Second Skin Response

Second Skin moved back to the format of the first two films – that of voyeurism. Reformat The Planet was noticeably different in this respect; in RTP, it was clear that the film was made by people who were intimately familiar and enthused with the chip music scene. In contrast, Second Skin and the others portrayed the subjects of the film as freaks to be gawked at. In typical voyeuristic fashion, the producers chose the most extreme examples of each of the maladies affecting gamers; social maladjustment and addiction.

The one moderate fact about the gamers was their weights; there were no morbidly obese gamers. It’s interesting to note that since there weren’t any extreme examples of obesity, even though these occur from time to time, the authors didn’t choose this as one of the plot points; instead, it was a side issue faced by Andy and his cousin, while the main focus was on Andy’s complete collapse of his personal life (lost his house and business etc.) I’m not sure that this is the proper focus of gaming addiction. While we all probably know one person who flunked out of college because of WoW, this tends to be extremely rare, based on anecdotal evidence. In contrast, vast swaths of the U.S. are facing what is now being called an “obesity epidemic”, and I believe that a hard-hitting film about MMO's should have focused on weight in the hard-core gaming community. It would have been a little more compelling, and a lot less detrimental to the credibility of the producers.