However, the excess of meanings the daddy figure brings troubles any easy dismissal of the game’s potential subversion.Īfter contextualizing the game within a recent history of the daddy figure, I offer a close playing of Dream Daddy to analyze how the game works with and against representational trends of daddy figures. The game’s normativity lends itself to the question: does desexualizing the daddy figure create ahistorical and apolitical scenarios? Dream Daddy succumbs to the pitfalls of normalization by upholding upper-middle-class priorities. To the disappointment of some players, queer sex in the game is secondary to normalization of alternative families. Dream Daddy departs from representations of the daddy figure in queer contexts by its focus on positivity, joy, and optimism rather than sex, dominance, and power. Like father figures, the daddy figure does not refer to a real person but rather to a socially constructed and stereotyped image. The “daddy figure” is a play on the more commonly used “father figure,” which refers to older adult men whose authority and responsibility inspire an emotional connection given to fathers. This hypermasculine figure creates the possibility for roleplay that potentially revises problems created by patriarchal gender roles. Queer folks in the twentieth century constructed an image of the daddy whose excessive sexuality exposes fatherhood and masculinity as a performance.
I demonstrate that the meaning of “daddy” is constantly in flux by drawing from gender and sexuality scholars like Andrew Schopp (2000), bell hooks (2004), and Lee Edelman (2004), along with recently written articles for a popular audience. Why does incorporating “daddy” in a game about fatherhood feel like a shock? What is responsible for elevating “daddy” into a figure with marketable appeal?ĭream Daddy is part of a trend in niche queer cultures to use the daddy figure to destabilize the knowledge bound up with identity, gender, sexuality, and family. A game titled “Fatherhood: A Dad Dating Simulator” would less surprisingly focus on the feelings and scenarios of raising a child, but it would arguably be less appealing and less marketable. 32) of fatherhood is part of a queer practice that subverts normative family dynamics. 32) between the words “daddy” and “father.” The “constant production of new meanings new interpretations” (1997, p. I argue that the game’s popularity is the result of the “slippage of meaning” (Hall, 1997 p. However, Dream Daddy disappoints erotic expectations by spending as much time focused on raising a teenage daughter as it does on romance. The attractive men on display in the marketing for the game indicates that sexual desire is an integral element of the game’s appeal. The use of the word “daddy” in the title of a queer game might prepare players for a raunchy or pornographic game experience.
Dream daddy a dad dating simulator voice actors Pc#
The PC game Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (Game Grumps, 2017) spawned internet headlines and a fan community for being a game that centers queer characters and romance. These negative feelings, or “bad dreams,” can wake players up to messier, kinkier, and queerer worlds.Ĭontent note: This article contains discussions of homophobia and heterosexism, racism, child abuse, incest, adultery, BDSM, and pornography. While Dream Daddy does uphold a homonormativity fantasy, I offer ways of reading negative feelings produced through role-play that trouble the game’s own appeals to normativity. This normativity undermines the subversive potential of the queer daddy figure and constructs a game world that appears ahistorical and apolitical. Dream Daddy shares elements with daddy erotica through the conventionally attractive fathers available to date however, the game’s role- play replaces boundary-pushing depictions of sex and power with the positivity, joy, and optimism of the suburban upper-middle class. Queer folks have constructed an image of the erotic “daddy figure” whose excessive sexuality exposes masculinity and fatherhood as performative. Dream Daddy’s appeal, I argue, comes from the slippage of meaning between the words “daddy” and “father” in a specifically queer context.
The PC game Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator garnered attention and a fan community for centering queer fathers in a romance game. Daddy’s Play: Subversion and Normativity in Dream Daddy’s Queer World by Braidon Schaufert Abstract