The argument for keeping the tiki god, that it expressed pride in
Native Hawaiian culture and history, illustrates the tiki’s signifi-
cance for those interested in preserving and nurturing Native
Hawaiian culture and pride. Whether tiki sculptures are seen by
residents of Hawaii as retaining religious significance or as sym-
bolizing current advocacy for Native Hawaiian rights and recogni-
tion, it is inappropriate to have a local girl be rewarded for their
destruction. Furthermore, Lilo’s reactions to the explosions when
they backfire and injure her provide a glance into gender stereo-
typing in the game.
The assumption in the computer game industry is that computer
games for girls should be different from computer games for boys.
Successful girl games, game scholars Subrahmanyam, Kraut,
Greenfield and Gross argue, are ones in which girls dramatize real
life. The authors provide the following illustration: Barbie games in
which girls shop for clothes for Barbie and dress her in the latest
fashions. The authors contend that boys, on the other hand, prefer
games that are played out in fantasy (130). However
Subrahmanyam et. al. fail to acknowledge that the world of Barbie
is a world of fantasy. How many girls look like Barbie? How many
of them can afford to buy clothes like the ones she wears? There is
much more to the issue of girls, computer game usage, and gender
stereotyping than I can go into in this article, but since Lilo & Stitch
is one of the few computer games with a female protagonist and
additionally one in which the female protagonist neither shops for
clothes nor has anyone try them on, it is worth briefly discussing
the construction of gender performance in this game.
The most innovative aspect of the Lilo & Stitch game is its use of
a girl as action figure; game reviewers and game scholars have
pointed out the lack of female protagonists in computer games, as
well as the lower percentages of girls playing computer games than
boys (cf. Land and Landi). However, this seemingly progressive
choice does not result in an expansion of available roles for girls.
Rather than embracing the idea of a young heroine as bold, deci-
sive, brave and/or physically powerful as is typical of the young
male hero, the game designers have gone out of their way to revise
the traditional hallmarks of male game protagonists to accommo-
date stereotypical notions of female behavior. For example, when
a player makes a mistake and has Lilo approach a dynamite barrel
too slowly, Lilo is hurt by the blast. When this happens, Lilo falls
down on the floor and begins to whimper. As a rule, male game
action figures don’t cry when they are hurt, but even more odd is
that when Lilo is hurt, she collapses to the ground and stomps her
little hands and feet the way a toddler who has just been refused a
candy bar might. The game designers’ goal cannot have been to
portray a realistic response to violence. After all, the violence she
encounters is horrifying, immense, and deadly. A realistic portray-
al would have had Lilo running away and screaming in pain and
terror.
We are accustomed to male action figures’ responses to violence
being emotionally unsound, but in the stylized approach to vio-
lence that computer games rely upon, at least the male protago-
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WORKS AND DAYS
nists’ emotional responses make sense within the conventions of
the genre. In Lilo’s case, there is a revision of the classic emotion-
al response of brave stoicism; Lilo, as a girl, is weak, slow, and
petty. The game designers create Lilo’s responses to injury and vio-
lence in a stereotypical and thus demeaning way, contrasting her
whiny and childish response with the stoic courage exhibited by
boy protagonists in the same situation. This makes the game
appear off kilter since Lilo’s reactions to the violence she faces
don’t make emotional sense, to say nothing of the damage they do
in terms of perpetuating unhelpful and inaccurate characterizations
of so-called feminine behavior.
Constructing the Child Gamer as Consumer
The concerns I’m expressing here about stereotyping and their
corresponding social injustices are exacerbated by the fact that
such stereotyping takes place on an enormous scale, since com-
puter games are usually one small part of a massive cross-mer-
chandising campaign. Children’s computer games are often part of
huge promotional campaigns that include not only tie-ins with
films, toys, books, and Happy Meals, but also media based web-
sites and product-based sites that function as direct advertising and
selling operations aimed at children. Unfortunately, most children
do not have the critical tools necessary to extract whatever peda-
gogical value there might be in playing computer games from the
frontal attack corporations impose, inducing them to become life-
long consumers of particular products.
Montgomery describes the situation in precise, horrifying detail:
“almost all of the major companies that advertise and market to
children have created their own websites, designed as “destina-
tions” for children on the Web. At the Digital Kids conference, par-
ticipants spoke proudly of “branded communities” for teens—Web
sites built around products—invoking the slogan, “Love my com-
munity, love my brand…. Companies such as Hasbro, Mattel, Frito-
Lay, and Lego are just a few that have created sites for children”
(153). These sites often include games and, most insidiously, also
advertising and on-line sales.
Direct advertising and on-line sales pitched at children are of
particular concern because they represent a new vulnerability of
children to the corporate influence, without the mediating factors
of parental guidance. Montgomery warns: “Marketers’ direct
access to children represents a different kind of interaction, one
that warrants much more attention…. Studies by one marketing
expert have found that children under age 12 now control or influ-
ence the spending of almost $500 billion” (157). Children repre-
sent a target audience that is easily manipulated, unsophisticated,
and with access to a tremendous amount of disposable income.
This sounds like a marketer’s dream, and sure enough, companies
are integrating advertising and Website content using the unique
capabilities of the Internet to promote brand awareness and loyal-
ty at a very early age, in ways that were not previously conceivable
Desser
45