Videogames: Introduction - Women in videogames

 

Videogames: Introduction - Women in videogames

Our final in-depth media topic is Videogames.

Our Videogames CSPs are Tomb Raider Anniversary, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and The Sims FreePlay.

These are in-depth CSPs and need to be studied with reference to all four elements of the Theoretical Framework (Language, Representation, Industries, Audience) and all relevant contexts.

This will be tested in the Media Two exam with a 25-mark essay question.

Videogames: an introduction

The videogames industry is a huge media market – bigger than video and music combined. It is worth £3.86bn – more than double its value in 2007. Remarkably, these figures do not include mobile and free games such as Fortnite (which has over 200 million players worldwide).

With FIFA, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 each selling more than 1m copies, it is important to consider the influence games can have on audiences and society.

Women in videogames

The representation of women in videogames has long been considered sexist. Female characters are rarely playable and usually reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. Games that did feature female characters presented them as damsels in distress or sex objects.

Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series is one of the most iconic characters in videogame history. But while she is a strong, independent playable character, her appearance and costume turned her into a digital sex object.  

Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Vlogger and gaming expert Anita Sarkeesian has produced two series of YouTube videos documenting the representation of women in videogames.

Vlogging as Feminist Frequency, the series are an important example of digital feminism (and a superb resource for Media students). However, as a result, she has been a target for online abuse and threats – most notably as part of the #gamergate controversy.

Women and videogames: blog tasks

Work through the following blog tasks to complete this introduction to women in videogames.

Part 1: Medium article - Is Female Representation in Video Games Finally Changing?

Read this Medium feature on whether female representation in videogames is finally changing. Answer the following questions:

1) How have women traditionally been represented in videogames?

Typically either objectified or “damsels in distress”

2) What percentage of the video game audience is female?

42% 

3) What recent games have signalled a change in the industry and what qualities do the female protagonists offer?

Recent popular games like Tomb Raider, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Last of Us, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and The Walking Dead series have female protagonists, co-protagonists or otherwise important characters.


These games each have characters who are role models for real women, because they are strong, independent, intelligent, willful and compassionate. The companies that made these games have enough money where they can take a risk like this and have it pay off.

4) Do you agree with the idea that audiences reject media products if they feel they are misrepresented within them?

There are certainly many audiences that will voice their opinions on social media regarding harmful representations in video games (and other media), so there is evidence to suggest so. The article suggests "This perpetuates a cycle of exclusion…Women don’t like to be seen as sex objects. When they don’t feel like game content positively reflects [their sex], they’re not interested.” Audiences also like to "reclaim" characters who have been misrepresented in media 

5) What does the writer suggest has changed regarding recent versions of Lara Croft and who does she credit for this development?

They wanted to create a protag audiences could identify with. "The rebooted game had to represent women in a more modern way."
They hired Rhianna Pratchett as the lead writer for the 2013 reboot.

Part 2: Tropes vs Women in Video Games – further analysis

Visit Anita Sarkeesian’s ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games Series 2’ YouTube playlist and watch ONE other video in the series (your choice - and feel free to choose a video from season 1 if you prefer). Write a 100 word summary of the video you watch:

Title of video: 

100 word summary: 


Part 3: Anita Sarkeesian Gamespot interview

Finally, read this Gamespot interview with Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency and answer the following questions:

1) What reaction did Anita Sarkeesian receive when she published her videos on women in videogames? You can find more information on this on Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter fundraising page.

"The intimidation and harassment effort has included a torrent of misogyny and hate speech on my YouTube video, repeated vandalizing of the Wikipedia page about me, organized efforts to flag my YouTube videos as "terrorism", as well as many threatening messages sent through Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter, email and my own website. These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen "jokes" to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape. All that plus an organized attempt to report this project to Kickstarter and get it banned or defunded. Thankfully, Kickstarter has been incredibly supportive in helping me deal with the harassment on their service.

The sad thing is this kind of backlash happens all the time whenever women dare to speak up about gender and video games."

2) How does Sarkeesian summarise feminism?

With a quote: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings." She talks about the "straw feminist", a trope used by talk show hosts and hollywood writers, which paints all feminists as radical man haters.

3) Why do stories matter?

"Narratives have always been a core way human beings learn about, make sense of, and understand the world we live in." She believes the telling of stories has always been important in perpetuating ideas in society, both with positive values and negative stereotypes.

"media stories do have a profound effect on us, especially when messages, myths, and images are repeated over and over again", which is why she chose to look at how women are represented often in video games.
"Popular culture is like the air we all breathe. It's in everyone's interests to make sure that air is not polluted with poisonous sexism so that we don't all end up with hideous misogynist mutations growing out of the back of our collective heads."

4) How does Sarkeesian view Samus Aran and Lara Croft (the two protagonists from our upcoming CSPs)?

"Obviously, I'm in favor of more female protagonists across the board, but it has to be linked with an intentional shift away from the idea that women in games exist primarily as objects of sexual desire."
She talks about the idea of Women's bodies being a reward (like samus in her debut game) and sexualised for a male audience (tomb raider) and how these are problematic, sometimes like a "one step forward, two steps back" scenario."

5) How has the videogame landscape changed with regards to the representation of women?

They have evolved since the original Metroid Mario and Zelda games in the 80s, since we are seeing a "slightly larger" number of female characters and more protagonists. However, In the 1990s we saw the rise of the "Fighting F@#k Toy," the ubersexualized yet violent female character--and today this trope has basically become the default representation for women in much of the gaming 

industry.

She also points out how developers are pandering to nostalgic retro-style games and in doing so, reproduce the sexist themes and ideas at the expense of female representations.

6) Why are Mirror’s Edge and Portal held up as examples of more progressive representations of women?

Faith and Chell from said games are women of colour protagonists of their games without being sexualised. She also discusses how the games expanded and explored the first person shooter genre in creative ways.

7) What are the qualities that Sarkeesian lists for developers to work on creating more positive female characters?

"Some very basic things I look for in female characters are: protagonists with agency not tied directly to their sex appeal; transformative story arcs where characters are struggling with or overcoming personal flaws; and some emotional depth and expression."

8) What is the impact of the videogames industry being male-dominated?

The fact that the gaming industry has historically been and is still so male dominated does play a big role in the types of games, narratives, and characters produced. 

In addition to hiring and including more women in creative and decision-making roles, game companies need to intentionally change their male-dominated spaces and internal cultures to actually shift away from the old boys' club mentality and atmosphere

9) What did Sarkeesian hope to achieve through her ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games’ series?

On one level, she wants to "promote media literacy and give people some tools to look critically at the games we play."

She also hoped to "clearly present the issues surrounding women's representations as a systemic problem by identifying reoccuring patterns" - these issues aren't limited to a handful of games, but are instead a large institutional problem.

10) What media debates did Sarkeesian hope to spark with her video series?

That being said, she also wants her viewers to know that you can enjoy games and also be critical of some of the harmful aspects present in them - as in, you can enjoy a game whilst critically engaging with it's problematic aspects instead of throwing the game out.

Furthermore, she wanted to continue and expand the conversation happening about women in video games. It's important that we speak out collectively and say, "It's not OK to constantly portray women as sexualized objects for male desire. We want genuine female characters!"
She wants "complex female characters because it will make games and gaming better overall, more diverse, and more innovative. Making gaming better is not just good for women and girls; it's good for people of all genders."