Ashley knapp, jesus Martinez, tyler pittman, steven towle, matt patton, mikey whiteker, renee Atkinson
GOALS/THESIS: Our video text will address the issue of stereotyping of women in the medium of video games. It will take a historical approach by illuminating the milestones in women in video game history as far as female characterization is concerned. The Damsel in Distress, the Dangerous Midriff, the Just One of the Boys, the Ghost Girlfriend, and other tropes will be discussed with examples. These will be integrated into video examples of the same stereotypes in other medias such as television and movies from the same time period to show the male dominated industries provide a limited vision of women through the male gaze regardless of the particular medium used. We will also touch on how consolidation has limited the consumers options , like in Rich Media, Poor democracy. We will tie in some o f the definition about masculinity to the documentary Culture of Cool, and how important the virtual citizen soldier is to our ideas of masculinity in video games, terrorist thwarting movie and television plots.
INFLUENCES: Our group has a variety of viewpoints in it. We have some members who haven’t played video games since childhood, we have some members who love video games, and some members who only play video games occasionally. Our group has 3 women and 4 men, which will influence how we look at gender issues to come out a bit more evenly. Our group’s perspective is limited by all over us being enrolled at the same Midwestern college as far as education level, socioeconomic class, and geographic influence.
Idea for video: A composite documentary using existing video game play footage, video game trailers, film trailers, television ads, and scenes from movies and film with voice over narration summarizing main ideas. Dissection of each stereotype will be divided into two parts revealing the stereotype in the video game via video scenes and audio explanation, before following it up with a Film/TV example of a similar trope using footage and voice over narration.
Our introduction will feature a quick history of video games contrasted with a history of films and tv (Not in-depth, just things like starting dates, demographics of industry leaders. )
Our conclusion will feature in reiterating our main argument with more evidence that video games are gender segregated, and revealing that films and TV are much the same way. It will end on a hopeful note that all mediums are trying to draw in all audiences, though, and hopefully attain a more balanced portrayal of gender.
RESOURCES: We will secure the resources we need by dividing up the labor for the project. Because we will not be shooting new footage, we need only to ensure the group member doing the recording has an adequate microphone. We will always be able to share audio files digitally if we cannot arrange a time to meet in person. We have divided the job of project idea, initial script and outline, video gather/conversion to different individuals in the group.
Like this.
ReplyDeleteI like doing something with video games. The evolution of women in gaming could be interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning, women in video games were viewed as your typical "damsel in distress" (Princess Peach in the Mario series and the original Donkey Kong)
I feel the one of the big turning points in this was the game Metroid. The twist at the end was that the protagonist, Samus, was actually a woman.
The theme of women needing to be rescued by men goes right along with traditional gender roles. Over time, as the number of women gamers has went up, strong, independent woman characters have become quite common, although many times they still are oversexed (Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, the women in Mortal Kombat, etc.)
...but that's just an idea. I'm a nerd when it comes to video games, but I don't know how the rest of the group feels about them. Anything dealing with movies, television, etc. would be perfectly fine with me.
I really like that idea too Tyler. We can talk about different archetypes, such as the hypersexualized tough girl such as Siren in Borderlands, Lara Croft, Dino Crisis, Morrigan in Dragon Age. We can also talk about the dehumanized feminine companions (GLADoS in Portal or Cortana in Halo), the damsel(s) in distress storyarc (Dead Space, Gears of War II, Bioshock). We can also address the practically dressed and behaving female character designs, such as the original Samus or the girl PC's in Left 4 Dead. We can talk about how all these themes are successful and maybe how they appear both in video games and in films and televion, and how they've evolved alongside each other. Who they target, why, and who they may be alienating.
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