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Resident Evil films over at In Media Res
My colleague Marianna Martin and I co-organized a theme week of In Media Res on the Resident Evil films. The Resident Evil films have a lot to recommend them, and they’re interesting both for their politics and their success — they are the most successful video game films made to date.… Read the rest
Sexism and Gaming at Flow: All of Jennifer deWinter and My Columns in One Place
Over the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of co-authoring a series of columns for Flow with Jennifer deWinter of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Our columns, which focus on sexism in the gaming industry, have now all been published, which means you can go read them all, in order, at your leisure.… Read the rest
Video Games and Women’s History Month
On Tuesday, I gave a talk for women’s history month on my campus here in Chicago. The talk was part of a lunch hosted by the Department of Humanities for Women’s History Month.… Read the rest
It’s only a Purple Moon
Games from Purple Moon are my current eBay obsession. I’ve been very interested in “games for girls” lately — hence the Barbie game I featured a few posts back. I missed Purple Moon the first time around by a few years, as I was well into high school by the time the first games launched, and so I was too busy reading my dad’s old Beat generation paperbacks and cultivating obscure music knowledge to be bothered.… Read the rest
Modes that are more realistic than Girlfriend Mode
There has been a lot of discussion about John Hemingway’s flippant use of the phrase “Girlfriend Mode” to describe a beginner-type mode available in Borderlands 2. In particular, David Wildgoose’s piece “‘Girlfriend Mode’ and the Definition of Sexism” is worth a read, and I’m very fond of “Girlfriend Mode vs.… Read the rest
Alan Alda for Atari
I recently stumbled across a series of Atari advertisements featuring actor Alan Alda. I have a soft spot for Alan Alda, partially because of his feminist politics, and partially because of a deep love for the series MASH — which Alda agreed to star in only after gaining assurance that surgery scenes would feature in every episode.… Read the rest
The Simple Genius of the Gamer Girl Manifesto
I saw “The Gamer Girl Manifesto” (embedded above) by Sexy Nerd Girl Presents thanks to Geekquality. The brief video features a number of young women gamers who identify themselves by their on-screen identities (which range from notable characters like Mario to the more subtly constructed identities from games like World of Warcraft) and by the game systems they use.… Read the rest
I Said Diamonds: the Aubrey Plaza WoW Spot
The first time I saw the TV ad above, which features Aubrey Plaza (best known for playing April Ludgate on “Parks and Recreation”) explaining in her trademark deadpan how she became a World of Warcraft player, I was rather charmed.… Read the rest
Women Gamers as Social Animals in the GameHouse Survey
By now, you have probably seen some of the data from the GameHouse infographic above [source]. Collected by Harris Interactive for GameHouse, the data includes a few particularly sexy statistics.… Read the rest
From The Memes of Babes
At some point while I was taking a break from some edits, I came across the “Cool Chick Carol” meme. Cool Chick Carol is a spinoff of the Good Guy Greg meme.… Read the rest
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