Playing with power in movies, television, and video games: from Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
ISBN: 9780520075702
Platform/Publisher: ACLS / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Ten pages at a time; Download: Ten pages at a time
Subjects: Film & Media Studies;

Parents who worry that playing video games will turn their kids' brains to mush may welcome Kinder's view that the games contribute to a ``ripening process . . . by fostering equilibration, by demanding shifting identifications with a wide range of subjects and objects, by forcing children to use the inductive process.'' This academic treatise swings between claims for the ostensible benefits of kiddies' TV shows, cartoons, videos and video games, and an analysis of how these same media instill an illusory sense of empowerment in children, serve as substitute parents and transmit consumerist ideology. The author, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, psychoanalytically interprets the meanings of Muppet figures and applies semiotics to Garfield the Cat as one might hit a flea with a sledgehammer. Photos. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Marsha Kinder is Professor of Critical Studies. University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television

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