Social Justice

If you are a service member on deployment or stationed overseas you may find yourself limited in the ways that you are able to spend your free time. You could spend your time doing PT (physical training), studying for exams, doing PT, maybe doing college work online, doing PT, or, if you are a gamer, spending some quality time with your console or computer and your choice of n00bs to pwn. But that can be difficult when the higher brass decides to limit what games you can purchase.

Kaos' Homefront starts with a very real line of succession, Kim Jong-Un, the actual named successor to DPRK's current dictator. Dave Votypka from Kaos describes the two Koreas as the fourth largest military power in the world and one of the most technologically advanced countries in existence, explaining that this is the foundation of the future history that they have engineered. While I love the idea of a First-Person Shooter that doesn't have the U.S. attacking some ambiguous foreign power overseas, I am wary of using real-time events to create another panic based on Korean mistrust.

One of these things is not like the other...

Many game designers and developers deliver games that meet the minimal requirements to make me happy, but there are certain game delivery elements that always ruin it for me. The lack of diversity in many games is one of these, and I often see it when I walk down the store aisle or rummage through my collection...

I often have trouble discussing my observations of social justice themes in various entertainment media with people. Usually I find that people take issue with my wanting to look further into a topic that they are enjoying, and if I criticize or attempt to dissect it, I must be attacking their hobby or even them personally for enjoying something because I find fault in that particular movie, TV show, or game. But why would I spend so much time criticizing something that I myself don't enjoy?

The false dichotomy dividing "good" and "evil" into groups represented by light and dark goes back further than my first memories of seeing The Empire Strikes Back at the drive-in. It is a way of looking at the world around us and packing things into neat little boxes, and it has enveloped our popular culture and our mythology. How does this affect the way some people consume video games?

Despite the fact that, according to the ESA, gamers are about 40% women and girls (to be really general), it doesn't seem that the world of developers and marketers has caught on terribly to these stats. Or to many things, actually.

Oh, Pickaxe Pete, the times we spent together!

Video games have long been a fascinating escape for me. I've never been and can not now be what one would consider a "hardcore" gamer, but ever since I received my first gaming system—a hand-me-down Magnavox Odyssey²—I've enjoyed games as a way to get away. It hasn't been until recently that I've had the privilege to apply the lens of social justice to my favorite escape.

The time has come, gentle readers, to say farewell, because every good contract must draw to an end, and this is the end of mine. I have really appreciated the opportunity to interact with all of you over the last two months, and I think we've had some excellent, if sometimes contentious, discussions.

It's clear that a lot of readers started thinking in new ways, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to read, comment, email, link, discuss offsite, or do all of the above. My goal with this series was to challenge dominant narratives in pop culture discourse and feminism, and I'd like to think that as each of you settles down in the next few weeks, months, years, to listen to a new album, crack open a freshly released book, watch a television pilot, this series will trickle through to you. You'll think not just about the depiction of women, but other issues, like race, fat, disability, class, sexual orientation, transgender identities.