Given the nature of this assignment, I thought it would be most appropriate to reflect upon the very first recollections I have of playing video games as a young female.

The very first game I remember playing as a young child (ages 4-7 years old) was called Shufflepuck Café. This game was played on my desktop computer in the early 90s. As I recall, Shufflepuck Café was a single-player game, where the player would face an animated opponent in a game similar to the logistics of air hockey. Particularly noteworthy, was Shufflepuck’s line-up of opponents, predominantly consisting of otherworldly beings – except for two males and one female. The female opponent, Be Jin, was displayed in a dress exposing the one shoulder and opening at the cleavage. This female representation worsened as newer releases of the game came to the market, displaying Be Jin’s character as extraordinarily busty with even more revealing clothing. The two (human-ish) male characters appeared to be either smart or muscular; one character, Skip, resembled a small, intelligent-looking man, while the larger of the two, Biff, was depicted as a shirtless muscular man. These two representations, intelligent and muscular, are seldom – if at all – applied to female characters in videogames, and by large, other media sources for its time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di8P3skzq2A

Moving away from Shufflepuck Café, I eventually indulged in the game Street Fighter II in an arcade around the ages of 8-10. Similar to my experiences with Shufflepuck Café, female characters were rare to come by, and when they were, they were represented as skinny, sexualized, and weak. Chun Li was the only female character displayed in Street Fighter, and the game makers even considered making her life meter shorter in the game! To say the least, Chun Li was animated with minimal clothing, busty, and noticeably smaller than the male characters.

While the portrayal of the female character, Chun Li, remained problematic in this game, equally as concerning was the portrayal of race. To refresh my memory, I researched the character list for Street Fighter and came across the National Public Radio, Inc. website which describes the game as “the most racist nostalgic video game ever”. Some of these character representations are as follows:

Honda – A Japanese Sumo Wrestler

Dhalsim – Skinny Indian fighter who you would fight in a temple – fighting based on yoga movements: “yoga flames” could stretch limbs far out

Blanka – from the Brazilian rainforest who just growled and grunted

Guile – blonde-haired tough American soldier

Chun Li – the only female character – busty and revealing clothing

Now some of these character representations move beyond the mere stereotypical portrayal of the embodied avatars themselves, and extends into the aesthetics of the game as well. When fighting Dhalsim and Honda, for instance, the environment furthers these stereotypical representations by displaying Asian cities and religious Temples. The music coordinates with these effects by playing stereotypical Asian melodies which further contributes to these harmful representations.

Perhaps the reason why these game makers are excused from these harmful representations are because they are considered as ‘less real’: I argue here that for game makers, games are deemed as “real when it is convenient, unreal when it is not” (Cross, 2016, p. 26). Considering both Shufflepuck Café as well as Street Fighter, interruptions can be proposed to eradicate the harmful representations of minorities in these games. For one: stop sexualizing women, game-makers! Perhaps female characters that are not sexualized nor portrayed as weak and helpless will be a good start. To extend on this, these characters could even be used as final bosses – the hardest levels to beat in these games. As for the representations for international characters: there exists many famous and skilled fighters around the globe. Perhaps Street Fighter could focus less on the stereotypes of these characters and more so on the skills they possess. For example, why not have a character that resembles Amir “King” Khan (a British-born Punjabi boxer)?

Perhaps, the most effective interruption of all, would be to rewrite the whole system in itself. As Professor Jenson inspired me through her talk, we must interrupt the lack of female pursuit in the gaming industry both in regards to education as well as job growth and commitment. This is not an easy task, and can also be argued that is impossible. The issue does not start and end with a lack of female presence in STEM related fields - it is a historical, systemic issue enrooted in our very existence. To say that we would wake up one day and the gender gap will be bridged can be thought of as nothing short of a miracle. But to merely acknowledge this issue as one that is not constrained to the field of academia, rather, one that is open to public discussion, is a step in the right direction (Kafai, Rishard, & Tynes, 2016).

While I listened to Professor Jennifer Jenson discuss the disparity of females in game-design and other STEM-related computing fields, it is no wonder why this is the case. I grew up playing two games that sexualized women and represented them as being inferior to males. Through playing these games at a young age, I received the message that society is inherently unjust in relation to gender, race, and class. These representations will continue in games as long as it remains “an actively hostile and misogynistic space for female game designers and programmers” (Jenson & de Castell, 2016, p. 188).

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References: 

Cross, K. (2016). Press F to Revolt: On the Gamification of Online Activism. In Diversifying Barbie & Mortal Kombat: Intersectional Perspectives and Inclusive Designs in Gaming. Kafai, Tynes, & Richard (Eds.). Pittsburgh: ETC Press. 

Nakamura, L. (2016). Putting our hearts into it: Gaming’s Many Social Justice Warriors and the Quest for Accessible Games. In Diversifying Barbie & Mortal Kombat: Intersectional Perspectives and Inclusive Designs in Gaming. Kafai, Tynes, & Richard (Eds.). Pittsburgh: ETC Press. 

Jenson, J. & de Castell, S. (2016). Gamer-Hate and the “Problem” of Women: Feminism in Games. In Diversifying Barbie & Mortal Kombat: Intersectional Perspectives and Inclusive Designs in Gaming. Kafai, Tynes, & Richard (Eds.). Pittsburgh: ETC Press. 

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