Meat & Masculinity: The Game
1st Place, People's Choice, Winter 2021
By: Sarah Brecher, Ericko Anderson Halim, Daniel Javier-Martinez, Niaz Sassounian
Play Meat & Masculinity: The Game and establish plant based influence to stop the spread of toxic masculinity!
Beef, beer, bros. The meat and potatoes man. Protein loading after the gym. Big-game hunting. While not limited to men, meat has often been tied to masculinity due to its association as a viable source of protein. While there are plant-based forms of protein, meat has long been considered the most efficient form, leading to high consumption of meat across the population, increasingly so in men. These ideals have been portrayed through a variety of social and cultural influences across the United States, which ultimately creates the notion that meat is the answer to strength, dominance, power, and even sexual virility for men. These associations of meat and masculinity further structure gendered politics of food into the current world. Our project, Meat & Masculinity: The Game aims to explore the question of why and how meat consumption continues to be so prevalent in society despite the significant negative health and environmental factors associated.
In our game, players will navigate the different sectors that influence notions about food consumption in the United States. These sectors include culture, mass media, food systems, government and biotechnology. By highlighting each of these industries, players are equipped with more knowledge on how individual and societal food consumption patterns have been shaped by various institutions. In this game, players must face the meat industry, a significant institution that spreads pro-meat attitudes across these sectors. However, as meat consumption increases, ideas of toxic masculinity are spreading, the environment is being degraded, and individual health is declining. Players are tasked with the responsibility of preventing the spread of meat and instead, work together to establish plant based influence and prevent outbreaks of toxic masculinity. Ultimately, players must find a way to cure the disease that is toxic masculinity.
This project won 1st place in the People’s Choice Award, a well deserved recognition for an enjoyable, thought-provoking, well-designed and executed approach to the combined issues of meat and masculinity. Stop the outbreak of Toxic Masculinty! A plant-based future is coming! Congrats! – Professor Kelty
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