Let's Talk About Anita Sarkeesian

That's right, we're going there...so if this is your first time on the internet then you probably don't know who Anita Sarkeesian is then allow me to explain, Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist who hosts an internet series titled "Feminist Frequency" in which she critiques and analyses female portrayal in the media, or more specifically, videogames. Now if you are a gamer or a feminist or...a person, then you will have a strong opinion on Anita Sarkeesian, they either thing she's the she-devil or she's is the voice of reason in a misogynistic industry. And I personally see both of those as great exaggerations; now I myself have had words to say about Sarkeesian on my YouTube channel, though in both videos I give off very different impressions of what I think of her, in my first video I'm more aggressive towards her criticisms of her videos, but then I realised that while I disagree with her methods and choices of videogames to criticise, I realise that she's not doing this to insult videogames but to make a change in them, and what is that change? More female characters in videogames...I don't see how this would be a problem?

Well alright then let's delve into this a little more because I do still have my fair share of problems with her approach to this, but first, let's discuss some of the arguments against Sarkeesian.

#1: She raised $150,000 on Kickstarter for this project and it doesn't show in the production value

Yeah but she only asked for $10,000...granted I don't think even that is shown through the production but fact is anything she raised after that as far as I'm concerned it's up to her whatever she does with it. Besides shouldn't the quality of the content be more important than the aesthetics of it?

#2 She's not a real gamer, there's a video of her saying that she doesn't like the type of games she talks about

...Oh right because people never criticise things that they don't like, that's completely unheard of...I really hope people realise I'm being sarcastic, that's hard to come across through writing.

My point is, while there is plenty of room for criticising her...critique I guess, I don't really see validity in every argument against her. Now look, my biggest problem with Sarkeesian is that often she usually chooses to critique games that personally I don't think need critiquing. Like criticising Mario for example for Princess Peach, who granted I will admit gets kidnapped so many times I'm starting to think she has Stockholm syndrome, but fact is, who the hell goes to Mario for strong and unique characters? So Princess Peach isn't a good role model, so what? Who the hell goes to Mario looking for a strong role model? And I know the argument is that Peach enforces a negative stereotype of women being helpless but I repeat, who the hell goes to Mario for strong and unique characters? Just because she's following a stereotype doesn't mean she's enforcing it, that would imply that someone on this planet believes that this is an accurate representation of society and culture...who the fuck is thinking that!? Even a kid knows that Mario is completely fictional.

And when it does come to videogames that do have strong female characters, The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect, Portal, Mirror's Edge, Uncharted, The Walking Dead, Enter the Matrix, the new Tomb Raider, to name a few. They are surprisingly absent from her videos par maybe a passing mention for one of them near the end. Fact is she makes it seem like games aren't making a change when in reality they are, why focus on videogames from the 80's and complain that there not making progress and completely ignore modern day videogames to see if they've, well, made progress!

But with that being said, to all those who disagree with her arguments and hate what she's doing, let me ask you something: if Sarkeesian causes some kind of change in the videogame industry, what's the worst that could happen? She could end up destroying the industry entirely and end up reversing the situation in which men are now the under used and repressed gender?...okay...now what's the more likely scenario? Publishers and developers are going to take note of all the attention her videos are getting and think "you know what? Maybe we should put in a few more female characters" and honestly, I don't see how that's a bad thing. And yes, this is what's going to happen, she's received tons of attention from the media and professional game developers and has received plenty of awards for her efforts in trying to change the industry, which means that I predict in the next couple of years we are going to see a swarm of female centric games released to the public, I can't guarantee they'll be well developed or even good games, but you know, it's a start.

Oh but her videos have also received plenty of negative criticism as well which could prevent her from having an effect. Oh you mean all those unprofessional, unfocused and in some cases offensive responses? In which even those that are being fair and factual are getting overshadowed by all those sick assholes that send her rape threats and insults on a daily basis? Yeah those guys don't exactly have a strong ground to walk on. Especially seeing as, while I do find Sarkeesians use of terminology to be misleading at times, fact is she is still very professional about it, while most people (including me at one point) were just sort of yelling "Shut the fuck up Sarkeesian! You're wrong so shut up!" and be honest, who do you think the industry are going to take more seriously?

Fact is those that are against Sarkeesian, while not entirely in the wrong are actually causing more damage to the industry than Sarkeesian herself, so you guys need to sort yourselves out and accept that the industry is changing and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

-Danny