Response to "Gamer"....

 Watching the movie ‘Gamer’ is eye opening; the story line is interesting and pretty scary if it actually happened in real life. I think that “Gamer” functions as a social commentary because in the movie we see people who are actors (also known as avatars) in the ‘Society’ game act out and pretty much do anything their player has them do. For the player it’s a good thing because they can do things they wouldn’t be able to in real life. For instance the players who play ‘Society’ have their avatar do stuff like drugs have them drink and do pretty awful things. The player can also live the life of their opposite sex. For instance a guy can have a girl avatar and a girl can have a boy avatar. Advertising was a huge part of the movie; since the movie started till it ended we saw that advertising was huge. In the movie we saw big screens advertising ‘Slayers’ we saw big posters practically covering a whole building also with ‘Slayers’ on it. The ad’s in the movie were similar to the ones we have today big posters and billboards that advertise a new movie or a new video game.

                The game ‘Slayers’ in “Gamer” is a game about death row inmates converted into an avatar were someone on the outside world can control them and play the game with them. The game consist of death row inmates shooting each other and trying to survive  in a battle once the battle is over they return to a check point and do it all over again the next day. If the inmate survives 30 battles it is promised that he will be released and set free. Some differences ‘Slayers’ have with real life is that people don’t actually control real human beings while playing a video game that consist of players shooting each other. Another one is that if an avatar dies while playing the game he is actually dead and doesn’t come back to life like in a video game in the real world. One similarity is that there is a person on the other player controlling the avatar like in ‘Slayers’ and in an actual video game.  I don’t think there is even ethics in both ‘Slayers’ and ‘Society’ just because the creator of these both games was only thinking of himself and all the money he was going to be making. In both games there is no rules and you can make your avatar basically do water you command it to do. If a game like ‘Slayers’ was ever introduced as an idea in real life I don’t think it would ever be OK for a death row inmate to die for entertainment it’s just immoral. As for ‘Society’ it also isn’t a good idea it’s basically prostitution because its selling your body to someone to control and make you do things they want you to do.

                I honestly wouldn’t know why men control women in ‘Society’ my guess I that it’s a fantasy they get to live. Maybe they get some type of pleasure out of playing a woman in a game. Either way I just think its plane wrong.

                In the essay Waggoner writes he talks about how people get so into video games and spend so much time in a virtual world and creating avatars for that specific game they are playing. It’s similar to Gamer because in gamer we have players who make and choose their avatar something so completely different from what they actually look like. In Gamer we also have a lot of players who spend a large amount of time playing the game ‘Slayer’ or ‘Society’.