Tag Archives: TV Tropes

Tropes versus Women: Deconstructing Gender Stereotypes in Video Games

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Nanci spotted something interesting this morning that I think is rather timely. Earlier this week, I was fuming to some friends over the Tomb Raider reboot. This was a game that I thought had a lot of potential to be both entertaining and (forgive the horrid play on words) game changing. Initial videos showed a Lara Croft that appeared to be a much more complete, deep character. Heaven knows there aren’t enough female characters in the video game universe that fits that description.

Unfortunately, it appears the developers have lost their way. Depicting gratuitous sexual assault and suggesting that Lara needs to be protected by the masculine player does not a deep character make. So, back to square one, another developer studio that doesn’t quite seem to understand what people mean when they ask for strong, female characters.

Maybe they should pay attention to a new project headed by Anita Sarkeesian: Tropes versus Women.

I love playing video games but I’m regularly disappointed in the limited and limiting ways women are represented.  This video project will explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games.  The series will highlight the larger recurring patterns and conventions used within the gaming industry rather than just focusing on the worst offenders.  I’m going to need your help to make it happen!

As a gamer, a pop culture critic and a fan, I’m always working to balance my enjoyment of media while simultaneously being critical of problematic gender representations. With my video web series Feminist Frequency,  I look at the way women are portrayed in mass media and the impact they have on our culture and society.

They’ve already hit a number of funding goals to get high-quality episodes produced looking at various cliches and stereotypes regarding female characters in video games. Here’s some of the deconstructions they have lined up:

  • Damsel in Distress – Video #1
  • The Fighting F#@k Toy – Video #2
  • The Sexy Sidekick – Video #3
  • The Sexy Villainess – Video #4
  • Background Decoration – Video #5
  • Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress – Video #6
  • Women as Reward – Video #7
  • Mrs. Male Character – Video #8
  • Unattractive Equals Evil – Video #9
  • Man with Boobs – Video #10
  • Positive Female Characters! – Video #11
  • Video #12 – Top 10 Most Common Defenses of Sexism in Games

Combining TV Tropes with a topic that sorely needs discussion in this industry? Sounds look a good cause to me. Deconstruct away.

Trope Tuesday: Hold Your Hippogriffs

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It’s another edition of Trope Tuesday and this week we bring one that’s especially relevant to the Star Wars Expanded Universe: Hold Your Hippogriffs.

The author uses a popular and/or modern phrase in a work of Speculative Fiction, and adjusts it to the setting by replacing certain concepts with their more-or-less appropriate counterparts. Works as a sort of Shout Out to make the reader/viewer more at home in the world, while at the same time highlighting the difference; it can also be used to disguise swears. Can backfire if the adjustment comes off as too arbitrary (e.g., if the proverb refers to concepts that should exist in the speculative setting as well).

At times these are specific to an exact scene, too. The replacement concepts can be tailored to characters and current action, rather than being a common phrase of its own. A cop with an antagonistic relationship to his Imperial liaison can sardonically say the liaison’s investigation team got past security like X-Wings go through a Death Star. In this way it can overlap with Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?, though it can refer to past moments anywhere on the spectrum of awesome and suck.

Well frak me, I get the holo. The trope namer is Harry Potter, a series that introduced the world to such lovely phrases as “son of a bludger” and “get off your high hippogriff.”

Occasionally this trope can be amusing in the EU, but sometimes authors have a tendency to go just a tad overboard. The brilliant, foul-mouthed duo behind Penny Arcade pointed this out once. Some fine examples courtesy of TV Tropes:

  • “He was as green as the foam on Lomin-ale.”
  • “Less chance than a flame on Hoth.”
  • “Blue milk-run.”
  • “Sabacc face.”
  • “Out of the reactor core and into the supernova.”

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get out of here faster than a Hutt in free-fall.