Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games

Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 10-2-2020 1:00 PM Exquisite Corpses: Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games Meghan Blythe Adams, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Boulter, Jonathan, The University of Western Ontario : Faflak, Joel, The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English © Meghan Blythe Adams 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Other Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Adams, Meghan Blythe, "Exquisite Corpses: Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7414. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7414 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation analyzes gendered death animations in video games and the way games thematize death to remarginalize marked characters, including women. This project combines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s work on the human subjection to death and Georges Bataille’s characterization of sacrifice to explore how death in games stages markedness. Markedness articulates how a culture treats normative identities as unproblematic while marking non-normative identities as deviant. Chapter One characterizes play as a form of death-deferral, which culminates in the spectacle of player-character death. I argue that death in games can facilitate what Hegel calls tarrying with death, embracing our subjection to mortality. I examine marked and unmarked player-character death to explain how deaths endorse values like resilience. However laudable those values are, they often rely on sexist assumptions and imagery that crucially limit games’ potential to encourage tarrying with death. Chapter Two uses Bataille’s concept of sacrifice to frame the relationship between the player as a sacrificer and the player-character as a victim. Applying Bataille’s model of sacrifice to explicitly feminine player-characters shows how games continue to characterize feminine-coded vulnerability, suffering, and death as aesthetic spectacles. I examine the iconic player- character Lara Croft from Tomb Raider as a “sacrificial woman” whose marked deaths reflect mainstream game cultures’ lingering tendency to see women through the lens of the ‘damsel in distress,’ who must be rescued from sacrifice. Even when those women are player-characters, traces of the damsel mark and undercut their agency. Chapter Three examines the sex-specific depiction of sacrifice in dad games, a genre that uses heroic i fatherhood and self-sacrifice to mark the previously unmarked. Dad games draw attention to qualities like whiteness and masculinity—which typically go unmarked—to present them as under threat and in need of defence. However, this defence uses images of feminine-coded suffering to express and allay anxieties about the perceived passing of patriarchal power. Ultimately, this treatment reflects online harassment campaigns like Gamergate’s staging of women’s real-life suffering to silence progressive and alternative voices in games. Gamergate’s performative sadism is another expression of how mainstream game cultures articulate masculine anxiety through feminine-coded suffering. Keywords: game studies, death, gender, player-character, Super Mario Bros., Dark Souls, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, damsel in distress, sacrifice, dad games, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georges Bataille ii Summary for a Lay Audience This dissertation is about how player-controlled characters die in video games. These deaths reinforce gender stereotypes and remarginalize groups already treated poorly in games. These groups include women, people of colour, and anyone who does not match the ‘standard’ player, who is white, male, heterosexual, and cisgender (meaning one’s gender matches the identity assigned to them at birth). Some scholars say death in games is uninteresting or misleads impressionable players into thinking death is not real. I look at iconic, commercially successful games that assume a binary view of gender that characterizes people as only male or female. Games often present deaths differently for male and female player-characters. Historically, most player-characters have been male. Recently, many games allow the player to choose whether the player-character is male or female. However, the same games usually treat these player-characters as male by default. Those characters’ deaths have a broad emotional range: they can be funny or sad or frightening. Exclusively female player-characters are much rarer. They often die in ways that display their pain, as if the player would enjoy seeing them suffer. That presentation often extends from exclusively female player-characters to important female non-player-characters who are controlled by the game, rather than the player. I look at games in which the male player-character is also a father to a non-player-character daughter. I compare how games present the father and daughter’s pain and death. Fathers’ deaths often characterize them as stoic and strong. Daughters’ deaths theatrically display feminine pain. These ‘dad games’ use death to reinforce normative stereotypes that non-mainstream game makers and critics have started to challenge. iii It might seem obvious that video games have a serious problem with sexism. However, examining how this sexism works in death animations and game narratives helps show how game creators can change these harmful patterns. I believe that games can help players explore thoughts and feelings about death. However, game creators, particularly those in the game industry, cannot realize the potential to facilitate tarrying with death until we understand persistent problems with how the industry presents death in games and explore less harmful alternatives. iv Acknowledgements My first thanks go to my supervisor, Jonathan Boulter, for inspiring me to study games, challenging me to do good work, and providing guidance and support. I would also like to thank my second reader, Joel Faflak, for his insight and intellectual generosity. My sincere thanks to the other members of my dissertation committee, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Allan Pero, and Amanda Phillips for balancing rigor and kindness in their responses. I would never have been able to finish this project without the indefatigable support and love provided by my wonderful partner, Antonio Pezzutto. His patience, humour, and intellectual curiosity kept me going. Our family has been amazing. I have to thank my parents, Kevin and Margaret Adams, for incredible support over the years and their willingness to read so many drafts. Sincere thanks to Lucy and Don Pezzutto, for their kindness, support, and reading no few drafts themselves. Additionally, thank you to my Nana, Betty Adams, for her patience and support; the Adams-Laine family for providing joy and inspiration; the extended DiPietro family for their patient support and amazing food; and Nonna Francesca, who I dearly wish I could thank in person. I have been blessed with wonderful colleagues. I am indebted to members and alumni of UWO’s English Department, including Madison Bettle, Marc Mazur, Christine Penhale, Thy Phu, Diana Samu-Visser, Lisa Templin, Tyler Totten, Kate Traill, and Pauline Wakeham. Sincere thanks to the dynamic, supportive members of the Canadian Game Studies Association, especially Cat Goodfellow, Felan Parker, and Sonja Sapach. Additional thanks to inspiring colleagues, mentors, and friends like Betsy Brey, Shira Chess, Alison Cole, Stephanie Fisher, Emily Flynn-Jones (who encouraged me to explore v death in games), Michael Hancock, Jason Hawreliak, Todd Harper, Jen Jensen, Carolyn Jong, Jess Marcotte, Tara Ogaick, Rob Parker, Nathan Rambukkana, Bo Ruberg, Dietrich Squinkifer, Nick Taylor, Kara Stone, Gerald Voorhees, Emma Vossen, and Steve Wilcox. My sincere thanks to the staff at the D.B. Weldon Library at UWO, the McLaughlin Library at the University of Guelph, and the Port Perry Memorial Library, as well as the staff, coworkers, and volunteers at 10Carden in Guelph. Special thanks to Dr. Leslie Ritchie at UWO, without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. While completing this project, I received funding from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the SSHRC-funded “Refiguring Innovation in Games Project,” and the University of Western Ontario. This project is dedicated to my big brother, Matt Adams, who was willing to share his games (sometimes) and now gets to share with his kids. vi Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Summary for a Lay Audience ............................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. v Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ...................................................................................................................

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