PLAYING WITH
OURSELVES
1. Quiz
2. Coursework
3. Discussion
4. Lara Croft
Go Meta Assignments
• Excellent writing skills
• Broad & interesting array of topics
• Some difficulty with finding TWO 'critical'
articles
Stylistic points:
• Italicize the names of franchises
• Avoid using quotations as full sentences
Final Project Proposals
Bring to class on Thursday
1 page.
Include:
• Purpose & rationale for the project
• How it links to course themes (what makes it
“critical” and what theories/perspectives you’re
drawing from)
• Description of the final project (what is it
supposed to do)
• Timeline for completion
Example:
Purpose and rationale:
As Helen Kennedy notes, female video game characters are often “hypersexualized”, to make
them more appealing and ‘safe’ for male players to play with. But this is problematic if we want
more women and girls to play games, and if we want to offer all players something more than just
stereotypical notions of female beauty.
Description:
For our final project, Emily and I are going to make a stop-motion animation, using Lego bricks
and mini-figures, that tells the story of a female video game actor’s attempts to get “hired” by a
video game. Kind of like Toy Story, in its personification of video game characters as ‘real’ people.
This Lego actor wants to do something unconventional and fresh, but she finds that all of the
roles for women in games are for Barbies, not Lego figures, and her block-shaped body does not
conform to what mainsteram video game producers say that “guys want”. Finally, fed up with the
lack of roles for women in mainstream games, she finds work at an independent game developer.
Less pay, but they appreciate her talent. She lands a role as a female vigilante who can swap out
her body parts in order to bust out of a prison facility.
Links to course themes:
The animation will explore themes of “male gaze” and the political economy of games
production.
Timeline:
Storyboard and script: February 15
Record scenes: March 15
Editing: April 1
Post-production: April 15
Key things:
1) Your plans for your final project could (and SHOULD) change
between now and the end of April
2) The proposal is just to get ideas for the project on paper, taking
into consideration i) course themes, and ii) realistic timeline for
completion
3) Think small. A 5-minute video that addresses one key topic or
issue, and makes one really good point, is better than a rambling
30 minute video
4) Use a media format that will push one or both of you to learn a
new technology or improve an existing technological skill
5) Try to make something that will benefit you OUTSIDE of the
course!
Before we get into games...
Why does representation MATTER?
Ritual model of communication:
The continual construction of a shared reality
Character choice in games
15% of game characters are women
http://www.livescience.com/9696-video-games-lack-female-minority-characters.html
Lara Croft
1996 to 2013
Helen Kennedy, “Feminist Icon or Cyber Bimbo?” (2002)
Strong female character in a typically
male-dominated genre
“Eye candy” for the (assumed) male
player
Kennedy:
The difficulties in making sense of Lara
Croft and our fascination with her is due
to the complex relationship between
avatar and player
“Playing as” another being:
“Losing” yourself, becoming something else
Lawnmower Man (1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCxFGxqLsHE
“Playing with” a tool / toy / puppet
Gamer (2009)
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/gamerInterfaceRace.mov
Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHAq5V4pDSM
“Oh, this is a Tomb Raider game? Weird.”
“less curvy?”
“In the new Tomb
Raider, Lara Croft will
suffer. Her best friend
will be kidnapped. She'll
get taken prisoner by
island scavengers.
And then, Rosenberg
says, those scavengers
will try to rape her.”
http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft
“As a player, I don't remember having many problems
projecting myself as Lara – and I don't particularly want
an avatar in a game that needs protecting. Players aren't
expected to want to protect Nathan Drake in Uncharted,
or John Marston in Red Dead Redemption, or Max Payne
– so why Lara?
Rosenberg seems to suggest it's because she's female –
and it's hard to see that as anything other than a sexist
approach, an assumption that men can't lose
themselves in stories with female protagonists and/or
that female gamers simply don't exist.”
Mary Hamilton, Guardian, July 13 2012
“Playing as”
- Character as idealized you
“Playing with”
- Character as puppet or tool; “swiss
army knife”
“Playing FOR”
- Protecting the character from harm
(in this case, sexual assault)