Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games – Watch It, Already!

If you managed to remain oblivious to the firestorm that sprang up in the wake of Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter campaign to fund her webseries examining the roles of women in video games, then I would count yourself lucky. When Sarkeesian took to Youtube to advertise her campaign, what followed was one of the most disproportionate and immature tirades that has ever sprang from the gaming community. Truthfully, it made me a little ashamed to be associated under the same banner of “Gamer”. I have only the greatest respect for Anita for soldiering on through some of the worst that the internet has to offer.

But here we are, nine months later, and the first installment of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games has hit the internet, and what’s the result? Surprise, surprise, there is no evil feminist here to take away your beloved video games. In fact, its quite the opposite.Try as I might, I can never really wrap my head around all the criticism that this series has taken since its inception. I thought it was fairly clear that female characters had rarely been portrayed well in games, and that there were several established ‘tropes’ for female characters that developers had a tendency to fall back on. I didn’t see how an exploration of these ideas could possibly be a bad thing. But, evidently the internet disagreed.

So why did this happen?

The outrage that flared up within gaming community didn’t come from anything rational argument or reasonable objection, as much as some opponents may claim. It didn’t come from an opposition of the ideals, the purpose or the methods of Anita Sarkeesian. It was never about whether she was right or wrong. It was about fear. Fear from gamers that someone was coming to tear down their beloved series, to expose the uglier side of otherwise treasured games. There is something to be said for that, as it’s never easy to hear someone attack a game you’re attached to.

But, as the Anita makes abundantly clear, that is not what she is here to do.

I think one of the most affecting lines of the first video comes very early on, where she says that “it is both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects”.

That is the attitude you need to maintain before you even think about watching this series.

Anita is clear that she isn’t there to trash your favorite games. She too has been a gamer most of her life, and grew up loving these titles as much as anyone. But that doesn’t mean they’re flawless, and that certainly doesn’t mean that these games have always portrayed women in the most fair and balanced of ways.

What you’re not going to find in this video is the expected – by the vocal detractors – twenty minutes spent ranting about each and every example of a poorly implemented gender trope. What you will find instead is an intelligent, insightful and downright interesting dissection of the portrayal of women throughout the history of video games. Anita clearly knows what she’s talking about, and presents her conclusions and supporting facts in a clear and non-aggressive way. You may not agree with everything that she says, but that’s okay! That’s actually better than okay, as intelligent debate and discussion is the only way our industry is going to evolve.

Sigh…

And that’s really what this is all about, isn’t it? Evolution? The notion that our philosophy towards game design can and should change over time. This doesn’t mean that every game that used one of these gender tropes is bad – though some certainly were(I’m looking at you, Custer’s Revenge!) – it simply means that there is always something we can learn from gaming’s history. Does the portrayal of Princess Peach naturally make all Mario games deplorable? Hell no! Does it perhaps indicate something systemic in the way the industry approaches female characters? Well…ya. It probably does.

The very worst thing that can happen to our industry is complacency and stagnation. We need people like Anita, who are willing to challenge the status quo, if we ever want the games industry to continue to grow.

You owe it to yourself and the games industry to go check out this series. So go, do it! No really, go watch it, right here. Just keep an open mind, and remember, this is not someone trying to take their ball and go home, but rather someone wondering aloud if we could perhaps make a better ball tomorrow.