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Boogie SuperStar - Objectifying And Empowering Tween Girls Everywhere
Posted by Kotaku US Edition at 7:40 AM on August 16, 2008
Bubba, the starfish, is dead. Long live the anorexic tweens that dominate Boogie SuperStar - the new EA "casual" title aimed at young-ish girls who long to shake their underage booties and karaoke to their hearts' content.
Boogie SuperStar is all about moving in rhythm to dance moves or singing karaoke on-pitch (but not both at once). The set-up is you make an avatar (skinny boy or skinny girl) who then gets scouted to attend superstar school. From there you dance or sing your way through competitions set to more than 40 girl-centric songs like "Bleeding Love" while you collect points for style and moves. The idea is to max out all the stats, unlock all the outfits and become the all-time SuperStar, despite Judge Vicki's attempts to sabotage you.
I'm all about having games for girls; and I totally get that there is a demographic out there who likes stuff like Imagine: Babies and doesn't feel the least bit insulted when people sneer at the Wii as a "girl's console." But do we really need to "empower" preteen girls with games designed to embarrass them?
Unlike WiiFit, Boogie SuperStar isn't going to call a girl fat - but it can be pretty punishing if you don't nail the complex dance moves and all, I mean all, the character models are stick-thin (even the token "fat" girl).
It's been a long time since I was a fat 12-year-old; but I do remember going to birthday parties and being too shy to play any game that made me get up and move. I also can't carry a tune to save my life, so karaoke is out unless it's Rock Band, where the echo and the accompanying instruments cover the worst of my eff-ups.
So, really, this game is a shy, fat girl's nightmare if it's on the party game schedule right after Spin the Bottle.
Somehow, and more eloquently, I managed to tell the PR rep running the demo all of that. He was nice enough to offer to embarrass himself for me and I sat back and watched him get down to Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend."
The dance moves require all kinds of hand motions and body motions from rolling your arms and shaking your hips to jumping up and down and turning all the way around. The PR rep jumped and shook and pointed and wiggled his whole body until he filled up his star gauge, charging his skinny avatar with glowing peace symbols and red stars. He aced the song - one of the hardest on the playlist - and cajoled me into trying a slower song for myself.
It wasn't as bad as I feared and somewhere in the back of my mind, the traumatised tween that gave up girlie things for video games began to crawl out and tap her toes to the beat.
So maybe there is something to this game that's going to click with the tween girls. It's got the right amount of glitter and glitz, and the right kind of feeling in the Wii controls so that you can't just sit back and swing the remote; you've really got to boogie if you want to win.
Boogie SuperStar ships in October. See if you can spot the token "fat" girl in the screens below. I'll give you a hint: she's just as skinny as the other girls.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
BlueWizard422
Posted 8:17 AM 16/8/08
@SKS2K7: Just when I finally had that song out of my head. Thanks a lot!
BlueWizard422
argosy
Posted 8:02 AM 16/8/08
goty 08
someone had to say it
argosy
Vaegrin
Posted 8:01 AM 16/8/08
I always thought I was too skinny when I was a kid. Heh.
Vaegrin
tooji
Posted 7:54 AM 16/8/08
HELLS YEAH, instabuy day one lolz
tooji
alecpyron
Posted 7:53 AM 16/8/08
That's why I bought a Wii!
alecpyron
Ad-hominem
Posted 7:53 AM 16/8/08
I looked at your profile simply because you said you were fat at age 12.
I have to say, I hope you don't still feel that way. You're not fat at all. Or anywhere near fat.
Here's the odd thing: I was in love with the original boogie. Not actually playing it, mind you. I couldn't stand that part. But the concept of Boogie was awesome. Boogie Superstar, however, is creepy.
Ad-hominem
Vecha
Posted 7:53 AM 16/8/08
Is this reinforcing the need to vomit after eating? Using laxatives? Or just plain out starving oneself?
Or.
All of the above?
Vecha
EnigmaNemesis
Posted 7:53 AM 16/8/08
/sigh
EnigmaNemesis
SKS2K7
Posted 7:49 AM 16/8/08
HEY HEY YOU YOU I don't like your girlfriend!
NO WAY NO WAY I think you need a new one....
I want this game. :x
SKS2K7
Ravioli_Sumo
Posted 7:48 AM 16/8/08
Did the first Boogie really sell well enough to warrant this?
Ravioli_Sumo
crescentia
Posted 7:45 AM 16/8/08
I would have loathed that game when I was the targeted age.
crescentia
dae_giovanni
Posted 7:42 AM 16/8/08
Bubba's dead, baby... Bubba's dead.
dae_giovanni
accela
Posted 8:24 AM 16/8/08
I must be the most misogynist girl in the gaming world, because I feel like facepalming every time I finish reading an article like this.
"Oh God, BRATZ GAMES. Oh Jesus, a game about CHEERLEADERS?! Oh sweet mother Mary, an idol game for little girls?!! UNACCEPTABLE. They are tainting our impressionable youth!"
What makes all this any different than bitching about shooting games inspiring little boys to be violent? So maybe boys like to shoot things! Maybe girls like singing and dancing and looking pretty. It's not like they're saying, "THIS IS THE ONLY GAME GIRLS ARE ALLOWED TO LIKE." They're just marketing a popular interest towards a demographic that already likes that interest.
I mean, y'all don't freak out every time a new WWII game is marketed towards the gaming communi- oh. Oh wait. Never mind.
accela
bigman88zz
Posted 8:24 AM 16/8/08
i just dont understand it. why have the games that younger people play gotten easier and dumber? when the majority of us were young, we played stuff like mario, sonic, street fighter, tetris, etc. even girls played stuff like this! and if your gaming history goes back farther than that, pac man, space invaders, donkey kong, sinistar, etc. children have been playing games for ages, yet the games we played didnt seem as weird as randomly waving your arms around to a song. even the crappy games like e.t. and back to the future wouldnt have dreamed of pulling a stunt like this. what has changed exactly? kids/tweens/ whatever couldnt have gotten so stupid that their games need to be reduced to random body movements. how can they sit there and take this? if i were a kid/tween during todays gaming age, i'd be avoiding stuff like this and all the crap that ubisoft puts on the wii like the plague.
bigman88zz
Naturestee
Posted 8:22 AM 16/8/08
So the "token fat girl" is in picture 4 on the left? The rest of the girls remind me of Barbie dolls with their proportions.
My tween nieces might like this but since they like DDR I'll stick with that. They play hockey so this might be too girly for them. I know it is for me. Ick!
Naturestee
Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc
Posted 8:22 AM 16/8/08
Was he a starfish? I thought he was a boogieman.
Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc
Vecha
Posted 9:04 AM 16/8/08
@bigman88zz:
My current/past g/fs like the games I like...sooo
Vecha
Vecha
Posted 9:03 AM 16/8/08
@accela:
Eh...but this game pushes an image that girls should have...
look at the JCpenny/target/walmart commercials about Girls being like Hannah Montana or whoever the hell is the next big pop star.
Vecha
huginn
Posted 8:51 AM 16/8/08
Disco Sucks.
huginn
bigman88zz
Posted 8:50 AM 16/8/08
also, why is it whenever theres a game "made for girls", its never a high budget game? if theres supposedly a big market for these games and they supposedly sell well, why not go all out and make the ultimate "game for girls" instead of some overly simplified game? is it impossible to create a gamr for girls with budget of say....gears of war? and maybe the graphical level of gears?(depending on the console). if not that, then at least the graphical level of mario galaxy? and would it be impossible to have a more challenging game? its been said by many (although im not sure if its true) that women are smarter than men. shouldnt this be true for girls as well? would a more complex game be really that hard for girls to understand? is this concept that im stressing so hard for companies to understand?
bigman88zz
cynopt
Posted 11:46 AM 16/8/08
@cynopt: Also, decent 'girl' games do exist that weren't vomited from the desecated bowels of Lisa Fank: Beyond Good and Evil, Metroid, and a whole pile of recent adventure games, including the ultimate classic character for raising your girl-children up right: Nancy Drew.
cynopt
cynopt
Posted 11:40 AM 16/8/08
@accela: It's not that pink-ware exists that's the problem, it's the fact that these games are presented specifically as something girls should be playing, implying:
1: Any male who touches it is a latent homosexual
2: Anything not-pink is 'for boys' and latent bull-dykes
3: Rigidly enforced gender-roles are fun!
Same problems I have with Barbie, oddly enough.
If nothing else, all of this serves to reinforce the eternally annoying 'princess' ideal, an archetype that's as unrealistic as it is inane. All it does is set girls up for a lifetime of passivity, neuroses and disappointment.
If I had a daughter, there'd be a four hour lecture on the nature of stereotypes, marketing, and the biological basis for emotional responses to color; AND a written quiz, administered every time anything like this made it into the house.
cynopt
bluntrauma
Posted 1:00 PM 16/8/08
This looks pretty awful, what we need is someone to bring back Bust a Groove on a next gen console. That game was so awesome, I've had that damn shorty and the E-Z mouse song stuck in my head for the last eleven years ... and I'm happy about it. Plus that game sends great messages to all the wee ones; kids with dancing mice (that look kind of like poptarts), swingers with "evil beards", grey alien twins who are "just friends", and hookers in cat suits (I might have to double check on that one). Man I miss 989 studios ...
bluntrauma
Mayu-mayu
Posted 4:32 PM 16/8/08
I liked the 'underage boo...ties' part.
Mayu-mayu
accela
Posted 1:05 PM 17/8/08
@cynopt: If I had a daughter, there'd be a four hour lecture on the nature of stereotypes, marketing, and the biological basis for emotional responses to color; AND a written quiz, administered every time anything like this made it into the house.
I can only imagine the amount of pre-teen eyerolling that would generate. "Ugh, alright, OKAY DAD."
@bluntrauma:
Hell yes. A new Bust a Groove title would kick so much ass.
accela
slavefaith
Posted 11:48 AM 18/8/08
@cynopt:
I heart you.
slavefaith