Can you identify all 12 female characters?
Big thanks to Jonathan McIntosh (who’s also a digital researcher with Feminist Frequency) for making this amazing Tropes vs Women in Video Games graphic.
[video]
Earlier this year, I was invited to speak about developing female characters in video games at the BUNGiE offices in Bellevue, WA (you probably know BUNGiE as the developers of the Halo series). It was a great experience engaging with creators and developers in the gaming industry so I decided it’s time to dedicate an entire series to female characters in video games.
Because last year’s Tropes vs Women series was so successful, I’m bringing it back with Tropes vs Women in Video Games… And this is where you come in! I’m gonna need your help to make this new series come to life.
Check out my Kickstarter Project - Tropes vs Women in Video Games and please donate any amount you can!
UPDATE #1: Wow! My kickstarter was funded in the first 24 hours. I’m honored and excited by all the positive feedback and support. Thank you all so much! You can still be involved and help expand the scope of this project? See the expanded funding goals that will unlock additional trope videos!
The current issue of Entertainment Weekly is all about The Avengers. And as we’ve seen, most contemporary superhero films pretty much, well… suck (except Thor which was surprisingly good!), but since Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has been tasked with directing this major blockbuster film, of course I’m going to see it!
Entertainment Weekly interviews the seven stars of the film as well as Joss, and overall the interview is relatively unremarkable, in the way nearly everything in EW is, but there were a few comments that are worth noting about the gender disparity in the film adaptation and superhero films generally.
In various interviews with media outlets, many of the cast members were asked what Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow was wearing under her “catsuit”. Johansson said, “Ugh, I got that questions so many times!” She continues, “‘What kind of underpants were you wearing?’ I’m like, “What kind of underpants are you wearing?”
Later when asked which new characters would make it to an Avengers sequel, Whedon responds sarcastically, “I think we need to get some more men on the team,” and Hemsworth (Thor) adds laughing, “Yes, there are too few of us.”
When asked about Joss’ attempts to make a Wonder Woman movie, “Studios will tell you: A woman cannot headline an action movie. After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it’s done a great service.”
While none of this is shocking or revealing, it’s nice to see, at least some critical comments about superheroes and gender in a popular mainstream magazine.
[video]
[video]
“
People believe that critiquing = not a good fan. Enjoyment of something is all or nothing. People believe that if they acknowledge something they love is problematic, then that means they are then bad people for liking something problematic.
But I mean, look at it this way. A person loves their cat. They LOOOOOVE their cat. But sometimes, cat will scratch you, or pee on your pillow or something that you really don’t like. Does this mean you are a bad person, because you love your wildly urinating cat? I don’t think so. But it is good to acknowledge that cat can be a badcat. And then maybe train it to not be a badcat. I mean, who likes to sleep with cat urine on their pillow, no matter HOW much you love that darn cat, right?
” — glockgal: media = your cat (via racebending)(via racebending)
I was interviewed for “The slacker is back – and this time she’s female” by Hermione Hoby in The Guardian.
Anita Sarkeesian, a pop culture critic who runs the blog Feminist Frequency, cautiously welcomes its demise. “I think it’s kind of interesting; these characters are trying to figure things out and they’re being pushed up against traditional values which they don’t agree with necessarily. I feel like a lot of those female archetypes are reactions to not having strong or fully authentic female characters – it seems as though this particular trope has the opportunity to be a lot more real and genuine and deal with authentic struggles.”
I was recently interviewed by Michael Barthel for an article at Salon.com about Women and the Oscars.
Getting beyond basic cast-and-crew details, Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist pop culture media critic and the editor of Feminist Frequency, has produced a video putting the 2012 best picture nominees to the so-called Bechdel test. This looks at whether a film has, at any point, female characters having an interaction with each other that’s not about a male character. Only two of the 10 pass. While it’s possible for male directors and writers to produce representative depictions of women (as Manohla Dargis said in a 2009 interview, “Flaubert wrote ‘Madame Bovary.’ That’s all we need to say about that”), they mostly don’t. Female characters aren’t given anything to do besides pine about their (heterosexual) romantic interests.
Besides Bigelow, only three other women have been nominated for the best director Oscar: Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation” in 2003, Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993, and Lina Wertmüller for “Seven Beauties” in 1976. In the years since Bigelow’s win, no women have been nominated. “Women in Hollywood are still largely excluded from prominent decision making and production roles,” Sarkeesian wrote in an email. “Bigelow’s win is definitely something to celebrate, but I don’t think it reflects on any substantial shift within the film industry as a whole.”
Read the full article at Salon.com
[video]