Convention season is underway and as the E3, one of the biggest gaming conventions of the year, and its hype slowly dies down, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about booth babes. For those not in the know, booth babes are models who are hired to accompany a booth, product, or display in order to promote the product even if their presence there is entirely unrelated to it. They’re often dressed in little or tight clothing plastered with company logos and serve literally to draw the eye of the gaze of potential male customers. These living advertisements are frequent topics within the feminist gaming community, and in an effort to not beat a dead horse, I thought I’d present my angle as someone who once actually fantasized as being one.
Even before I seriously considered pursuing a career in the gaming industry I would watch the live streams and broadcasts of E3 and fantasize about having the opportunity to attend. I wanted a chance to be able to be there to experience the latest in games and technology, to get my hands on some demos and witness the new announcements, and to just generally soak up the environment of a group of people who all share one of my biggest interests. And even now it’s still a fantasy of mine. I definitely still drool over the idea of being there, maybe even moreso now than before, and for good reason I think.
But when I was in high school and even middle school eagerly absorbing any coverage I could get the only way I really saw myself getting there was by becoming a booth babe. They were in the heart of the action, attracting attention from industry figures and actively out on the floor. It seemed in some way an enviable position to me back then probably for the simple reason that I didn’t see any alternative. Other than the occasional female reporter or television host, they were really the only women I saw there. I knew they were being judged by their appearances but they were still there and that’s what mattered, that was more than I could picture myself being able to accomplish.
And this I think, more than the questionable outfits or possible corporatization, is where the problem really lies. Young girl gamers are presented with these images of booth babes and it’s easy for them, as it was unintentionally for me, to fall into the belief that that’s the only major role that they can play at these conventions. Their presence, whether intentional or not, sends a message that that’s what girls can amount to being in the industry rather than writers, programmers, or designers. This is not the discouraging impression that something as exciting and innovative as E3 or even the industry as a whole should be conveying to girls. We need to teach girls that they should not have to resort to being sexualized objects in order to make it to these big conventions or, for that matter, let the role women do play in the industry be demeaned by having to fight against the booth babe stigma. As a girl who once wanted to be a booth babe simply so I could be there, I think it’s our responsibility and the responsibility of the industry as a whole to make sure that girls interested in gaming careers don’t run the risk of seeing that as their only option.
