adonism (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} adonism) wrote,@ 2005-05-07 15:11:00 |
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Even When You Lose, You Win
We have a new article posted at Adonis Mirror:
http://adonismirror.com/05062005_leader
While superficially about the videogame industry, a certain advertisement for a game called Rumble Roses has wide ranging significance.
"The videogame industry is sexist—a hardly contested fact—but no more or less so than other industries. What it is, however, is far more honest: its ostensibly trivial status (even if fans of the medium like to cook numbers and brag that it is larger than the film industry) affords it a certain amount of rogue agency, permitting it to not have to put on that same false veneer of adult professionalism that bankers, stock brokers, and other industrialists (all equally sexist and racist institutions) are often forced to don in today’s political climate. The fact that videogame developers and publishers are allowed so much freedom makes it easier for those in more stodgy industries to bear the tightness of their own collars, as they are allowed to both vicariously enjoy the fruits of the sexism endemic to the games that are produced, but also the benefits to their own businesses which are seen as increasingly respectable when there are more obvious targets in place for critics of sexism to discuss. This is similar to how all men are rewarded by a culture in which women live in fear of rape, whether or not those individual men themselves choose to perpetrate that rape."
We have a new article posted at Adonis Mirror:
http://adonismirror.com/05062005_leader
While superficially about the videogame industry, a certain advertisement for a game called Rumble Roses has wide ranging significance.
"The videogame industry is sexist—a hardly contested fact—but no more or less so than other industries. What it is, however, is far more honest: its ostensibly trivial status (even if fans of the medium like to cook numbers and brag that it is larger than the film industry) affords it a certain amount of rogue agency, permitting it to not have to put on that same false veneer of adult professionalism that bankers, stock brokers, and other industrialists (all equally sexist and racist institutions) are often forced to don in today’s political climate. The fact that videogame developers and publishers are allowed so much freedom makes it easier for those in more stodgy industries to bear the tightness of their own collars, as they are allowed to both vicariously enjoy the fruits of the sexism endemic to the games that are produced, but also the benefits to their own businesses which are seen as increasingly respectable when there are more obvious targets in place for critics of sexism to discuss. This is similar to how all men are rewarded by a culture in which women live in fear of rape, whether or not those individual men themselves choose to perpetrate that rape."
