Wedding Dash
November 2007 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Gamer Soap
- Gaming in the Media: Fallen Guitar Heroes
- Market to Me: Using sex to sell
- Gamer vs Gamer: The Virtue of Reality?
Interviews
- Industry Interview: Shelly Mazzanoble [Author, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress]
Articles
- Gender & Live-Action Role Play: Into the Tavern, Part II
Author: Samara Hayley Steele
- Sims vs. Playboy: Sex and Relationships in the Dark Ages of Video Games
Author: Cherie Thomason
- Another Rape In Cyberspace
Author: Pat Miller
- Immaculate Reception
Author: Latoya Peterson
In this ongoing series, Samara shares her experiences as a female LARPer in a male-dominated LARP Organization.
Cherie discusses the portrayal of sex in console video games.
The trauma of a sexual assault is not limited to physical hurt. Pat discusses the violation of virtual bodies as analogous to that of real bodies, and wonders how it can be stopped.
Latoya discusses the lack of sex in mainstream video games and critiques the interplay between hyper-sexualized characters and their chaste actions.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
Odds 'n Ends
A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to Diner Dash. It’s a fun puzzle game framed by the story of Flo, who is so stressed over and hateful of her 9-5 office job that she buys a restaurant and goes into business for herself. Because she has little money, Flo has to do everything but the cooking — take orders, serve guests, bus tables, etc. As you move along in the game, Flo earns enough to fix up the place, open new restaurants, and become a successful entrepreneur.
Diner Dash is addictive and a lot of fun to play. I also love that the main character is a woman and that she achieves success in a very straightforward way — she works hard, improves her skills, and makes smart business decisions.
The game is very popular and has spawned several sequels and knock-offs. PlayFirst then developed their own spin-off called Wedding Dash. I decided to give it a try because it was by the same developer and because, after finishing the last level of Diner Dash 3, I needed my fix.
Gameplay
Wedding Dash is pretty much what you’d expect from the title. Instead of running a restaurant, protagonist Quinn is a wedding planner. She has a chef and a waitress to help her run the reception smoothly — seating and serving guests, fixing problems before the bride notices, and making sure everyone is happy. As with most online Flash-based games, the player controls all of the action with the mouse. You drag guests to their designated seat then click on them to pick up or deliver items like wedding gifts, food, drinks, etc. One of the challenges of the Dash games is to generate more points by creating chains — the more people you serve in a row, the more each delivery is worth. You can pick up extra points as the game goes on by giving the guests drinks, delivering their song requests to the DJ, or reseating them so they can mingle.
Like Diner Dash, it is also addictive. But the storyline of Wedding Dash really put me off and made me wonder why whoever was in charge of the script was allowed to work on this game.
The Background
We start our story in a bridal shop where Quinn is with her friend Amy. Amy is about to get married and Quinn is going to be a bridesmaid. Already we encounter some stereotypical attitudes. Amy is completely oblivious to the fact that the pink bridesmaid dress is hideous and Quinn is cheerfully passive-aggressive about the fact that she’s “always a bridesmaid, never a bride”. When Amy’s wedding planner craps out on her two days before the event, she decides that Quinn is the best person to take the job even though she has never done such things before nor actually indicated that she wants to.
Quinn then goes to meet Flo (yes, the same Flo) for their yoga class and this conversation happens (emphasis mine):
Quinn: I’m so stressed out, Flo. I need to plan a wedding by Saturday!
Flo: You’re getting married?
Quinn: I wish! I don’t even have anything to wear.
Flo: Did you get a career yet?
First of all we have, again, the hint that Quinn is upset that she’s not already married. But the really weird bit is where Flo asks if Quinn got a career yet. It’s a really odd thing to say, particularly in response to what Quinn said. However, its purpose is to telegraph one of the story’s themes.
Because Flo has built a successful career, she thinks her friend should, too. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with that. Though as the story progresses, it gets worse.
Quit Thinking About Men, Career Girl!
After several successful receptions, Quinn calls Flo up on the phone.
Quinn: What a fabulous wedding! And to top it off, the best man asked me out on a date! Too bad I’m booked for the next seven weekends…
Flo: Too bad!? That’s great you’re so busy… your date can wait a few weeks.
Thus begins a long stretch of Flo telling Quinn to stop thinking about boys and think about her career instead. Quinn even tries to entice Flo to come work a reception for her because of all the single men around. Flo responds: “Thanks, but I have my hands full with all of my restaurants.”
Successful women don’t worry about dating and men!
And just in case this point isn’t hammered home enough, at the end of the first level we get to see Quinn going out on her date with that best man.
Quinn: Here’s to my first date in six months!
Guy: It was worth the wait. Here’s to you…
Quinn’s cell phone interrupts the guy. It’s a bride who needs to be calmed. In the time it takes Quinn to reassure her, which seems to be something like five minutes, her date has already chatted up the waitress and gone off with her. He waited for her for seven weeks but couldn’t wait another five minutes?
Like Flo said, quit thinking about men, career girl!
Over the next four levels we get more of this. Quinn calls Flo, gushes over how well the wedding went, complains about her lack of man, and is told to focus on her career. Every time there is even a hint that she might hook up with someone — like the surfing prince of Scotland (?) — it goes wrong in some way.
Then we get to this:
Quinn: What a magical celebration. The bride and groom were thrilled! I couldn’t be happier for them.
Flo: Wow, not even a tinge of envy for the bride… you’ve come a long way, Quinn!
Yes, once Quinn transcends her desire to be a bride she is worthy of praise.
But Wait!
But then we get a strange reversal. In level four, Quinn tries to hook Flo up with some guy. Then Flo declares that, because of meeting this guy, she thinks she can benefit from dating more. In level five she agrees to come work a wedding so she can see the guy again. This is, of course, after Quinn declares she doesn’t miss dating. Flo and Quinn have both influenced each other, but whether it’s for the “better” it’s hard to tell.
The final bit of story comes after the last reception. Flo is looking lovingly at this guy and Quinn is happily satisfied with her work and with sweeping. Then a man approaches Quinn to tell her that the wedding was the best he’s ever been to, and he’s been to a lot. Because he’s a wedding photographer. Or so says his business card. You know what else his business card tells us? His name: Mr. Wright.
The weird Quinn/Flo/men throughline feels almost like a parody of feminism. Yes, entrepreneurial women are wonderful. It’s great to see a woman starting out small and building her business through, again, hard work and honing skills. And yes, sometimes women who do such things don’t have as busy a dating life as other women. Still, the underlying condemnation of Quinn as man crazy and having to get over her need to have a full and fulfilling life in order to succeed in business is more than a little insulting and completely wrong. And the fact that’s she’s “rewarded” in the end for getting over her desire to date or be a bride just makes it worse.
Why?
I’m puzzled by the need for this story at all. In Diner Dash, this kind of thing never comes up. Flo’s dating life or lack thereof doesn’t have anything to do with the game. The same should be true for Quinn.
I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that the game is about weddings. With Diner Dash, the story isn’t a particularly gendered one. It could just as easily be a guy who is sick of the corporate world and wants to start a restaurant. With Wedding Dash, we’re dealing with something our society often codes as female-oriented. The stereotype of wedding planners is that they’re either women or gay men. And who really cares about things like flower color and cake and stuff? The brides.
It’s also very telling that Quinn is meant to fix things before the bride notices. Not the couple, the bride. And when things do go wrong — lots of guests left waiting to be seated or without food, bridesmaids fighting, Uncle Ernie being offensively drunk — the bride and groom both look upset, but it’s the bride who has steam coming out of her ears. It’s the bride who makes nasty comments like, “Wake me up when this is all over,” and, “Is it too late to fire our wedding planner?” It’s the bride whose face turns green and who breathes fire. Because she’s a Bridezilla, ya know.
Wedding Dash isn’t a game made specifically for kids, but it’s definitely targeted at young/beginning gamers. It’s very likely that the majority of the people who play this game will be female. So there will be a lot of young women and girls playing a game with this awful message. I’m not okay with that.
Both the executive producer and the scriptwriter for Wedding Dash are women. Though I may be wrong to think so, I feel that this makes the gender issues with the game even worse. There are a lot of women listed in the credits. Did none of them ever go through the script or game and say, “Hey, what message are we sending, here?” Or maybe they did and this is the message they wanted. That really bothers me.
