Anita

Title: Too Many Dicks - Video Games
Vidder: seedling
Song: Flight of the Conchords
Fandoms: Video Games
Summary: There are too many dicks on the dance floor
Download links coming soon



I finished my first vid/remix (kind of a cross over of the two) anyway, I'm super excited about it. I was actually inspired by sloanesomething's Dance Floor vid, I loved how she subverted the sexist Flight of the Conchords song to illustrate the male dominance in the new Star Trek movie and I think it can be applied to many fandoms and various types of media.

Thanks to Becca Marcus and laurashapiro for beta-ing and also Jonathan McIntosh for his meticulously detailed suggestions throughout the creation process.

It is no secret that most video games star overly muscular men often carrying big swords, guns, baseball bats, chainsaws and other phallic weaponry. Many of these games normalize a macho masculinity and glorify war and the military. They especially celebrate grotesque displays of violence. Few popular games provide any opportunity for creative non-violent forms of conflict resolution and with the ever growing graphic technology, the blood and gore seem to look more and more real. And now with first person shooter games, players can really experience the destruction and gore up close and personal.

Not only are these games dominated by male characters but even the few women characters who get staring roles are replicating the overly patriarchal, violent, macho behaviour all wrapped up in a hyper sexualized body. I specifically used clips from two games that help to counter this male dominance: Portal a game of strategy and Mirror's Edge which stars a woman of color in a dystopian future.

Not surprisingly the vast majority of game producers, designers and writers are men. To put it simply, there are too many dicks on the dance floor!

For a list of the games used visit my website.

I have been busy organizing this great event coming up in March at California State University, Northridge. If you live in or are visiting the Los Angeles area you should come out and watch some of the most intriguing remix videos that subvert traditional gender and sexuality norms. The videos will be curated and presented by Julie Levin Russo, Alexis Lothian and Jonathan McIntosh. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the curators. Special thanks to laurashapiro who consulted on the event.

Political Remix Video is a genre of transformative guerilla media production whereby creators challenge dominant media messages through re-cutting and re-framing fragments of mainstream media and popular culture. Fan videos or “vids” set remixed footage from TV shows or movies to music. They are often used to subvert the traditional canon or tell an alternative story. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at anita [at] feministfrequency.com

Speakers:
Julie Levin Russo (Stanford) and Alexis Lothian (USC)
Jonathan McIntosh, creator of Buffy vs Edward
Hosted by Anita Sarkeesian (FeministFrequency.com)

Location and Time info:
Thursday March 25, 2010 at 12:30pm
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330
Armer Theater, Manzanita Hall, Rm 100

See the facebook event page here. To view enlarged flyer image click here.

I only have one thing to say (or rather ask) about this episode of lost

( Read more... )

Okay I'll admit it, Dollhouse made me cry, and I definitely was not expecting that.
( Random Season 2 Thoughts )

( Random Thoughts about Epitaph II )

As I'm getting more and more into my MRP I wished I had taken more detailed notes on the shows I've watched. I usual transcribe especially juice lines but I don't often do recaps with my thoughts on them... so for future reference, to compile my thoughts, especially for vlogging purposes I think I'm gonna start doing that here.

I'd love to here what other folks are thinking about these shows, whether you agree with my thoughts or not. I'm hoping that talking through these specifics helps make our critical analysis stronger.

I actually didn't hate these last two episodes of Dollhouse "Stop-Loss" and "The Attic"

Randomly quick thoughts:

I found it to be quite interesting and exploratory, I wish the show had started out this dynamic instead of incredibly offensive and/or dull at every turn. Big drawbacks of the entire season previous to now was a total lack of discussion about how fucked up the dollhouse was, and some would argue otherwise but I don't think small comments here and there are sufficient when dealing with violence against woman. Also having us feel sympathy with the people running the dollhouse from the beginning was a bit much. Now having them sort of band together, I appreciate but that does not make running that nonconsentual brothel acceptable. What the writers have done is make something bigger and badder then what they are doing by running the LA dollhouse which makes it seem like they have struggled with the morality of the work and are fighting against it... but so far, they haven't said that the coersion and renting out of bodies is a bad thing, just the "extra" steps that Rossum has gone. So that is troubling still.... but, even with that, it's still going somewhere interesting.

I also didn't think Eliza Dushku was a strong enough actor to play the starring role but I feel like giving her a more dynamic character has provided her a lot more to work with and she is growing Echo into a really strong character.

New Vlog is up - The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies

You can watch it at my website (and see all the great links to other articles and blogs) or watch the embed below!

If you enjoy my videos, please share them, Thanks!

( See embed under cut )

The Real Reason Guys Should Hate Twilight

Here is an easy to follow guide for the guys on the right versus the wrong reasons to hate on Twilight. With the release of New Moon, there has been an awful lot of sexist, homophobic, patriarchal crap floating around the internet and I just wanted to set the record straight.

So, I'm gonna give Firefly another chance... I've had a handful of folks tell me I need to watch it in the "correct" order and not the way it was aired.

So is this the correct order?

1. Serenity (pilot)
2. The Train Job
3. Bushwacked

and so on?

Okay... so now with a total reconstruction of this vid most of the scenes don't correlate with the music... It feels very weird. This is supposed to be fun right?