Gender and intersectionality in games

Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’

Though I don't necessarily agree with the entirety of the article (much of the discussion being cisnormative and/or out of date), it raises some very valid points about the (presumedly heterosexual) male gaze, and the representation of women in relation to this, which I feel are very applicable to video games in general, particularly the triple-A sector of the industry. Games are often criticised for skimpily outfitting their female characters while men receive more practical and less skin-tight variations. To give an example, Metal Gear Solid V's Quiet is one of the most obviously tailored-for-the-straight-male representations of femininity in modern gaming. Mute, barely clothed and complete with jiggle physics, she is physically caged and on display in the game's hub area, performing for the viewer as she showers and sunbathes. This character is so exemplative of so many stereotypes that it's almost satirical, and yet the fact that there is in-game justification for her outfit (she requires as little clothing as possible in order to photosynthesise) suggests that developers knew this design would come under fire, and so knew exactly what they were doing.

Peggy McIntosh, ‘White Privilege and Male Privilege…’ 

McIntosh's article, though written many years ago now, is still very relevant today. Particularly in the triple-A FPS and action genres, but also in many others besides and even in film, it can be very hard to find a protagonist that is not white (or white-passing) and/or male. Lack of representation is endemic in games as a whole, and even when racial minorities are found they are often horribly stereotyped or used as props for white saviour plotlines. Assassin's Creed looked to be moving forward in 2012 with characters such as Connor and Aveline, but has since defaulted back to mainly white male playable characters, with the occasional non-white or female character thrown in, as an alternate option or in spin-off titles like Chronicles. Even seemingly innocent games such as the Animal Crossing series suffer from this, not allowing players to have dark skin without deliberately standing in the sun for several hours. Progress in this area is being made, but slowly, as there isn't quite as much pressure on the industry for race diversity as for gender diversity, although both are important.