El sent in a really interesting example of the re-fashioning of a real body into one believed to be more appealing to consumers. In the video below, real footage of gymnast Shawn Johnson is shown alongside the video game designed to allow Wii players to “play” her. El notes:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.…the video Shawn is significantly thinner and long-limbed whereas the real Shawn has a short muscular body. The real Shawn’s leotards are red and blue, while the video image is wearing a pink leotard. In addition, the hair of the video version is blonder.
There has been a clear effort here to feminize the image of Shawn and to make her body conform to less athletic ideals… While Shawn’s name and fame is used to sell the video (presumably primarily to little girls), the video sends the message that Shawn herself must be altered, even though I would guess most people buying the game are fans of Shawn, know what she look like, and admire her as she is.
Comments 30
Lynne Skysong — October 8, 2010
I'm really confused here. If people are buying this game because they've watched Shawn preform and see her on the cover of the game... then why would the game developers make the playable game character look like some generic, feminine gymnast? It makes me wonder if they had starting making the game and then later got Shawn's name to put on the box. And then only went back briefly to change the characters details, but not overall shape.
pmsrhino — October 8, 2010
Is there a chance that the girl in the game isn't supposed to be Shawn Johnson herself? Most sports games that include famous people's names in the title (Tony Hawk Proskater, for example) but you don't have to play as that person and they usually include character creations where you can make your own person. The idea being you can make someone who looks like you.
So I think this may be making an assumption based on a very short game play video. Are we sure there's no custom character creations in the game?
Sarah — October 8, 2010
It also appears that the game video is compressed from an original 16x9 format into a 4x3 format, which would make it look altered as well.
Citizenparables — October 8, 2010
Like many sports-based video games, the title character may change from market-to-market. So Shawn Johnson may be the licensed name in the US, but in the UK, Australia and Eaurope, entirely different gymnasts may be pictured on the box.
Bella the Bunny Girl — October 8, 2010
One point - Shawn Johnson wore a pink leotard while competing in some events in Beijing - http://0.tqn.com/d/gymnastics/1/7/d/4/-/-/ShawnJohnson08OlyPodJamieSquireGETTY82201003.jpg - and has worn pink at other high profile competitions. It makes the character more recognizable as Shawn, if that's who she's meant to be.
Dr Kate — October 8, 2010
She looks a lot more like the women who scored high on the US team, was older, and nearly 5'5" tall. I forget her name - it was something very Russian or even Romanian as I recall.
N — October 9, 2010
I admit it does look more like a Nastia Liukin video game than a Shawn Johnson one. But to be fair, Shawn has worn her fair share of pink leotards in her time (and to the person who mentioned it, it's true that pink leos are Nastia's trademark, and orange ones were Shawn's... but she's had a few memorable pink moments), and her hair is pretty much that blonde these days.
At least the character still has a fairly gymnast-looking body, albeit not as stocky as Shawn's. Certainly better than the Barbie Gymnastics video games of the late 90's... *no* gymnast has a body even remotely like Barbie. Soz.
12Sided — October 10, 2010
reminds me of the 'prima ballerina' in The Dark Knight who was very obviously built like a magazine model. Who knows what the audience would think if they saw Bruce Wane with a real ballerina; all muscle and bone and usually very flat chested...
wiigamer — October 11, 2010
To those who mentioned Liukin in their comments:
I know someone who works for Zoo company. This game has absolutely nothing to do with Liukin. They chose to develope a gymnastics game because Shawn Johnson is the most appealing athlete and one of the most popular female athletes in US. If you read market research reports for the past two years, you would know that Liukin is far less well known than Johnson. Players can choose the colors of their leotards, and pink is just one of them.
--------------------
To poster who posted "Like many sports-based video games, the title character may change from market-to-market. So Shawn Johnson may be the licensed name in the US, but in the UK, Australia and Eaurope, entirely different gymnasts may be pictured on the box."
No, Shawn Johnson will be the licensed name worldwide for this game.