Thursday, February 25, 2016

Who are the Crazy Sexists that Design These Games!?

The video I focused on for this blog, was Women as Background Decoration Part II. The visuals included in this video were that of extreme violence and hate towards women. I was honestly surprised by some of the clips because I did not think game designers were aloud to incorporate such violent themes such as the ones shown. It focused around how these non-playable female characters are basically used to provoke violent sexual attitudes in its players, which game designers assume are heterosexual males. These non-playable sexualized characters are not even as significant as the damsels in distress. At least the damsel in distress in a major pawn in the game, non-playable female characters often have no personality or significant narrative whatsoever. These characters often only exist during scripted game events, in which are created to help the game seem more real and randomized. So these acts of violence against women are supposed to create a more reality like setting, inferring that the sexual and/or violent abuse of women is normal, natural and inevitable. These violent themes reinforce gender violence in the real world, and sanitize these types of behaviors and minimize their value. Whether the game designers add these themes intentionally or not they still convey real world values. Values that are often being taught to a very vulnerable group of persons, young pubescent and maturing males. Whom are still developing and forming beliefs about the world around them. Unconsciously or maybe even consciously these gamers are receiving messages  about what it means to be a male in society and what it means to be a female. And all these games are teaching them relating to gender are concepts of sexism and the acts of devaluing women. Are these messages we want to be sending to young vulnerable males? OF COURSE NOT.




 



2 comments:

  1. Sorry this is my post I forgot to sign it, Emily Castonguay.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry this is my post I forgot to sign it, Emily Castonguay.

    ReplyDelete