Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:27, 10 September 2014

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games
Title card used in the Tropes vs. Women videos.
Genre	Video game culture
Directed by	Anita Sarkeesian
Presented by	Anita Sarkeesian
Theme music composer	Matt Joynt, Nathan Sandberg
Country of origin	USA
Original language	English
No. of episodes	6 out of 12
Production
Producer	Jonathan MacIntosh
Original release
Network	FeministFrequency (2009) YouTube (2009–present)
Release	Tropes vs Women in Video Games March 7, 2013 – present

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is a YouTube video series created by Anita Sarkeesian examining gender tropes in video games. The series was financed via crowdfunding, and acquired notoriety when its Kickstarter campaign triggered a wave of sexist harassment against Sarkeesian.

Background

In 2009, Sarkeesian started her website Feminist Frequency with the intention of creating feminist media criticism accessible to the younger generation. In 2013 she collaborated with the feminist magazine Bitch to create a YouTube video series titled "Tropes vs. Women". The series comprised six videos discussing tropes in film, television and other popular media that she believes reinforce damaging stereotypes about women, including the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", the "Evil Demon Seductress", and the "Straw Feminist". After the success of "Tropes vs. Women", Sarkeesian started planning a followup series. In her planning she determined that some tropes she planned to discuss, such as the "Damsel in Distress", were particularly pervasive in video games, and decided to devote the second series specifically to video games.

Crowdfunding via Kickstarter

Sarkeesian started funding her Tropes vs Women in Video Games as a Kickstarter project on June 4, 2012 with an initial goal of $6,000 to produce five videos of 10–20 minutes in length. This was reached in less than 24 hours. She promptly added a stretch goal up to $15,000, offering to produce an additional video for every $1,500 raised. That brought the total number of videos to be made to 11. This second stretch goal was reached in under a week. After the first stretch goal was reached she set a second stretch goal of $20,000 to fund technology acquisitions that would improve the quality of her videos. At this point she also offered to send a pack of stickers consisting of re-imagined Zelda and Princess Peach pictures from Nintendo with a slogan and three with Feminist Frequency logo to any future or past backer pledging $50 or more. The second stretch goal was reached in two weeks. A third and final stretch goal was added, with $24,000 and $26,000 sub-goals financing Tropes vs. Women in Video Games classroom curriculum and one more video. The project funding period closed on June 16, 2012, with $158,922 in contributions.

The original list of video titles were: "Damsel in Distress", "The Fighting F#@k Toy", "The Sexy Sidekick", "The Sexy Villainess", "Background Decoration", "Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress", "Women as Reward", "Mrs. Male Character", "Unattractive Equals Evil", "Man with Boobs", "Positive Female Characters!" and "Top 10 Most Common Defenses of Sexism in Games".

Production

Sarkeesian initially planned to release the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series in the late 2012 with an episode a month, but pushed it back explaining that the additional funding allowed her to "expand the scope, scale and production values of the project". On January 2013 Sarkeesian launched a Tumblr web page called "Bits of Tropes Vs. Women in Games" previewing samples of the first video.

The first video in the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series, "Damsels in Distress (Part 1)", was released on March 7, 2013. The delay led some critics to question how she was using the money. Jesse Singal of The Boston Globe noted that the production values of the new series were high, saying "so far, she appears to have put the money to good use." Fruzsina Eördögh of ReadWrite also confirmed that the production quality of the videos had increased from her previous works, but suggested Sarkeesian disclose her plan for the rest of her Kickstarter money as it would "certainly knock down the only legitimate point" from her critics and provide guidance for other video bloggers. Parts 2 and 3 of the series were released on May 28 and August 1, 2013.

Episodes

Reception

Harassment and response

When Sarkeesian raised nearly $160,000 using Kickstarter, there was an immediate backlash from members of the gaming and internet communities. Commenters on her YouTube and Facebook pages wrote hateful comments, threats of violence, and even death threats. These threats were described by Sarkeesian as “a more extreme and sustained torrent of sexism, hate, and threats” than she had experienced in the past.

A game appeared on popular Flash game website Newgrounds on July 5, 2012. The game allowed players to virtually assault Sarkeesian by clicking on her face, effectively "beating her up." As players continued to click the picture, scars, bruises, and lacerations would appear on a photograph of Sarkeesian.

Other forms of harassment against Sarkeesian were spammed to her Facebook page as well as to her e-mail account. These consisted of, but were not limited to:

• Images of Sarkeesian holding cards with photoshopped degrading and humiliating messages
• Meme images with sexist texts superimposed
• Drawings of Sarkeesian being raped and/or sexually degraded (sometimes by video game characters)
• DDoS attacks on Sarkeesian's blog, FeministFrequency.

The harassment continued as the series went into production. When the second video of the series was flagged on YouTube for “containing inappropriate material” by challengers of the series, it was temporarily blocked. However, Sarkeesian soon appealed to YouTube and the block was lifted. Due to her previous experiences, Sarkeesian disabled comments and ratings for her videos.

In August 2014, just days after the release of the sixth episode of the video series, focused on the "Women as Background Decoration" trope, several sources reported harassment of Sarkeesian had reached such high levels that she announce she had been forced to leave her home. She was quoted as having posted on Twitter, "Some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now," followed by a later tweet, "I'm safe. Authorities have been notified. Staying with friends tonight. I'm not giving up. But this harassment of women in tech must stop!"

Critical reception

The first three videos discuss examples of the "Damsel in Distress" trope, in which passive and often helpless female characters must be rescued by the male hero. Paul Dean of IGN described the videos as an analysis of sexism that, while possibly "difficult to swallow" for some video game players, did not attack gaming itself but only "disappointing" stories in games. Aja Romano of the Daily Dot noted that even "strong female characters" are portrayed under this trope, and not treated as equals of male characters. Maddy Myers of Paste commented on the difficulty Sarkeesian faces due to the unrealistic expectations and intense scrutiny placed on her and other female video game critics. Jesse Singal of The Boston Globe wrote that the videos' strength lies in Sarkeesian's "deft at anticipating rebuttals", and said such work was important in challenging the industry to move away from overused tropes. In 2013, Newsweek magazine named Sarkeesian one of its "125 Women of Impact", writing that regardless of the harassment, "Damsel in Distress" was "racking up accolades".

Scholar Nate Carpenter reviewed the "Damsel in Distress" video positively in the journal Women & Language. Carpenter commended the series for rendering the ideas and language of media criticism into a format accessible for a general audience. He judged it limited in failing to analyze the cultural milieu that perpetuates damaging tropes, but overall found it an "intelligent, engaging, and entertaining point of departure" for viewers interested in media studies. Chris Suellentrop of The New York Times referred to the first four videos of the series as "essential viewing for anyone interested in video games". The series inspired Suellentrop to ask Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto about his frequent use of helpless "damsels" in his games; Miyamoto responded, "I haven’t given it a lot of deep thought over the years."

The videos gained a lot of negative criticism from gamers, both male and female. Mainly, because of Anita's use of inaccurate and misandry facts, the most notable one from the sixth episode in which Anita states that "male gamers are taught to kill stripers in Hitman Absolution and that they have to kill them and drag their bodies on the floor because that gives male gamers a perverse pleasure", besides the fact that every Hitman game punishes the player if he/she kills an innocent civilian, male and female alike. The youtube user Thunderf00t found out that Anita lied in her videos and how she misinterpretes facts in games and that she finds in every game sexist things to talk about, even if there arent any most notable example is the mission in the Ubisoft game Watch Dogs in which you, as the player, have to stop a sex traficking ring and save the women who are sold as sex slaves and Anita stated that the mission is the biggest example of sexism in gaming where the male player feels good for seing women in that state.

See also

• List of video game crowdfunding projects

• Feminism
• Internet
• Video games

References

1. Mullis, Steve (April 27, 2014). "Gaming While Male: A 'Privilege' Few Men Recognize". www.npr.org. National Public Radio. Retrieved April 27, 2014.
2. Marcotte, Amanda (June 13, 2012). "Online Misogyny: Can't Ignore It, Can't Not Ignore It". Slate.com.
3. ^ Dean, Paul (May 31, 2013). "Tropes vs Women in Video Games: Why It Matters". IGN. Retrieved March 25, 2014. Cite error: The named reference "Dean" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
4. ^ Greenhouse, Emily (August 1, 2013). "Twitter's Free Speech Problem". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
5. ^ Singal, Jesse (June 22, 2013). "Taking on games that demean women". The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 25, 2014.
6. Williams, Mary Elizabeth (June 14, 2012). "Lara Croft battles male jerks". Salon. Retrieved March 25, 2014.
7. ^ "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter page". Kickstarter. May 17, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
8. "FUNDED in the first 24 hours! New Stretch Goals". Kickstarter. May 18, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
9. "New Stretch Goal and New $50 Reward! Stickers!!". Kickstarter. May 23, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
10. "Project Evolving with Classroom Curriculum and Bonus Video #2". Kickstarter. May 30, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
11. "Quick Tropes vs Women Project Update". Feminist Frequency. August 1, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
12. Stephen Totilo (January 30, 2013). "Anita Sarkeesian's First 'Tropes vs. Women in Games' Video May Come Out Next Month, But Her Tumblr's Live Now". Kotaku. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
13. Feminist Frequency - "Damsels in Distress (Part 1)" accessed May 28, 2013
14. Kevin Morris (February 13, 2013). "Anita Sarkeesian is not stealing Kickstarter money to buy Gucci shoes". Daily Dot. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
15. ^ Fruzsina Eördögh (March 19, 2013). "Anita Sarkeesian, I Love You. But Please Show Us The Money". ReadWrite. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
16. Hamilton, Kirk (28 May 2013). "New Anita Sarkeesian Video Calls Out Gaming's 'Women in Refrigerators'". Kotaku. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
17. Seitz, Dan (2012-07-06). ""Tropes Vs. Women" Controversy Reaches New Low". GameTrailers. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
18. O'Leary, Amy (August 1, 2012). "In Virtual Play, Sex Harassment Is All Too Real". The New York Times.
19. Petit, Carolyn (2012-06-12). "From Samus to Lara: An Interview With Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency". GameSpot. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
20. Lewis, Helen (July 6, 2012). "This is what online harassment looks like". New Statesman. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
21. "Image Based Harassment and Visual Misogyny". Feminist Frequency. July 1, 2012. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
22. Hilliard, Kyle (2013-05-28). "Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes Vs. Women Video Series Examines The Damsel In Distress". Game Informer. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
23. Romano, Aja (March 18, 2013). "Anita Sarkeesian debuts first episode of "Tropes vs. Women"". The Daily Dot. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
24. Campbell, Colin. "Sarkeesian driven out of home by online abuse and death threats" Polygon.com August 27, 2014
25. Dominguez, James (August 29, 2014). "Feminist game critic driven from home by disturbing online threats". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, Australia: Fairfax Media. Retrieved August 29, 2014.
26. McDonald, Soraya Nadia (August 29, 2014). "Gaming vlogger Anita Sarkeesian is forced from home after receiving harrowing death threats". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
27. Steadman, Ian (August 27, 2014). "Tropes vs Anita Sarkeesian: on passing off anti-feminist nonsense as critique". New Statesman. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
28. Aja Romano (August 2, 2013). "Anita Sarkeesian still can't catch a break". Daily Dot. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
29. Maddy Myers (June 4, 2013). "Hyper Mode: Anita Sarkeesian And The Trouble With Magic Bullets". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
30. "125 Women of Impact". Newsweek. March 29, 2013.
31. Carpenter, Nate (Spring 2013). "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games ". Women & Language. 36 (1). Michigan Technological University: 97–99. ISSN 8755-4550.
32. Chris Suellentrop (December 13, 2013). "In the Footsteps of Lara Croft". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
33. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRSaLZidWI&list=UUmb8hO2ilV9vRa8cilis88A

• Works about video games
• Kickstarter projects
• YouTube videos