I always hated the color pink. Growing up, I was the tomboy and my younger sister was the “girly” one. She got all the pink stuff and I turned my nose up at it. No pink for me! For my 16th birthday, however, my brother bought me a Fuchsia Gameboy Advance. I was so floored by the present of a game system that I didn’t notice (or care) about the color. It was a brand new GBA; who cares if it’s pink? Well, apparently somebody did. See, my birthday was less than three weeks after the GBA launch and they were in pretty short supply. My brother had searched high and low for one until finally he walked into a Gamestop just as a young boy was returning a pink GBA with his mother. The kid was not satisfied with the gift he’d been given because it was pink. Given the high demand for GBAs, he couldn’t exchange it for another (although he told the clerk that he wanted one in a “normal” color) since the store was out of stock, but still, he couldn’t bear to be seen with a pink GBA so he returned it. My brother snapped it up right away. Despite my years of hating on pink, when he told me that story I got pretty annoyed. Sure, that kid’s loss was my gain, but what the hell was his problem? His ingratitude, combined with his inability to look past color, irked me. Why does the color matter when they all play the same games?
The Aggravation
Eventually I moved on and upgraded to an Electric Blue DS, putting my Fuchsia GBA to rest. As much as I’d disdained pink in my earlier days, the anti-pink GBA faction led me to become fiercely protective of and attached to my GBA and I was loath to let it go. But the more I played my new DS, the more I started to forget why playing on a pink console had mattered so much to me. Once Nintendo announced the pink DS Lite, however, all the pink negativity came sweeping back. Take for example, Kotaku’s coverage of the pink DS announcement. The article reads:
“Today in Japan, Nintendo announced that the DS Lite would be available in pink. And not just any pink. They’re calling it “Noble Pink,” which is far better than “Sissy Pink” or “Pansy Pink.” The portable will go on sale July 20th for 16,800 yen in the Land of the Rising Sun. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of a million Japanese schoolgirls squealing in unison.”i
First they mock pink for being “sissy” and “pansy,” then they go on to make fun of girls’ (supposed, irrational) emotional responses to cute things while simultaneously suggesting and reinforcing the idea that “pink is for girls only.” This before the system has even launched. But how were people reacting once the system was widely available?
Not owning a pink DS Lite myself, I decided to speak with feminist blogger 100littledolls regarding her experiences with her “Coral Pink” handheld. Growing up, she hated pink, but came to appreciate the color after reading up on feminist theory in high school and decided to reclaim her femininity and the color pink for herself. She waited to upgrade her original Nintendo DS when she heard the announcement about the pink DS Lite, and went to trade it in when the Onyx and Coral Lites launched. But when she brought the Coral Pink DS Lite box up to the cash register, she was laughed at by the salesperson because it was pink. Her most frustrating experience, however, occurred one day at school:
“One time when I was working . . . I was cleaning my DS with some special sort of electronics cleaner that the IT guy gave me. I was meticulously cleaning it when a professor came up to me and asked me what I was doing with “my makeup case.” It really made me angry, though looking back I can understand why he was confused, especially if he wasn’t familiar with makeup cases or DSs. Yet, the fact that he assumed it was a makeup case because I’m a woman is pretty frustrating. When I explained to him that it was a handheld he was only more confused—he didn’t understand why it’d come in pink.”
This story exemplifies some of the core issues surrounding the perception of Nintendo’s pink handhelds. To begin with, the professor’s assumption that because 100littledolls is a woman that it must be a makeup case speaks to the stereotypes that people carry regarding women and the color pink. Makeup cases, being the exclusive domain of women in our society, are considered to be girly; likewise, pink is considered to be girly, ergo a pink device in the hands of a woman is mistaken for makeup. This type of attitude regarding pink is fairly typical, and the professor’s inability to comprehend that a gaming console could even be manufactured in such a color is reflective of the wider cultural assumptions surrounding girls and women and their participation in gaming.
The Ridiculous
But the sexist response to the Pink DS Lite doesn’t end there. Some people can’t even handle pink DS accessories. While browsing Amazon.com for a new DS case a few months back, I came across several negative reviews from people who were upset that they had been sent a pink case (the item listings stated that the cases came in assorted colors and they would be shipped at random). Most explained their displeasure by stating that the case had been bought for a boy, the obvious implication being that of course a boy wouldn’t want a pink case. Because pink is only for girls, right? Boys apparently aren’t even given the chance to like pink. Some choice quotes from the Amazon reviews:
“I also received pink for my nine year old boy . . . Mine will go on eBay.”ii
“I have two boys, and even though I stated that when ordering, [I] recieved [sic] two pink cases. We called and they told us that there was no way to ensure we got the right color.
So, after all the excitement, I now have to find something different for my children to use . . . This is very displeasing.”iii“I ordered one for my son and they sent a pink carrying case. On a positive note, when I called they were very kind and promised to send me a “boy” color.”iv
“I received the pink one unfortunately, and rather than hassle with a return we simply sharpied it. The case was for my son, it’s now mine.”v
“I ordered it as a gift for a boy..how disappointing!!!”vi
Keep in mind this is just a sampling of some of the angry reviews on Amazon. I suppose it is no wonder that these boys grow up hating pink, when the message they are given early on is that pink is a bad color and not for them. Of course, the flipside, that all girls like pink and that pink is an appropriate color for them, was represented on Amazon as well:
“[W]hen you order it won’t let you pick the color you want. I got one that was pink and white( I’m a girl, so I can live with it)”vii
It is more than a little disturbing to see these gendered stereotypes about color affecting and reinforcing choices over something as simple as a video game case, although it is not altogether surprising. The anger and frustration displayed by people at the prospect of boys using a pink product reflects a deeper sentiment, in my estimation, that is fundamentally rooted in misogyny.
The Speculative
My last example of sexism tied to the color pink comes in the most recent Pokémon game for the Nintendo DS. Installments of the Pokémon RPG series have always been released in two versions: Red and Blue, Gold and Silver, Ruby and Sapphire and so on. The latest game comes in Diamond and Pearl. The only difference between each version (within each generation) is the kind of Pokémon that are available in each game. Each version will have a few Pokémon that the other doesn’t have, forcing you to link up with friends that have the other color version to trade Pokémon so you can catch them all. Basically, there’s no difference between Diamond and Pearl except the packaging and a handful of Pokémon. But you really couldn’t tell from the software sales. The games came out earlier this year, and in the first week or so, Diamond moved over a million copies, whereas Pearl sold about 700,000.viii
Why the difference (approximately 300,000 units) in sales? In my opinion, you need only look at the covers for each game to see why one game was so massively popular over the other: Diamond features a (mostly) blue Pokémon named Dialga, whereas Pearl is represented by Palkia, a pink Pokémon (with a little purple thrown in for good measure) bathed in a pinkish light. So for all intents and purposes, the packaging for one game is pink, and the other is blue.
Some of the drive behind the sales probably comes from a positive reaction towards blue (I want Pokémon Diamond because blue’s my favorite color!) but I think it’s very likely that the Diamond over Pearl preference also has something to do with negative reactions to pink (I don’t want Pokémon Pearl because I hate pink). I would argue, in fact, that the latter scenario is more common, given the sales numbers for previous Pokémon games, in which the blue versions sold in much more comparable numbers to their counterparts (though Ruby for the GBA actually outsold the Sapphire version).ix
What’s Going On?
And here we reach the crux of the matter: why do people hate pink so much? Why did Pokémon Diamond outsell Pearl? Why are pink handheld game systems considered undesirable or laughable? Why are pink game cases, of all things, so upsetting to some?
Could it have something to do with the perception that pink is a “girly” color? That, as 100littledolls says, many “associate pink with girlishness and frailty?” I think pink is probably the most derided color, and it’s also the color most closely associated with a gender, and that gender is female. I don’t believe it’s a stretch to correlate antipathy to pink with social misogyny, and I can’t help but think that attitudes framed by sexism played an unconscious role in the sales numbers for the newest Pokémon and the popular aversion to Nintendo’s pink products and accessories.
I’ve given examples here of two core problems that I have come across with the color pink in handheld gaming: the first, that pink is seen as the exclusive domain of girls, and the second that pink is looked down upon and scorned. I believe these two factors are intertwined and we need to understand both reactions in relation to the each other. Separating the two and claiming that “pink is just a color” isn’t enough, we need to look at how that color is used to represent gender and what those representations are saying.
The Bright Side
Fortunately, there is a silver lining to all of this anti-pink misogyny. But first, if you’ll allow me to make an assumption: The pink GBA and Nintendo DS are intended for female gamers. I know, I know. Not what you wanted to hear, right? But bear with me please; I said there was a silver lining, didn’t I? Unless the folks in the marketing and design departments at Nintendo are completely naive about the way pink is perceived by the masses, I’m betting they didn’t launch their pink systems with male consumers in mind; in the words of 100littledolls, “the pink DS was made to entice female gamers and to attract the women and girls who weren’t playing games.” But maybe this is a good thing.
Not the people in power at companies like Nintendo assuming that pink = girls – as 100littledolls writes, we “[don’t] want to necessarily reinforce the marketing ideas that girls and women need pink packaging in order to pick something up.” But if my assumption is correct, and Nintendo is churning out these cotton-candy-colored consoles specifically for members of the female population, then that means Nintendo is actively targeting women as a consumer market. 100littledolls noted this, in discussing her decision to purchase a DS Lite: “The pink DS . . . told me that game companies wanted women and girls to be playing games.” And this is a powerful message that Nintendo is sending to female consumers.
Of course, this doesn’t come as such a surprise in the era of the Wii, it’s true, but Nintendo first released the original pink GBA way back in 2001. This means they’ve been working on attracting women gamers for over six years, and in retrospect the evolution seems clear. Jumping from the GBA/SPs to the DS, Nintendo’s color schemes have varied by system generation and market locale, but pink has remained a constant fixture worldwide in their handheld market. Moreover, in the United States there are only three DS Lite colors available and Coral Pink is one of them. This is pure speculation here, but to me it looks like Nintendo potentially sees at least a third of their DS consumers as women. Of course, as 100littledolls notes, “pink is often used as a way for game companies to take a short cut when trying to appeal to female gamers or potential gamers,” and were Nintendo to continue using this marketing scheme as its only means of attracting female players, well, then we would have a problem.
But I believe that Nintendo now is looking beyond color stereotypes in its efforts to reach women. A look at recent Wii advertising confirms supports this argument, as they’ve moved on from crafting products that they think will visually appeal to women to building a system around inclusiveness and marketing it to everyone. Pink handhelds may have been the precursor to the market model for the Wii.
The Future
So where does this leave us? How should female gamers approach the color pink in gaming? I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself I see pink handhelds and accessories as an opportunity to reclaim pink as a symbol of who I am as a woman. That is not to say that I think pink should continue to be a color that is “girls only;” I would be immensely pleased to see more boys and men out there embracing pink as they would any other color. But as long as pink is going to be thrown in my face with derision as a symbol of my femininity, I am going to take it and use it proudly. Like 100littledolls, I am not going “to let ‘pink’ exist only in the domain of Barbie dolls and archaic gender roles,” and I see the emergence of the color pink in gaming products as a step in the right direction because “it widens the field.” The appearance of more and more pink in the video game industry can be a positive change for women if we choose to accept it as such.
Article © September 2007 by Olivia Luna.
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