A worthy cause if you’ve got a few bucks and you’d like Feminist Frequency to make this series of videos exploring the hundreds of instances of problematic video game characterizations of women. Go see the Kickstarter project and, if you can, donate.
Update: Looks like they’ve met their goal, but the series as a whole needs donations to keep the lights on anyway, so I don’t see any reason to stop now!
And its already passed its goal of $6k. Shiny Shiny ^.^ I look forward to seeing the results.
Just for fun the I’m going to try to name all the characters in the title card are (left right top bottom)…..
Princess Peach from Mario games
Cortana from the Halo series
Miss PacMan from the Pacman series
Not sure who the pixie thing is
Mai from King of Fighters
Ashely from Resident evil 4
Next one is from gears of war don’t know the name
not sure who the 8bit girl or angel are…
Daphne from Dragon’s Lair is on the ground
Nurse Valentine from SKull girls
And finally Lara croft from tomb raider
So I give me 8.5 out of 12 😛
Wow, nice! When I queued it up last night, it was still over two grand away!
Speaking of Princess Peach, does anyone know at what point in time she ceased being Princess Toadstool and apparently changed her name?
Skip: In the intro to Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, where she signs the letter as “Princess Toadstool (Peach)”. The letter asks Mario to visit the castle because she baked him a cake. Because a regent of a kingdom has nothing better to do but bake cakes for plumbers.
I’m figuring either the Mushroom Kingdom is actually a constitutional monarchy with Peach as a ceremonial figurehead, or she’s been kidnapped by Bowser so often that the Mushroom Kingdom has taken her out of the loop for security reasons.
“Now she’s going Kart-racing with him? Oh fer… just give me the Bob-omb codes instead.”
Here’s another update: Anita has announced that if she raises more money over the original goal, she will make MORE VIDEOS!!! Yay! It’s another trope for each $1500, and trope #6 is funded already.
Tropes 7-10 look really interesting, too, so let’s donate!
The angel is from Hitman Blood Money. She’s an assassin posing as a lounge singer at a Heaven/Hell themed night club. She knifes the shit out of you if you piss her off. Which is kind of rude.
She’s going to have soooo much material lol
With the demographics video games are largely produced for and by being what they are stereotypes and enforced gender roles are the norm.
This looks to be a great video series! I’ve always been appalled at the relatively one-dimensional nature of women in video games (booty shorts abound!), and though things are slowly changing, it’s still pretty bad.
@julian #8:
“With the demographics video games are largely produced for and by being what they are stereotypes and enforced gender roles are the norm.”
True, video games have traditionally been produced for younger males, but that’s changing as those younger males age and mature and more women begin playing video games. The big question is, are the developers giving their audience what they want, or are they giving their audience what they THINK they want? Ie, are they simply making skimpily-clad female characters because they’ve always made skimpily-clad female characters, and they just need a wake-up call that not all gamers are 12-year old neck beards?
I can only recall one game which claimed not portray women in a sexual manner, but even that was dubious: Septerra Core.
Maya, the central character, may be fully clothed, but her form-fitting clothes don’t exactly hide her body. And the posture and clothes on Led, the blonde character, suggest cuteness and sex rather than portraying amputees as just folks.
http://www.wallpaperpimper.com/wallpaper/Games/Septerra_Core/Septerra-Core-1-1024×768.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septerra_Core
Maybe I can trigger a moderation queue? See post above
Trying different email
I don’t know if you read comments this far back, but you might want to make note that she’s under seige by asshates trying to shut down her campaign and stuff.
Latest Project Update
It’s okay Jasper, I get emails for all comments. I saw the first one you sent. I’ve been working screwy hours though, so I was asleep. I’ll try to cover this top-level ASAP.
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