University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2013 SAVING PRINCE PEACH: A STUDY OF “GAYMERS” AND DIGITAL LGBT/GAMING RHETORICS M. William MacKnight University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation MacKnight, M. William, "SAVING PRINCE PEACH: A STUDY OF “GAYMERS” AND DIGITAL LGBT/GAMING RHETORICS" (2013). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 135. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/135 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SAVING PRINCE PEACH: A STUDY OF “GAYMERS” AND DIGITAL LGBT/GAMING RHETORICS BY M. WILLIAM MACKNIGHT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH (RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION) UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF M. WILLIAM MACKNIGHT APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: Major Professor: Libby Miles Mike Pennell Ian Reyes Nasir Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 ABSTRACT This study looks at the tensions surrounding the inclusion and increasing presence of LGBT performances within video games, their surrounding industry and culture, and their related internetworked cyberspaces – an assemblage referred to in this research as the “game-sphere.” By analyzing the rhetorical activity performed within a specific LGBT game cyberspace (the Reddit subforum r/gaymers), this study offers insight into gaming and LGBT culture by answering the following research question: What rhetorical action is performed by LGBT video game players within r/gaymers? Data were collected over a period of two weeks, wherein screen-captures were taken and saved twice a day at 10:00 am and pm. These screen-captures consisted of 1) the front page of the subforum, 2) the “direct thread” multi-media images that were hyperlinked to the threads' titles, and 3) the discussions page of each unique thread. 543 unique threads were captured in this method. In order to organize and analyze the data, three theoretical frameworks – networks, queertext, and games – were employed in order to frame r/gaymers in terms of their rhetorical acts of transformation, resistance, and play, respectively. These actions were selected for in data collection, as they represented significant rhetorical exigencies concerned with each LGBT, writing, and game perspectives. Many of these transformations, resistances and play-acts reflect the current landscape of LGBT gaming. This study concludes that these rhetorics negotiate current tensions between heteronormative and queer ideologies, including the gendering of LBGT cyberspaces, the hypersexualization of bodies within their own discourse, the perceptions of “queer” representations present in both Japanese and western games, and the evolving discourse on contemporary gay performativity. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This journey began ten years ago upon meeting my Major Professor, Dr. Libby Miles, and I am thrilled to finally be able to acknowledge her essential role in its completion. Her vast expertise and knowledge was an unremitting asset to my career and learning. Although I am forever grateful for her intellectual contributions to this and all of my scholarship, it is her unwavering support and confidence in me over all these long years that I will always remember as the high point of my time at the University of Rhode Island. She has been more than a mentor to me, but a genuine friend whose support has enriched my life. I am grateful also to my committee, Mike Pennell, Ian Reyes, Robert Schwegler, and Karen de Bruin, for their patience and their scholastic excellence, who in no small part contributed to the conception and execution of this study. Thanks also goes to Donna Hayden of the WRT department, who would regularly perform administrative miracles with the characteristically humble slogan, “It’s our job.” I also wish to thank my sister, Meridith, whose love and commiseration have kept me strong throughout this whole process. Our similarities notwithstanding, I will always be grateful for how close our individual paths kept us, for it was a constant source of humor, sympathy, and warmth. I thank my parents, William and Bethanna, whose limitless support and unconditional love have made this endeavor possible. As Gibran wrote, I am the arrow which has found its mark thanks to their awesome and loving aim. I share this victory with them. iv Finally, I wish to acknowledge my husband, Scott – my Samwise. There are more of your tracks on this path than mine, my love. You carried me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................ vi LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1................................................................................................................. 1 INCREASING PRESENCE OF LGBT REPRESENTATION IN CYBERSPACE ................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2............................................................................................................... 30 JAPAN’S CANONICAL INFLUENCE, AND ITS RECEPTION.................. 30 CHAPTER 3............................................................................................................... 65 METHODOLOGY........................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 4............................................................................................................... 86 FINDINGS: TRANSFORMATION, RESISTANCE, PLAY .............................. 86 CHAPTER 5............................................................................................................. 123 CONCLUSION: CURRENT LANDSCAPE OF DIGITAL LGBT/QUEER TENSIONS .................................................................................................... 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................... 154 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE Figure 1. The Front Page …………………………………………………………… 11 Figure 2. Juul’s Formal Game Definition ……………………………………..…… 26 Figure 3. The Anime Eye …………………………………………………………... 41 Figure 4. Cloud and Sephiroth Doujinshi ……………………………………..…… 59 Figure 5. r/gaymers Front Page; June 4, 10:00 pm ………………………………… 87 Figure 6. Rainbow Road …………………………………………………………… 95 Figure 7. “Outing” Squirtle ………………………………………………………… 95 Figure 8. Gay Icons ……………………………………………………………....… 98 Figure 9. “Shipping” Captain America and Hawkeye ……………………………. 100 Figure 10. Transformation Ship ………………………………………...………… 101 Figure 11. Tarzan, Prince of Heart …………………………………………….….. 102 Figure 12. Rescuing a Prince ………………………………………………...…… 104 Figure 13. The Kraken ……………………………………………………………. 106 Figure 14. Miss Mego’s Rebuttal …………………………………………………. 109 Figure 15. Soul Calibur’s Ivy ……………………………………………………... 127 Figure 16. GTAV …………………………………………………….…………….. 128 Figure 17. Lollipop Chainsaw ...........................................................................…... 131 Figure 18. Female Cast of Firefly ………………………………………………… 133 Figure 19. Naruto’s and Sasuke’s First and Second Kiss …………………………. 139 vii FIGURE PAGE Figure 20. Continued from fig. 19 ………………………….…………………….. 139 Figure 21. Sarkeesian’s Vision ……………………………………………………. 148 viii CHAPTER 1 INCREASING PRESENCE OF LGBT REPRESENTATION IN CYBERSPACE In February 2012, when in-game scenes were leaked to YouTube depicting the main character of BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 choosing gay relationship options, a backlash within the Mass Effect fan-base arose. Although the sexual content of the scenes was essentially limited to two men in underwear cuddling, the number of “dislikes” on the clip initially skyrocketed, to various comments such as: “Shepard was my hero, now my eyes are bleeding”; “I GOTTA VOMIT”; “… homosexuality is just a way to weed out the weak, and useless. Sorry fags but the men get to procreate, and you homos can sit in the corner playing with your skirts and make-up,”; etc., (Mass Effect 3 – Shepard and Cortez, 2012). Such comments – and the responses which challenged them – continue to play out on the page (over 2500 comments at the time of viewing) and highlight a growing controversy within the medium: the growing inclusion of and resistance to LGBT presence within video games. In his discussion regarding the analysis of cultural artifacts such as video games, Ken McAlister (2004), in Game Work; Language Power and Computer Game Culture, argued that any such analysis must account for the reciprocal tension of how rhetoric works through and on producers, consumers, and the technology in question. In other words, research must look at and beyond the artifact in question to the points of contention in which it is involved and the cultural, socio-political, industrial, and 1 personal transformations it influences. This, McAllister refered to as the “so-what” question of such research; that game