The series examined common tropes in the depiction of women in media with a particular focus on science fiction. ), Have female characters of various body types. How do you assess which portrayals of women in games attract or repel male or female gamers? Amidst the backlash towards plot and design elements seen in leaked footage of The Last of Us II and fan speculation that feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian influenced the game’s development, a member of Naughty Dog’s development team has confirmed that … Help! That might explain why her criticisms of gaming occupy a different spot than other people’s criticisms about, say, free-to-play game design, game length, or downloadable content. We’d e-mailed several times when I was reporting stories. Going through her list, she called for game developers of third-person games to “de-emphasize the rear end of female characters,” which she said after contrasting how Catwoman’s butt sways in the third-person Batman game Arkham City with how male characters like God of War’s Kratos have their butts covered by loincloths or trenchcoats. At her talk, she showed a photo of herself as a kid, playing the Super Nintendo with a childhood friend. Would it be bad for a given game not to? Gamers are obviously debating this. “When I say that media matters and has an influence on our lives, I’m not saying it’s a 1:1 correlation or a monkey-see, monkey-do situation,” she said, “but rather that media’s influence is subtle and helps to shape our attitudes, beliefs and values for better and for worse. ... Anita Sarkeesian receives a Women’s Media Center Award in 2016 Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images. They won’t move people who might linger on the likely fact that changing how characters sit in Destiny or walk in Arkham City probably won’t make those games play any better. [14] She spoke at conferences and workshops about media criticism and video blogging, and was interviewed by UK Sunday newspaper The Observer in March 2012 about modern media culture, stating: "I think to the extent that it could be creating authentic, human female characters, it is a push towards a more feminist media. [41][42] Sarkeesian responded to the threats against Guthrie in a statement to the Toronto Standard, condemning the widespread harassment she and other women have faced online. This video series is created by Anita Sarkeesian and the project was funded by 6968 awesome backers on Kickstarter.com. Can you guess what color the woman is?”, Several people in the audience shouted the predictable answer: “Pink!”. Near the start of her talk, she apologized for being sick and said it was the first time she’d been ill in two years. By Anita Sarkeesian and Carolyn Petit Published Dec. 17, 2020 Updated Dec. 18, 2020 It should come as no surprise that 2020 was a monumental year for the video game industry. Nine playable classes, none of them women. [21], While noting that the support Sarkeesian has received "stands at a counter" to the harassment, Sal Humphreys and Karen Orr Vered suggest that ultimately the campaign may serve to discourage other women from following Sarkeesian's lead for fear of being subjected to similar attacks. How do you balance creators’ freedom with the need or desire to open a game up to a broader audience? “You get to be my guinea pigs,” she said as she took to the podium in front of a couple hundred developers, game design students and gamers, “to see how this all works.”. The metal detectors, and the overall heightened security presence at Sarkeesian’s talk, were impossible not to notice. “It was released in 2013 for the Wii U. Anita Sarkeesian’s zodiac sign is Leo. I had attended Sarkeesian’s NYU talk because I wanted to hear her outside of the pre-recorded Tropes Vs. Women In Video Games that she’s been making for the last couple of years. “It’s very much like one step forward, two steps back,” she said. Anita Sarkeesian is a pundit, videoblogger and media critic best known as the host of Feminist Frequency, a web series in which Sarkeesian reviews and analyses common tropes in popular culture from a feminist viewpoint. “There are small things that come up that, you’re like, ‘That’s awesome.’ And then five other things that come up that’s like, ‘Are we still doing this?’” Throughout her description of the eight changes she’d like to see, she repeatedly mentioned games that she thought were handling things badly, but she also routinely highlighted games that she thought were doing things well. Anita Sarkeesian: "No more excuses for the lack of women at E3" The Feminist Frequency founder on the need for better representation, both with games characters and on … If not, well, you’re unlikely to see much here you can back. Her supporters cheer the idea that her influence may transform the medium; her critics fear that. How do we truly determine the impact of the characters we see or control on how we relate to those characters or view the world? “Simply putting women in the line of fire is not in and of itself a problem,” she said. The first video in the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series was released on March 7, 2013. 2. I saw her trying to draw clear lines all throughout her NYU talk, and I could sense what a fraught endeavor that was. An NYU rep told me they hadn’t set up metal detectors for any Game Center talks before. She told Colbert that video games often portray women in a manner which "reinforces the cultural myth that women are sexual objects" and that her goal is not to censor video games, but to raise awareness of how women can be portrayed in more realistic, less stereotypical ways. “The male characters get to be short and stocky or heft gorillas or equipped with a massive power suit. The people who make Dragon Age didn’t get this kind of security. She showed a slide of Left 4 Dead 2. [32][33][34][35][36], One attacker created the computer game Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian, which prompted players to bloody a picture of Sarkeesian by clicking the mouse. Anita Sarkeesian is the creator of the award-winning Tropes vs Women in Video Games, a critically acclaimed video series exploring the history of women’s representation in gaming that has garnered nearly 14 million views on YouTube alone. Violence against female characters should never be sexy.”. She has received particular attention for her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which examines tropes in the depiction of female video game characters. So it’s easy to see how two people might sit through the same Sarkeesian presentation and think “This completely matters” and “This doesn’t matter at all.”. Leos tend to have almost a royal air about them. “The ideal here,” she said, “is to design combatants who just happen to be women.”. Banner from Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games Kickstarter campaign. Attackers posted disparaging comments online, vandalized Sarkeesian's article on Wikipedia with racial slurs and sexual images, and sent Sarkeesian drawings of herself being raped by video game characters. The World Part II", "Bomb Threat Targeted Anita Sarkeesian, Gaming Awards Last March", "FBI investigating death threats against Feminist Frequency creator Sarkeesian", "Gamergate: the community is eating itself but there should be room for all", "Anita Sarkeesian explains why she canceled USU lecture", "Feminist cancels speech at USU after terror threat", "Feminist games critic cancels talk after terror threat", "USU students, faculty protest terrorist threats against critic of video games", "Fixing Everything That's Wrong with Gamergate Starts with You", "Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah State speech after threat", "Anita Sarkeesian, Video Game Critic, Cancels Speech After Threats of Massacre", "Feminist video-games talk cancelled after massacre threat", "Anita Sarkeesian interview: 'The word "troll" feels too childish. An NYU security guard stood in front of the audience, watchful, as she spoke. Apologies for the error.). The Tropes vs Women project triggered a campaign of sexist harassment against Sarkeesian that included rape and death threats, hacking of her webpages and social media, and doxing. To be specific, she was describing “eight things developers can do to make games less shitty for women.”. [51][52], On October 14, 2014, Sarkeesian and Utah State University received terrorist threats pertaining to her planned lecture at the university the following day. Under her breath she added: “I don’t even know if I want to say that now, but whatever.”, She said she’d “bought into the bogus myth that, in order to be a real gamer, you had to be playing GTA or Call of Duty or God of War or other testosterone-infused macho posturing games which often had a sexist, toxic culture that surrounded them. [92] In May 2015, Cosmopolitan included her in its list of the "50 Most Fascinating People on the Internet". Inquiries. In a vacuum, this might seem strange, but the idea that Sarkeesian doesn’t care much about games has been part of the narrative against her. Anita Sarkeesian (Photo credit: … She is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a website that hosts videos and commentary analyzing portrayals of women in popular culture. She complimented the latest Borderlands for upping the number of playable women heroes in each of the original base games from one to two (more if you count the DLC). One: avoid violence in which women are framed as weak or helpless. These events helped bring the issue of pervasive sexual harassment in video game culture to mainstream media attention. If you agree with her worldview, you’re likely with her on many or all of these eight things. Her material had rung true to me even as I’d recognized the complications of calling for diversity in creative work and even as I’d noticed that, sure, if you look closely enough, you can find an admirable female character even in a game that is frequently described as being insulting to women. That used to be the question a video game. For example, she said that impractically-sexualized costumes communicate that a female character’s “value and worth is tied to ability to arouse straight young men.” But she added that some of her critics say that male characters are sexualized, too. [69][70], The Utah State University threats resulted in public attention to misogynistic and violent harassment on the Internet, along with the propriety of concealed weapons on university campuses. Utah looks bad in global media...", "Stephen Colbert takes on Gamergate with Anita Sarkeesian", "How media critic Anita Sarkeesian turned Stephen Colbert into a feminist", "Anita Sarkeesian educates Stephen Colbert on Gamergate", "When Jumping into Gamergate Turns into Fearing For Your Life", "In the Documentary 'GTFO,' Female Video Gamers Fight Back", "I Am Tired: The Costs of Online Harassment", "The 5 trends that defined the game industry in 2012", "Women In The World: 125 Women of Impact (No.92)", "The Last of Us Claims a Top Video Game Prize", "Anita Sarkeesian, Riot co-founders win GDCA 2014 Special Awards", "A Day of Honors for Women in the Video Game Industry", "Anita Sarkeesian, more up for nominations at Women in Gaming Awards", "Anita Sarkeesian on GamerGate: 'We Have a Problem and We're Going to Fix This, "The Most Influential People on the Internet", "Anita Sarkeesian - The 100 Most Influential People", "Anita Sarkeesian: An Agent of Change Through Pop-Culture Critique", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anita_Sarkeesian&oldid=998592860, 21st-century American non-fiction writers, Game Developers Conference Ambassador Award recipients, California State University, Northridge alumni, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, Pages which use embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 January 2021, at 03:08. Wells and Emma Goldman.[30]. [15][17][18][19], Sarkeesian was inspired to start a video series on female representation in video games after she was invited to speak to developers at Bungie. ", "Anita Sarkeesian launching new video series focused on masculinity in games", "Anita Sarkeesian's next Feminist Frequency project tackles women's history", "Feminist Frequency and Crash Override Partnership", "In Virtual Play, Sex Harassment Is All Too Real", "Feminist Take on Games Draws Crude Ridicule, Massive Support", "Leveling (Up) the Playing Field: How Feminist Gamers Self-Identify and Learn in Online Communities", "Gamer campaign against Anita Sarkeesian catches Toronto feminist in crossfire", "Internet Trolls Up Their Harassment Game With, "Man charged with harassment after Twitter attacks", "Ruling in Twitter harassment trial could have enormous fallout for free speech", "Procès pour harcèlement criminel sur Twitter", "Anita Sarkeesian Responds to Beat Up Game, Online Harassment, and Death Threats on Stephanie Guthrie", "Toronto Tweeter Causes Uproar Over Violent "Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian" Game", "Feminist website creator to speak at LLCC Oct. 10", "Critic assails portrayal of women in video games", "The Most Dangerous Woman in Videogames - Anita Sarkeesian", "Hyper Mode: Anita Sarkeesian vs. "[55][71][72][73][74], On October 29, 2014, Sarkeesian was interviewed on The Colbert Report where she discussed the harassment she suffered at the hands of GamerGate and her views on making video games more inclusive. “The other four are similar, long legged, slender, mostly sexualized armor, high heels, lack of pants.” She contrasted that to the men. Throughout her NYU talk I was struck by both her negativity and her positivity. She called for more body diversity in female characters, lamenting the “Victoria’s Secret catalogue” physiques of so many playable women and yearning for the kind of bodies that the male characters in the upcoming Blizzard game Overwatch have. The situation was covered extensively in the media, placing Sarkeesian at the center of discussions about misogyny in video game culture and online harassment. She spelled out what she wants to see done, what she thinks game developers should think about doing differently. Possibly GTA V was one of the only games in modern times where women were really objectified, they were used to regain health. “This is supposed to be a hardened space warrior and yet she is still sitting around like she’s Ariel from The Little Mermaid,” Sarkeesian said. When the female character sits, she lays on the side of her legs. Citation: 1. Animate female characters to move the way normal women, soldiers or athletes would move. Of all of Sarkeesian’s requests, I could see this being viewed as the most well-intentioned but creatively stifling one—Why not sometimes have a sexy female enemy? Those latter arguments clearly and directly pertain to whether a game would be more or less fun or engaging for any player, which for many gamers is the paramount gaming concern. Sarkeesian recommended that designers of fantasy and sci-fi games put female characters in similar armor and uniforms as their male counterparts and praised Dark Souls, Natural Selection 2 and XCOM for having more practical outfits. 2019 represents our fifth year doing a statistical breakdown of the games featured at E3, and analyzing what the data tells us about the representation of women in video games. [23], The first three videos discuss examples of the "Damsels in Distress" trope, in which passive and often helpless female characters must be rescued by the male hero. She ran clips of how male and female characters sit in Destiny, a game that imbues its heroes of either gender with the same capabilities. So even though I was playing a lot of games—these kinds of games—I still refused to call myself a gamer, which I don’t think is uncommon.”, She would later emphasize the idea that “you can love something and be critical of it.” That, she said, “is so important to what I do and is really important to engaging with any kind of pop culture.”. In 2012, she was introduced to a larger audience after launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new web series exploring the negative tropes surrounding women in video games. Much of what she showed in them—the propensity for games to depict a disappointingly narrow range of female characters, of often using women in games as props to motivate players, of regularly sexualizing female characters to a comical degree—had rung true to me. Welcome to our multi-part video series exploring the roles and representations of women in video games. So, with that in mind here are two things to keep in mind when designing female characters. [9][10][11], In 2011, Sarkeesian partnered with Bitch magazine to create the video series Tropes vs. Women. Anita Sarkeesian talks about exposing gaming’s most toxic trends with sheer data "A conversation happened in games that was previously only happening in the shadows." She also kept talking, surprisingly, about how easy change in gaming could be. “Just give players more diverse options. Anita Sarkeesian is an expert at feminism and video games and is not a con artist. In March 2016, Feminist Frequency began a formal partnership with the Crash Override Network, agreeing to serve as its fiscal sponsor. “It actually isn’t equal.” Her view of how women are seen in much of society and culture is fundamental to her arguments: “Women are thought of and represented as sexual objects to be used by and for the sexual pleasure of others in society, and men are not viewed that way. She talked about getting nostalgic while in college and buying a Super Nintendo to play Super Mario World. Would it be bad to have more playable female characters? Anita Sarkeesian has made quite a name for herself online with her "Feminist Frequency" web series. And in my experience, confident creators could deal with this kind of critique, could take from it what they found productive and stand up for their authorial independence about what didn’t mesh. Anita Sarkeesian remains a controversial figure in some circles, and her work is still being discussed and argued over, so I though it was time to take another look at her most well known series, Tropes vs Women in Video Games. I’d previously reported about a bomb threat against Sarkeesian’s GDC acceptance speech nearly a year prior. They are coming here to be, like, ‘oh my god, that woman, that horrible evil woman that’s ruining video games.’”, She said she’d written Gamergate off, that there was no convincing them. [68], Speaking at the XOXO Festival in September 2014, Sarkeesian described the allegation that she and other women fabricated harassment as itself being a form of harassment. The list was a surprise—not really for its content but for its explicit charge for change. Supporters donated almost $160,000 to the project, far beyond the $6,000 she had sought. In an editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune wrote that the threats "would seem to support Sarkeesian's point about a link between some video games and violent attitudes toward females" and called on the state to allow universities "to ban firearms from venues where they are not just inappropriate, but destructive of the mission of an institution of higher learning. Anita Sarkeesian (/sɑːrˈkiːziən/; born 1983) is a Canadian-American feminist media critic and public speaker. [3][4] She later moved to California and identifies as Canadian-American. This thread is intended to be an examination of Sarkeesian's work and its place in popular culture. Developers, publishers and gamers could hear and decide for themselves what’s best to do. [16][81] In 2012, Gamasutra considered the harassment and success of Feminist Frequency a catalyst that led to new attention on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the gaming culture and industry. But in say, Watchdogs, the scene she uses in her video is one where the main character is trying to break up a human trafficking ring. Don't over-emphasize female characters' rear ends, not any more than you would the average male character's. [7] On May 17, 2012, she began a Kickstarter campaign to fund a series of short videos that would examine gender tropes in video games that was featured as a campaign of note on the official Kickstarter blog. [28][29], On March 8, 2016, Feminist Frequency launched a crowdfunding campaign for an animated video series called Ordinary Women. [34][37] Toronto feminist Stephanie Guthrie received death and rape threats for criticizing the Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian game. [25] In January 2015, as part of a $300 million effort to increase diversity and inclusivity in the technology sphere, Intel announced it would partner with Feminist Frequency and other groups to help promote increased career opportunities, engagement and positive representation for women and minorities in technology and gaming. Sarkeesian is an advocate. For the last three years, Anita Sarkeesian has been talking about how women are treated in games and has slammed the widespread sexism she sees in the portrayal of female game characters. The Games … She created the site in an effort to create accessible feminist media criticism. “I mean, what the hell?”. “It’s as if the person directing the mo-cap session told the model to walk in the most seductive or sexy way possible rather than just asking her to walk the way a soldier or intergalactic bounty hunter or any ordinary woman going about her business might walk.”, Even sitting could be a gender issue, she showed. [16] Her blog has been utilized as material for university-level women's studies courses, and she has spoken at universities on the topic of female characters in pop culture. There’s no long-standing oppressive construct of men being seen as sexual objects and reduced to that in real life.”. Shorter version, if you just want the list of the list of what she says are "Eight things developers can do to make games less shitty for women", paraphrased from my notes... not that a lot of this pertain to action games and probably make more sense if you're thinking about first and third-person shooters, the Arkham games, and stuff like that: “Fixing this is, of course, incredibly easy,” she said when talking about games that may have several playable protagonists but offer few, if any, who are women. Record female character voiceover so that pain sounds painful, not orgasmic, Include female enemies, but don't sexualize those enemies. Anita Sarkeesian zodiac sign is a Leo. I actually had to learn a lot about video games in the process of making this.” (Correction - 8/13/16: The clip was from 2010, not 2011. “Yeah,” she replied, and rolled the character intro for Wonder-Pink. When asked by ABC News why there was so much anger, she responded "I think it comes from this idea that gaming is a male-dominated space, and that games are for men by men... it's a very misogynist backlash". For the last three years, Anita Sarkeesian has been talking about how women are treated in games and has slammed the widespread sexism she sees in the portrayal of female game characters. [7][8] Videos created for the site analyzed social and cultural gender structure and popular culture from a feminist standpoint, such as applying the Bechdel test to pictures nominated for the 84th Academy Awards in 2012 and highlighting Lego's role in reinforcing cultural norms. [83][84], In 2014, Sarkeesian received the Ambassador Award at the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards for her work on the representation of women in video games, becoming the first woman to receive the award. [31] Crash Override is a support group for victims of large scale online abuse formed by game developers Zoë Quinn and Alex Lifschitz in the wake of the Gamergate controversy. [2][13], In 2011, Sarkeesian co-authored the essay "Buffy vs. Bella: The Re-Emergence of the Archetypal Feminine in Vampire Stories" for the anthology Fanpires: Audience Consumption of the Modern Vampire. From what I've seen of it, The Puppeteer is a delightful upcoming PlayStation 3 game starring a boy. Wonder-Pink wears pink. [20] The threats and harassment she received in response generated widespread media attention, and resulted in her ultimately far exceeding her funding goal of $6,000. Anita Sarkeesian: Tropes vs Women in Video Games Anita Sarkeesian is a powerful example of the positive ways in which the internet connects people and oers opportunities. Little of this is bound to be easy, and each of her eight requests are likely to stir debate about what gamers want, what developers can or should do, and what makes for better video games that more people will enjoy playing. If you’ve got a project or speaking event you think I’d be a good fit for please reach out! [6][7], Sarkeesian launched her website Feminist Frequency in 2009, while a student at York University. As Sarkeesian pointed to fan-art that imagined Team Fortress 2's cast as being all women I thought about her position as an advocate. Talk of gameplay brought Sarkeesian to her final point. Sarkeesian didn’t lay out those questions, but those are the ones implicit in her critique. In her intro video she’s worried about her makeup. First, she seemed to be challenging claims that she thinks games make people do things. ", "Why Gaming Culture Allows Abuse... and How We Can Stop It", "Tropes vs Anita Sarkeesian: on passing off anti-feminist nonsense as critique", "Anita Sarkeesian shares the most radical thing you can do to support women online", "Editorial: Utah's laws place gun rights over free speech", "Feminist Speaker Questions Utah's Campus Gun Laws", "Game critic Sarkeesian avoids Utah due to foolish gun laws. [85][86] She was also nominated for the Ambassador Award at Microsoft's 2014 Women in Gaming Awards for her work. Anita Sarkeesian. [75][76][77], The harassment of Sarkeesian and other women in gaming was featured in the January 14, 2015 edition of Nightline. “Fixing this is of course incredibly easy,” Sarkeesian said. Giving players more playable female characters is the first step toward female characters, like their male counterparts, being defined more by who they are rather than simply by their gender.”, What Sarkeesian was talking about sounded like a quota, because, well, it is. Clip- montage. [50], In August 2014, Feminist Frequency issued a new Tropes vs Women in Games episode. Anita Sarkeesian: ‘It’s frustrating to be known as the woman who survived #Gamergate’ The critic was viciously targeted by trolls after speaking out about sexist tropes in video games. Anita Sarkeesian As she documents on her site, she was targeted by a … The game industry’s silence was shameful. That’s how she set up her first request to game developers: “Avoid the Smurfette principle,” a reference to both having just one female character in an ensemble cast and the character limitations that can spring from that. This was a friendly and game-savvy crowd. Sarkeesian’s list of eight things included several straightforward requests. The planned 5-episode series will explore the lives of historical women such as Ida B. The Games and Online Harassment Hotline, brainchild of Feminist Frequency executive director Anita Sarkeesian, officially launched this week to help gamers, developers, and other online individuals dealing with toxic environments in gaming or the wider online community. She fielded one audience question from a guy who said a female Gamergate supporter had been at the talk, had shaken her head at much of what Sarkeesian had said, had left early and, this questioner wanted to know, what Sarkeesian would say to this woman. She’s done this through a series of online videos for her non-profit, Feminist Frequency, and in lectures at conferences and even at some game studios. She doesn’t buy it, pointing out that it’s common to, say, see female characters’ breasts jiggle and rare to see male characters’ penises do the same. She showed Team Fortress 2. “Motion capture and animations for female characters often have them looking like they’re walking down a runway at a fashion show,” she said. [89] In December 2014, The Verge named her as one of "the 50 most important people at the intersection of technology, art, science, and culture". Minutes after I walked through a metal detector—and some time before she was flocked by well-wishers at the best-attended gaming lecture I’ve ever been to at New York University—I recently listened to the media critic Anita Sarkeesian describe eight things she’d like to see changed in video games. In 2012, Sarkeesian was targeted by an online harassment campaign following her launch of a Kickstarter project to fund the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series. Stunningly, Anita Sarkeesian continues her moral crusade against anything a man might consider sexy. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. 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