Here is the paper I presented at Queertopia! 2.0 today. This conference has been one of the reasons I have not been able to write as many articles lately. The other reasons all relating to finishing up my last semester of coursework on my MA program in Women's and Gender Studies. Is this a promise of more material soon? Yes. Yes it is.
"Queering the Game: Video Games, Queer Nerds, and Activism"
Presented at Queertopia! organized by Northwestern University's Queer Pride Graduate Student Association
The stereotypical gamer, that paste-white and pimple-ridden boy, unkempt and immature, can no longer serve to represent the gaming community as a whole. More and more, the gaming industry is discovering that this boy does not constitute the only demographic to market to. Time and again, articles in popular gaming, marketing, electronics, and communication magazines proclaim that, against all apparent odds, despite an industry which ignored them, women play games too. This industry has turned its eyes toward the female gamer, that elusive creature who defies the conventions of the 'standard' gamer. Academia had turned in that direction long ago but the market lagged far behind. With even more lag, the white skin of that prototype gamer is changing as well thanks again, in part, to game studies. One striking absence, however, largely remains both in academia and the gaming industry: Where are the queer nerds?
Over the past decade in particular, popular cultural LGBTQ representation has increased in television and film. The substantial discourse surrounding queer visibility in shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, or The L Word, however, has not made its way as prolifically into the video game genre of pop culture. Nor has that visibility transferred as noticeably to this medium. Queer nerds have begun to receive increased attention over the past decade, but not nearly with as much visibility as in other visual media forms. Whereas Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Brokeback Mountain, or Ellen have become household names, video games with queer content do not enjoy the same proliferation of visibility. Outside of the geek community, titles with queer content such as Fable, Fallout, or The Temple of Elemental Evil are not frequently dropped in everyday conversation. As it were, there is no “Fab 5” of the gaming world. While the positivity of queer representation in other media is disputed, queer representation in video games remains a largely unremarked upon phenomenon. Aside from this, the games I mentioned merely give the option of queer activity. Queer as a predefined, predetermined, or central aspect of gameplay, or presented as a definite in the overall plot, has yet to present itself in any salient way. Generally speaking, the presence of queer in video games is subtle and take the form of the ability to make “queer” choices.
Pop culture is a phenomenon which, to me, has take on entirely new dimensions with the advent and improvement of visual media. Though prolific in its 'beginnings', the impact of pop culture has, arguably, increased exponentially with the rise in the visual capabilities of digital visual media forms. The television, that near-godly thing which demands the worship of most peoples in the "more developed" nooks of the world has captivated our hearts, minds, and souls in its capacity to bring action of all kinds to our living rooms. That popular culture which comes from, and becomes, digital media in its myriad forms certainly merits the attention of critical feminist study.
Specifically, my interest in feminist popular cultural study extends by and large to the more dynamically interactive media: video games. In this I likely run the risk of appearing one-dimensional in my interests and concerns but this is not the case. I rather look critically at video games because to stretch myself comprehensively across all horizons of popular cultural study would be to stretch myself too thin. As a result, I pick on video games more specifically than other forms because my love for them, tumultuous though it may be, runs far deeper than in other forms.
Aside from this love, I believe that video games can be seen as an exceptionally unique form of pop culture for various reasons. The more obvious of these reasons is that they are, by nature, far more interactive. While true that, as Sullivan elucidates, any form of pop culture "involves something other than passive reception" (189), video games require a more attentive attention than other forms. Players actively and intentionally control the actions on the screen and, in turn, can be said to receive greater rewards for their participation - a pat on the back for a job well done. Anyone who truly loves video games can tell you that earning the ending credits, viewing the ending FMV, or just beating a level of a game that was particularly frustrating can produce an astounding internal sense of reward and accomplishment. Since the player quite literally controls the action on the screen agency is thus quite obviously and literally bestowed upon the player. Here we have a sort of blurring of reality. Our industrious player may be handed this gift of added agency, but the actual will of the player only extends so far in this virtual world. There are, necessarily, limits to the actions which can be controlled; Character portrayals and development, for example, are not likely to change much based on the players actions. Thus the results of their actions will always be viewed through the lenses provided by the game designers. I can play the dungeon crawler Champions of Norrath all I want but I will never be able to (as someone has recently pointed out in the message board) change the appearance of the armor sets provided for the female elf so that, more often than not, her best armor will not cover her derriere.
However fragile this additional agency may be, it creates a unique set of pop cultural circumstance which may strengthen games' influence. The influence of games is also unique in that they allow the player to "inhabit" the body of the Other in ways which amount to a sort of "blackface". In a recent interview with RIOTgamer, David Leonard commented that this "opportunity to become the Other – to occupy, to control – is a dehumanizing process that reduces the other to object." Rarely do video games present the "Other" in stereo-atypical ways.
As Wallace points out, however, it isn't only the images of marginalized groups that are of concern. Regarding black women in pop culture she states that, "The most important question concerns how images [in pop culture] are related to other cultural constructs. How do [these images] in popular culture influence other cultural constructs and how are they influenced by them?" (265). In this, video games, like other pop cultural forms, influence the audience but may also be influenced by the audience. Players interact with their games in unique ways. While some of the 'extra agency' may perhaps be illusory, the player still reads into the games they are playing. Lipton points out that queer youth read into pop culture in ways that reaffirm their own life and desires. This, he says, is an important part of growing up queer, especially because the images queer youth have are rooted in heteronormativity. The same is true for other pop cultural representations. We all read into the media we consume. Pop culture is itself unique as, to quote Fiske, "To be made into popular culture, a commodity must also bear the interests of the people" (23) and the people, well, they are a changin' - always. Pop culture can be used to challenge existing hegemonies. According to Leonard:
One of the key elements within video games and all popular culture is broadening the types of representations available to [marginalized groups] so that the hegemonic stereotypes, the accepted common sense of dominant culture is disrupted through a range of representations, narratives, and situations.
My interests lie in analyzing video games through a feminist and queer lens to see and demonstrate how games not only reify existing hegemonies but also of how they are being, and could be, used in challenging these hegemonies through a queering of gender and sexuality and a re/dis-assemblage of racial tropes.
On this page:
My interest in the sociological study of video games has resulted in a two-big-binder set of video game research. In their entirety, these binders hold hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds pages of articles copied form journals. The unfortunate majority of these articles deal only with gender and video games while a few deal with race and racism in video games. None of these speak about heteronormativity or LGBTQ issues aside from a couple of very brief articles from The Advocate. What surprises me most, however, is the lack of research dealing with the full spectrum of marginalization in video games.
Race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc all figure into the equation of one's experience of life. And all of these figure in simultaneously. The experience of being a white woman is different from the experience of being a black woman is different from the experience of being a black gay man is different from....well, you get the idea. To study race or gender as two separate factors in video games is to ignore the intersectional nature of marginalization/oppression/privilege/etc. Though I understand that conducting research on the whole gambit is a much more difficult task than focusing on the issues individually, I also feel that more focus should be placed on this than has been. Few articles exist in the academic world which deal with this at all. So, I was, rightfully, excited when I came across an article by David Leonard, "Not a Hater, Just Keepin' it Real: The Importance of Race- and Gender-Based Game Studies".
In this article, he discusses, well, the importance of race and gender based game studies. He states that, "As of yet, the conspicuous study of video games regarding race and gender has not moved beyond simple discussions of stereotypes: there has been limited analysis of issues of power, privilege, or racial common sense." (86). Another, slightly older, article Leonard has authored, "'Live in your world, play in ours': Race, video games, and consuming the other" contains a similar sentiment, that, "the examination of race, power, and ideology within these games has not been a central concern". In my research, these two articles are, to me, central in identifying what the future of the study of video games should be. Because of this, I asked Professor Leonard if I could do a short interview with him. Truly, I was excited that he agreed to let me pick his brain on the future directions of video game study and the importance of continuing this line of study:
In your work, you speak about the importance of studies on race and gender in video games. Do you feel that exploration on issues of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community is of equal importance. In my research I have yet to find any studies which address the near absence of LGBT representation in video games. Do you feel that a near total lack of representation is just as disturbing and harmful as highly stereotyped representations, both of the LGBT community and of women and minorities?
I think you raise a good point, although there are examples of games where LGBT issues are present, whether in the form of expressed homophobia or the sexualization exoticizing of Lesbians. Yet, as you note, there is very limited representation of the LGBT community within video game culture. I don’t necessarily think it is useful to compare invisibility to distorted visibility as if one is better or more desirable than the other. I mean both the hyper visibility of say African Americans as athletes or gangstas within video games or Asians in kung fu games and the invisibility and erasure of Gays and Lesbians or Native Americans within virtual reality embody the racist, sexist, and homophobia logic of dominant discourse. That being said the lack of visibility for the LGBT community, as with the lack of visibility for characters of color in certain game contexts, reflects the hegemony of whiteness and more specifically white heteromasculinity within video game culture
In "'Live in Your World, Play in Ours': Race, Video Games, and Consuming the Other", you list several games (e.g., Def Jam Vendetta, Vice City, Ready to Rumble, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, Street Hoops to name a few) in which racial stereotypes are prevalent. Do you know of any games which handle race (or gender, or sexuality) in positive ways? What would a game like that look like to you? That is, in a video game utopia, how would these issues be dealt with or handled?
First off, it isn’t necessarily about positivity because that is an illusive and difficulty idea to even conceptualize – positive to whom? Moreover, the construction of a positive representation presumes and thereby legitimizes a negative – less desirable – representation. Likewise, a positive stereotype is still a stereotype. In terms of games out there, I think ICED (although I have not yet played this game) or the game that tries to expose the atrocities happening in Darfur attempts to use video game technology as a means to transform racial discourse all while impacting policy debates. This not only transforms the available representations afforded to people of color in this case, but also potentially has a transformative impact beyond virtual reality. So, in video game utopia, there certainly would be several elements but I guess I won’t necessarily confine it to a single game because one of the key elements within video games and all popular culture is broadening the types of representations available to people of color, to women, to LGBT communities, so that the hegemonic stereotypes, the accepted common sense of dominant culture is disrupted through a range of representations, narratives, and situations. Moving beyond the accepted narratives and representations, the commonly seen stereotypes, is key through diversifying these images. As mentioned above, a game the doesn’t perpetuate or legitimize social injustice but rather challenges it would certainly be a defining element of my ideal game
When the oft cited Simone de Beauvoir wrote her now infamous statement that, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (267), she was questioning much more than "woman-ness". Though I cannot speak to her intentions, nor do I care to, her words extend far beyond this category. She posed a very specific question "what is a woman" (xviiii) but if we look, we can see this question reaching out from its center to touch the very foundations upon which all else sits. From this, we can question if there truly is a base to anything. What does it mean to be anything?
Butler sums up the essence of Beauvoir's claim rather nicely:
The presumption of a causal or mimetic relation between sex and gender is undermined. If being a woman is one cultural interpretation of being female, and if that interpretation is in no way necessitated by being female, then it appears that the female body is the arbitrary locus of the gender 'woman', and there is no reason to preclude the possibility of that body becoming the locus of other constructions of gender. At its limit, then, the sex/gender distinction implies a radical heteronomy of natural bodies and constructed genders with the consequence that 'being' female and 'being' a woman are two very different sorts of being. (35)
The importance of Beauvoir's work stems from the movement away from the notion of biological destiny. As Butler further explains, this holds great significance to feminist theory:
The distinction between sex and gender has been crucial to the long-standing feminist effort to debunk the claim that anatomy is destiny; sex is understood to be the invariant, anatomically distinct, and factic aspects of the female body, whereas gender is the cultural meaning and form that that body acquires, the variable modes of that body's acculturation. With the distinction intact, it is no longer possible to attribute the values or social functions of women to biological necessity, and neither can we refer meaningfully to natural or unnatural gendered behavior: all gender is, by definition, unnatural. (35)
By questioning the idea of anatomy as an absolute and natural destiny, Beauvoir theoretically kicked open the door to questioning hegemonic distinctions between woman/man and the possibility of questioning other distinctions as well. This notion of sex and gender as separate categories has been floating around fairly prominently since then. Despite this, the divide of woman/man is maintained in much modern discourse and the biology which Beauvoir's argument attempted to maneuver past is still running strong. Biology is still espoused as a key factor in many differences. Admittedly, there exists a certain ease in these explanations that cannot be found as easily as in questioning these alleged foundations. So while Beauvoir's argument should have had more power to disband biology as destiny, biological arguments, it would seem, are far too convenient to be thoroughly forsaken. Biological precepts are still cited as a reason behind the gender divide and gender and sex are often used interchangeably. To apply reason to 'difference', non-biologist laypersons oft enough drag biological arguments out from the woodwork to close their claim off from further discussion. Perhaps it is our (FN1) culture of convenience that leads us to like our discourse and notions of truth as we like our food: fast and convenient (and maybe not so fresh if it requires little resources). Alas, we cannot entirely blame it on our McDonaldist society for we have argued the same easy "ultimate" arguments since time immemorial.
I remember stories from various history class, of various societies (the names of which have retreated from my memory) in which religious leaders would use fear of gods to force their subjects into giving them tribute to avoid the ire of said gods. These tales, which were apparently rejected as the basis of our 'far superior' religions highlighted the past use of religion in cajoling the masses to blindly follow the lead of the leaders. The notion, it seems, was that to question society was to question the gods themselves. While it may not always happen in such direct ways as 'believe and give or face wrath', it is nevertheless still employed in justifying socio-cultural precepts and boundaries. It is the nature of faith to believe without questioning. Here I could give several examples of the use of religious arguments given as unquestionable answers. Though these are certainly plentiful, I wish instead to apply this concept of faith to the Enlightenment.
As discussed by Flax in "The End of Innocence", Enlightenment thinking seeks out the 'truth' of the 'nature' of things. As she explains, "One of the great promises of Enlightenment is that truth will set us free. Those whose actions are grounded in truth and whose work gives them a privileged relation to it will be the agents of progress and freedom for all" (133). While this movement may have lent to the ability and desire to question assumptions for the pursuit of these truths, Flax essentially warns us against having blind faith in 'Reason', the 'Real', and other such tenets of the Enlightenment. In this paper I want to explore biology, a child-subject of the Enlightenment, and to caution against this same faith in it. This faith leaves us unquestioning of the use of biology, which often works to reify social norms and hierarchies. In its common application, biology is used to provide the same absolute claims as religion has been. Biological 'truth' as a justification has occurred in countless ways, many of which are obvious, more of which are subtle. To demonstrate these more subtle biological vindications of hegemony, I turn to the seemingly innocuous subject of video games. At present, biological assertions are being made, on the basis of one study, as a rationale of the differences in video game use between women and men. Within this we can find justifications for several normative ideas, such as the notion of video games as 'boy's toys'. Why do we still attempt to find ways to close off the opportunity for discourse? How are we using biology to maintain social roles? Whose biology is making it into the mainstream? That is, when are biological claims made by the layperson and when are they ignored? How does this fit within the framework of Enlightenment philosophy?
If we think about who we are as individuals, there are myriad of ideas that pop into our heads. It is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with one unifying concept or theme to describe our personhood. We may even take offense if someone were to try to sum us up in a word or phrase, feeling that they are reducing us to a shallow representation of ourselves. Using this thought, we can better see the reality of oppressions. The disenfranchised people of the world are often reduced in just this way. People are handed labels throughout their lives which can work to reduce them to a set of traits based on assumptions packed with prejudice and stereotypes. What prejudices does a black lesbian, for example, suffer from? Can we say that her identity can be broken down into black/woman/queer? Further, can these categories be assigned different levels of relevance in her life? That is, can we claim that she faces struggles more as a woman than as a “non-white” or as a lesbian? Which oppression matters most? This is a question which can never be answered because all systems of oppression work in conjunction with each other.
Feminist theory has struggled to address these issues. Complaints have (quite rightfully) been lodged against much of early feminist theory regarding the dominance with which white, heterosexual, mid-to-upper class feminist issues have been addressed while issues outside of these were largely ignored. Here I want to give a little history of the feminist movement and the notion of interlocking oppressions. I also wish to help clarify the nature of oppression and privilege which feminist theory is positioned to combat. In explaining these issues, I hope to make clear the exact purpose of this website. In making this website, I am faced with many of the challenges inherent in feminist theory. And, with these issues in mind, I will be first to admit that the goals of the site are lofty and there will be difficulties in staying entirely true to this mission as there exists a vast number of differences in experiences of oppression and privilege.
To say that people are different from one another is to state the obvious. We clearly possess many different traits and are shaped by many different experiences. In feminist theory, the idea of human difference has been applied to the experiences of people within different groups. This group concept of difference, according to McCann and Kim (6) was first used in feminist theory to describe gender differences, but then came to be used by women of color to call attention to differences within women’s experiences. It is also applied to "[disrupt] the very notion of a stable identity, arguing instead that identity positions are multiple, fragmented, and mobile” (6). That is, an individual’s identity cannot truly be broken down into a neat and tidy static self. Many feminist theorists emphasize the multifaceted nature of identity and the differing experiences of oppression to “unsettle the notion that race, nation, class, sexuality, or gender can be treated as independent categories" (7). They further explain that:
There are dangers in treating race, nationality, class, and sexuality as if each category captures some perfectly shared common experience or identity. […] Furthermore, in treating one factor as the principle focus of analysis, important interactions with simultaneously present other factors can easily be obscured or misconstrued. (148-149)
bell hooks, an influential African American feminist theorist, has poignantly addressed this issue. She explains that:
A central tenet of modern feminist thought has been the assertion that “all women are oppressed." This assertion implies that women share a common lot, that factors like class, race, religion, sexual preference, etc. do not create a diversity of experience that determines the extent to which sexism will be an oppressive force in the lives of individual women. Sexism as a system of domination is institutionalized but it has never determined in an absolute way the fate of all women in this society. (5)
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) share hook’s sentiment. They describe themselves as a:
Collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. […] We are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. (164)
Difficulties have arisen for them in their work in separating race, class, and sex oppression as "in [their] lives, they are most often experienced simultaneously" (166) and they fight to address a "whole range of oppressions" (168).
hooks adds that U.S. feminism began to focus on global oppression, thus contributing to a wider range of oppressions being addressed. This, however, was also laced with similar near-sightedness for, as she explains:
This was a major contribution to feminist struggle [but] in their eagerness to highlight sexist injustice, women focused almost exclusively on the ideology and practice of male domination. Unfortunately, this made it appear that feminism was more a declaration of war between the sexes than a political struggle to end sexist oppression, a struggle that would imply change on the part of women and men. […] Fundamentally they argued that all men are the enemies of all women. (33, original emphasis)
"All men as the enemies of all women" is a notion that I do not wish to follow in the design of this site as I don’t feel it is a terribly useful starting point.
Part of this lack of utility has to do with what privilege and oppression entail. Privilege is, as I take it, the more invisible side of the "isms". Privilege is something that happens to such a pervasive extent that we don’t have to acknowledge (and, indeed, might not even see) that we’re benefiting from it. As Johnson explains, being a white American means not having to think about privilege. Further:
We could say the same thing about maleness or heterosexuality or any other basis for privilege. So strong is the sense of entitlement behind this luxury that males, whites, and others can feel put upon in the face of even the mildest invitation to pay attention to issues of privilege. 'We shouldn’t have to look at this stuff,' they seem to say. "It isn’t fair."(25).
Oppression is a horn on the same beast. It is the slightly more visible side of the "isms", though, we may not always see it; I would argue that oppression as a potentially invisible force stems from privilege, and the definition of oppression that Johnson offers up runs concurrent with this:
For every social category that is privileged, one or more other categories are oppressed in relation to it. The concept of oppression points to social forces that tend to 'press' upon people and hold them down, to hem them in and block their pursuit of a good life. Just as privilege tends to open doors of opportunity, oppression tends to slam them shut. (39-40)
Therefore, it isn’t that men are the enemies of women, that whites are the enemies of people of color, that heterosexuals are the enemies of bi/homosexuals. Merely, we all experience the world based partly on these differences in "identity." Our experiences will differ accordingly and living outside of a certain position makes it much easier to deny the existence of these differing experiences. It is because of this that I do not find utility in making an enemy of the allegedly opposite. Setting others up as enemies simply keeps them from acting as allies.
It is with the theories of hooks, CRC, Johnson, and others like them in mind that I weave this website (as I said, my goals are lofty). Video games are the source of my dissent because of my love of them as well as my occasional discomfort, even anger, with them. It isn’t difficult to privilege and oppression at work in video games. Portrayals of women, of people of color, of GLBT, of anything outside of the white-hetero-male-norm (and even inside that norm) can reach the extreme ends of stereotypes and prejudices. That is, when portrayals of women and minorities occur at all. A study by Children Now found that females accounted for only 17% of total characters in video games. In fact, non-humans outnumbered females (12). They also found that 56% of all human characters studied were white, 22% were African American, and that Asian/Pacific Islanders constituted 9% (22). Further, these systems of oppressions and privileges intersect. The same study found, for examples, that “African American females were far more likely than any other group to be victims of violence” (23) and that Latina characters were completely absent.
Many would likely claim that video games exist only for recreation and have no impact on, or base within, reality. I believe, however, that a distinction between video games and real life is a false distinction. Video games exist as a part of real life. They are a very real reflection of the privilege and oppression outside of the pixilated world, serving as a reflection of popular culture with an even more direct connection to the "powers that be" in game design. Additionally, they can provide the basis for further stereotyping. As Leonard quotes a discussion of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from the white supremacist website, Stormfront.org,:
But for those of you who have played it, have you seen how much of our point it stresses. You run around and you shoot people, you can go in peoples houses and steel tv’s, vcr’s, stereos, etc…In my opinion, this is one of the greatest games around. It blatantly show how the negroes have corrupted our society. (87)
While it will be difficult to accomplish all of these goals with perfect clarity, I believe that it our responsibility to look outside of our own comfort zones to see what issues exist outside of our own experience. Although this site may not be perfectly able to address all issues of race, class, gender, GLBT, etc, that arise, it will serve to work toward the fulfillment of this goal. So, while this site may not change the world, it will (hopefully) contribute something toward that end. As Johnson ends, so will I:
The human capacity to choose how to participate in the world empowers all of us to pass along something different from what’s been passed to us. With each strand of the knot of privilege that we help to work loose and unravel, we don’t act simply for ourselves, we join a process of creative resistance to become part of the long tradition of people who have dared to make a difference – to look at things as they are, to imagine something better, and to plant seeds of change in themselves, in others, and in the world.(171).
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