Anita Sarkeesian’s series starts in March
Last year, Anita Sarkeesian of the Feminist Frequency blog started a Kickstarter for a video series about the various problematic patterns in the depiction of women in videogames. She achieved her goal, and then some, leading to interviews, support, hate, and disdain, not to mention plenty of analysis of that hate and disdain. Almost over night, more people were talking about the Tropes vs. Women in Videogames project and it’s creator than actual tropes vs. women in videogames.
The complaint about Ms. Sarkeesian that seemed most damning was the charge that she’d taken the money and ran with it. That would have been pretty silly, not to mention career suicide. Well it looks like the naysayers were wrong, at least on that point. The 1st episode of Tropes vs. Women in Videogames premieres on March 7. That’s just four days from now!
I don’t envy the amount of pressure on Ms. Sarkeesian to deliver a series that lives up to the tremendous expectations that have come to surround this project. No matter what she comes out with, some will be sure to attack her not only for her ideas, but for the fact that she didn’t deliver them in the exact way they thought that she should. I hope we can do better than to immediately knock her down for what her videos don’t say and do, and instead take in what they do have to say with a clear head and no agenda.
