Your Mom Hates This Essay

By Joe Tiernan

On 25 January 2011, the video game Dead Space 2 came out and was a hit, being considered one of the best games of all time. It was praised for its violent gameplay, gory images, and frightening sequences. While the game was being released, a commercial came out, posted on YouTube as “Dead Space 2: Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2 Trailer.” The people who made the commercial recorded the disgusted reactions of older women as they watched gameplay of Dead Space 2. “Your mom hates Dead Space 2. The critics don’t” became the slogan for the game. The commercial shows that men welcome violent images and enjoy watching it while women can’t stand them. It also promotes teenage rebellion against their mothers. Finally, the commercial assumes the common stereotype that men embrace adventure and are willing to take risks and face danger while women cower into a corner seeking protection and safety from their strong male counterparts.

Men love watching violence and typically women do not. Since human beings have existed, it has been men who have gone out and fought wars against each other. The women, on the other hand, were the ones who stayed home and rarely saw blood except if they cooked an animal. Over time, people generalized that women cannot tolerate violence. My family raises sheep, and sometimes we have to put down a few because they are badly injured. My mom sobs great rivers of tears because she loves the sheep and doesn’t like losing them. I was anxious the first time I shot a sheep in the head, but after the third time, I got used to it and haven’t hesitated to kill sheep since. However, there are men who dislike violence and women who embrace it. My English teacher can’t watch a UFC fight. He believes that it is too violent for him and won’t watch two grown men fight to the near death. There are women in our armed forces. They must be able to withstand violence and be ready to see others killed and even kill another person. If they couldn’t commit acts of violence in times of need, then they couldn’t be a part of our Army, Navy or Air Force. This commercial depends on the stereotype that women dislike violence, men embrace it, and that men take pleasure in this gender difference.

The commercial promotes teenage rebellion against their mothers through video games. If a teenager sees that the moms in the commercial hate Dead Space 2, he will want to buy the game to get back at his own mother disgusting her with the graphic violence. The commercial further encourages teenagers to show violence even though their mothers disapprove through other media like movies, magazines and sometimes athletics. The entertainment industry does this because they know that moms hate violence and it makes them go away so kids can have privacy. Sometimes, when I am in a bad mood, I put on a violent movie or play a video game (even Dead Space 2) so my mom will stay away and I can be alone. The marketing researchers know this is an effective marketing tool because teenage boys are the primary audience and they will jump at the opportunity to act out in a way their moms dislike. Boys turn into men as they ignore the advice of moms and establish their freedom of independence.

If there is an opportunity of adventure with tons of danger and risks, many men would jump for the opportunity. Men embrace danger and risks and are excited to go on adventures. Dead Space 2 takes place on the Sprawl which is a space station near Saturn’s moon, Titan. The place becomes a futuristic haunted house when the Necromorph infection spreads in the station. The player is the protagonist Isaac Clarke and the goal of the game is to destroy The Marker which is a stone structure causing the infection. As Isaac Clarke, you explore the scary environment while trying to avoid being gruesomely killed by the constant danger that you put yourself in. Even though you on the verge of peeing your pants, you are still eager to beat the game and find out the fate of Isaac and The Marker. By having only male avatars and pushing the game to male audiences, Electronic Arts is assuming that a woman would go through this adrenaline pumping adventure that they would cower and hide in a small area and wait to be rescued. Maybe a woman is not looking for an adventure and would rather have a man go on one only because they aren’t encouraged to and men are. The commercial discourages women from going on Isaac’s terrifying adventure.

The commercial advertising Dead Space 2 proves that men love violence and women don’t. It also promotes teenage rebellion against mothers because of the women’s reactions to the gameplay in the commercial. Lastly, it shows that men are willing to go on an intense adventure and embrace the risks and danger that go with it. Dead Space 2 is a violent scary game but it should not discourage women from playing it despite the sexist advertisement’s objective of scaring women from buying the game. Not all women follow these stereotypical rules and who knows, maybe it will be a woman who destroys The Marker and saves the day in our future.