www.James-Strocel.com

Now, it’s been years since I’ve been anywhere near the video games industry, but I still like to keep up with it in an armchair capacity. One of my favorite sites by which to do this is a blog called gamesetwatch, a collection of essays and links to articles by many industry leaders. One article they had recently was a retrospective on “Time Gal”, one of those old laser disc arcade games that had animated cutscenes that you control via pressing the correct button or moving the joystick in the right way. The author, Todd Ciolek, (who also writes X-button, a fine column at the Anime News Network) pointed out that Time Gal was the first game to have a non-licensed character that players could recognize as human. He goes on to praise the game for having a heroine that was so cute and chirpy, but then there was one line that just made my head spin.

“Misogyny creeps in, of course: Time Gal’s already skimpy clothes get ripped away by T-Rexes and Fist of the North Star mutants alike, and she’ll scream about being struck on the chest or getting bitten on her partially exposed rear. Pioneers are not always proud.”

It wasn’t just what he said, it’s how he said it. Misogyny. You know, creeping in like that. Here you are, pushing through the glass ceiling, but let one of those things on your chest slip out and BOOM! There’s misogyny. The word here is written with such complacency, such blasé, that it’s almost as if the author was describing the sky as blue. To use such a powerful word as misogyny in that way tells me that he doesn’t even believe in what he says. And why should he have to? He’s only preaching the gospel truth. You can see it repeated all over the ‘net. To show women as sexual in any capacity is misogynist. That’s it. Finito. End of discussion.

When there’s an idea that becomes sacrosanct and, dare I say, unexamined, it bothers me. Untested truth is what keeps us from moving forward, making connections and seeing the greater scheme of things. This is part of a pattern I keep seeing again and again in video game criticism. Why is a scantily clad girl in a video game defined as misogyny? “How is that not misogyny!?” is not a valid answer.

Despite being male, I think I can put my liberal arts hat back on and take a crack at this one. Misogyny is the hatred of women. If a woman getting her clothes torn suggestively in a fight is misogyny, then there are a couple of assumptions at work here. The first is that this is sexual objectification, where a woman is judged by her physical attributes independent of her personality and intelligence. This is demeaning to women, and that makes it misogyny.

I have a problem with this. This also assumes that the way a woman looks and how she presents herself has nothing to do with her personal taste, her habits or the culture she comes from. It would seem that this imagery is only defined by how I see it. Big, white male me. Now this tells me that if I look at something and get a rise out of it, it immediately becomes misogynist. I am indirectly dictating what can and cannot be depicted in regards to women. It doesn’t matter if anyone else finds the game cute or funny. Is that feminist? Hell, is that even humanist?

So now that we’ve found out what misogyny is, what’s feminism? What images do game companies produce if they want to be forward-thinking and catch that ever-elusive female audience? Many would point to a game called Portal. It’s about a battle between a sarcastic computer and Chell, a barely seen female protagonist in a formless jumpsuit with no dialog, no expression, and no personality. She is seen as the perfect feminist archetype, as opposed to blond-haired traitors like Super Mario’s Princess Peach. Of course, this can’t explain why Peach herself has female fans all over the world and why her own game, Super Princess Peach, has sold over a million copies.

That, my friends, is why we can’t have compelling video game characters. This is why we live in a video game world populated by bald space marines and sullen amazonian axe-murderers. When we intentionally wall off a part of human nature, we blind ourselves to potential avenues of creativity. A specific, easily recognizable character can make the difference between millions of dollars in revenue and billions.

Image provided by http://www.abbotsford-real-estate.info/

My vote has been counting for a lot this year. We had a federal election last month, a civic election yesterday and we’ll have a provincial election this May. It goes without saying that the local sign makers are ecstatic. During the grand to-do of the US presidential election, there have been many grumblings on forums that we Canadians don’t have to deal with politicians who think The Flintstones was a documentary and other such nonsense. In Abbotsford, the town I grew up in and where I have chosen to live, the situation is a little different.

I would like to direct your attention to an organization called Abbotsford Families United. If you click the preceding link, you’ll be taken to their voting guide for the civic election which they e-mailed to anyone who signed up for their newsletter. You may notice these candidates are not chosen for their ability to run the city, but for their “strong stance” on homosexuals, sex shows and casinos. Never mind about the homeless on the streets or that school classes are overcrowded, if we don’t elect these candidates, as they claim, “You can expect to see pro-homosexual indoctrination right down to the kindergarten level in the public schools starting next year.” Yeah, you know, because if we allow that into the curriculum, how are teachers supposed to fit that in between classes on burning witches and oh, I don’t know, learning how to READ and WRITE!?

Luckily, this group’s choice for mayor didn’t come within spitting distance of winning the election. That honor went to George Peary, an man I’ve known to display capability and integrity in every position he’s taken. However, 4 out of the 5 council members and all of the school trustees in that voting guide were elected to office.

I find myself thinking about how California and several other states just passed measures banning gay marriage. The passage of Proposition 8 in California strikes me as a monstrous decision as I imagine it is to many Californians. Gay Marriage has become a more emotional issue for me recently. Over the past 8 months there have been many times when I’ve been sitting at home, watching TV with my wife and thinking “Yup, life is pretty close to perfect right now”. When I got married, I was able to celebrate my relationship with her in front of all my family, my friends and my community. It was, and still is, the best day of my life. If someone made a law that said that I couldn’t have that, that is was somehow wrong for us to be together, then I would break that law with a clear conscience and extreme fervor.

The Mormon Church spent over $40 million dollars to get that amendment passed, but it all had to start somewhere. Civic and school board elections may seem small in comparison to the break-neck races at the national level, but they are all vitally important to preserving our freedom. I shouldn’t have to tell you that even now people are literally dying for the right to elect their leaders and control their destinies. We will always have a section of society that believes order is achieved through fear, cruelty and dominance. Sometimes all it takes is one seat, one election for them to gain a foothold in the halls of power. So next time your local paper is full of candidates you have never heard of, take the time to learn about them, and for heaven’s sake, vote! Abbotsford Families United cannot claim a monopoly on all values. We all have values of one kind or another, and the only way we can honor those values is if express them in the leaders we elect.

In case you didn’t know it was the 21st century, America has just elected Barack Obama, the first African-American President. Personally, I think this turn of events benefits everyone, even Non-Americans like me. It isn’t going to matter exactly what kind of President he is, the fact that Obama got elected the way he did is enough to rewrite the playbook on political campaigns. A vivid and compelling vision of your city, province or country is a requirement for any run for office. Now that we have the internet, that vision can be as vivid and compelling as you want. You can have as much information out there as you want, and the candidate with the most information wins. This increases voter confidence and energizes your core base. Early statistics place US voter turnout at 70-80 percent. Forget that there is a black US president, that number is an even greater achievement!

However, since Canada’s relationship with the US still resembles that of a humpback whale and a cluster of barnacles, a change in regime should always be a concern. The US Ambassador warned the Fraser institute that Canada will miss Bush if Obama wins the election. I’m sure we will miss Bush just as much as that lovely 30% duty he decided to put on our softwood lumber exports.

Obama’s site says that he will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to change NAFTA in such a way that benefits America’s workers. The campaign promise is vague in a way that’s unsettling. Is he appealing to his democrat base, or is this a vision of things to come? Of course, there are also elements within Canada that believe we got the raw deal on NAFTA. Perhaps if all parties meet on the basis of a shared distrust of the agreement, some common ground can be found and a better NAFTA will result.

No matter what Obama’s actions as president we’ll be, it’s a sure bet that he will think of his own people first. We should ask nothing less of our own parliament. However, we should take solace in the fact that he got to where he is right now by listening to the people around him, rather than just hiding behind his talking points. Where his opponents demanded obedience, he demanded inventiveness and passion. If he invites Canada to join in his plans for the future, he will do it by trying to inspire that same inventiveness and passion. Even if he turns out to be an adversary to Canada’s interests, the only way we’ll do right by Canada is if we respond with a strong vision of Canada and our place in the world. Either way, we come out with the Canada we wish for.