GTFO (video game docuementary) analysis

According to the film, gaming culture is a toxic space for women because the typical games that are created appeal to a certain demographic - straight, white men who (unfortunately) tend to be misogynistic. These games inspire these men to then grow up to be video game developers who then make more games to appeal to even more men similar to themselves, and the cycle repeats. I agree with this film’s arguments because this trend can be seen in the workspace as a whole, and I have seen this sexism in the animation industry as well for similar reasons. With the animation industry being an older precursor to video games, I feel that it has gone through a long-term evolution that video games are only starting to go through now. Animation started out as a crude way for men to make jokes to each other, and the easiest and fastest way for humor to them was usually through cheap sexist animations. This can be seen in the rubber-hose animation phase (the precursor animation to Mickey Mouse) with animations about things like stereotyping women to outright humiliating them on the screen. The culture of both video games and animation started as a way for them to gatekeep a “boys’ club” where they could make jokes with each other and get away with being sexist towards women.

The solutions I propose to address the toxicity in gaming culture would be to encourage more AAA titles to focus more on putting women in a positive light as well as appealing to the women demographic. Maybe instead of the male hero saving the princess, the princess should actually rescue the male hero. The problem with putting female lead characters in the spotlight for games brings other problems as well though. For better or worse, it would show a game developer’s apparent sexism towards females if the female receives more screen time. This could further worsen the toxicity in gaming culture if they are sexist, or it could decrease the toxicity if they are not sexist. Indie game titles tend to be more positive towards women, but due to the sheer number of indie titles, it is hard for them to compete against other indie game titles for acknowledgement as well as compete with the usual misogynistic titles found in AAA the games category. In general, companies should try to move towards making women have more active roles in games, but it must be done in a way that does not play into sexist, stereotypical womanly tropes found currently in games.