cliche versus women

University of Minnesota Press

Chapter Title: Introduction. Clichés versus Women: Moving beyond Sexy Sidekicks and Damsels in Distress

Book Title: Gaming at the Edge Book Subtitle: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture Book Author(s): Adrienne Shaw Published by: University of Minnesota Press. (2014) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1287nqh.4

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1

Introduction

Clichés versus Women Moving beyond Sexy Sidekicks and Damsels in Distress

In May 2012 Anita Sarkeesian took advantage of the increasingly popular Kickstarter crowd- funding site to solicit donations for a series of five videos on female representation in digital games. Her project, titled Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, meant to “explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereo types of female characters in games.”1 Her goal as a gamer and a feminist media critic was to identify the limited roles of women in digital games, including them being featured as “damsels in dis- tress,” “sexy sidekicks,” and “rewards.”2 Given that feminist critiques of media are not new and that the criticisms Sarkeesian leveled at the games industry would not be particularly surprising to anyone who has taken even a passing glance at game texts over the past thirty years, what happened next is both troubling yet, perhaps, expected.3

Following the initial request for backers, Sarkeesian received an onslaught of misogynistic, sexist, anti- Semitic, homophobic, and generally vitriolic comments. Many of the attackers voiced a refrain with which many female players of online, particularly console, games are familiar— that women should either display their bodies or leave the virtual space.4 Among the more violent responses were cartoon depictions of Sarkeesian being raped by video game char- acters.5 Her Wikipedia page was repeatedly vandalized, as attackers replaced her images with sexually explicit ones and embedded links to porn sites.6 Among the final malicious responses was a Flash game inviting players to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian.”7 In this game players could “beat” her to a bloody pulp by clicking repeatedly on her pic- ture.8 To this day Sarkeesian still receives regular rape and murder threats via Twitter, and the company refuses to close the offenders’ accounts.9

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2 Introduction

Held up as exemplars of the sexism that plagues the game indus- try, and gaming culture more broadly, Sarkeesian’s experiences are common for women players, as games scholar Mia Consalvo and journalist Leigh Alexander point out.10 More important, however, we must contextualize the sexism, racism, homophobia, and other biases of game culture within broader systems of oppression. Vio- lences in games, game culture, and the gaming industr y are not unique to gaming.

As Andrea Braithwaite describes in relation to her analysis of fights over character dialog on World of Warcraft forums: “The range of casual- to- vitriolic anti- feminism and misogyny in these discus- sions is not attributable to video game culture as a different kind of culture, or to digital space as a different kind of space.”11 Treating gaming as an isolated realm makes this misogyny a spectacle at the same time it normalizes the oppressive behavior within mainstream gamer cultures.12 Similarly, to treat representation in games as be- ing just about games, to do the same for any medium for that mat- ter, fails to account for the ways in which violence against queers (homo- or bisexual or not), women (cisgendered or queer or not), and people of color (queer or not, cisgendered women or not) exists everywhere, in all media, and in all institutions of power.

The silver lining of Sarkeesian’s story is that in the face of such violent responses, her fund- raising campaign succeeded (and then some). While her initial goal was to raise $6,000, a mere month after opening the Kickstarter project Sarkeesian received a total of $158,922 from 6,968 backers. The added funding allowed her to expand the project to twelve videos, hire a team to help develop it, and deliver much higher production quality than she originally planned. In the end the very sexism her project sought to reveal was the catalyst leading to her fund- raising success. The controversy surrounding Sarkeesian’s project served as a call to arms for many people with differing arguments about how, when, and why rep- resentation matters in this medium. In fact, her serial online video project may have been the inspiration for a full- length documentary called Gaming in Color: Queers & Gaymers of the Pixelated World, which began its Kickstarter project with a $50,000 goal.13

Games are not the only contemporary texts that demonstrate how and when representation comes to matter. In 2012, after the books garnered a slew of awards and wide critical acclaim, the first

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3Introduction

installment of Suzanne Collins’s young- adult science fiction trilogy The Hunger Games was released as a major motion picture.14 In the novels and film, the protagonist Katniss Everdeen and other chil- dren competitors from the twelve districts of the futuristic land Panem are pitted against one another in a battle to the death that is broadcast as a reality television event throughout the country, serving the political and personal interests of affluent Capitol audi- ences. Competing in the arena, Katniss befriends a young girl from another district named Rue, described in the books as having “dark brown skin and eyes.”15 Following the casting of Amandla Stenberg, an actress of African American and Danish ancestry, the Twitter- verse erupted with fan complaints over the choice of a black actress to play the part.16 One tweet in particular referenced that “awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blonde girl you picture.”17 Further complaints were raised over the casting of singer- songwriter Lenny Kravitz (of mixed African American and Russian Jewish ancestry) as Cinna, Katniss’s stylist for the Hunger Games, despite the fact that Cinna’s race and skin tone are never mentioned in the books. 18

Despite Collins’s clear description of Rue’s appearance, some fans felt outraged by the fact that the character they perhaps identified with or felt attached to was not going to appear on the screen as she had in their heads.19 In many ways, books are the original interactive medium, in that readers create many of the literary sensory elements in their heads. In regard to The Hunger Games, some fans felt their experience and memory of the text were devalued when Hollywood casting did not match the mental pictures they had created. I do not wish to defend their racial, if not blatantly racist, outbursts. These outbursts do indicate, however, that there are specific moments in which representation can matter to audiences, though it does not always matter, as I discuss throughout this book. In it I parse how people connect with media texts via the intertwined processes of identity and identification. Both inform how they talk about and react to media representation. The manner in which identity, identi- fication, and thoughts about representation connect, however, does not necessarily follow a linear or static path. We get pleasure from texts that represent us, certainly, but we also enjoy those that do not. Media texts provide us with source material for what might be possible, how identities might be constructed, and what worlds we

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4 Introduction

might live in. These are the reasons media representation matters, at least according to my interviewees. Representation provides evi- dence for what forms of existence are possible. It is this argument for representation that aligns with how we interact with media, more than those that emphasize realism. Moreover, it promotes diversity without relying on media effects or marketing discourses that are typical of many arguments for representation.

Of course, we must also consider the ways medium specificity shapes how representation comes to matter. Are the stakes of rep- resentation different for video games than for other media forms?20 Sarkeesian had made a similar video the year before her Kickstarter campaign about filmic and televisual representations of women that at least according to her own account, was well received.21 There was something particular about her critique of video games that struck a virtual cord. Online harassment of women in digital games culture is hardly new, as much of the coverage of and responses to the Tropes vs. Women controversies details.22 Yet there seems to be something more at work in these attacks on a feminist gamer seeking to shed light on the long- documented sexism of digital games spaces and texts. Many of the attacks did not merely deny a woman’s right to be present in a male- dominated virtual space but flat out rejected anyone’s right to critique games as cultural texts.23 It may be that the Gaming in Color documentary about LGBTQ24 gamers and game industry members has received less vocal criticism than Tropes vs. Women because it addresses people involved in the production and consumption of games rather than critiquing game content.25 As I detail, people often treat games as if there is something unique about them apart from other media forms, and I argue that dis- course about representation is central to this treatment. In doing so, I demonstrate that understanding how representation comes to matter in games actually sheds light on how it comes to matter in other media, as well.

Throughout this book I also question some of the easy assump- tions often made about which groups are particularly concerned with representation. Many of the attempts to rectify the under- or misrepresentation of women in games, for example, has focused exclusively on courting female players and designers via female- friendly game content. Sony Online Entertainment, for example, offers an annual scholarship for aspiring female game designers

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5Introduction

called GIRL: Gamers in Real Life. This program, however, privi- leges marketable audiences in its demands for representation and conflates audience and producer group membership with identities:

G.I.R.L. helps raise awareness of the serious female gaming audi- ence to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management; which will hopefully impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influ- ence content to be appealing to women.26

This framing represents two key problems in discussions of repre- sentation in game texts. First, representation in game texts is consis- tently linked with the lack of diversity in the video game industry.27 This linking, in turn, presumes that the mere presence of women (or members of any marginalized groups) in the industry will automati- cally result in more diversity in texts. To quote Charlotte Bunch, this “add women and stir” approach assumes that there are no structural limitations within the industry that preclude this representation, that men in the industry are simply incapable of creating texts that are not representations of themselves or their fantasies, and that all women are feminists.28 Having a particular body and relationship to norms is neither necessary nor sufficient for having sensitivity to the nuances and importance of representation. Second, Sony’s GIRL program and similar projects put the burden of creating more diverse representation on marginalized groups, insisting that if they invest in the industry as producers and consumers, representation will change. What I call for, in contrast, is a rejection of that bur- den. I demonstrate throughout that players/audiences, owing to the complexity of their identities, are able to have strong connections to people unlike them on a regular basis.29 By using that fact as a starting point, the question becomes, Why does everyone in games, and other media texts, look so much alike? The industry, as well as scholars, must treat diversity as a goal in its own right, rather than an exception to the rule or the sole domain of those who are marginalized.

The Tropes vs. Women controversy highlights the importance of approaching representation through hybridity,30 intersectionality,31 and coalitional politics,32 rather than through the more limiting

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6 Introduction

discourse of identity politics.33 For example, one productive respon- dent criticized Sarkeesian’s lack of attention to race in her critiques of gender representation.34 And beyond the venomous attacks, there were some fair critiques made about the very cursory, heteronorma- tive, binary, cisgendered analysis of representation proposed for the video series. In addition, despite the sickening response from some sectors of the Internet, there was a sense of hopefulness created by the sheer magnitude of Sarkeesian’s success. As journalist Helen Lewis describes, despite many examples of the “boys’ club- ness” of 2012 gaming culture, an equal amount of social- cultural- political force had been pushing toward an at least gender- inclusive gaming sphere. She writes, “Thousands of people stood up and said to the perpetually incandescent sexists: You are nothing to do with us, or with gaming. And that has been the same throughout the year.”35 There is evidence to suggest that it is not just women, or marginal- ized groups generally, who care about representation in games and are invested in diversity.

Despite the broadening of video game audiences, the Sarkeesian controversy also demonstrates that some members of the gaming community continue to define “game culture” as something spe- cific and particularly masculine, heterosexual, and white. In many ways, digital games seem to be the least progressive form of media representation, despite being one of the newest mediated forms. This is particularly surprising given decades of research on the im- portance of diversity in media and some other media industries’ efforts to make texts more diverse (whether for politics, profits, or, more often, both).36 Similarly, we have decades of critical theories of identity that demonstrate the shortcomings— and violence— of conceptualizing individuals though purely demographic- based, stable notions of identity grounded in identifiers like gender, race, and sexuality.37 Finally, though the totality of media offer audiences more venues through which they might find representations that resonate with them, this pluralistic approach to representation does not seem to answer the social justice– oriented calls for media di- versity in a broader sense. Despite a refrain in media studies and contemporary politics that “it gets better,” I find myself as a media researcher and a player asking that if that is true, why hasn’t it yet gotten better in games?38

After several years of researching the representation of marginal-

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7Introduction

ized groups in digital games, a few things continue to vex me. First is the point I just raised: despite the fact that digital games have developed alongside media representation critiques, numerous civil rights movements, and increased visibility of marginalized groups across popular media, it seems as though digital games are lagging. In my own work I have found that contrary to the progressive rep- resentation narrative that assumes diversity happens “in time,” there are specific processes through which marginalized groups come to be represented in video games, as in other media.39 Second, the players I interviewed from marginal groups often told me that rep- resentation in game texts was of little importance to them.40 Third, and related to both of the previous concerns, is that demands for the representation of specific groups are always rather limiting in how those identities are articulated and rarely encompass the complexity and intersectionality of identities.

In this book I use dozens of in- depth interviews with people who play digital games and are members of marginalized groups to parse the connected but distinct issues of identity, identification, and me- dia representation. Identification here is used not as the lynchpin between identity and representation but rather as an entry point into describing participants’ complicated relationships with both. Identification also focuses primarily on the relationship between players/audiences and texts, while also noting the unique aspects of that relationship when games are played with others in a variety of contexts (online and off ). Although this book does not explicitly address the representation of hegemonic notions of white, hetero- sexual masculinity, the approach outlined here could also be used to address this “mainstream” game representation in the future.41 I build on feminist, queer, critical race, and postcolonial studies of identity and draw upon qualitative audience research methods to make sense of how representation comes to matter in an era of in- creasingly diversified, interactive, and niche digital media. I offer a textual critique model for game representation grounded in an au- dience reception study, arguing that the study of audience reception is imperative in analyzing texts designed to be interactive.

By breaking away from social categorization, in favor of social contextualization, I argue that we can better make sense of why rep- resentation is important in a broad social sense by first unpacking how it becomes important in an individual sense. Though I mostly

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8 Introduction

focus on a single medium— digital games— the concerns about rep- resentation connect across media. To that end, in addition to talking to interviewees about digital games, I engage them in conversations about representation and identification in other media, as well. This allows me to see the edges of where and when representation is  made to matter across media texts. In this book I demonstrate not only that arguments for game representation need to be made differently from how they have been made for other media but also that games demonstrate how representation might be discussed dif- ferently in other media.

Media researchers must rethink how we argue for the importance of diversity. Before arguing for the importance of media representa- tion, we can do more work unpacking why, when, and how it is im- portant. When does difference make a difference in how members of marginalized groups interact with video games and other media? The identity politics– based approach to studying and demanding representation simply does not work. More than that, arguing for the representation of cleanly defined, marketable identity groups excludes those at the margins of representation, those who do not sit comfortably in demographic categories, and those who exist out- side the market. Arguably, these are the individuals who have the most at stake in demands for representation in a political, social jus- tice sense. In particular, digital games in this study provide insight into how we might create critiques of representation that are politi- cally engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts.

In this book I focus on the relationship between identity, iden- tification, and media representation in an effort to question (1) if and how people identify with media characters, (2) how a particu- lar medium affects the process of identification, and (3) when and how representation is important to audiences. I demonstrate that identities are multifaceted and articulated in relation to particular social dynamics, that identification can occur in a variety of ways but is also not always important to audiences, and that representation does not always, or predictably, drive media consumption and re- ception. Building on this, researchers, activists, and interested pro- ducers need to engage more directly with the imaginative potential and pleasure of representation when arguing for its importance.

In chapter 1, I discuss the theoretical and methodological chal-

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9Introduction

lenges of studying representation and marginalized gaming audi- ences and the advantages of the ethnographically informed approach used in this project. I also offer a brief review of the representation of marginalized groups in media generally and in video games spe- cifically. I discuss the tendency of past research to isolate identifiers and approach identities in an overly simplistic manner.42 I also de- scribe the way qualitative audience research can help make sense of representation in a way purely textual studies cannot. Moreover, I discuss the importance of integrating a complex notion of iden- tity into arguments for and analyses of representation in games and other media. The chapter also engages some of the political debates of good versus bad representation and the impact these debates have on studying representation from an audience perspective, set- ting the stage for the critique offered by this book as a whole.

In chapter 2 I outline the first of two sets of issues that must be unpacked in order to make sense of how people talk about repre- sentation in games. In a lot of work describing why representa- tion matters, easy assumptions are made about identities and how people identify with media characters.43 Although identification is most assuredly not the only way people relate to texts, a lot of the major scholarship on representation presumes that identification is a factor in media effects. Moreover, throughout my research inter- viewees consistently linked identification and their feelings about representation. As I discuss in this chapter, although people may identify with characters because they identify as members of a spe- cific group, this is not the only way they form connections with media texts. The assumption that players/audiences with specific identifiers connect with characters who have those same identifiers trivializes the ways and reasons people identify with media charac- ters. Identification with characters is not always a reason for playing video games or consuming other media, but examining how this works can generate a compelling argument for more diversity in game texts and media more generally.

In chapter 3 I disentangle interactivity and identification to make sense of how representation comes to matter in games versus other media. I use identification as a starting point for talking to inter- viewees about how they connect with game texts but discuss the many other ways representation is understood by players. In par- ticular, I look at the ways game texts’ ludic and narrative elements,

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10 Introduction

contexts of play, and embodied interaction affect the experiences of identification. Studies of identification with game avatars or charac- ters, particularly attempts to quantify it, often conflate interactivity with identification.44 Just because L.A. Noire forces me, for exam- ple, to take on the role of Cole Phelps and interact in his 1940s- era Los Angeles through him does not mean I identify with Phelps as a character.45 Moreover, researchers must also consider that differ- ent types of relationships between players and characters/avatars are made available in different types of game texts. Rather than simply critique the availability of certain identities in video games, researchers must also interrogate how and if players identify with those portrayals, how contexts of play shape those processes, and how options are made available in games.

In chapter 4, having demonstrated the multifaceted relationships interviewees have with their identities and how they relate to game characters, I turn to the question of representation more directly. I discuss how and if representation of their specific groups is import- ant to interviewees and when media representation is important to them. As it turns out, representation is not necessarily important to members of a marginalized group by virtue of their membership in that group. How interviewees discussed the importance of repre- sentation was connected to their reasons for using a text, how they understood their identities, if and how the representation was made relevant in a given text, the context in which the text was consumed, and the social sphere in which the texts were created. Interviewees were also attuned to tokenization and bad attempts at representa- tion. Some interviewees, furthermore, were fed up with media or simply did not think it was as important as is often claimed. Finally, when interviewees viewed texts as fantasy, the representation of real ity was not seen as important. Rather than imply representation does not matter, this actually signifies that fantasy spaces are key sites of exploring diversity in new ways.

In the final chapter I address some very recent representation debates to help explain the stakes of this book at this precise cultural moment. I also interrogate the common theme across my interviews that representation and identification are “nice when they happen.” Unpacking what “nice” means here, I contend that arguments for increased diversity in media representation can and must be made outside niche marketing, outside the refrain that a given group plays

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11Introduction

games, too, and thus must be accommodated. In order to accom- plish this, researchers, activists, and interested producers need to demarginalize video games as a medium. In addition, I claim that while media scholars often talk about representation’s importance in terms of its effect on out- group or in- group members, on the edu- cative or the marketing potential of diversity, a better argument for representation can be made by focusing on the way diverse media gives us space to imagine the world differently.46

In the old national broadcast model of communication, analyz- ing what group a text is by, of, and for could illuminate social hier- archies in modes of production and cultural values. A new model is required to analyze representation, however, as emerging media technologies shift how audiences are constructed by media indus- tries and user- generated content blurs producer/consumer roles.47 At the very moment when media industries are pushing the bur- den of representation onto marginalized producers and audiences through new distribution platforms, niche media portals, and cus- tomizable content, we need to be more nuanced in our demands for representation. I demonstrate that contemporary representa- tion studies, particularly in relation to emergent media, must be- gin with audience studies and that microlevel reception practices can inform macrolevel politics. By unpacking how representation comes to matter to audiences in the twenty- first- century U.S. me- dia environment, this book articulates a new understanding of the stakes in representation debates. I offer a model for talking about representation, difference, and diversity beyond the logic of effects or marketing that focuses on how representation allows everyone to be part of our collective imaginings of possible realities.

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