Have you ever noticed that, with a few notable exceptions,
basically all female characters in video games fall into a small handful of clichés and stereotypes?
I'm Anita Sarkeesian
and I run the video web series Feminist Frequency.
As a pop culture critic I look at movies,
TV shows, comic books, and of course video games.
In addition to being loads of fun to play,
research has found that gaming can improve
problem solving skills, teamwork, creative thought and multi tasking;
and improve hand eye coordination and enhance perceptual and cognitive abilities.
Unfortunately in addition to all of these benefits,
many games tend to reinforce and amplify sexist and downright misogynist ideas about women.
In this particular project,
which I'm calling Tropes vs. Women and Video Games,
I'm going to create a series of five videos that look at and deconstruct
the most common and the most stereotypical representations of women in games.
Video games are an integral and growing part of our pop culture today
and as with all pop culture media the gaming industry is playing a role in helping to shape our society,
either by challenging or more often reinforcing existing values beliefs and behaviors.
This new video series will primarily focus on
tracking five stereotypical representations of women throughout the history of video games.
I'm going to look at the damsel in distress,
the fighting f- toy, the sexy sidekick, the sexy villainess,
and the most common trope in video games women as background decoration.
Last year I released a successful video called Tropes vs. Women
where I looked at the reoccurring patterns of the way women are portrayed in the media.
"A trope is a common pattern in a story,
or a recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience.
A trope becomes a cliché when it is overused."
Some of the tropes I looked at were
the manic pixie dream girl, the smurfette principal, and women in refrigerators.
Those last two are extremely common in video games as well.
"You've probably guessed by now that this trope
was named after the only female smurf in all of smurfville…
but one day the evil wizard Gargamel decided on a devilish plan to sabotage smurfdom,
and how will he do that?
Yes, that's right by creating a female smurf."
"That's it!
I'll get them through their hearts;
I will send them a smurfette."
What I try to do in my videos,
is give people the language to understand and talk about issues
of gender and sexism using accessible examples from popular culture.
Feminist Frequency videos have been used in
middle school, high school, and university classrooms.
They have been integrated into the curriculum of media studies, gender studies, and law school programs.
Parents have even reached out to me saying
that they used my videos to spark discussions with their kids about representations of women in the media.
"So what happens when something in Heartlake city catches on fire?
I guess you’d have to call the boys to put it out.
Similarly, what happens in someone in Lego city gets hungry?
I guess you’d have to call the girls to bake them something"
Each video in this new series with be between ten and twenty minutes long with well researched,
in -depth analysis.
As with all Feminist Frequency videos these will be available online for free
for everyone and anyone to watch share and use.
In each video I'll also be sure to showcase some inventive and interesting games
that manage to avoid these harmful tropes.
As you might imagine, this project requires and enormous amount of research.
Because I'm not just looking at a handful on games,
or just the worst offenders,
but at hundreds of games and at hundreds of different characters across all genres.
This is an incredibly ambitious project because of the scope and scale
of the research and production involved,
so please donate any amount you can to bring this video series to life.
Go check out the kickstarter page where you can see all the details of how the project is continuing to evolve,
including seven new bonus videos and a classroom cirriculum.
There you can pledge a donation to help support this project.
Just click on the link in the description below.
Thanks for watching this video and for your continued support of my work.