Tropes vs. women in games and comics

[Zoya]

I set up a paper.li for the VG Words Twitter list, and it's pretty interesting this week! Check it out here

For those of you who haven't been dragged into Paper.li by the twitter spam, it's a service that collates links that people have shared on social networks into a 'newspaper' that is automatically generated at pre-set intervals. This one collates any videos or stories that VG Words members share on Twitter. It's worked out as a nice combination of video games, social justice, and writers' issues along with a bit of entertainment as well (I recommend the Sir Digby Chicken Caesar sketch).

Anyway there's lots of things ripe for discussion in the paper.li. In this thread I thought I'd highlight the stuff about women in games:

Anita Sarkeesian's first tropes vs. women in games video

I think she's doing a much better job here than she did in her original series on media in generally last year. She links the media to their development and their historical roots, giving a convincing argument about how this trope came to be so prevalent in video games. By combining critical analysis with an examination of the games' development and commercial strategies, I feel like she moves beyond 'doesn't this seem kind of creepy?' into 'these specific developers have clearly failed to reimagine female characters in an empowering way'.

Jen Bosier disagrees and finds Sarkeesian's focus on Nintendo games indicative of a lack of cultural affinity with the industry. To me, understanding of the industry means understanding where games come from and how they came to be as they are, rather than demonstrating that you are well-read (well-played?) enough to qualify as a critic. I might even go so far as to say that Bosier is crossing the line into ad-hominem, elitist gatekeeping, since she seems to respond very positively to Sarkeesian's actual argument and only takes issue with Sarkeesian as an individual.

More links on women that were shared by you guys on this week of Women's Day:

WIDGET (women in development of games and technology?)

What if Indiana Jones was more like our rebooted Lara Croft? (sounds great to me)

Middle School Maddy and the Nude Raider

Everybody Loves Tank Girl review

Women in Comics

Fraud and Tropes vs. Men

International Men's Day

[Amanda Lange]

Some great links!

I thought Sarkessian's video did a pretty good job. Most of the backlash against her this time seems to be primarily for it's own sake, a sort of "see? We told you it'd be bad!" even if it wasn't.

I do kind of wish she'd looked at some more recent games that acknowledge and play with the trope a bit (indie games Castle Crashers and Braid both come to mind). She might just be less aware of those games compared to the Nintendo games she generally touches on. And she's already filled 20 minutes in the video.

Totally identify with Maddy's piece about, well, not identifying with Lara Croft. Spot-on!

And the Indiana Jones piece cracked me up, yesterday. I'm glad I'm not the only one who digs into Something Awful for game writing.

[psepho]

Thanks for setting up the paper.li. It looks like good service.

I really rate what Sarkeesian does. I think it's a hard thing to address issues of representation in a way that is so relaxed and approachable. I have very little background in feminism but find her videos very accessible and thought-provoking. Glad she has got the new series going. It will also be interesting to read more of the reactions in time.

[Cameron Kunzelman]

OF COURSE international men's day will come up as shared by me because I shared when making light of the plight of MRAs.

Anyway, this is a totally amazing idea Zoya, thanks for plugging everything in and making it work.

[Denis]

On Saturday, March 9, 2013 10:24:07 AM UTC-6, Amanda Lange wrote:

I do kind of wish she'd looked at some more recent games that acknowledge and play with the trope a bit (indie games Castle Crashers and Braid both come to mind). She might just be less aware of those games compared to the Nintendo games she generally touches on. And she's already filled 20 minutes in the video.

I think this is to be the next video? She seemed to allude that the next part is to look at how this trope persists and has altered somewhat into the modern day gaming landscape; this seemed like it provided a good base to then jump on to that discussion.

It's for this reason I wasn't too put out by it being primarily focused on Nintendo (something I did notice in the video), as it allowed her to focus more and put out concrete examples. Her supplemental work on showing this trope on her Tumblr does a good job at showing how pernicious this trope really has been throughout gaming's history.