"Fat Princess" doesn't take the cake
Via the Academy for Eating Disorders' email listserv, I found out about an upcoming game for PlayStation 3 called "Fat Princess."
From the text of the email:
The purpose of this game is to prevent the princess from being kidnapped by making her too fat to carry. To do so, the characters must navigate through a castle avoiding enemies and obstacles to find cake. They then must bring the cake back to the princess and feed her. When the characters feed her a piece of cake she significantly gains weight (as the announcer in the game preview states, she is no longer her light airy self).
As I am sure is obvious to each of you, the premise of this game sends a myriad of dangerous message to the general public as well as those at risk and suffering from eating disorders and/or body image concerns. It clearly does not promote the notion of size acceptance. Furthermore, advertising for the game has welcomed all sorts of puns such as "Fat Princess Worth the Weight" and "Fat Princess Let Them Eat Cake."
You can watch a brief 30 second trailer of the game below:
It is the longer preview of the game with its accompanying commentary that is the most inappropriate (with the highlights coming at 1:50 or so):
I will be contacting PlayStation directly, and am encouraging you to do so as well.
Sony Computer Entertainment America
Human Resources
919 East Hillsdale Boulevard, 2nd Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
The content of this game is inappropriate, discriminatory, and frankly inaccurate. It sends the wrong message to anyone that a single piece of cake will make you noticeably fatter, and that skipping the cake will turn you back into your "airy self."
8 comments:
This is totally inappropriate and disturbing. What was Sony thinking when they created this?
We already have enough thinking of good/bad foods, we don't need it to stream into children's video games either.
I posted this on Facebook. It's repulsive!
well.. not just that.. But also that by eating cake, you save yourself from being "kidnapped." It makes food a source of protection.
Thanks for posting Carrie. I will also contact Sony.
This is horrific. I will also contact Sony. Thank you for posting this. What a horrible message to be sending to children about food. For those of us in recovery from Anorexia, I think we need to stand up and say something. What a disturbing game Sony thought of. I hope if it comes out to shelves that there will be an outrage.
it makes me sad.
Dude, don't contact Sony, contact Domini Social Investments. They own close to 11K shares of Sony and screen for socially responsible criteria.
http://www.domini.com/index.htm
Don't get so worked up over this. It's just a game. I seriously doubt feeding a video game character cake is going to make a whole lot of influence. What about the 100+ games that focus on sex, drugs and violence? Really people.
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