Feminist
Pro-Queer
Anti-Racist
Gaming

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.

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