"Fat Princess"

No, it's not fat-positive just 'cause the point of the game is to rescue her.

Published July 23, 2008 1:00PM (EDT)

A new video game from Titan Studios/Sony has taken the cliché of the beautiful princess in distress, turned it on its head, and fed it lots and lots of cake. So much that -- ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! -- it apparently takes a whole crowd of soldiers to carry her. See, because she's fat. Joke's on you, Mario.

Holly at Feministe (herself a game developer) sums up the past week's buzz here, noting: "It's not like games with fat characters have to be mocking or reinforcing of stereotypes like 'fat people can't move on their own' and 'fat people will eat anything you put in front of them.' This opinion seems to confuse the more dimwitted dewd-gamers, who say things like 'you don't like skinny chicks in games, and now you don't like fat chicks in games, there's no pleasing you feminists!' Figure it out, dumbass. People, including a lot of gamers, even in that early coverage, are complaining about mocking, objectified [emphasis hers] portrayals of fat people and over-representation of certain body types as sexpots, heros, and sexpot heroes. A strategy game with a name like Fat Princess could feature the princess as one of your most important military units, powerful and important for strategy because she's fat. (And no, that doesn't mean she's a sphere that rolls other units over, dumbasses.)"


By Lynn Harris

Award-winning journalist Lynn Harris is author of the comic novel "Death by Chick Lit" and co-creator of BreakupGirl.net. She also writes for the New York Times, Glamour, and many others.

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