For my Media Analysis Essay, I observed my parents playing the video game “Super
Smash Brothers”. My dad is 45 years old and mom is 44 years old. Both of them were born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to United States about 9 years ago. Since my mom works at
Kentridge School’s Food Service department as a lunch lady, her English is better than my dad’s who is unemployed. Both of them can understand but have trouble speaking and writing in
English. My mom is not good with technology and does not play video games often. In contrast, my dad loves new technology. He has played Role-playing and shooting games since they were first introduced in Hong Kong.
When they began to play the game, I noticed that both my parents had trouble using the
Wii controllers especially my mom. She had a hard time aiming with the controller and pointing at the screen. This might be due to the fact that technology is evolving rapidly, therefore she is not very familiar with the new technology. As it is a Wii game, they thought that it was motion based. Therefore, they started swinging their arms and tilting the controllers around to make the characters move. During the first few minutes of the game, they spent a while interacting with each other to figure out how the controls for various movements. After that they did not talk as much and focused their attention to playing the game and made no eye contact with one another.
My mom smiled and laughed a lot when she was playing. When she was deciding which character to play with, she would select the ones that seemed adorable and cute such as Kirby and Pikachu. Then she would continue to use the same character because she felt comfortable using it. She seemed to enjoy the game even though she had issues controlling her character. She would talk to the screen and laugh when she accidentally killed herself by falling off the battle ring. For example, she said “Wow! It flew out!” when her Pikachu made an unexpected dash

towards the edge. She was constantly amused by her character’s actions. Once she discovered something that excited her, she would smile and lean in towards the television.
On the other hand, my dad was a quieter and more strategic player because he is more familiar with playing video games. Due to his experience with shooting games, he attacked only when he saw a chance. While my mom would laugh when she was killed, my dad would show frustration and a little anger. In fact, his behavior may be related to the shooting games he plays.
You only get one life, and therefore, you are more competitive. Once you get killed, it would indicate that the game is over. Therefore, he might act differently than my mom who has never played those types of games before. Throughout the time he spent playing the video game, he chose different male characters and showed little emotion. He laughed only when he killed his opponent’s character. Unlike my mom, he tried to use different characters and fighting skills once he got familiar with the controller. He focused heavily on points and winning. He was obsessed with the number of kills he had. Even though he took the game more seriously than my mom did, he seemed to have no interest in continuing to play the game after 2 hours. One interesting thing I noticed was that my parents would avoid hitting one another when they played with computers. They would try to compete with the computers first. Additionally, there was one time that my mom said sorry to my dad because she unintentionally hit him.
The first question I asked was “What did you like about the game, and why?” My mom said that she “enjoyed playing different characters and watching each character’s attack actions”.
For instance, she took pleasure in watching Kirby inhale her opponents and transforming into them. Comparatively, my dad said that he enjoyed playing against other people. The difference was that my mom got her enjoyment from the content of the game whereas my dad thought that the process of winning and improvement was fun. Winning gave him a sense of happiness and

encouraged him to continue playing. I believe their distinct personalities and their goals of playing the game also contribute to the differences. My mom, who is more social and outgoing, thought it was a fun game to play with family for a short period of time to spend some quality time with them whereas my dad’s goal was to improve every time he plays. He mentioned that he wanted to correct his mistakes and do better every time he lost.
There is concern that violent games cause players to commit violent acts, so I opened it to my parents. My second question was “Do you think video games cause people to be more violent?” My parents believed that young children, such as elementary school students, would be more affected by playing the game. They believe young children learn social ideologies from media contents such as video games; if they are exposed to media forms that reflect violence, they are more likely to become violent. In addition, my dad commented that people who are violent in nature will be more likely to commit more violent acts when exposed with serious graphics. However, he believed that “the violent content will only create unstable mood swings and lead the player to be more irascible”. He provided more insights due to his own experiences.
The last question I asked was “What is one of the major, serious problems about video games?” My mom said that there was lack of communication in video games because “people pay more attention to playing games” than interacting with one another. In contrast, my dad commented that “people can increase their social interaction with other players by talking about the content and sharing experience”. He thought that the emotional problems that video games cause were more serious. It is possible that my dad was able to use his gaming experiences to communicate with other players in the society, therefore he did not view the lack of communication as a serious problem. On the contrary, my mom was unable to relate to that concern because she spent too limited of a time to notice any major issues.

Based on my observation, I believe that the cultural studies perspective is most helpful in explaining how my parents interacted with the video game. The cultural studies perspective believes that technology or media reflects and reinforces existing ideologies within the society.
In the video game, the ideology about sportsmanship was reflected. For example, the game took the time to show the winner at the front while the other characters congratulate the winner in the corner. Even though my dad usually won, my mom will go congratulate him happily, and they will think of way to improve themselves. In addition, the game did not create war violence, but rather it brought the idea of violence to players. Therefore my dad responded by saying how video games would not make a normal person more violent because the game is just reflecting and reproducing existing ideologies to the players. The ideology about the importance of winning was expressed in the game. In our society, winning is considered to be more important.
This ideology influenced how my parents interacted with the game and with each other. Once they were familiar with the controllers and characters, they took time to experiment with different skill sets. My mom continued playing the characters that she felt most comfortable with to reduce her chance of losing. Thus, I believe the cultural studies perspective best explain how my parents interacted with the video game.