Book Reviews

responding to society; the company wasinvolved in the cultural centering of whitefemininity and the commodification ofBlack identities. We might also consider
that by establishing Christie and Barbie’sfriendship in the late 1960s—while schooldesegregation was still being battled in thecourts and white flight from cities was on
the rise—Mattel also challenged racist
ideologies by constructing an opportunity for children to imagine cross-racial
friendships. Doll narratives and doll playcan be complicated and messy; more than“vehicles through which [ideologies] aretransferred and internalized,” dolls areoften the landscape in which and throughwhich these ideologies are constructed
and negotiated (p. 10).
For those new to the considerationof dolls as objects to be taken seriously,
Hart’s review of the field, interwoven withfeminist analysis and personal anecdotes
of doll collecting and play, offers a solid
introduction.
—Emilie Zaslow, Pace University, NewYork, NY

The Privilege of Play: A Historyof Hobby Games, Race, andGeek Culture
Aaron Trammell
New York: New York UniversityPress, 2023. List of figures,
preface, introduction, conclusion,acknowledgments, notes, index, andabout the author. 240 pp. $30.00 paper.
ISBN: 9781479818402
We generally understand games and play

as a universal aspect of social interaction.
And, although we usually consider playas the province of children, Western society has embraced the notion of “youngat heart” to emphasize how an appreciation of play and interaction with games
can transcend developmental concepts
associated with age cohorts and be a component of the lives of many. However, asindividuals age, responsibilities and expectations creep in, limiting how much timewe can spend on play. Further, with theexpectation of responsibility, activities
that we characterize as gaming and playcan be construed as frivolous, counterproductive, or illustrating a lack of maturity. Following this logic, it becomeseasier to stereotype and normalize those
who might see themselves as participating in gamer culture as socially inept,disconnected, and “nerdy”—stereotypes
that began to emerge in the late twentiethcentury. The common idea of the adult
gamer came to mean mostly white men
who were apparently able to devote inordinate amounts of time to exploits surrounding gaming and play. Individuals outside
the typical gamer stereotype—women,ethnic and racial minorities, and othergroups—became harder to “see” as adultpurveyors of games, encouraging the useof terms like “girl gamers,” “Black gamers,”and “gaymers” to synthesize these otherpopulations within the social category ofgamer.
But is there, in fact, more to this? In
Privilege of Play, communication scholar
Aaron Trammell theorizes a deeper relationship between gaming, adulthood, andthe social realities that exist in Westerncultures. The book builds on Trammell’sgroundbreaking work found in various363

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

P L AYpublications, such as the journal Analog
Game Studies and the book Masculinities in Play, which note how racial andgender inequality need to be consideredwhen thinking about interactions in thegaming space. Trammell aligns his analysis
first with a socio-historical examinationof model train enthusiasts, who in theearly twentieth century turned an interest commonly associated with adolescentboys into an adult male passion. Trammell
notes the social significance of who is,indeed, involved in these spaces and how
the identities of the participants, namely
being economically secure men, allowed
them superior access to the resources
surrounding their passion and a social
standing that afforded them some insulation from critiques of what might be written off as “childish.” By infusing cash andeffort into their pastime, these men could
create a circumstance of expectation thatboth protected their esteem while inadvertently keeping others out. Trammell thendiscusses the creation of the social spaces
surrounding board games—Diplomacy
and role-playing game publications suchas Alarums & Excursions—that provided
gamer subcultures in which racially andsexually coded ideas could flourish undera thinly veiled act of gatekeeping.
Trammell identifies in his work what
he refers to as a network of privilege,
discussing how the “social advantages
enjoyed by hobbyists were an importantfeature of the network structure they wereembedded in” (p. 12). There are resources,
skills, and abilities that are prized in anysocial network, and spaces of leisure andplay are not immune. Thus, the possessionof certain knowledges, cultural artifacts,and demeanors work to benefit individu-als who are a part of a gaming subculture.
However, as Trammell deftly points out,
this privilege is mediated by expectations
set out by those seen as significant, whichtends to mean that those with the easiest
path to full access, particularly in gaming
subcultures, are affluent (middle-class orhigher) white men. There is an apparent
straightforwardness in the accumulation
under the network of privilege for these
individuals, even though others in thesubculture must work to gain that sameaccess. This might require uncomfortable
adaptations for some, Trammell notes,
because hobby spaces are heavily influenced by what he labels the “politics ofWhiteness,” with a none-too-subtle effort
to segregate the action of gaming fromsocial issues such as racism, sexism, andhomophobia. The argument of play, “this isonly a game,” allows for a dismissal of concern, which would further impede othergroups in gaming spaces and encouragethem to assimilate through their silence.
The Privilege of Play beautifully provides an accessible chronology of analog
gaming, inclusive of board games andeventually shifting to digital elements of
the late-twentieth and early–twenty-firstcenturies. It leans heavily on both history
and scholarship but is not overpowering
in its use of either. Trammell demonstrates
how push back against what could be seen
as racism or sexism runs the risk of being
weaponized, implying that the aggrieved
parties are not as interested in gaming as
they might be in a social agenda. Trammell
subtly notes that this is a result of who isseen as dominant in gaming spaces, which
can complicate matters. He concludes witha hopeful interpretation of activism andchange that is occurring in hobby andBook Reviews

game spaces but notes that globalization(where “race” has different meanings
in different cultures) might complicateefforts. The book represents a point ofcritical consideration, a “save point” if youwill, from which future work—both academic and within the game industry—canposition itself.
—Steven Dashiell, American University,Washington, D.C.

Monster Kids: How Pokémon
Taught a Generation to CatchThem AllDaniel Dockery
New York: Running Press, 2022. Introduction, epilogue, and acknowledgments. 208 pp. $17.99, paper. ISBN:
9780762479504
Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a
Generation to Catch Them All is a media
history of the Pokémon franchise in twelve
chapters. The author, Daniel Dockery, isa staff writer for the American anime
streaming site Crunchyroll. Dockery
focuses on the United States but seamlessly
incorporates information about Japanese
media and its cultural and economic background. Along with the myriad manifestations of the Pokémon franchise, Dockery
also discusses thematically and commercially connected media such as Digimon,Yu-Gi-Oh!, Tamagotchi, and Cardcaptors.
Appropriately enough, Dockery
opens Monster Kids with the childhoodof Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon.
As a teenager, Tajiri published an amateur
arcade game fanzine called Game Freak,which would later become the name of thePokémon video game development studio.
After partnering with Nintendo, Tajiri andGame Freak brought on additional creative
talent to fill out a roster of trainable monsters for the first pair of Pokémon games
in 1996. This pair of games, Pokémon Redand Pokémon Green, became a sleeper success that was soon adapted into a manga,an anime, and another set of games. Thisevolution is concisely recounted in thebook’s first chapter, which would serve as
excellent stand-alone reading for someone
interested in the early history of the Pokémon franchise in Japan.
Meanwhile, in the United States, theKids’ WB and Fox Kids network television programming blocks were looking fortheir next big hit. This is where the true
story of Monster Kids emerges as a studyof the broader media ecology of the late
1990s and early 2000s. While the Kids’ WB
won the rights to the Pokémon anime, Fox
Kids acquired Digimon, another importfrom Japan. Monster Kids uses the Pokémon and Digimon franchises as twinnedcase studies to explain the business ofchildren’s television programming andthe various attempts of media companies
to expand Japanese cartoons into localized
franchises of toys, card games, movies,
music videos, fast food tie-ins, and othermarketing ventures of varying success.
The final chapter, “Catch and Release,”provides an excellent summary of thetransformation of the Pokémon franchiseafter its initial boom. This summary,which touches on the changes in media
fandom as Internet access became morewidespread, is capped by a clear-sighted
description of the legacy of imported Japanese cartoons in the brief but impactful365