The Lyudmila Project

Video games are finally moving out of the basement.  No longer limited to niche groups and spaces, video games are now a part of everyday life.  With over a half a billion people playing worldwide, and 183 million people playing in the United States, video games, at least from a numbers standpoint, have achieved the status of being a mainstream activity and medium.  And with this large-scale success, come new challenges.

As video games seek to establish itself as being more than just a technological diversion and escape, but also as an art form capable of new forms of expression, in addition to being an industry with the same cache as other media, new criticisms and questions have arisen.  Chief among these is why video games continue to be perceived as being the territory and pursuit of young men under the age of 30, while all signs and research point to the contrary.  So why is it that video games, even with their mainstream success, are still stuck with this stigma?  One of the answers to this is simply misogyny.

Misogyny is one of the largest issues which has been raised regarding video games and it can be seen in the sexist attitudes and behaviors which permeate gaming culture.  These not only pervade the games themselves, but also the people who play them.  It is therefore the purpose of this project to, as gamers, reveal, discuss and challenge the misogynistic aspects of video game culture.

Many examples of misogyny in video games are explicit and easily identified, especially in the games themselves.  Games such as the Soulcalibur series, Dead or Alive series, and countless others feature clear examples of objectified women.  These series feature characters that represent an impossible physical ideal while also positioning them as sexual eye candy for the player.  While these issues are the most obvious, the problem runs much deeper.

In gaming there is an incredible disparity between the number male leads to female leads.  On top of this already existing gap, there is the additional problem that many of the female protagonists that do exist in video games are sexualized and objectified in ways that their male counterparts are not.  Cate Archer, the main character of No One Lives Forever, is depicted wearing a skintight body suit while John Jack is depicted with standard clothing.  This difference in the depictions of protagonists immediately starts off female leads in a different position than male ones, due to the fact that they start off having to deal with being objectified.

While the industry problem of objectified depictions of women is quite clear, and can easily be seen and used to explain the perception of video games being a male interest, it does not answer the question fully.  In order to fully understand and grasp the issue of misogyny in video games, one must also deal with the culture and attitudes of the people who play the games.

This atmosphere of misogyny in gaming is the most likely reason why non-gamers perceive video games as a male pursuit and why many females seemingly show no interest in traditional video games and their online counterparts, especially in the genres of first person shooters and online gaming.  Exceptionally hostile and vocal male gamers who create an unwelcoming experience for others populate these two genres, especially in their online forms.

In video gaming, players who view gamespace as a male domain that has no room for women attack from women both within and outside of the game.  Hostile attitudes and comments such as these help to not only reinforce the notion of video games being a juvenile male pursuit, but also make it near impossible for female gamers to be a part of the community.

As video gamers who wish to combat these issues and inequalities, it is through this project that we hope to help video games shed their juvenile reputation and culture and to one day reach its full potential as a medium.  This project seeks to reveal the misogynistic actions and attitudes of some male gamers, to illuminate the experience of female gamers, and to address the issue of how women are depicted in video games.  These problems are addressed through a variety of artistic means, which include print, video, and the web. 

In the prints, famous women from throughout history are depicted with quotes about women and women in games overlaid on top of them.  These women represent myriad different notions of success, importance, and influence while contributing to society in such areas as science, culture, business, and many others. Additionally, by using examples of women from different backgrounds, cultures, professions, and eras, it bolsters the argument these women represent a trend that exists throughout history, rather than simple isolated examples.  Thus by juxtaposing the importance and success of these women with the comments, the prints stand as a refutation of the misogynistic attitudes and comments made regarding women. 

The video portion of this project seeks to recreate the experience of female gamers online by creating an immersive experience.  The video features a female protagonist, that of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper of all time, in a first person shooter.  As the video progresses, comments regarding both female protagonists and female gamers begin to invade the gamespace, slowly obscuring the screen and changing the nature of the gameplay.  By combining a female lead and the experiences of female gamers, the video immerses the viewer.  It is through this immersive experience that it becomes possible to translate the experience of being a female gamer into a form that allows others to understand and empathize with those experiences.

Lastly, the website stands as both an archive of the works produced for this project and as a portal to explore the issue of misogyny in video game culture further.  By creating a web presence, the goal is to not only move these works and issues into the mainstream consciousness, but to also foster discussion, analysis, resolution of these problems.

At the beginning of this project, we set out to address the misogynistic issues we saw in video game culture.  By illuminating and discussing these issues through artistic and critical means, we hope to help video games grow and mature and to no longer be defined by misogynistic attitudes and designs.  Only by tackling and dealing with these problems can video games achieve recognition as a legitimate creative and artistic medium.

Lyudmila Project