typed than ever. A walk through any department store would give this anthropologist a clear notion of gender roles in children and teens: boys are warriors and superheroes, clad in camouflage (the new blue); girls are princesses, dressed always in pink. Packaging Girlhood, by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown, acts as a guide to parents and teachers who – perhaps remembering a time of boys and girls in t-shirts, jeans or unisex overalls – may be as perplexed by all this as our alien would be.