Strategic Butt Coverings!

That's right, you read correctly. Butt coverings. This is the controversial topic covered in Feminist Frenquency's video from the overarching topic of Tropes vs Women in Video Games.

Oh look! There's Laura Croft in the very first example, just as I mentioned in my discussion post about how the game takes place in third person view, where the player's eye is drawn to her meticulously crafted behind. What's the problem with this? Well, there wouldn't be so much outrage over it if in contrast the same design strategy was used for male characters - except it isn't. Similarly, I want to add that the first ever game where Lara Croft appeared is incessantly mocked - even by fans - because of her hilariously awful character model. Here, the game designers basically said through the design: "It doesn't matter if her boobs look super bad, as long as she has boobs for the boys to look at" and it's completely and utterly ridiculous to place that much emphasis on having that be a feature when they couldn't even animate it properly. In hindsight they should have just had her mildly endowed or even flat chested, but no - it was more important that she have ice cream cone-shaped breasts than none at all.

Atrocious. Found in an awesome article of the evolution of her character over time (source).

In contrast, along with the many other challenges facing people like myself - female gamers - we face the reality that male video game characters are not treated with such injustice. Which actually kind of sucks because I would love to get a clear glimpse at Ezio Auditore or Soldier 76's ass! I had not guessed that the title of the video would actually refer to the men of video games, who are explained in the video as having an excuse to not have their butts shown because the game creators want the people (read: men) to identify with those characters. But the women? Nope, just there to be eye candy, maybe move the plot along a bit at times.

I think its high time we take a closer look at the demographics of game consumers and also at the way we are portraying gender and sex in video games. The game industry would love to believe that it's just young straight men who play their games, and secondarily that they play them either to relate to a male character or want to stare at a sexy female. I can only name a handful of times that I've gone to a video game store and not been asked if I was buying the game for my boyfriend or brother. No! I'm buying the game for ME! By the way, when the next Assassin's Creed game comes out, can I get a lingerie skin for the male protagonist if I preorder the gold edition? Pretty please!

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed II by DoubleLeaf on DeviantArt.

Either everybody should have their junk hanging out for people to enjoy - or everybody should be covered properly. This trope doesn't even begin to cover my gripes with parts of the cosplay industry - whereby a lot of "popular" female cosplayers usually wear lingerie or bikini or sexy versions of armor or of regular characters. Sometimes they even cosplay a "sexy female" version of an original male character that wasn't ever sexualized at all! I'm never sure whether to be annoyed at these people, or just enjoy their creativity. I may never know which side I stand on. I just want to see more dude butts.

I Am A Cosplayer and I'm Not Sorry

Firstly, I apologize if this comes out in a terrible format because I have never really "blogged" before, so I hope the technical aspects take care of themselves.

As per the title of this post, I can confirm that the area of pop culture that interests me the most is Cosplay. For those who have never heard this term before, it is the combined concept of "costume" and "roleplay," meaning that you not only dress as a character that you like, but you act like them, and while dressed you do your best to fully become them. Now, there are definitely many different levels to this act, as any beginner or casual fan could tell you but that shall remain a topic for another time. I will simply state that I would consider myself at the upper echelon of cosplay, in that I try to make my costume as accurate as I can and do try to speak or act as that character would most of the time.

Myself as Maya the Siren from the "Borderlands" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.

Cosplay is important to me for more intrinsic reasons than I could probably count, but the most major reason is that it is very social by nature, there are thousands and millions of others who like to wear costumes to conventions and I just plain love making friends! Secondly, it speaks volumes to my artistic nature; not everyone endeavors or is capable of making their own costumes, but it is an artistic challenge that I thoroughly enjoy testing myself on.

Myself, my husband Nick, and friend Sammy as characters from "Metro 2033" and "Fallout" at PAX East 2016.

As to what I expect to learn - conversely I intend to include the things I know in order to contribute to the amazing discussions we are about to share and I expect to learn more about the things I have likely been avoiding. For instance, I have never been particularly fond of zombies. The original idea of roaming deceased humans is wildly entertaining, but I feel it has become very overrated. The market has been completely saturated with zombie-themed things and frankly, I quickly tired of it. However, I promise to give it another chance as perhaps one of my classmates enjoys that part of pop culture and would be willing to elaborate in order to convert me :)

Myself at Boston Comic Con as Ezio from the "Assassin's Creed" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.

Module 2: An Example of Popular Culture

PROMPT

Using An Example of Popular Culture (10:36 minutes) as an approach, take a look at some form of popular culture (other than coffee or gaming) from a variety of angles to understand the ways and means people interact with it and make sense of it. 

 It should be something largely known and recognized so, therefore, you can use specifics to draw out different angles (similar to the coffee where coffee was generic but then discussed different forms of coffee to distinguish different identities).

Some other ideas or areas you might consider (but are not limited to):

• Anime
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Cars
• Comics
• Crafting
• Do-It-Yourself
• Fashion
• Food
• Football
• Hockey
• Movies
• Music
• Music festivals/concerts
• Soccer
• Television

Due Sunday by 11:59pm.

Relevant Tags: Pop culture studies, [Name of specific popular culture being explored]

Example:  Gaming 

I found this week's video on Coffee to be fascinating and got me to thinking about how I consume coffee and what it means to "get coffee" with someone.  That lead me to think about other areas of popular culture and one that I participate in quite off, which is "gaming."

Gaming is much more multi-faceted than the six-letter word lets on.  First, there is the traditional console-based gaming that occurs on Wiis, Gamecubes, Playstations, etc. While these used to be for singular or dual use, they are now open for much more interaction with players able to join entire community of gamers online through their consoles.  Or gamers can also access different and new games rather than buying them at a store.  We've moved from a 2-input console (hello Atari joystick!) to consoles that can read your motion (and therefore, change gaming from inactive to a very active past-time). 

After my recent semester finished, I played this for many hours on my Wii.

We also have mobile games and these too are curious.  Some are simply time-killers to occupy us in the in-between spaces of time when we would be twiddling our thumbs or growing impatient with waiting in line.  Others like one of my favorites, Ingress, brings us into the physical world to explore it, play with others, and learn more about the world than we knew otherwise.  Other games pit us against our friends (Words With Friends) or we look to help out our friends in the game. 

There are games with rich and complex graphics that really does make you feel you are in another world or the games wherein you put in hundreds of hours to complete--hours that can feel like "work" but are still somehow rewarding.  Such games require an amazing amount of concentration, dedication, and intellect to complete.  Other games are equally demanding but don't necessarily have a "complete" phase wherein the person feels they have "beat" the game. 

Then, of course, there are the secondary elements of gaming--the critique blogs, vlogs, and podcasts (Geek and Sundry is one of my favorites), the gaming competitions, Twitch tv, LARPing and Cosplaying around video game characters or when video games become movies. 

 We "play games" for many different reasons: to relax, to engage our brains, to be social and connect with friends, to enter the "zone", and many other reasons.  We can often see the word "game" used derisively and yet, the modern gaming world is such a rich world of interaction and exchange among people. 

It seems like games are everywhere in our culture and I know that some people see that as a sign of being somehow lesser and yet, I can't help but think about how I've seen games be a place where I make friends, learn more about the world, and even a place that brings me a lot of joy. It requires a variety of skills from hand-eye coordination to social interaction to critical and creative thinking to even physical ability. Thus, I tend to think there's a lot more going on with gaming than many people realize.