The Lack of Diversity in Video Games: An Annotated Bibliography

“Brown Skins, White Avatars.” Edmond Chang, from KCSB News. February 2016,

https://soundcloud.com/kcsb-news-1/brown-skins-white-avatars

Professor Edmond Chang, an Assistant Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon held a talk at UC Santa Barbara on January 26, 2016. Here he spoke about the lack of representation in video games and movies, including the race and sexuality of characters. Because I was not able to attend this talk, he was interviewed at KCSB FM in Santa Barbara and gave a brief summary of what he spoke about.

This is relevant to my own research paper because he speaks about the different ways developers and gamers think about the race and sexuality of characters. He also speaks about the different ways minorities, such as blacks or Asians feel left out when it comes to representation in a form of medium they enjoy.

He also gives small solutions to fix this problem, such as bringing in minorities and LGBT people into the gaming industry. Writers are the ones who write the stories, whether they are Asian, Hispanic, gay or black. They have the power to change who the characters are in the game. If the industry is dominated by straight, white males, that’s generally who the protagonist will be of the story they write. People will write about what and who they can relate to.

This information is great to use in my paper because Professor Chang has experience in this area and understand the science behind gender and sexuality. He explains in the recent Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, some fans see the possibility of a relationship between Finn and Poe Dameron. He asks the question, “Why and who does it hurt if they are in a relationship?” He sees the problem behind what he calls “straightwashing” and how many Western cultures find that anything that deviates from the “norm”, such as a homosexual relationship, is wrong.

Saleem, Muniba. Effects of stereotypic video game portrayals on implicit and explicit

attitudes. Iowa State University, 2008.

Saleem’s findings focus on the stereotypical representation of Middle Easterners in video games. This does not only include the people of the Middle East, but it includes the land as well, pointing out the “Middle East seems to be a favorite virtual battleground.” (Saleem 6) This is important to note because we see this in many games, yet we do not acknowledge it. It is true that this is the case, especially since terrorism has become a favorite topic for many games, including Call of Duty (Activision, 2003) which has a story arc that is titled “Middle-Eastern Conflict” and Conflict: Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad (SCi, Gotham Games 2003).

Saleem writes, “In today’s generation, children play video games an average of 13 hours per week.” (Saleem 8) What we see as good versus evil in a video game may not seem like a big deal to others, however we know that media often times affects the way we think. The more people are exposed to a media, the more they will perceive it as normal. Therefore, the more Middle Easterners are portrayed as terrorists and their homes considered a battlefield, the more gamers will see real life as the same.

Alexandra Henning, Alaina Brenick, Melanie Killen, Alexander O'Connor, and Michael J.

Collins. "Do Stereotypic Images in Video Games Affect Attitudes and Behavior? Adolescent Perspectives." Children, Youth and Environments 19.1 (2009): 170-96. Web.

This study was done in 2009 to find out if stereotypical images portrayed in video games affected adolescents, specifically male and female gamers from 9^th-11^th grade. Their end results found that, “Overall, though, all participants viewed the images in the female-stereotypic games as more negative than in the male-stereotypic games. This suggests that violent and aggressive images are viewed in more positive light than are sexually exploitive images by adolescents.”

This is quite alarming that developers continue to do so, even if people of all ages are pointing this out. In my recent proposal, BioWare user Ashes_Arizona had written, “Listen… I’m a man, I’m an extremely married man, had my fill of women over my life and I’m also an artist. Its not that you’re visually offensive because it might be viewed as sexy, its that its literally crude and adolescent… So basically you have all these little crudely sexualized characters running around and BioWare profiting off the juvenile need to sexualize anything that can be sexualized. Its not just disrespectful to women…its disrespectful to art.” This is what the study has proven: that developers do not care if their portrayal of women as sexually explicit. It’s viewed as negative, even by adolescents, yet they continue to do so because it brings money in.

This is important information to note in my research paper because this can be brought up to developers. I am able to point out that studies have shown that showing women as sexual objects is seen as negative, even toward children.

Glaubke, Christina R., et al. "Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video Games."

(2001).

This study finds many issues in the gaming world, from the ineptitude of women to the lack of racial diversity in games. Glaubke finds that overall, 50% of women who are portrayed in games are bystanders who do not engage in action. (Glaubke 15) She also finds that females were seven times more likely than males to be participants. Participants are “characters that obey the commands of the player, but do not necessarily have personalities or abilities of their own.” (Glaubke 16) This is quite troubling because it shows that women are portrayed more as objects rather than a person, someone who can think and act on their own.

In addition to seeing the stereotypes and lack of females in video games, this study also analyzes stereotypes of races and ethnicities. Of the 53 heroes analyzed by the study, 46 were white. In sports games, 8 out of 10 African American competitors were the ones to engage in physical and verbal aggression. (Galubke 26) This shows that stereotypical portrayals of races are an enormous factor when creating a character of color in games.

The end result of the study is that “When they do show diversity, they often incorporate stereotyped images and roles for people of color. Rarely ever cast as champions, rescuers or heroes, their portrayals often amount to nothing more than hyper-muscularized brutes, exotic fighting machines or athletes displaying near-supernatural ability.” (Glaubke 30) This is important to note, especially in my research paper because many other studies and articles that I plan to use forget that when diversity is shown, especially in a protagonist, they are still shown in a negative light. This is similar to Bane, in the Batman: Arkham Asylum (DC Entertainment, 2009) game. He is a Latino male, who although is not a hero and is an antagonist, he is shown as a behemoth with enormous budging muscles who tries to defeat Batman through brute force while Batman (a white male) tries to defeat him with wit.

Anderson, Monica. “Views on gaming differ by race, ethnicity.” Pew Research Center. 17

December 2015. Web. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/17/views-on-gaming-differ-by-race-ethnicity/

When reading this article, a table is provided titled, “Many Americans – regardless of race or ethnicity – unsure if video games portray minorities poorly”. This shows that 100 Hispanics, whites and blacks were surveyed and asked if video games portrayed minorities poorly or not. While majority of each group said they were not sure, it is clear that Hispanics and blacks felt that video games portrayed minorities poorly the most while whites were unsure. This says a great deal about how others see minorities in games. Minorities felt that video games portrayed them poorly because they are minorities and know how they act, speak and think.

This is important to note in my research because minorities know how their cultures are, and they also know what stereotypes come with them. They also know what poor representation is, thus can spot this in video games. Developers need to understand that these poor representations in games are not seen as a good thing, but as negative in the minds of gamers.