Today’s Plan:
- Introduce Project Two
- Watch Some Videos
Project Two: Representations of Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Games
Our first project this semester approached games as aesthetic objects. Our second project this semester will approach games as social objects. Rather than analyze how they operate on us (affect our emotions and shape our attitudes), our analysis will focus on how games represent marginalized groups (particularly in the gaming sphere, which has a notorious reputation for being white, male, and hostile to difference).
You will work together in groups of 3 to analyze representations of gender, race, or sexuality in a specific genre of video games. You will develop a paper of around 2000 words and then transform the paper into a 10 minute video (similar to Sarkeesian’s). Papers will be due on March 4th. Videos will be due on March 22nd.
We will then need to put together a list of criteria, or tropes, for examination. This will be built off of the work of Anita Sarkeesian, and her “Tropes in Games” project. Tropes in Games started as a kickstarter in 2013; Sarkeesian produced a series of videos examining the stereotypical portrayals of women in games. Let’s take a look.
Sarkeesian has done considerable work in this area. I see two ways of building off her work. First, we might explore whether representations of women have progressed: are contemporary games making the same mistakes? Are there some genres where this is more of an issue than others? Can we extend her analysis of Beyond Good and Evil to find other positive representations?
Second, we can extend her robust methodology to other representations: can we identify and develop a list of racial tropes for characters of color (for instance, “the criminal,” “the athlete,” “the minstrel,” “the black panther,” “the rapper”). Can we investigate representations of sexuality in games? Are there tropes for LBGTQ+ characters? Can we (maybe outside of the Mass Effect series) identify positive representations of non-CIS/heteronormative/binary sexuality?
We’ll take the next week or so to form groups and articulate a methodology for this project. A few things we have to determine:
- What games do people have access to?
- Is your group going to focus on a specific genre of games [representations of lesbians in RPG games, for instance]
- What parts of the games will you look at? [We don’t have time to play 25 titles all the way through–are you focusing on character creation options? Are you focusing on games that allow for romantic engagement? Are you playing the first hour of a game and tracking every racial representation?
- How many games are you examining? This matters! If you are only looking at character creation, then you should be able to examine 15-20 games per person. If you are playing the first 30 minutes, then you should be able to examine 10 games per person. If you are playing an hour, then you should be able to examine 5 games per person. If you are looking up specific scenes, then this gets really complicated.
- A clear checklist of what you will be tracking when you play the game [our first project was more hermeneutic–in which you interpreted what you played. This project aims to be more qualitative–in which you record what you play]. So, if you are working on stereotypical representations of Mexicans, then we need to compile a list of tropes/stereotypes to look for. We could, for instance, track stereotypical and racist depictions in television and film as a starting point.
Ok, let’s watch some videos.
Homework
Read or watch something have to do with representations of gender, race, or sexuality in games. Write about it in your gaming journal.
