Critical Damage: Quit Pretending There Isnt A Videogame Rape Culture

A powerful essay, for the next time I teach Videogame Culture and Theory. (Some salty language ahead.)

So the Hitman Absolution trailer. Do I have a problem with the existence of female assassins? No. Do I have a problem with female assassins dressing up as nuns? No. Do I have a problem with Agent 47 killing females dressed up as nuns in self-defence? No. What I have a problem with, what you should have a problem with, is that these aren’t just ‘women assassins dressed as nuns’. These are women designed and dressed by the trailer’s producer (probably a male) to look (a male version of) sexy while another male (Agent 47) bashes the shit out of them all while other males (the imagined gamer at home) watches on. It is pretty telling that the opening of the trailer is the manly man getting dressed for the encounter while the sexualised women get undressed for it. You, the viewer that the trailer’s creator assumes is male, are meant to think these women are sexy, that their naughty-nun costumes and their giant bosoms and stripper heels are sexually appealing while Agent 47 exerts his male dominance over them, while he puts them in their place. Oh? You think you are powerful assassins? No. You are foolish little girls. Here, see how a real man assassin puts you in your place. No, he doesn’t ‘literally’ rape them, but a male forced these (fictional) women to act in a way males would find them sexy while another male did violence to them. That is teaching women their place. That is fucked up. That is rape culture.

Critical Damage: Quit Pretending There Isnt A Videogame Rape Culture.