Viva Pinata's abhorrent behavior
Viva Piñata was designed from the ground up to be a marketing machine. Microsoft will do anything to get attention for the franchise, even splurging to make Mario López dance for us at the Santa Monica Pier. It's all good that those cute and colorful Piñata's got an E rating, but those who have played the game know that below its kid friendly E rating lies some dark AO rated themes.
Faith over at The Girl Gamer, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, has unleashed a diatribe on the sins glorified in Viva Piñata. The piñata's "dance" to breed, with no gender assignment to them, and parents can "dance" with their offspring to have more piñata children. Faith says, "Is Microsoft trying to teach our kids that having relations with your family is OK? They should have made it true to real life and had the baby piñatas come out disfigured or something ... how do we know we aren't breeding boy piñatas together?"
Viva Piñata is by no means the first production geared for children with underlying adult themes. Scooby-Doo's drug themes, X-Men's commentary on civil rights and prejudice, the Smurfs -- well, there's way too much subtext in the Smurfs. Viva Piñata clearly has themes of incest and let's not forget the fact that you raise these cute animals to be shipped off and inhumanely beaten to death.
