Blood, Dirt, and Boobs: The Action Girl In Video Games

The number of female gamers is on the rise.  It is a common misconception that there are significantly more men playing video games than there are women.  According to a recent study by the Entertainment Software Association, forty seven percent of gamers in the year 2012 were women, meaning the remaining fifty three percent were men.  Despite the increased female demographic, the gaming industry continues to crank out more male main characters than it does female.  The female characters that have been presented to us as main characters have proven to be interesting to say the least.  By looking at some of the gaming industry’s most iconic action girls we can see what men have come to expect of their female characters as well as what out society might be able to do to improve on them.

It is nearly impossible to play a video game and not come across a trope.  This term refers to describe a common element seen in any type of entertainment.  When a female character has the ability to participate in combat and succeed in her endeavors, she is referred to as an action girl.  This trope in video games has been around for decades.  When Metroid was released for the NES in 1986, players who skillfully completed the game were shocked to find that Samus Aran was a woman.  This was a surprise to many gamers who were becoming comfortable with male action heroes.  To this day, many see Samus as a character who helped pave the way for other action girls.  Indeed, other female characters have followed in Samus’ footsteps to become console and PC hits.  Tifa from the massive hit Final Fantasy VII as well as numerous characters from several Bioware titles are just a few examples of popular action girls.

Other than Samus, no action girl is more recognizable or has been embraced by the gaming community more than Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series.  In every new title of the series, Lara gets down and dirty to take out the bad guys and get whatever treasure she is after.  She uses not only her guns, but also her cunning and intelligence to solve the puzzles presented to her.  The 1996 release of the first Tomb Raider was followed by much critical acclaim and gamers across the globe fell in love with Lara.  Overall, the idea behind Lara as a character is a good one.  Every feminist loves a rough and tumble female character who has brains to boot.  Unfortunately, Lara has a few assets that have drawn attention away from her physical and mental strength.   A subtrope that is common among action girls is that the size of a woman’s chest determines her strength.  If a female character is presented as a bombshell, then it follows that she is likely to win a few fights.  This supports the idea that the only way a woman can be strong is if she conforms what the patriarchal society has deemed to be perfect.  It is not just the size of Lara’s chest that falls into an overly sexualized subtrope.  This clip follows the evolution of Croft’s appearance.  Note the lack of change from outfit to outfit as the series progresses.  Where no hiker in his or her right mind would opt to walk in anything shorter than his or her knee, Lara the adventurer is depicted wearing shorts that don’t even reach her mid-thigh.  There is nothing wrong with this length or lack thereof until one assesses the practicality of the clothing in question.  Quite simply, it is highly impractical.  The tank top covering her infamous breasts always allows gamers a view of her midriff and is unforgivably tight in areas male gamers would deem important.

The traditional Lara (left) opposed to the reboot (right)

            A reboot of the popular series was released earlier this year and has received mixed reviews.  A quick search on any review site that focuses more on gameplay will yield high ratings.  GameSpot, which takes into account all platforms, gave the game a score of 8.5.  Obviously, those worried about bugs, story line  and playability thought highly of the reboot.  Internet trolls sent forums ablaze, however, when promotional images were released depicting a new Lara.  Standing in a dark cave, Lara is covered in mud and blood.  She dons her signature tank top, but this time it covers normally proportioned breasts.  Voice actress Jennifer Hale revealed that it was originally planned that Lara would be wearing nothing but a bra beneath a vest.  Eventually, the idea was tossed aside and the designers settled from a plain tank top.  Gone are her signature hot pants.  This time around, Lara has chosen to do her adventuring in practical long pants and boots.  Before the game was even released, many male responses to the promotional shots stated something along the lines of missing the “old Lara.”  As none of these men had played the game yet, it can only be assumed that they were referring to the drastic toning down her Lara’s sexuality.  Entertainment Weekly’s Keith Staskiewicz believes that the change in Lara’s appearance may be in response to the changes in the gaming community.  As more women move in to pick up the controllers, more gamers are becoming aware of the problems that occur when women are portrayed in games.

Some might claim that this is “just a game” and it has no real affect on women in our society.  This is not that case, though.  As stated above, it is a fact that more girls are picking up gaming as a hobby and not all of those girls know that the high standards set by Lara are outrageous.  There are girls out there who might look up to the Laras and Samuses of the gaming world.  These games are teaching girls that the only way to be truly strong is to be sexual as well.  There is nothing wrong with embracing your body type and being proud of how you look, but when a girl measures her own personal worth by those standards, it is a problem.  Young men are being affected by this problem as well.  When boys reach the conclusion that ogling at a woman’s breasts or thighs is acceptable when it is on a console, that tends to transfer over to real life.  When a girl who thinks the only part of her worth loving is her body meets a boy who believes that women are only around for his viewing pleasure, problems arise and the girl is not likely to leave the situation happy.

Bonnie sits with protagonist John Marston while donning
practical rancher wear

While Tomb Raider took seventeen years to get it right, some games have achieved an amazing action girl on their first try.  A personal favorite is Red Dead Redemption’s Bonnie MacFarlane.  She is a rancher and business woman who has chosen to reject the idea that she ought to get married and let a man take the reins.  When the main protagonist John Marston meets her, it is very clear that she is in charge and every man on the ranch is to answer to her.  Where Tomb Raider made a show out of Lara Croft’s appearance, Redemption does the opposite with Bonnie.  Her clothing is practical and true to the historical context of the game.  She is not the bombshell action girl male gamers have come to expect from watching characters like Lara Croft.  It is not just her appearance that makes Bonnie a phenomenal example of what an action girl ought to be.  As stated before, Bonnie is a business woman.  She serves as a manager on her ranch and uses her intellect to get everything done.  In her article on American masculinity as it is portrayed in Red Dead Redemption, Sara Humphreys notes that Bonnie’s relationship with Marston is based in economics when the developers could have made him a love interest of her’s.  Bonnie does not use her femininity to sway Marston to do work on the ranch; she simply points out that Marston owes her money and his life and treats him like any other employee.  Humphreys makes it clear that Bonnie is not a woman who is trying to be a man.  She is simply a masculine woman.  While most action girls do not mind getting down and dirty, Bonnie is one of the true masculine of center women that can be found in video games. 

Even Bonnie is not without her flaws, however.  Humphreys looks at the effects of a domestic setting on Bonnie and notes that her personality is not as dynamic.  She tones down her usually commanding attitude in order to appease her father who is himself a very outspoken individual.  In addition to her behavior in the home, there is a very brief point in the plot during which she becomes the damsel in distress.  A group of outlaws kidnaps her, beats her, and attempts to hang her in order to get their friend set free. This cut scene shows the kind of attitude the outlaws took toward Bonnie during her kidnapping.  The clip is long, but the first few minutes should be enough to get the feel for the kind of people Bonnie was dealing with.  John, being the masculine hero that he is, goes to save her from her captors.  I would argue, however, that these flaws are not as bad as they might seem.  When playing this game, one has to remember that there is some historical context to keep in mind.  A woman was still expected to remain in the domestic sphere during the time of Western Expansion.  The fact that Bonnie was in charge of an entire ranch was an amazing accomplishment.  Even the matter of the kidnapping is a little more understandable when one looks at what Bonnie was up against.  If one woman is pitted against a group of men, it does not take a genius to see that the odds were not in her favor.  The fact that the kidnapping of individuals occurred given the time period makes the damsel in distress situation a bit more excusable within the game.

The fact that is not excusable is that these situations and events occurred in our nation’s history.  Bonnie is not the only woman in this game, but she is certainly the luckiest.  As an unmarried woman, she was not forced into prostitution or marriage.  She got to be a business woman.  Throughout the game, though, we see the murder of prostitutes as well as weak, unmarried women struggling to get by.  Bonnie was not the norm, but the other women were.  As a gamer, one might think that some of the abusive and misogynistic imagery in the game is disgusting.  Not many gamers, however, are taking on an idea of change.  The fact remains that some women are shunned if they are not married while others feel as though they need to take up a life of prostitution to survive.  This reflection on our nation’s history should spur some sort of change in our modern society, but somehow it does not.

The gaming community can only claim that it is male dominated by a small margin.  As more girls pick up controllers, more changes are going to have to be made.  Gaming among feminists is hardly uncommon and the demand for all around kick ass female characters is on the rise.  If female characters can be created whose strength has no correlation to the size of their boobs, a community of female gamers can be built who feel the same way about their own bodies.  There can be so much more to female characters than their curves, and it is about time developers start tuning in on that.

Works Cited

Entertainment Software Association. "Who Is Playing." Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry (2012): 2-3. Print.

Humphreys, Sara. "Rejuvenating 'Eternal Inequality on the Digital Frontiers of Red Dead Redemption." Western American Literature 47.2 (2012): 200-15. Print.

Rockstar Games. Red Dead Redemption. Take-Two Interactive, 2010. XBox 360.

Staskiewicz, Keith. "Lara Croft's Next Adventure." Entertainment Weekly 8 Mar. 2013: n. pag. Print.

"Tomb Raider." GameSpot. GameSpot, n.d. Web. 1 May 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider/>.

Concerning the Gendering of Canines

The Continental Cut

A Standard Poodle checked in at work today for daycare. This Poodle (Peyton) and I are buddies, so when my coworker said that he didn't like Poodles, I had to wonder why. When I asked, he said that they were too feminine. You guys, it's a dog. What in the world makes one dog more feminine than another? "They're ugly and have those stupid, high maintenance cuts," my coworker said. They're high maintenance. That's what makes them feminine? What? Ladies and gentlemen, that is an unfair assumption and an incorrect one at that. Let's have a discussion, okay? Poodles are a highly intelligent dog. They were bred for intense hunting and retrieving purposes. That show cut is a dramatized version of the same cut used to protect the vital organs from cold water. But despite all of that bad-assery, people are convinced that the breed is effeminate because it requires a bit more care and attention than other breeds.

Are women supposed to require more upkeep? Is that mandatory? I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm doing it right, then. While we're at it, why is this femininity such a bad thing? Why is it that being a "girly" breed is such an undesirable thing and why don't people seem to be bothered by gendering breeds as "masculine?" Let's look at the Labrador Retriever, shall we? The should (ideally) be athletic. They make excellent hunting dogs. Relatively low maintenance (Lab owners, please remember to brush out your dogs). My coworker loves Labs. He's never said that he thinks they're masculine, but why not jump to that conclusion? As a side note, Labs have had the intelligence bred out of them over the years, so take that for whatever it's worth.

And here we see a Westie being girly and staying clean

And then there are small dogs. All small dogs are girly because they're breakable (that's my assumption, anyway). They are loud and annoying so they're girly. I'm sorry, but people that say things like that have no idea what they're talking about. Those small dogs were usually bred to hunt down and kill small game (see:
every terrier ever).

Look at how manly that dog is

So let's turn this around. Let's look at the Pit Bull. Super masculine, yeah? Muscular and "mean." Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Guys, if you think owning a Pit makes you tough, you are wrong. The Victorians referred to the Pit Bull as the "nanny dog" because they were so good with children. They are loving companions and incredibly gentle. So all those "macho men" you see on the streets with their Pitties... well... behind the scenes they probably aren't so tough.

Why have we felt the need to gender our dog breeds based solely on characteristics? As I've pointed out, the criteria for what makes a dog feminine or masculine is highly biased and based off of what are society values when it comes to humans of a certain gender. Those assumptions are often wrong or unfounded, though. Maybe you should think really carefully before you get all up in arms about a dog being too girly or manly. Also, Poodles are way cool; so there's that. Tatty bye!

Artifact Analysis II: Irene Adler

In a previous post, I took a look at the women of BBC's Sherlock. As I struggled to come up with a topic for this artifact analysis, I decided that I should stick to something I know. Anyone who has seen my Tumblr blog knows that I know Sherlock. One character that captivated me from the moment she came on screen was Irene Adler as portrayed by Lara Pulver. This woman-- the woman-- crosses all the lines, pulls out all the stops, and makes the audience rethink femininity. By looking at her role as the Femme Fatale trope, her career choice, as well as her sexual preferences, we can see how writer Steven Moffat hoped to define (or perhaps redefine) what it means to be a woman.

You would be hard-pressed to find a form of entertainment that didn't contain tropes. Ideas, after all cannot be destroyed once they are created. We simply reuse the ideas we know to suit our purposes. One such idea is that of the femme fatale. This is a female character with high sex appeal who often carries a secret and is always deadly in some way. In the defense of Moffat, his Adler syncs up pretty well with the cannon Doyle Adler. He didn't rewrite the character to be drastically different as far as her story line goes. While this trope might not seem like a bad thing, there are necessary flaws. The woman never gets away with the crime she is trying to commit. She is always loses to the usually male protagonist. On a similar not, she is often an antagonist. Perhaps this highlights what our society believes about women with power. Women with power are not supposed to win. Maybe that is dangerous. Perhaps there is a highly unlikely chance than the patriarchy is scared and feels threatened by the concept of a female doing more than housework and seeking something other secretarial work. Despite the fact that Moffat keeps Adler her self true to cannon, the way he works the story breaks some of the rules of this trope. In the end, Irene's secret is revealed and she does admit to getting too emotionally involved with Sherlock. Whether or not she loses to him, however, I think is debatable given the end of the episode. She is even able to stay off of Mycroft's radar, as far as we know.

Originally, Doyle wrote Adler to be a prima donna turned courtesan. Given the time period of the story, it is safe to say that Adler would have been doing more... attentive attending to wealthy individuals than courtesans of earlier history. This itself is slightly scandalous, but Moffat takes it a step farther. Sherlock's Adler makes her living as a dominatrix. I would have been easy at this point for Moffat to take all of society's ideas about the sex industry and use them to turn Irene into a slimy, sleazy, and unlikable woman, but he didn't. The first time Sherlock sees her in person, the Adler society might expect would most likely try to seduce Sherlock into getting what she wants. Irene, however, is more cunning than that. She uses the fact that she is comfortable with herself to throw him off his guard. In my previous post I mentioned Irene being sexy, but not sexual. This moment is what I was attempting to convey. She walks into the room naked in a successful attempt to make Sherlock forget his alias. This scene takes place in Adler's home, which I feel could have been another area where Moffat could have chosen to degrade Adler and her profession. Her place of residence, however, is clean and spacious. She lives well, but is not what I would call excessive. Her home, I feel, is a good representation of her-- to the point, functional, and open.

Not only is Adler open about what she does, but is also open about her sexuality. One might assume that because she is paid to dominate, she might be sexually attracted to anyone with the money to hire her. Not only does this assumption paint her as shallow, it is also incorrect.  In a dialogue with John, she accuses him of being jealous of Sherlock's responses toward her advances. John, as per usual, responds that he is not gay. Without missing a beat, Adler retorts that she is. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a lesbian dominatrix whose sexuality is somewhat fluid! To my knowledge, the original Adler was heterosexual. For Moffat to think this carefully about her character is amazing. This is one of the biggest changes he could have made to spice up the typical femme fatale trope. In the spirit of Adaptation and given Tumblr user Ceilingtheo's post, we might even have a non-heterosexual love triangle on our hands.

There is something delightfully edgy about Lara Pulver as Irene Adler. When one watches "A Scandal in Belgravia," it is hard not to notice that there is something new and exciting about this character. You do not have to like her, but I feel like there is something wonderful about her that cannot be ignored. Pulver's performance was stunning and Moffat's writing was simply stellar. The next time you see a bland housewife, a trashy prostitute, or a femme fatale convinced to be a good guy on television, just remember that somewhere in the Sherlock universe there exists a lesbian dominatrix who manages to outwit the British government. If that doesn't make your inner feminist smile, I am not sure what will.

The Case of the Master of Deduction

As I sat in the classroom watching Nine to Five, I thought to myself, "Self, not doubt your favorite show would pass the Bechdel test. Think about it, self. Think of all the wonderful female characters in Sherlock and how often they- Oh. My goodness, they never talk to each other." I entered a panic. Is my whole life a lie? Yes, yes it is. I managed to pull myself together long enough to remember that just because Sherlock doesn't pass the test, it doesn't mean that there aren't women worth looking at in the show. Let's do that right now, shall we? Let's take a look at the women of Sherlock and why they are wonderful.

Ladies and gents, Molly Hooper

Ah yes, Molly Hooper. Played by the brilliant, adorable, beautiful, and smart feminist that is Loo Brealey. Kids, if you don't follow her on Twitter you are missing out on a wonderful experience. It's hard to classify Molly, I think. Part me of wants to just call her the typical mousy assistant who can't get what (or rather who) she wants, but I know that isn't who she is. The BBC has painted Sherlock as a sociopath. He is a man who doesn't feel like the needs other people. Ah, but he trusts Molly. She offers some of the deepest insights into his character. Sure, she's shy and a bit hopeless in the area of love, but she is so much more than a mousy lab assistant. Oh and you should hear my Reichenbach theories about her...

The greatest landlady you'll ever meet

It's hard to talk about the women of Sherlock without talking about Mrs. Hudson as portrayed by Una Stubbs. This woman puts up with everything and I mean everything-- eyeballs and heads in the fridge, bullet holes in her wall, Sherlock's seemingly random bouts of quietness... the list goes on. While Sherlock never really feels at liberty to discuss his feelings about most individuals in his life, we know that one does not simply mess with Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock makes is quite clear that if you hurt this woman, you will pay dearly.

Just for a moment I want to talk about a post on Tumblr that I saw recently. In the first episode, it is revealed that Sherlock ensured the execution of Mrs. Hudson's husband. While we are not 100% aware of what exactly Mr. Hudson did, one Tumblr user speculated that spousal abuse was somewhere on his list of offenses. This amazing woman who we know went through something traumatic manages to stick it out through all of Sherlock's adventures. You go, Mrs. H.

Last one, I promise

The Woman. Ms. Irene Adler (Lara Pulver). Alrighty! So at first glance it's simple-- she's a sexy dominatrix with a secret. Adler is so much more than that, though! She is sexy, but not necessarily sexual. Does that makes sense? It's very hard to explain without actually watching the episode, I'm afraid. If you've seen it, then you know what I'm talking about. So she gets paid to dominate men and women. But kids, she's lesbian! Dominating men is a professional choice, not a personal one. Her secret? She's smart. In Sherlock's opinion, she's almost impossibly smart. Almost. I will admit to not really liking this character at first, but she's grown on me. Lara did an amazing job doing what no Adler had really been able to do before. Bravo!

So you guys need to go watch this. Right now. I don't care how you get it, just go do it. Enjoy it. It might not pass the test, but I think the women in Sherlock are definitely worth taking a look at.

Tatty bye!

Artifact Analysis I: Why You Should Care About Hot Wheels

I was a very spoiled child. I had all sorts of toys, not just the typical gendered ones. I was in love with Beanie Babies and Pokemon. I had Barbies. Do you know what the one toy I never had was? Hot Wheels. I never owned Hot Wheels and, looking back, that upsets me. My mother wanted me involved in arts and crafts. She tried hard to get me to play with dolls. It was not that I could not have Hot Wheels. I simply had never asked because it was not something that ever crossed my mind. I feel confident in saying that I never got the chance to learn about cars all because young boys were the target audience of Hot Wheels. Because of the way Hot Wheels are marketed, boys get a head start in the knowledge of automobiles and the world is left believing that girls cannot be interested in cars.

It is obvious why parents feel that buying Hot Wheels for their boys is more appropriate than buying them for girls. The shiny cars are cased in blue packaging. Blue, obviously being a traditionally masculine color, is a clear signal of who Mattel is targeting. The first thing one sees on the website is a group of boys playing with the tiny cars. Above them we read, “Be the worlds best driver!” We have boys, we want them to be the best, we get them Hot Wheels. Moms, of course, do not play Hot Wheels with her boys. It is going to be Daddy and Son bonding time. Mom gets to play with the little girl and her doll. This all works out, of course, as they are a white family with 1.8 blond haired, blue eyed children.

I really feel like that abundance of Hot Wheels owned by boys is what sparked the stereotypical interest in cars. Cars are symbols of power and status. We (meaning society) want our boys to feel powerful; we want them to feel like they should strive to be at the top. Peggy Ornstein notes in her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter that we encourage our boys to play with toys that ooze power, and excitement. Girls get excitement, too, but of a much different kind. How jealous I am of the kind of excitement the boys are encouraged to partake in. Boys learned about the world’s most iconic cars long before I could tell you that the Porsche 911 Turbo was the only Porsche I liked. Boys get to obtain the knowledge at a young that the following car is indeed cool.

This Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-a Superleggera Hot Wheel model:

Translates to this real-life Lambo:

Because boys learn that is what they should pursue in life, they learn to... well... learn. They gather information that is foreign to me. I wish I could adequately explain what that kind of information is, but I have already admitted to not knowing enough. This is not a problem, though, because girls cannot possibly be interested in cars.

I mean it, these boys and the cars they drive are my life.

There is a problem with that logic, you see. That is a problem that we should care about solving. We should care because my favorite television show is BBC’s Top Gear. We need to care because it was my idea to go to the auto show, not my boyfriend’s. We should care because I happen to find the Aston Martin Vanquish to be extremely appealing. Girls can love cars and tell people that they love cars, but nobody believes them. While at the Greater Milwaukee Auto Show, I pulled my boyfriend to the far end of a hallway because I had to look at the racing Ferrari shining in the corner. The spokesperson for the racing team began talking to my boyfriend right away about a program enabling the public to spend time learning to race with a professional. Not once did this man make eye contact with me while talking about the program. It was not until the end that he looked at me and added, “And if you’re girlfriend here is interested, she could pay seventy five dollars to have a professional drive her around the track.” I was genuinely hurt. I was dismissed as not wanting to learn to race because I was a girl. We need to care because it is difficult to be seen as uninteresting by a person who should know better. This happened the whole day. We stopped to look at some bikes on display and the man asked my boyfriend if he was into riding. I am going to be getting my motorcycle license this Spring.

It is not hard to change the color on the packaging of a child’s toy. It is not difficult to take a picture of a girl and a boy playing with Hot Wheels. It is not challenging to make eye contact with a girl looking at a Ferrari. These are not opinions, they are facts. Why is it, then, that nobody has made an effort to do these simple things? I do not know what is in the psyche of the advertising team at Mattel, but I suspect that it is a simple human flaw that is holding them back. Humans hate change and for decades the status quo has been a world where girls to not play with toy cars. It is not necessary to push Hot Wheels on our girls, but it would not hurt to give them a few cars, a track set or two, and a Barbie. Maybe then we can save our future female lovers of fast cars the hurt of being shut down at a car show.  

The Case of the Rant You've All Been Dreading

Here it comes, guys. I am about to unleash upon you the feels. All of them, actually. All of the feels you never wanted to know I had about women in geek culture. Buckle up. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

I. Am. A. Geek. I go to conventions dressed as characters most people haven't heard of. I have taken it upon myself to get into the old-school Doctor Who. I have crackpot theories about what is going to happen in series three of BBC's Sherlock. I have thrown my XBox control across the room because Dragon Age: Origins glitched and I had to start over. But holy mother of god I wear makeup! I spent a whopping $200 on my prom dress because it was too damn pretty to pass up. I swoon if I hear Hugh Jackman talking on the TV. The idea that none of these things could ever go together has me in suck a tizzy. I have thrown some of the biggest bitch fits you have ever heard over the ideas that so many male geeks have about women in "their" culture. I say "their" because men have tried to claim geekdom as their own things. Stop. Just stop because I will shove my adorable shoes up into places where the sun doesn't shine.

Let's start with cons and cosplaying, shall we? Now it's been my experience that a lot of male nerds are shy. They are not eloquent and they don't always know how to approach women. This isn't always the case, I know. I'm dating a geek and he's not shy or quiet about anything. Ever. But most of the men I've come across at cons have not idea how to function around women. In order to understand the story I'm about to tell you, I must explain the concept of real time vs. boob time to all the boys out there. 1 second of real time staring translates to about 5 seconds of boob time. Got it? Good. Geek.kon two years ago is the setting. I have just walked out of a panel about feminism in geek culture (perfect, right?). In tow are two new friends of mine, one is still a good friend over Tumblr and Facebook. As we are walking out, we see the most adorable thing ever. It's a turtle. Dressed as a Dalek. In the hallway. Holy. Shit. While we are staring at it in sheer amazement, here comes the owner of the tortoise. I'd like to mention that I was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans. Nothing revealing. This guy has the nerve to stare of at least five seconds of real time staring. For everyone that is not good at the maths, that is 25 seconds of boob time. That is what we call rude, children. And what's worse, he pulls out a stick that says, "I was inspected by Dave" and puts it right on my chest. No asking, he just did it. My friends shuffled me off to the nearest bathroom to save the idiot from the wrath of Megan. This isn't uncommon. It is disgusting and it is made a billion (not exaggerating) times worse when cosplay is thrown into the mix. Female video game, graphic novel, and science fiction characters tend to be a bit lacking in the clothing department (we'll get around to that later). I personally don't mind cosplaying these characters, but don't tell me I'm asking for it when some bumbling fool has the nerve to make some outrageous comment or make me feel degraded. That's not okay.

Oh the fandoms. Oh the fake geek girl bullshit. Dearies, I am new to Who. I know this. I acknowledge it. I'm okay with it. I am not okay with people putting me down for not knowing when the Cybermen were first seen in the newer Doctor Who. What I hate more is people thinking that I don't know because I have a vagina. That makes sense, right? My reproductive organs totally factor in to my ability to buy and watch 50 years worth of Doctor Who, yes? Logical. Mhm. If you are agreeing with that, don't tell me. I don't want to be your friend. The fact that I am still working through playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (not Skyrim because that shit's gotta go down in price first) and Dragon Age: Origins does not mean that I can't appreciate the fandom. SPOILER: Don't tell me I can't have feels about having to kill of Vicente in Oblivion because dammit I have feels. I want Cullen as a romance option in Dragon Age not because he's pretty, but because he's broken and I want to fix him. Like where did that even come from? Women only appreciate games because of the pretty men in them? What? I'd like to add that I know more about the Fable franchise than a lot of men out there. It's not a good franchise, by the way. They killed it and I has sads about this. I could go on forever about this, but I won't because I want to talk about Dragon Age.

I want to talk about this because Dragon Age (and Fable, but I'm on a DA kick) give me a lot of mixed feelings. Most of my feelings are good. The character depth and customization was revolutionary. Any romance option in most other games must be of the opposite gender. Most main characters are male. Most characters are white. Most are human. But not in DA. Do you want to be a dark skinned female City Elf taken from her home to live in the Mage's Tower and then find love with a white female human rogue? YOU GO FOR IT AND OWN THAT SHIT! Hell, in DA2, you can go ahead and romance Sebastian who refuses to have sex with you because he is the Chantry's bitch (but nobody wants to do that because Sebastian is a creeper). But here is my bone to pick with Bioware, guys. Armor. Female armor. While a lot of it is ideal for fighting, there are some things that I really can't wrap my head around. Female mage armor, for example. Mages are what games like to call "squishy." If you hit us with an object, we lose like a third of our HP.

You guys, this isn't what squishy people want to wear.

And let's talk about Morrigan, yes? A strong, independent apostate who don't need not man... or clothing.

WHAT IS THAT EVEN? LIKE THOSE ARE ALL OF YOUR VITAL ORGANS ABOUT TO GET PUNCTURED!

Oddly enough, the armor provided for rogues and warriors isn't too bad. Some of it is impractical and I really need to get to class now. So I'm going to give you this little link here. Read it and find it useful for all of your feminist gaming needs, okay?

See you in class! Tatty bye!

The Case of the In Class Movie

As the rest of my class attempts to create their blogs, I have chosen to take the easy way out and recycle my old blog. Once dedicated to British Literature, this blog will now serve as a place for musings on Feminism and pop culture. As suggested, I'd like to take a moment and discuss the movie that was watched in class today.

As brought up by Dr. Hager shortly after the movie, I do have an issue with the correlation between violent video games and rape and other forms of violence against women. I date gamers. That is not a preference. If you do not play games (COD and Halo do not count because they are stupid), then I'm not interested. My ex's as well as my current boyfriend have no violent tendencies toward me. Honestly, they have always been aware that I would dole out a world of hurt before that got the chance to properly formulate the thought. I would like to direct my readers' attention to this bit of light reading regarding the flaws in the ideas of those who propose that there is a connection between killing a female elf in-game and punching your girlfriend afterwards. It's a ridiculous notion and one that makes me very angry.

My other thoughts on video games shall be reserved for another time, though. I'd like to talk about how put off I was at seeing some of the "news" clips during the film. I was not unaware of the frankly piggish nature of men in the media business. Good lord, I'd have to be living under a rock to have turned a blind eye to it! I wish I could accurately quantify the amount of anger I felt while listening to some of the statements made, though. I don't care where one stands politically-- speech like that aimed towards any news anchor or politician is wrong. That's the interesting thing about feminism, I think. In my opinion, feminism is not about extremes, it is about common decency. It's about the little things your mum and dad sit you down to talk about when you're a child. Be nice to everyone. Everyone. It's about the "Thumper Rule," as one of my high school teachers called it. If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it. It's about the Golden Rule, the "do unto others" rule. You know the one I'm talking about. But that's enough. I've gotten myself into a tizzy. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit and listen to some Cabin Pressure for a while and cool down.

Tatty Bye!