madsh-18-blog

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The Final Chapter

The biggest takeaway I got from the final chapter (and the book in general) was to pay attention to the media you're consuming.

There are things out there that make us all unique, whether that be our race, sexuality, what have you, and all of these things are portrayed in the media. But some aren't portrayed as equally or accurately as others, and we need to be aware of that.

The mass media matrix is all around us, whether it's in books, movies, television shows, music, etc., and it's giving subliminal messages for how it wants us to behave.

Going back to the very beginning of the class, celebrities are "powerful" enough that just wearing a certain brand of shoe will get millions of people to go out and get that same shoe. Kidd wants us to be aware of these cases and to think about what we're consuming.

And that ties in with the matrix of identity. Kidd says the identity “creates the boundaries of social groups and defines the norms of the people within these groups…it creates the central value systems that shape what we believe in and what our lives mean.”

We may think our identity is our own, but is it? Go back to what I said two paragraphs ago about celebrities having “power” over what people wear or how they act. Is our identity really our own if we’re just copying what someone who’s incredibly well-known is doing? At that point, we don’t even need a cloning machine, we’re doing it ourselves by copying what others are doing.

Same thing with the central value systems he talks about.  Movies and shows influence these as well. We see so many characters in movies and shows act certain ways and then we start acting that way as well.

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My Advice

When I first started this class at the beginning of the semester, I was excited. And with a name like Critical Approaches to Pop Culture, why wouldn’t I be?

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting of this class that first day. After looking at the syllabus, I think I just assumed we’d be watching shows on Netflix and having discussions about things that happened in those episodes.

Which was partially right.

What I didn’t expect was how much I’d learn about pop. culture--how much I’d been ignoring, or hadn’t noticed before.

This class taught me about the representation of demographics that I hadn’t considered before and taught me about what I should pay attention to.

For instance, the representation (and also presence) or LGBTQ characters in various television shows and movies. It was until that unit that I learned that LGBTQ characters are vastly underrepresented in shows and movies, and when they are there, it’s either an inaccurate portrayal or a minor character who’s not important to the plot. Or both. Granted, there are movies and television shows where LGBTQ characters are important to the plot and are portrayed accurately, but those are few and far between.

I think my main piece of advice for students who take this class in the future would be to keep an open mind. We talked about a lot of things that can still be done better in pop culture, and having an open mind if the first step in the long process of fixing those problems.

So, keep an open mind, look for things that could be problematic, and draw attention to them. Hell, we even wrote letters to certain companies either praising them or criticizing them for something they did right (or wrong). Keeping an open mind can go incredibly far, and you might find yourself shocked by what you learn.

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The Cultural Diamond

The cultural diamond is a visual representation created by Wendy Griswold to show the relationship between producer and audience. 

In the diamond, creators and receivers are on opposite sides of each other, as are social world and cultural object.

In the context of the cultural diamond, social world “refers to the totality of the community in which the cultural object acts.” In other words, any kind of community, whether it’s a neighborhood, a dance team, etc. 

The three others are fairly self-explanatory.

The creator is obviously the person/persons who created the object, the receiver is the target audience(s), and the cultural object is the show/movie/game/book itself.

For instance, if we do a quick analysis of Overwatch, we’d find several things.

First, the creator. Overwatch was developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, the game company behind the massively successful MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Based off that, the target audience for Overwatch is more than likely the same target audience as WoW, which is 18-30 years old. BUT, while WoW requires a monthly subscription (probably it’s biggest downside), Overwatch requires a onetime payment for the game, and then you can play free forever. Additional content (new heroes/maps, etc.) is also free to everyone when they become available; players don’t have to pay more for new/extra content.

Moving on to social world. Overwatch takes place in a world much like our own, so many of the problems that occur in the Overwatch universe are similar to our own (while still having a fantastical feel to them).

As for the cultural object itself. Characters in the Overwatch universe are heroes. They all have unique powers or abilities. In the Overwatch lore, these were the characters who worked all over the world to make it a better place. Overwatch isn’t just a game. Blizzard also has comics that add to the lore of the universe and recently began the Overwatch League, an eSports league for professional Overwatch players.

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Cultural Artifact Analysis

Earlier this semester, one of our first assignments called for us to find a movie that featured college students and analyze it.

I chose to look at Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether or not the artifact we chose could be considered culturally potent.

Cultural potency is determined by how well an artifact meets five criteria, those criteria being: retrievability (can you get it?), rhetorical force (is it powerful?), resonance (does it feel familiar?), institutional retention (does it become a norm?), and resolution (does it give you something to do?).

Having seen Tucker and Dale before doing this assignment, I was already familiar with it.

Since T&D is available on Netflix and Hulu, it has moderate retrievability, as you have to pay for a Netflix account. And even if you have an account, the movie could still be removed from Netflix’s library.

For rhetorical force, that was a little more difficult. The plot is unique, as it’s a parody of stereotypical horror movies featuring college students.

Which brings us to resonance. Because the movie is a parody of typical horror tropes, it feels familiar at first, but eventually, the audience comes to realize that what we’re watching isn’t what we’re used to. The movie even throws out some of the typical tropes, or changes them entirely—Tucker and Dale are just two guys trying to have a nice vacation, the blonde girl is the smartest one in the group, etc.

While it might be a little bit of a stretch, I think it’s safe to say that, by this point, T&D has become somewhat of a cult classic.

Finally, resolution. While it is a parody, you can argue that the big message throughout the movie is to not judge others by appearances. Doing just that is what caused most of the college students to unintentionally kill themselves. Again, it’s a parody.

That being said, my analysis showed me that, yes, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is culturally potent.

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Let’s talk about popularity

When I say popularity, I don’t mean the “Oh you’re the most popular girl in school!” kind, I mean the popularity of video games. Specifically, ones featuring LGBTQ characters.

In my previous post about academic research on this topic, I brought up two characters: Max Caufield, from Life is Strange, and Erica Anderson, from Catherine.

While Max is most definitely more well-known than Erica, both are relatively unknown characters, and that’s because these characters are from either an indie game, or a foreign game.

Life is Strange was developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix (a fairly well-known game company), but didn’t receive much advertising. As far as I know, it didn’t have any television advertising, so the only way you would know about the game is from ads on YouTube, or ads on Steam.

Catherine, on the other hand, was just foreign. As a foreign game from a relatively unknown foreign game company, there wasn’t much advertisement for it in the U.S.

In terms of how the above characters are revealed to be LGBTQ, that’s a different story.

Max is technically bisexual, but this isn’t revealed until about halfway through the game. Right from the beginning, players can choose to have Max pursue a relationship with a fellow student, Warren. In one of the later episodes (the game is split into 5), they can choose to kiss Max’s best friend, Chloe. Also, one of the games endings (there are two) shows Max and Chloe sharing a final kiss.

In Catherine, however, Erica isn’t revealed to be transgender until the very and. And that’s only if you get one specific ending out of the eight possible endings. And even then, her transgenderism is played off as a sort of joke. (The character Toby, who Erica had slept with, makes the comment “The guys knew you as ‘Eric’ back in school!” before making an uncomfortable face.)

These are just two examples of games that feature LGBTQ characters (Max being the protagonist of hers and Erica being a prominent secondary character).

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The above video by IGN discusses the reveal of Tracer’s sexuality in an Overwatch comic. This reveal is incredibly important because Tracer acts as Overwatch’s mascot.

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Academic Research

After a quick search using Google Scholar, I came across some rather interesting articles relating to LGBTQ characters and representation in video games.

A book titled “Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture” is described as talking about how the gaming community is no longer just white, heterosexual males. It’s now full of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. However, these minorities are often “brutalized in forums and in public channels in online play”. It’s not unusual to see comments of “A girl gamer? Get back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich!”

The woman featured in the above picture is Geguri, a professional Overwatch player who is currently on the roster for the Shanghai Dragons in the Overwatch League.

Another article, titled “Putting the Gay in Games”, argues that the members of the gaming community account for the lack of LGBTQ characters in video games. This was actually an interesting thought that hadn’t occurred to me before, but it makes sense. It begs the question though, shouldn’t there be more LGBTQ characters so those players can relate to a game character? The article also discusses how certain stakeholders “actively invest in LGBT representation in media”. So why aren’t they investing in games?

As stated in a previous post, recent movies featuring gay teenagers are great for teens who might be facing the stress and anxiety of coming out, and audiences are loving them. So why aren’t games introducing more characters that are LGBTQ? 

There are numerous games that feature LGBTQ characters (I thought of some more since writing my previous posts), but these characters are featured in fairly unknown games. Characters like Max from Life is Strange (lesbian) and Erica from the 2011 Catherin (transgender). 

My hope is that gaming companies realize that they have LGBTQ consumers, and create characters that provide the representation those consumers deserve.

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LGBTQ Representation in Games

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t played very many games that feature LGBTQ characters. In fact, when I do think about it, I can only come up with three: Tracer and Moira from Overwatch, and Ellie from The Last of Us (pictured above on the right). Part of the reason for why I wanted to look into this topic for this assignment was because games are a huge part of my life, and they’re a huge part of pop culture as well. Granted, the gaming community is pretty separated from television and movies, it’s still a huge community with members all around the world. And, as with any other community, a lot of those members are LGBTQ.

Especially with recent movies, LGBTQ characters have been getting a bigger spotlight, and this is awesome! With movies like Love, Simon and Call Me By Your Name, pop culture is starting to show that it’s accepting of LGBTQ peoples.

Games, however, are different. It’s still pretty unusual to see LGBTQ characters in a video game, and if you do see them, they probably aren’t very important to the plot/gameplay. As I said above, when I sat down and took some time to think about it, I myself have only played two games that feature LGBTQ characters. But even then it’s not stated outright. In The Last of Us, it’s not revealed that Ellie is gay until the DLC, which not everyone has played because you have to buy it (as DLC’s aren’t included with the base game). I myself haven’t even played the DLC despite playing the entire game; I learned about Ellie from videos on YouTube and interviews.

Overall, I feel like LGBTQ representation in video games is pretty lacking, and that’s something I hope this assignment proves wrong. But, even if it isn’t lacking, why aren’t these characters more well known?

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http://ew.com/gaming/2016/12/21/overwatch-tracer-confirmed-lesbian/

The above link talks about the Overwatch character Tracer, how Blizzard Entertainment revealed that she was gay, and also how important it is for LGBTQ representation.

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‘Sup

Hello! My name's Madison, and I'm a 21-year-old English major (if you find grammar issues in here, yell at me). My experience(s) with pop culture goes way back.

I grew up with three older siblings—two brothers and a sister—so I was surrounded by games when I was growing up.

Since I grew up around games, I've always been involved in the gaming community. When we moved back to the States, we got a GameCube and my siblings and I spent countless hours playing Smash and various Mario games (Mario Party 4 and MarioKart Double Dash are the best, don't fight me on this). When we made our second move, we got an XBOX 360 as well as a PlayStation 3. Having those two consoles opened us up to even more games. As we did with the other consoles, we spent hours playing games together (specifically LittleBigPlanet’s 1 and 2) and, when games called for it, alone. We were also introduced to World of Warcraft, as my parents got it for us for Christmas. It’s been ten years and I’m still playing (I’m sure that’s not a decision my parent's regret). That’s my character, Somala, below. She’s a druid.

Once my siblings started moving out, I switched to more PC gaming (and have since built my own desktop gaming computer). However, games aren't the only way I've been involved with pop culture.

I also enjoy movies and television shows...maybe a little too much. I'm a huge fan of Marvel and Disney and will see just about anything they put out (movie-wise, not necessarily shows). Also, Netflix, Hulu, and Prime have not helped my habit of starting shows but not finishing them. I'm currently "watching" probably somewhere around 15 shows, maybe more. There are, though, shows that I sort of force myself to stay caught up with. Specifically, Game of Thrones, Westworld (HBO representin’), and The Handmaid's Tale.

I'm also a huge book nerd. I hope to go into publishing after graduation so reading is the one thing I can always count on to enjoy. I love sitting down with a good book that I can get lost in for hours. I do have to admit that after coming to college, my reading dwindled. A lot. But, I recently joined Book of the Month so I'm hoping that'll help me get back to doing as much reading as I was doing in high school.

Lastly, I love music (not unusual). I don't think there's a certain genre that I stick with—I tend to like a little bit of everything. However, I definitely get my music taste from my dad. My all-time favorite artist is Ben Folds but I have other favorites as well. I got to see my first Ben Folds concert this past January, and it was everything I'd hoped for and more.

The focus of this blog will be to look at LGBTQ representation in video games. I'll be focusing mostly on the characters Tracer and Moira from Overwatch, but I'll be looking at other games as well. I know of several LGBTQ characters, but I'm also hoping that this blog will help me to discover more.