For my final project, I decided to explore women's engagement and representation in one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I've been playing video games almost all my life, I love making quick, quirky videos about topics I want to explore, so this was the perfect way to resolve my inquiry. The question I wanted to answer was if gaming communities and industries are so non-catering to women and other minorities, why do so many of them still play?
I had a course of action at first, wanting to go into the history of women's representation in games and then jump into showing today's examples and include a lot of people's voices and stories. But reading some of the materials, especially exploring the topic from a sociological/research standpoint, I ended up getting more caught up in that and approaching from a more analytical view. Also because a lot of the people I had planned on interviewing or including either dejected or didn't have the time or capabilities to be in the video. They were still huge inspirations and influential voices, it's just a shame I couldn't really include everyone.
 |
| my wonderful sister who gave a lot of insight and guidance with this project |
But reading reports, journals, essays and publications from people like Nick Yee, Carol Clover, and a lot of other authors/contributors I'll mention below, the process of this video was kind of self actualizing. These authors provided a lot of insight into how one of my favorite mediums have affected me and many of my friends, men and women alike.
As the production went on I realized there was no way to answer that initial question as a whole. I had realizations and breakthroughs that answered it partially, but trying to find out where every kind of woman finds their place in a medium is something that's going to take a lot more than a thirteen minute video to cover -- and it is something I want to cover in the future.
Bibliography
From Barbie To Mortal Kombat - by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins
Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming - by Yasmin B. Kafai et. al (+30 other contributors)
Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover
Quantic Foundry @ quanticfoundry.com (lots of articles from here)
No comments:
Post a Comment