Gender in the Video Game Industry

Rory Cuerdon 11/19/15

Media Studies

Lou Canelli

Final Project

 

Gender in the Video Game Industry

 

Ever since the first video games were created, it has been yet another thing that the male population of the world has claimed for their own.  Both as the creators of the games and the players of the games.  As long as 3d games have existed, the industry has been able to start themes of sexualizing women through video game characters.  For example, Lara Croft, who is the protagonist of the popular Tomb Raider series, has been sexualized ever since her debut game in the mid-90’s.  In the 2013 and 2015 reboots of the game, she is still being sexualized, especially with the improved graphics of current games.

Another discriminating theme in video games that has existed for a long time is the “damsel in distress” concept.  This can be easily conceptualized through the worldly popular Super Mario Bros. series.  The plot of almost every Mario game involves some take on Princess Peach being captured by Donkey Kong or Bowser, and Mario needing to go save her.  It’s interesting how rare it is to find games that portray women in a positive way so this essay will be exploring some possibilities as to why this is, as well as exploring why female gamers are also discriminated by men.

Female game designers and programmers are discriminated in the video game industry just like any other industry.  They never get as much authority as their male co-workers for multiple reasons.  One, more specific to the video game industry is the fact that women are a minority, leading to their input and ideas not being heard.  Another reason is because of the old stereotypes about women being less proficient in the STEM areas of study.  Which is completely untrue.  The sexist and dominant males have taken over this industry leading to the hypersexualization and even violence against female video game characters.

Not only do the video game industry demographics lead to the outcome of gender representation in video games, but it also is reflected in the discrimination against female gamers.  In 2012, John Hemingway, who was the lead game designer for Borderlands 2, during an interview, referred to new Downloadable character for the game as “girlfriend mode.”  This character, later named the “Mechromancer,” features less complicated, but less powerful abilities, to allow easier playability for people who might not normally play video games (like someone’s girlfriend apparently).  This is messed up in so many ways, this statement brought all the unsaid stereotypes about women and gaming into the light.  Also, the fact that this character happens to be female says a lot.  I decided to dig a little deeper into where this kind of discrimination towards female gamers came from, and I found a social experiment done by Michael M. Kasumovic and Jeffrey H. Kuznekoff.

The purpose of the experiment was to figure out why male gamers discriminate female gamers, it was discovered that it was directly linked to the concept of male dominance.  In the experiment, the video game Halo 3 was used, which is a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Bungie Entertainment.  To test online player’s reactions to both male and female gamers, the experimenters used pre-recorded messages in a female voice and male voice.  The statements recorded were identical for the male and female player and were just basic phrases like “nice shot.” Over the course of a basic “team deathmatch” game, the messages were broadcast over the real-time chat channel.  The results showed that the higher the skill level of the player, the more positive comments were said to the female player.  Also, the study showed that the more kills (or points) the player got during a match, the less negative comments were said to the female player.  The male player was treated relatively even throughout the study.

It has been determined that the reason for the different reactions was because the lower level players felt threatened by the female player because they were not dominating. This resulted in hostility directed at the female player.  On the contrary, the higher level players who were already dominating tended to encourage the female player because their dominance was not being threatened.

There are some cases of successful female gamers such as Sasha Hostyn who is a Canadian professional Starcraft 2 player who also happens to be a transwoman.  She is better known by her starcraft account name “Scarlett.”  Not only is Scarlett one of the few non-Korean pros that can compete at the same level as this Korean dominated game, but she is the only woman who can play at that level.  Scarlett is a figurehead for all female gamers showing that even women can be a part of this predominantly male industry.  However, when it comes to the fact that Scarlett is a transwoman, there can be a lot of controversy.

 

These are some internet comments on Scarlett entering female only competitions:

“scarlett is not a female…”

“people should stop calling[saying] “her”, it[‘]s a guy with a penis.”

“Change gender, win against ez competition – it’s unfair.”

“Scarlett” is a “male” competing as [a] female and shutting down any other female SC2 player.”

 

I could see where these people are going if we were talking about traditional sports where men usually have a physical advantage.  In this case with esports, the argument is flawed in every way.  The sport is only mental, and if an originally male born transwoman has mentally decided they are female, there is nothing wrong with entering in female only competitions.  In my opinion, I would like to believe that Scarlett is an inspiration to other female gamers who are discriminated based on their gender.

There is a long way to go before there is gender equality in the video game industry, but there are lots of people with the right mission in mind.  Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic who is involved with changing the way the video game industry portrays women.  Sarkeesian creates internet videos and travels around making speeches to get her word out.  The videos she make focus on sexualization and violence against women in video games.  But, she has to deal with constant death threats and other hate-mail because of her views on the subject.  This is a dangerous subject to critic especially as a woman, but her brave soul does it anyways and should be an inspiration to everyone.

There are also starting to be more female-friendly game companies and female run companies with missions to make a change.  The video game company “3 Queens” is an all-female run company that creates mobile-games.  They were given significant recognition at this year’s E3 for their first game called “Creeping with the Crudashians” which targets the reality TV show “Keeping up with the Kardashians” as well as other issues with celebrity culture.  The amazing part was how popular they were at this predominantly male event.  Media critics like Anita Sarkeesian and game companies like 3 Queens are just the start of the long war ahead for gender equality in the video game industry.  The first step is changing people’s minds through awareness.

 

Sources:

Women and video games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games

Sexism in the workplace

http://www.cracked.com/article_22230_5-ugly-realities-being-woman-in-gaming-industry.html

Female run game company

http://www.mtv.com/news/2188591/3-queens-e3-interview/

Scarlett – Female Starcraft Pro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasha_Hostyn

http://www.dailydot.com/esports/sasha-scarlett-hostyn-starcraft-esports/

https://esports101.wordpress.com/gender-issues/

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Female_SC2_Scene

List of Female Characters in Video Games

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Women_Characters_in_Video_Games

Lollipop Chainsaw

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/news-main/lollipop-chainsaw-should-it-have-been-made/

Halo 3 Study

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131613

Kasumovic MM, Kuznekoff JH (2015) Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behaviour. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0131613. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131613

Borderlands 2 “Girlfriend Mode”

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/14/opinion-borderlands-2-and-the-girlfriend-mode-farce

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/09/borderlands-2-mechromancer-girlfriend-boyfriend-mode/

Anita Sarkeesian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-11-26/anita-sarkeesian-battles-sexism-in-games-gamergate-harassment

 

The Hidden Rich

Rory Cuerdon

Media Studies

Lou Canelli

November 6, 2015

The Hidden Rich

The “hidden rich” is a new concept to me.  The way the media represents the rich is through celebrities.  This is interesting because what many people don’t think about is the people above the celebrities who make that wealth possible for them.  If you think about a celebrity who seems rich, for example, the pop artist Justin Bieber during his prime.  That is the stereotype that we are supposed to believe is the richest kind of person.  What we don’t think about is the people above Bieber and other pop artists, like the owners of the music companies that feed off of the fame of these artists.

I find it very interesting that the kinds of occupations that the media shows as being the rich occupations, are people in the education business.  This would be: musicians, athletes and actors.  All of these jobs are very linked to the media itself.  Another interesting thing is the fact that everyone knows that these celebrities are in fact very wealthy but nobody seems to have a problem with that.  I think it’s because when there is someone like LeBron James, who can play basketball better than anyone else, everyone agrees that it makes sense for him to be rich.  People pay to see him play because they envy him.

Another large theme that is heavily portrayed through the media is the idea of starting out poor and ending up rich or “making it” through hard work or good fortune.  This creates the misleading idea that even if you are poor, you are still capable of becoming wealthy.  I have come to realize that this concept is false, and that this is only a way of benefiting the already wealthy.  The poor won’t question the wealth of the rich if they believe there is a chance of one day reaching that economic standpoint.  Again, this ideal is shown through popular culture and the entertainment business.  To use Justin Bieber as an example again, the media shows the story of a young canadian boy pursuing his musical talents and one day becoming rich and famous.  LeBron James has a similar scenario in which he was born straight into to poverty to his poor 16 year old mother.  After years of constant struggle, basketball brought James out of poverty and straight into the upper class.  Now every little boy in the ghetto believes they can do the same.  And the media keeps it that way.

The media romanticizes the idea that it’s a struggle to make it to the upper class.  The part that they leave out is all the kids who are born right into wealth.  They never have to work a day of their life because one day, they will inherit their parent’s money.  The reason these “hidden rich” are so hidden, is because they have the money to make sure they never have to interact with any class lower than their own through “skyboxification.”  This is a very obvious concept in certain situations like professional basketball games where the rich get to watch from a private room, or ride on airplanes with first class seats creating literal separation between classes.  These people are not as easy to detect in everyday life though because they’re always flying in their private jets or hanging out in their beautiful mansions.  

Before we can take down the 1%, the “hidden rich” must be found.  If people could physically see the economic gap that is currently going on in this country, there would be riots in the streets.  But, the media carefully poisons our minds into thinking we can one day reach the same status, keeping us preoccupied, as well as stuck in our place.

My White Isolation

Rory Cuerdon

Media Studies

Lou Canelli

11/1/15

My White Isolation

Race is something that has never really affected me because of my geographical location.  The only concepts of black culture that I am exposed to are through different forms of the media such as television, video games, and movies.  Living in rural Vermont is the epitome of white privilege.  We not only reap all the benefits of being white, but for the most part, we don’t even need to think about the racial injustice that comes from white privilege because there aren’t many black people in Vermont anyways.

In rural Vermont the predominant race is white.  The few black kids at my school while I was growing up were actually African kids who were adopted by white parents.  These kids had in no way been influenced by the black culture in America.  To the rest of us white people in Vermont, these kids were just white people with darker skin.  They soon left their African cultures behind and became a part of our culture because of the influence that all the white people had on them.  This is not to say we meant to destroy their previous cultures, this was just a result of them living in a predominantly white area, and going to a predominantly white school.

It is hard for me to understand the problems with race in this country because of the place that I come from.  In such a liberal and accepting place, racial injustice is only a concept that can be described to me.  There are starting to be more black and hispanic people moving to Vermont in the time that I have lived here, but I am still not exposed to any racial discrimination towards these minorities.  This is a result of me living in one of the smaller towns of Vermont and going to private school.  I’m sure that there are still lots of problems with racial injustice and discrimination in some of the larger towns of Vermont, but I am personally not affected.

At this point, the only way that I can get real exposure to what’s going on outside of my comfortable white isolation is through conversations I have at school with my predominantly white peers and white teachers.  Other than that, my only other exposure is through the media.  This gives me a very false understanding of what black culture is actually like in America.

After coming to Putney I have been given a much different perspective on many of the problems going on in this country.  I learned about the civil rights movement and the supposed abolition of slavery in school.  But I have learned that this is just the ignorance of the white population thinking that all problems between the black and white populations are over.  In truth, black people are racially profiled and discriminated against everyday.  I hear about constant cases of police brutality against young black males and it has come to my attention that these are only a small few of the problems with racial discrimination.  When these instances do get out such as Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson or the Trayvon Martin case, the white population becomes shocked that this would ever happen.  This is because we have been living under the impression that racial injustice is over.

The problem with today’s racism is that it’s not as obvious as it was back in the early 20th century.  It has been hidden away through a carefully censored media.  Now that I am aware of these problems, I should theoretically be given the incentive to address these problems, and help in the fight to solve them.  I am lucky enough to have grown up with practically a guarantee on succeeding in life.  I am a white straight male whose family has enough money to send me to college.  I have been given option to just go to college, get a high paying job as an engineer, buy a nice house, marry a beautiful wife, have two kids and hopefully retire early.  This would be the selfish choice.  Not everyone in the U.S. has the same opportunities as I do.  But what do I care?  Becoming a social justice activist doesn’t help me in anyway so why would I do it?

The war against modern racism in the U.S. needs to come from the privileged.  I consider myself one of the privileged, but I feel no incentive to help in this fight.  This is a result of my white isolation.  The injustice in this country seems like a foreign concept to me, and to be honest, I won’t do anything about it until it directly effects me.  This is the cold truth, and most privileged people like me won’t admit it, but they do the same.  We can talk about these problems all we want, but nothing will happen until we are the ones affected.

Boys Will Be Boys, Girls Will Be Girls

Rory Cuerdon

Media Studies

Lou Canelli

October 5, 2015

Boys Will Be Boys, Girls Will Be Girls

Gender is a concept that has existed since the early humans and almost since the beginning of life’s existence.  It has always been common knowledge that there are two different sexes of almost every species on earth.  As life has evolved, each iteration has taken on differences both physically and mentally.  These male and female differences have defined who we are and how we act in everyday life for as long as human existence.  In the modern world, this way of defining who we are based on the physical aspects we are born with is starting to become “old fashioned.”  Men and women are starting to take on values from the other sex and some people don’t even define themselves as male or female anymore.

Based on my own observations of the human race, generally men seem to have evolved to become physically larger and stronger than women, naturally putting them in the position of being “The Providers.”  Women, on the other hand, have obviously become the natural bearers of children.  I believe this has resulted in women being put in the position of caretaker of both the home and children. Through the media, these stereotypes have been drastically blown out of proportion.  Women are not only meant to take care of the home and children, they have become sexualized through the media turning into items for men to own.

The male stereotypes are greatly represented in many of America’s favorite movies.  The movie 300 features a group of 300 all male Spartan warriors who have to go off to war against the entire Persian army.  This movie is based off a true story, the difference is that everything is exaggerated.  All the warriors are portrayed as being some kind of invincible superhuman with all the perfect male qualities.  The spartan king, King Leonidas, is the manliest of them all with his dedication to protecting his country, his prowess in battle, and how much he fucks his sexy wife.  This is all entertaining to watch in a movie; however, historically, Spartan warriors all had homosexual relationships with each other.  Part of the reason they were such successful fighters was because they were fighting to protect each other as more than just brothers.  There was an even greater emotional connection between them.  There are many more movies besides 300 with similar themes of masculinity, warping the consumer’s perspective on how men are supposed to look and act.

The female stereotypes are also represented in the media through movies and tv shows.  There has been a recent drive in the media to try and break the trend of female stereotypes by trying to put these stereotypes out in the open, but in the process, it usually ends up doing the opposite.  The movie Mean Girls features a group very stereotypical teen girls called “the plastics.”  All these girls do is worry about how pretty they are, make fun of everyone else in the school, and act stupid to get guys to like them.  Even though this movie attempts to drive these hidden stereotypes out into the light, in the process, adolescent girls still watch the movie without realizing the real point of it.  As a result, these girls try to look and act like “the plastics,” reinforcing the problem that was trying to be resolved.

Gender stereotypes are not only influencing people through movies like 300 and Mean Girls.  These stereotypes begin to take hold on people starting from a very age.  Parents begin influencing these stereotypes as soon as kids there kids are born.  The whole concept of blue and pink starts to take place with parents painting their boy’s room blue and their girl’s room pink.  Once kids are old enough to start playing with toys, boys are given toy super heroes and girls are given dolls.  The super heros reflect the qualities that boys are supposed to adopt.  They are strong, violent, and protect other people.  Dolls influence girls to have certain body types and look a certain way.  The influence placed on children at a young age can define who they become in adult life.  When they are forced into a social category that they do not identify with such as gender, years of confusion usually follow.

In recent years, there has been more acceptance for people who do not identify as the gender that society has defined for them.  There is also more encouragement for people to identify not only as male and female, but instead as gender neutral, gender fluid, transgender, or something else completely that I am not even aware of yet.  This is a situation that will take a while for people to begin to both socially accept and understand, but progress is being made.  Gender and sex used to be defined the same way, but in the modern age, gender has taken on a completely different meaning.

Acting Your Age: An Exploration of Age in the Media

Rory Cuerdon September 17, 2015

Media Studies

Lou Canelli

Acting Your Age:

An Exploration of Age in the Media

The media creates stereotypes for age, forcing people to fall into social categories that can influence both their personality and their scrutiny of other people.  In most situations people will succumb to the influences caused by the media, thinking they have to act in certain ways.  Adults are expected to act a certain way based on their age.  As soon as a person reaches adulthood, they have to act with a significant amount of seriousness.  But when a child grows into an adult, they do not acquire a new brain, they still have the same thoughts.  It is impossible to change the way a person is.  For example, I may be a senior in high school, but inside, I still think and act the same way I did as a freshman.  But, because of the expectations required by being a senior, in front of teachers and other adults I have to act much more mature than I really am.  Also, in front of younger kids, I feel like I have to act like a responsible adult because of the influence that I inevitably inflict on them.  I didn’t choose to be this old.  It happened without me realizing, and now that I am this age, I am expected to act like it.

The media indirectly reinforces its stereotypes by doing the opposite.  Having adults act like children for the purpose of comedy reinforces the previous claim that people think that adults are supposed to act a certain way.  If the media hadn’t created the stereotype of adults needing to seem serious and responsible in the first place, many comedies would not be funny.  For example, the TV show comedy “The League” follows a group of middle age men and women who are part of a fantasy football league and allow their lives to revolve around this league.  It is childish to allow such a seemingly insignificant game rule your life.  The core of all the humour is based on adults not “acting their age.”  This is true in many other TV shows as well.  Some of the most successful TV shows in our culture are about adults acting childish.  I think adults find relief in watching these shows because they see adults acting more immature than themselves leading them to believe they are doing well in living up to their serious adulthood.

In the media, teenagers are portrayed as being reckless and irresponsible. Especially in groups, teenagers can seem even dangerous to people. In a typical movie, when you see a group of teenagers, it is generally assumed that they are going to get into some kind of trouble.  A huge theme in this claim of “getting into trouble” is non-prescription drug use.  We are at a time period currently where lots of the adults in the world grew up in the 1960’s which was a time when lots of teenagers were experimenting with drug use.  I feel like because of this, today’s adults think that all teenagers are drinking beer and smoking weed.  What also doesn’t help with this stereotype are all the teen movies that show the classic scenario in which the kid’s parents are away and he throws a huge party with drugs and alcohol.  Kids grow up watching these movies and think that those are the kinds of things they should be doing when they are teenagers.

Because of these stereotypes created by the media I am more conscientious about lots of things that I do so that I can try to fight back the teenage stereotypes.  For instance, I try to wear nice clothes without rips and I wear clothes that aren’t too flashy.  I also carry around my keys on my belt because there is a certain amount of responsibility in having a driver’s licence.  By showing off my car keys I feel like I am making that impression on people.  I always want to look like I am a responsible adult so people will treat me that way.

Through the social construction of “acting your age” many stereotypes have arisen.  Children are innocent.  Teens are threatening.  Adults are responsible.  What are we gaining by allowing these stereotypes to influence our perception of other people?  Children are given a small amount of comfort in thinking responsible adults will take care of them but at at the cost of modifying their personalities.  And what about teenagers?  Not all teenagers are harmful, but if we don’t want to be treated that way, we have to act like adults, modifying our personalities.  If we were not mislead by these social stereotypes, everyone would feel more comfortable with both themselves and with others.