Black History Month – Anita Saarkesian Alexandra
Bruce 25th Oct
After scouring the internet for a female game character I
could relate to, I started to notice that within these characters an offensive
consistency in their behaviour, clothing and overt sexuality and
materialization. When searching ‘Female
game characters’ the first three links Google search engine gave back to me
were lists of 50 HOTTEST FEMALE GAME CHARACTERS, 40 HOT BUT FORGOTTEN FEMALE
GAME CHARACTERS, 25 HOTTEST FEMALE VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS. I noticed that women
in video games (holding maybe one or two) are ‘manic pixie dream girls’-(Anita
Saarkesian), useless/ non-existent sidekicks, background decorations, damsels
in distress or evil, sexy and demonic villains.
However amongst my disappointing search I found a woman
called Anita Saarkesian. Anita reviews
pop culture and makes a blog video series about how warped our minds are, so
much so that we do not notice the mass of misogyny and racism around us in the
media. Her blog series tropes vs. women
explore the consistency of tropes in Hollywood and the gaming industry. In this
blog series she explains how an aspect or characteristic that is often repeated
is turned into a very misinformed and ridiculous stereotype- ‘A trope is a
common pattern in a story or a recognisable attribute in a character that
conveys information to the audience. A trope becomes a cliché when it is
overused. Sadly some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.’ Her
blog series not only investigates games but also films, television series and
music videos. Demonstrating how offensive stereotypes are widely enforced and
ignored.
Going through the games I have now and looking at all the
women misrepresented as sexpot-objects and how astounding it is that all of
this goes unnoticed and unpunished. There are very few organisations that reach
out to gaming companies and express the unnecessary misogyny being wired into
the majority of homes (ones that own a gaming console and/or a PC). Up until recently gaming has been a very male
orientated community and the games are simply made to attract that target
audience. I feel I can relate to Anita
Saarkesian because we share the same attitude towards women being misrepresented
in pop culture and how easily it can be changed. Although the gaming industry
is one that is slowly changing to be all rounded and not just male orientated,
I think it is essential that people are aware of the kind of miscommunication
and twisted characteristics of women portrayed.
It could be argued
that gaming is a form of escapism and just a make-believe alternative reality
for people to run away to. To some where they are aware of the distortion to
reality and that in some of these worlds women are overtly attractive and could
be better associated with an object than a human being. However, this
information once communicated multiple times starts make its way into the
unconscious mind where the viewer has a warped sense of reality and picks up some
of these characteristics and relates them to real life. I am not saying that
people who play games expect the apocalypse, futuristic scenes and monsters and
apply them to real life, but take the characteristics of games like the
behaviour, appearance and attitude to one half of the population of the world
and apply this to the real life.
Overall I feel that these games could be easily altered without
affecting the storyline, coolness or overall gameplay. Why can’t Lara Croft put
on some trousers? Why does Mario always have to save Princess Peach – why can’t
she be a capable woman who can overpower Bowser with her wit and intelligence? If
women in games were depicted properly it would be one massive part of the media
that isn’t pounding negative portrayals and misleading images into our minds
about the female half of the population.
Search engine results from ‘Female Game Characters’
-http://www.complex.com/video-games/2012/06/the-50-hottest-video-game-characters/
Anita Saarkesian’s website - http://www.feministfrequency.com/2011/03/femfreq-on-kpfks-feminist-magazine/
Video series - https://www.youtube.com/user/feministfrequency
-
I have taken quotations from the video blog
series
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