**triggers: sexual assault, objectification, general terrible treatment of women**
I know we have talked about this topic before at some point on NYMG, but regardless, it needs addressing once again. Even more, I’m not sure where I stand on it. The question at hand is this: is some content too serious/vulgar/offensive/real to ever be successfully portrayed in a video game? Now, of course, that depends on my definition of successful. I’m sure you could argue any game containing any content can be successful (successful in getting people to play it, people to talk about it, and so on). Here is specifically what I’m after: can you make a point about how awful something is while depicting it in a game. For example, can I make a game where you get points by hitting women in order to show how wrong it is to hit women? Can I make a game where I am a slave owner and win the game by beating my slaves whose point is to show the atrocities of slavery?
I don’t know if that’s possible. And I have a good example.
There was an article on RockPaperShotgun recently talking about a game called Striptease (gee, I can’t see how this can end badly). In the game you participate in the objectification and sexual assault of women. Now, there are moments in the game that are clearly meant as a critic of the objectification of women. For example, as you can see in the image, there is a level where a women wearing stripping clothing is jumbled into pieces, and you have to put her back together. Now, this can very easily be seen as a critique of the way we dismantle women to their parts in order to objectify them and treat them as if they aren’t whole people. But the problem is that it’s still a game. Your objective is to still put them together and then take their clothes off. So what is it really critiquing?
Once you hit level three, you’re presented again with the object of your voyeurism, Candy, but this time she is completely naked and covered in bruises. Your mission now is to put her clothes back on and try to figure out who sexually assaulted her. The writer of the RockPaperShotgun article writes, “Striptease is a sensitively complex way to explain how women’s bodies are treated as commodities, and how value is measured and placed upon them at a purely cosmetic level. Usually games are very quick to offer up both men and women as objects that can be beaten up, but rarely if ever is the woman’s point of view represented on this violence, which is the crucial way in which the gender treatment differs. Women are never afforded the reins to their pathos. Male characters get revenge or important dialogue, some sort of narrative bluster. Male characters might get angry about the way that women are treated on their behalf, but rarely are women allowed to have their own anger.” I agree with the general sentiment of her perspective, but I’m not sure Striptease accomplishes this. It’s still the player, not Candy who has the voice and the power. She is still subjected to the code that seals her fate to be abused by the mystery person over and over and over. What agency does she have?
The game designer, Increpare, creates a scenario where the player enjoys the objectification of Candy and then forces them to face the consequences of a system that objectifies women. This is freaking cool. It’s certainly not done perfectly, but it’s at least some sort of acknowledgement that the objectification of women in life and in games has dire consequences. But I still have huge reservations about making a game out of these situations. Letting someone “win” for assaulting or objectifying a woman, even if that victory is short lived, seems like something that can never really have a happy ending. What do y’all think?
