Gays into the Iris: An ode to my love affair with a video game.

Abstract: A short paper about a certain video game, where I discuss characterisation and diversity… briefly. Learning to be succinct is super duper hard, guys. Welcome to the fourth paper of the Critical Audience.

***

I apologise to the select few whose pun I stole for the title of this paper…

Yes. I am alive and this page does still exist for the purposes it was designed for. However, I’ve been doing a lot more work over at www.nattexler.com, which this website will be moved to in due course. But, as someone who likes to make their own life difficult, I figured why the hell not do another quick paper about video games in a public forum where I -a queer, modded, currently blue haired woman – will NEVER be persecuted for my opinions on a cultural phenomenon totally not within the domain of people who believe I have no idea what I’m talking about…

Hey, being a PhD candidate doesn’t mean I’m smart. Just means I have all the self preservation of a lemming.

An accurate photo of me trying to get a girlfriend…

In the spirit of having no sense of personal safety, I’m also going to paint an even bigger target on my back. The topic of this paper is a particular game that, in my opinion, is both a sanity saver, and a really cool example of a company attempting to create a diverse and interesting selection of characters for players to engage with. Whether there’s a success or not is up to how you interpret the media, which is a topic for later discussion.

Also no, I’m not talking about Mass Effect. If I was, this post would never end. By the way BioWare? Have a puppy:

Hire me plz and thank.

In all seriousness, you guys can probably guess which game I’m referring to. Overwatch – a multiplayer first person shooter (FPS) released by Blizzard Entertainment, the same overlords responsible for that friend of yours’ World of Warcraft addiction. As someone who has experienced that particular phenomenon, I gotta say: WoW is a helluva drug. But if WoW is a heroin-type, grind-y, “need… more… pelts…” kind of addiction, Overwatch is like being invited into a friends house, being fed, being charmed, being wined and dined…

And then being frozen and having an ice spike shoved through the side of your head (thanks Mei).

This is Mei. No one should look that adorable while murdering you…

I jest. In all sincerity, the character is a Chinese environmental scientist who was trapped in ice stasis while researching global warming. She’s a defence character, designed to control the battlefield with walls made of ice and the capacity to freeze her opponents…

And then skewer them with an icicle through the temple.

She says ‘Sorry’ after that, though, so I guess it’s not all bad.

Mei is one of my favourite characters to play when I’m in a particularly trollish mood… which is often. There is nothing more satisfying than walling off the advancing team from the payload they’re supposed to be escorting, or freezing an opponent when they’re mid ultimate (an ability characters can use that charges up over time and with kills. Very frustrating to be interrupted. Very frustrating).

“Sorry, sorry, sorry… :)”

I will also point out that she’s not a stick-thin female character with not a lot of clothing. Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s a nice aversion of typical game character design. I won’t touch on the diversity of body types and builds from Overwatch in this paper, or we’ll be here until the moon crashes into the Earth, but let’s just say there are all kinds of physiques from short and squat, to long and willowy.

Speaking of long and willowy…

Eep…

Have a sniping character called ‘Widowmaker’. Yes, she’s human. Yes she has the ability to track the enemy team. Yes she can shoot you in the head. Yes, I’m awful at playing her.

No. She’s not nice.

Nope.

Not at all.

However, it’s well explained as to why in auxiliary materials. See, the thing Overwatch does, which I really admire, is give a really interesting backstory to all of the characters you can choose to play. And oh, there are a decent amount of choices depending on your tastes:

Wanna be a big ole hero with a massive shield and a suit of armour? Reinhardt is your man.

Wanna sneak around and hack people’s abilities while wisecracking? Say hello to Sombra.

Wanna be a cyborg ninja with a motherflippin’ dragon sword who can run up walls? Is that a Genji main?

But what these characters have in common is an overarching mythology. Reinhardt was a member of the original Overwatch team, and has enthusiastically joined the new crew as a mentor/jovial tank type. Sombra is a hacker who has worked with Talon – a terrorist group with bizarre similarities to Blackwatch, the black ops division of the old Overwatch crew. She has her own agenda, which has not been explored yet, but involves blackmailling possible victims of Talon by keeping them alive.

And Genji?

His family was a crime family, the Shimada clan. He was murdered in a duel by his brother Hanzo, and bought back to life by Dr Angela Ziegler to serve Overwatch. Once dedicating himself to dismantling his family’s empire, he found himself ill at ease with his warrior ways and, seeking the guidance of a robotic monk named Zenyetta, began a life of forgiveness and redemption.

Best thing? You can play as Hanzo (a very ‘Japanese’ archer, useful as a sniper), Angela Ziegler (known as Mercy, she’s a healer) and Zenyetta (my main man, a healing/buffing character who you can play as support or as damage per second) in game. Before each round, you get to hear them interact with each other, referencing their relationships. It’s bad ass.

But you guys don’t come onto this website for me to tell you how amazing something is, do you?

No, let’s get critical.

See, I think a lot of my fondness for Overwatch grew exponentially at Christmas time in 2016. I’d always enjoyed the game, but became a lot more wrapped up in it when it was revealed in a comic called Reflections that a certain character was LGBT.

And not just a certain character…

The main character used in most the marketing; a British time-skipping cheerful lass named Tracer:

The Calvary’s here!

I remember reading the comic at Christmas time and completely marking out. As a queer woman, funnily enough I don’t tend to get upset by lack of representation. I guess I’ve spent most of my life trying not to get offended, because my temper is not very nice and I like a peaceful life. I also don’t like to make demands of creative enterprises (see my first paper on the Critical Audience for a long-as-hell explanation). While the representation I’ve seen has been nice, there are always catches.

Like the fact most queer characters seem to be put under immense suffering, and don’t tend to get their happy endings. Those that do usually get to deal with something horrible BEFORE ‘earning’ it.

I mean Christ, people, we’re not that different underneath, and don’t we suffer enough?

But I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of joy at the fact that not only was my orientation being represented in a video game, it was by one of the main figureheads. Furthermore, the comic was a sweet story of her trying to find a gift for her girlfriend.

That’s all.

No long suffering drama, no infidelity, no ‘suddenly she has cancer but won’t tell you so you don’t come home’ gimmick (lookin’ real hard at you, Skins: Fire. Some sins are not forgiven). Just a sweet story of family and love and connections centred around a mouthy and cheerful lesbian looking for a scarf to give as a gift.

How. Awesome. Is. That?

I mean, there have been accusations of pandering, of course. There always is. I suppose if you want to be super cynical, yes Blizzard have been focusing on incorporating as many different people into Overwatch as possible. There are disabled characters, old characters, mentally ill characters, characters with Autism, characters who are POC… And not all backstories and characters have been revealed, so we could still see more varieties of people involved.

Honestly though, how can this be a bad thing? The best thing about Overwatch is that the story is told in auxiliary media around the main game. While occasions are reference in character dialogue before rounds, there is no ‘story-line’ as such. So if the variation of people in the game ‘offends’ you, no one is forcing you to take in that media.

You can just keep playing the game, choosing characters’ based on the play styles – or designs – you enjoy and be done with the whole cultural context. You can headcanon to your heart’s content, dictating that certain things must be as they are inside your head. It’s your agency as a player to take control of your interpretation. Even though this isn’t canon, it’s still a completely viable way of being self critical of work. I heartily encourage fanfiction… So long as it’s well written and makes sense.

Oh ‘my Immortal’, you saucy saucy minx…

But, by not accepting some of the canonical truths Blizzard has offered, I believe you’re missing out a little. I mean, it would be a funny old world if we were all alike, wouldn’t it? The differences aren’t put into the game to illicit controversy. They’re there because they’re supposed to be believable, and I dunno about you, but I encounter a lot more people who don’t fit the mould as opposed to those who do. If you don’t then cool, that’s your social group and I’m not critiquing your choice of company.

But it’s refreshing to see a game that doesn’t restrict itself to the basic characterisation we’ve seen in games for years. As I mentioned before, it’s all about your interpretation and what you choose to take in from Overwatch. I’m not the kinda lass that insists everyone see’s things as I do. I’m just saying, give the world a chance. You never know what you could discover.

Blizzard still has a long way to go in some ways with its goal of total representation but, so long as you’re enjoying the experience, I’d say Blizzard has achieved what they set out to do. The variety of characters and playstyles is staggering, and there is always new things coming out for players to want to achieve.

All this consideration of characterisation and representation? Well, that’s just sweet, sweet gravy on top of a wonderful way to spend a few hours pew-pewing and being pew-pewed.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to throw some nuts at my opponents in order to establish my dominance as a Nutcracker!Zenyetta DPS player. See you on the point!

-ScruffyAcademic-

The Critical Audience – an Introduction

Abstract: This entry details the reason why I started this blog. Basically, it explains my current understanding of the relationship between a creative output’s responsibility to their craft and the audience’s duty as critical recievers as opposed to demanding consumers. It also contains memes, self-deprecation, and a lot of words. Welcome to the Critical Audience…

***

Much like most denizens of the internet, I’ve had blogs before: a travel blog for my adventures in America, a tumblr, a myspace (back when it was fashionable to be depressed)…

Oh dear god I’m old.

Yet all of these platforms, all of these places for engagement with the world around me have always failed. I’ve either neglected to update them, or life has gotten in the way, or my own anxieties have manifested to keep me from truly exploring themes that I find interesting or appropriate. Hell, self-doubt has always been the gate that blocks communication for most writers. The question “who the hell wants to read my stuff” is always the most debilitating.

My life.

So, given my total failure in maintaining some form of critical presence online, what the hell makes this attempt any different?

Because this blog has been inspired by something other than my own self-importance. My job (as in ‘I cannot believe they actually pay me to do it’) is as a tutor/lecturer at one of Australia’s top research universities. They pay me to yell at people only a few years younger than me. It’s pretty sweet.

However, something this year has become incredibly apparent, particular in the ways in which my students react to certain pieces of information. When I teach, I usually incorporate pop culture, gaming, mass media, social media, current trends, comic book and wrestling references, music terminology, metaphors for political movements, all kinds of popular treats in order to try and engage with the philosophies and techniques that actually lead to course outcomes.

It’s pretty roundabout, but my students seem to get it and I’ve had no complaints… yet. Hell, some of them even stay back and we talk about the societal undertones of the Overwatch community, or the functionality of the MCU. This results in hope that, y’know, maybe people do really want to engage with the texts around us.

And is pretty much the reason for this blog, to be honest. Congrats, class of 2016. You’ve made me want to rant at the world again. Gold star.

But that’s not the only reason. In an attempt to keep things brief, I’ll spare you the details of exactly how I came to the following conclusion. It’s a lot of roundabout thinking and ain’t nobody got time for that.

Basically put, there is a disturbing trend in the ways in which audiences (fandoms and casual consumers alike) engage with media. While I don’t dispute that there is an undertone of critical engagement – a trend I definitely enjoy seeing more of, thank you – a disturbing amount of reductionist framing of concepts has also begun to rise. Furthermore, the audience has evolved… and I’m not sure if I totally agree with the result.

Take #giveelsaagirlfriend for example. While I am all for incorporation of LGBTQIA+ themes and solid, realistic same-sex relationships where no one DIES, (looking at you, The 100. Reaaaaally looking at you.) the whole ‘demand’ kind of… sets me on edge.

Now before you get out the pitchforks and torches, let me explain. Please. Don’t make me climb the windmill to escape the riots.

Look at how well it worked out for this fella…

As well as being a tutor/lecturer, I’m also a PhD candidate, well versed in sleepless nights and a stupid amount of philosophy. I try to critically engage with media because it’s amazing how we try to communicate strange and magical ideas in a language best used to warn someone about sabre toothed tigers. I will probably do a blog post later on about the term ‘critical’ and what it actually means – at least to me – but the quick notes is that I examine media for the underlying meta, the structures, the commentaries and reasons behind certain creative choices – NOT to attempt to judge something on an ethical merit that applies only to me. Logos is part of argument, people. Aristotle had it right.

So buckle up people because, as pretentious as the above paragraph sounds, it’s about to get a whole lot worse…

I, deep down, beneath all the academic polish, identify as an ‘artist’. Also known as ‘a creative person’. Shock. Horror. Drama. Oh no.

*gasp!*

At least I have some evidence though: I’m a playwright who has realised the dream of making profit off a show and using it to pay the bills. I’ve been published as a poet and an author. I’m a musician who used to make compositions based on Batman villains, and has had one of my productions used in a friend’s demo show-reel. I can (and often do) write for an audience in mind. It’s really the only way to get anywhere.

Plus, you try surviving on rice cooked in chicken stock and see how staunch your ‘artistic message’ is.

Let’s change gears again, get back on track.

I’m trying to establish my position here as both scholar and practitioner, as fan and creator. The dichotomy is definitely resolvable, and in my mind, actually makes one more capable of engagement with new texts. What it doesn’t do is grant to right to demand certain things from other creators.

Aaaaand now we’re back at #giveelsaagirlfriend. See, there’s nothing wrong with espousing the belief that such a storyline would make sense in the context of Frozen. In fact, I’m totally on board and can definitely see how it could work narratively. Plus: there’s enough undertones of ‘the outsider’ and plenty of cardboard feminism to support that kind of radical step.

(Note the term ‘cardboard feminism’. This is not an attack. It’s recognition of the simplification of a feminist position so that children can engage with the concept. I think it’s a good thing. There’s no point having a deep ethical position when you cannot explain it to a bunch of seven-year-old kids. Remember: it’s all about communication and the audience. There’s no advantage to over-complication.)

My question therefore is this: why are you demanding as opposed to actioning by critically engaging with the text itself?

Oh god, please put the pitchforks away. I have a point to make that doesn’t involve impalement.

As creators, we do have a responsibility to our own ethics and beliefs. ‘To thine own self be true’ is incredibly important in the various artistic outputs, otherwise why bother? Protagonists and antagonists are developed from the sense of self that we have, and we usually illicit the best emotional reactions from the things that hurt (or heal) us the most.

It’s all incredibly self centered. It’s delightful.

However, we do have a responsibility to our audience too – to ensure that we are creating an engaging, thoughtful, entertaining piece of media that can be enjoyed on the merits of its content and form. Furthermore, there is the fact that art, by its nature, tends to push for the edges of what is deemed ‘acceptable’ by society. That’s not to say art needs to be offensive. Just that it tends to provoke emotions and thoughts in the people who consume it.

And yes, Virginia, pop culture, video games, memes, cosplay, youtube videos, social media posts, mods and new media are art too. In fact, the complete disregard of these forms is an incredible oversight on behalf of both the academy and society as a whole, and is something that really puts a bee in my bonnet.

But let’s stay focussed here.

As creators, we do have responsibilities. But as consumers, we are not excused from our own form of duty.

I’m not saying to passively sit back and accept whatever is thrown your way. I’d have have to beat my own arse if I did that. What I am suggesting is that as an audience, we do have to maintain some level of receptiveness to the media we consume, particularly if we disagree with it. This means letting yourself think on it before responding, and when you do choose to respond, doing so in a way that furthers your own ethical cause, as opposed to demanding someone change theirs.

For example, things such as queerbaiting, stuffing your gays in the fridge, and films failing both the mako mori and bechdel test across the board are symptoms of the current trend in media and should be engaged with. However, there should also be within that engagement a critical aspect that doesn’t just highlight the failures, but also provides a solution. This isn’t a demand on behalf of the audience. In fact, it could be anything from FanFiction – known in the world of academia as ‘textual intervention’ (blergh) – to writing your own superhero who features aspects you’d like to see more of (see: Cleverman on the Australian Broadcasting Channel), to proposals written by consumers actioned in forms that provide financial imperative for the industries at hand.

See, I’m not totally naive…

Accurate meme is accurate

I understand that pop culture has blown up, with things such as the massive successes of comic book movies, the huge surge of popularity in gaming, the rise of new technology, and fandoms becoming capitalistic all contributing to a big old cash cow that some select few are riding to the bank of billions. The result, even seen as far as in popular theatre, is the evolution of the arts from a way to inform and entertain and to provoke and explore, to a service industry based on the numbers.

And this is the crux of this first blog entry. Because now art has become a service industry, audiences believe they can demand certain things from creators, much as you would in a restaurant, if you were going to be that guy (please don’t be that guy. Much like all creative folk, I’ve done my time in service industries).

But art doesn’t function that way.

See, we’ve become so accustomed to feeling like the creators ‘owe us’ something, we’ve forgotten that consumption of art is a two way street. Definitely engage. Please. Don’t just consume. But I also caution too much of the other side, the demand.  I’m pretty sure the big businesses don’t really care what a subset of people say. They’ve bought their islands, they don’t really give a damn what you want. Even if you get your voices heard, where do you think that responsibility falls?  The artist is the one who gets the demand from corporate, telling them to either:

a) Incorporate what the social media circus wants, at least in a way that satisfies temporarily (see queerbaiting, stuffing the gays into the freezer, the great ‘stray bullet’ catastrophe of the 100…)

b) Ignore the demands, and stick to the plan of corporate, in order to ensure that profits are still made.

I can imagine that when confronted with these two outcomes, the artist probably creates their own outlet of sketches, poems, pieces of music, tweets, memes, most of which probably revolve around big business getting something big shoved somewhere small.

Like an elephant into one of these.

Remember, it’s not just you putting pressure on the people who make your media. The contemporary creator is usually sandwiched between the demands of the consumer and the pressures of the profiteers. This even goes as far as Harry Potter. It’s not just J.K. Rowling making big bucks off the franchise – a term more at home with chain restaurants than media in my mind. The publishers, and film companies, gaming companies, theme parks, they all make bank off someone’s creativity. There’s a lot of money surrounding popular media and that’s great.

But that also has created a lack of critical discourse. People demanding, as opposed to reacting. People not ‘taking in’ what is going on, just waiting for the next big thing to get annoyed at. Audiences forgetting that even within academia, there’s problems and issues and arguments and not one single philosophy is flawless. Hell, I’m a feminist and I run into HUGE problems with my own cohort completely missing the point about various pieces of work in their desire to see more of their ethics represented upfront. While pushing for women’s rights is something I do because I believe strongly in it, I’m also aware that not every piece of work is going to be inclusive of that, as other artists may be more focussed on psychological tension, or the breakdown of relationships, or making people laugh at the absurdity of it all. That’s not to say I enjoy seeing things that are misogynistic or oppressive – hell no. Rather, I keep open to all messages within art because, basically put, art is all about communicating SOMETHING that an artist wants to say, not saying something the audience wants to hear.

Ironic that I’ve posted this meme in MY justification for writing a blog. IT IS ABOUT ME, DAMN IT.

I will concede the point that fandoms do pick up a lot of the slack, with some incredibly interesting and insightful tumblr posts discussing various factions/undertones/interpretations of popular media. In fact, I recommend anyone interested in critical engagement to not only use tumblr, but tvtropes.org to dissect their chosen mediums. The level of critical thinking is untamed and non-academic, but the soul is in the right place and I find myself wholeheartedly screaming ‘go, you good thing, go’ from the sidelines, particular when someone completely nails a really good persuasive point.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside…

However, a lot of this insight is ratified within the fandom, and tends to neglect larger implications in philosophy. Furthermore, there tends to be a lot of language that people outside of fandom struggle with. Register is important and as I said before, communication is key. No point in being obfuscating.

So that’s where I would like to try and step in a bit. While I’m really just one voice screaming into the void…

Have you considered examining the implications of a Butlerian perspective of ‘Persooooonaaaaa foooooooourrrrr’?

… I do want this blog to be an attempt to engage critically with contemporary media and entertainment. And also to possibly do some quick little educational lectures on basic analytical and persuasive methods so that you too can join in with the fun.

I will also open up to suggestions of topics you’d like me to write about. Fire me a message and I’ll attempt to at the least make an argument about my positioning and rationale.

Finally though, I’d like to just say:

Be the change you want to see in the world. Make art. Engage with the things you love and do so with an open mind and a critical eye, and never be afraid to make an argument.

Hell, we could use a more critical audience…

Here Endeth The Justification

-ScruffyAcademic-