Gender%20and%20Videogames

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Gender and Videogames Dr Ewan Kirkland BCUC
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Videogames are an extremely masculine medium
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sexualised representation of female characters
male heroes rescuing helpless females
overwhelming masculinity of the implied game
player
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Soul Calibre
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Dead or Alive
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Catwoman
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Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft
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Donkey Kong
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Shadow of Colossus
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Vewtiful Joe
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Cold Fear
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SH4
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Mario
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Sonic
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Dante
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Grand Theft Auto
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Canis Canem Edit
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Gameplay
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Beating the prostitute, as with other aspects of
the game, ties into dominant notions of
masculinity and its representation, an aspect of
the game that cant be denied- even if it is
contextualised in terms of a supposedly bygone
retro-masculinity. The 70s drug culture/gangster
underworld context operates to sanction the
player (of whatever gender) into doing what would
be, in reality, for most, unconscionable.
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In what ways does GTA, CEE, or any other
videogame presume the player is a heterosexual
male?
How does this potentially impact of female
gamers, and the female gaming experience?
Can you think of any game titles which presume a
female or more feminine gamer?
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Active-male-rescue-helpless-female structure
Maximo
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What are the limitations of focusing only on the
visual and narrative aspects of gaming?
What aspects of the gaming experience are not
considered in concentrating on such aspects?
How relevant are issues such as narrative or
visual design when you play a videogame?
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Gender Representation
Gender Construction
Context
Gameplay
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Justine Cassell Henry Jenkins (eds) (1999) From
Barbie to Mortal Kombat Gender and Computer
Games Cambridge, Massachusetts London The MIT
Press
Barry Atkins (2003) More than a game The
computer game as fictional form Manchester NY
Manchester UP
Noah Wardrip-Fruin Pat Harrigan (eds) (2004)
First Person New Media as Story, Performance,
and Game Cambridge, Massachusetts, London The
MIT Press
Diane Carr, David Buckingham, Andrew Burn
Gareth Schott (2006) Computer Games Text,
Narrative, Play Cambridge Malden (USA) Polity
Press
Geoff King Tanya Krzywinska (2006) Tomb Raiders
and Space Invaders Videogame Forms Contexts
London, New York IB Tauris
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media analysts
social scientists
game designers
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Narratology / Ludology
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Narratologists
narrative or storytelling aspects
media texts
traditional forms of audiovisual and narrative
media
Geoff King Tania Krywinska (eds) (2002)
Screenplay cinema/videogames/interfaces London
New York Wallflower Press
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Ludologists
games chess, tag, hide and seek
rules, structure, formalism
criticising the assumptions, arguments and
methods of narratologists
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Ludologists v Narratologists
Narratologists dont understand games
Narratologists want to reduce games to films
Narratologist, in emphasising videogames
similarity to film, television, literature,
ignore what makes games games
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Representation
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representation
identification
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Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
cinematic
character

• personality

• history

• gender, class, ethnicity

• photo-realistic

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Does Lara Croft provide voyeuristic pleasure for
heterosexual males
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Does Lara Croft provide voyeuristic pleasure for
heterosexual males
Or does the male videogame player playing Lara
Croft become feminised through playing as a
female character?
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Does Lara Croft provide voyeuristic pleasure for
heterosexual males?
Or does the male videogame player playing Lara
Croft become feminised through playing as a
female character?
Is Lara Croft something to be looked at, or is
she someone to become?
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Andrew Darley (2000) Visual Digital Culture
Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres
London New York Routledge
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James Newman (2004) Videogames London New York
Routledge
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Henry Jenkins The character is little more than
a cursor which mediates the players relationship
to the story world
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Helen Kennedy (2002) Lara Croft Feminist Icon
or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis
in GameStudies Vol 2, Issue 2, December
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Espen Aarseth (2004) the dimensions of Lara
Crofts body, already analyzed to death by film
theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player,
because a different-looking body would not make
me play differently When I play I dont even see
her body, but see through it and past it.
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Gameplay
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ludologists
narratologists
narratives
games
remediation, convergence, intertextuality
social, cultural, historical meanings of play
audiovisual media texts
rule-based systems
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