Assessing the Portrayal of Gamers in Movies

Well, in the movies they are. Hollywood needs stereotypes, you see. In fact it almost thrives upon them like we need air. Surely, you say, there can be no other explanation for the pretty derogatory but nevertheless humorous portrayal of gamer-kind. Well, no. Most stereotypes, be they derogatory or otherwise, come from somewhere. It seems to me to be rooted in the 1980s when videogames hit the big time proper. Sure, everyone of a certain age played them, geek or otherwise. But the non-geeks would usually play them a bit and leave it at that. To the geeks, games represented something more than regular fun. They were escapism of a kind that didn't exist anywhere else, not even in the movies. They felt a kind of affinity with the designers, because they were people who saw gaming as a whole new way in which to express crazy ideas that otherwise wouldn't be given the time of day. Who else but a game designer would have thought of an idea involving (almost solely) a fat plumber jumping on goombas' heads and collecting magic mushrooms? That concept surely wouldn't have existed in a movie or a book. So yes: traditionally, gamers - true gamers, that is - are geeks, and male ones at that.

But just one look at a cross section of gamers shows that the times have indeed a-changed, to misquote Dylan. We hardly ever see any female gamers in the movies, do we? No, that would be too difficult. It's not as obviously funny as the spotty teenage male gamer. And yet there are many female gamers out there, and many of them play traditionally male games (like football simulations). Back in school, I had a female friend who was so addicted to a game on my mobile phone that I hardly could use the darned thing during break time. On top of that, she'd beat all my high scores. Okay, so she was quite nerdy as girls go, but still, she was a girl.

The traditional movie gamer, as we know, is a nerd, and usually so much of a nerd that any suggestion of a life outside of gaming is treated with a look of befuddlement. Indeed. I don't know about you, but I can say with certainty that I know of no “gamer” who has no life outside of gaming. Absolutely none. Sure, when we were kids we used to play videogames considerably more than now. But as soon as you reach your late teens / early twenties, your attitude to videogames (for the most part) changes. You look upon them as a fun distraction, but you hardly ever get ridiculously excited about the next big release. Anyway, the idea that games are separate from life is a rather strange one. After all, many avid readers boast about how many books they read last month but there has never been a suggestion (as far as I know) that someone who reads a lot cannot have a social life, or that reading is an isolating and antisocial activity. Sometimes it's good to just kick back with a book and enjoy; why can't the same apply to videogames?

And that's not to mention the fact that playing videogames can indeed be a lot more sociable than reading. You can't enjoy books as a group - they're much better savoured on your own. However, there are many videogames that are designed specifically with multiplayer in mind. It's become so common nowadays to play games like Mario Kart at parties that it's hard to imagine the social landscape without them.

It seems to me that there is a very good reason why Hollywood portrays gamers in a one-dimensional fashion. It comes back to the issue of the stereotype, and the fact that it requires little to no work on the part of the writers and directors. Hollywood must know that gamers on the whole aren't really like that. There have been many portrayals that are not wholly unflattering. More and more, we're starting to see gamers of different ages. In "The Break Up", Vince Vaughn's character plays his PlayStation 2 and he's not a nerd. Okay, so the movie wasn't great, and it wasn't as if Vaughn's character oozed with charisma, but nevertheless it sketched the image of a regular guy who just happens to play his PS2. And there ain't nothing wrong with that at all. Soon enough, the rest of Hollywood will catch on.