Don't Like, Don't Play
Sep. 23rd, 2021 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingConsume Me and the Line Between Thought-Provoking and Triggering
https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/consume-me/consume-me-and-the-line-between-thought-provoking/
I think few women, and many men, don’t know what it’s like to not worry about their weight, which will make the game, ultimately, relatable to a lot of people. I also think that while mechanics tend to leave more impact than direct narrative, it’s important that a developer gets to profess their experiences even if there may be a negative impact on the audience. But how much impact is permissible is up for debate.
Consume Me is an indie game that's been in development since 2016 and was supposed to be released in 2020 but does not, to my knowledge, currently exist. From what I can tell, it's meant to express the frustrations and ultimate futility of dieting. Apparently this is "triggering."
My own experience with this sort of thing is that you can't talk about it. Ever. At all. Dieting is either "healthy" or "masochistic," with nothing in between. If you suggest that someone might diet for reasons that have nothing to do with body image, or only marginally to do with body image, you are wrong. If you suggest that someone struggles with dieting even though they know it's unhealthy, you are bad. If you suggest that certain limited types of dieting are sometimes necessary for the management of specific illnesses, you are both ignorant and out of line. The only two narratives are "I dieted and lost weight" or "I dieted but stopped when I learned to love my body." If you fall outside of these two narratives, you are hurting people. You can talk about addiction, abortion, and suicide, but heaven forbid you mention dieting.
As someone who is interested in the theme of monstrosity, the intersection between gender, class, queerness, and body image is a topic I've attempted to approach in my own creative work, and the feedback I've received has been intensely negative. It's a shame for dieting to be such a taboo, because I'm pretty sure it's one of those near-universal experiences that everyone has to deal with at some point. Can't we at least try to talk about it?
https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/consume-me/consume-me-and-the-line-between-thought-provoking/
I think few women, and many men, don’t know what it’s like to not worry about their weight, which will make the game, ultimately, relatable to a lot of people. I also think that while mechanics tend to leave more impact than direct narrative, it’s important that a developer gets to profess their experiences even if there may be a negative impact on the audience. But how much impact is permissible is up for debate.
Consume Me is an indie game that's been in development since 2016 and was supposed to be released in 2020 but does not, to my knowledge, currently exist. From what I can tell, it's meant to express the frustrations and ultimate futility of dieting. Apparently this is "triggering."
My own experience with this sort of thing is that you can't talk about it. Ever. At all. Dieting is either "healthy" or "masochistic," with nothing in between. If you suggest that someone might diet for reasons that have nothing to do with body image, or only marginally to do with body image, you are wrong. If you suggest that someone struggles with dieting even though they know it's unhealthy, you are bad. If you suggest that certain limited types of dieting are sometimes necessary for the management of specific illnesses, you are both ignorant and out of line. The only two narratives are "I dieted and lost weight" or "I dieted but stopped when I learned to love my body." If you fall outside of these two narratives, you are hurting people. You can talk about addiction, abortion, and suicide, but heaven forbid you mention dieting.
As someone who is interested in the theme of monstrosity, the intersection between gender, class, queerness, and body image is a topic I've attempted to approach in my own creative work, and the feedback I've received has been intensely negative. It's a shame for dieting to be such a taboo, because I'm pretty sure it's one of those near-universal experiences that everyone has to deal with at some point. Can't we at least try to talk about it?
