So, Electronic Arts makes a game.
1. To advertise this game, which is some riff off of Dante's Inferno, they craft a series of publicity stunts around the various circles of Hell and sins and so on/so forth. One of these involves a comic book convention, Comic-Con, where EA tells horny guys people to take photos of themselves next to "booth babes" and send it their way for the chance to win an expenses-paid night on the town.
(Okay, they tell people to commit "acts of lust" against female employees on the clock, whether they work for EA or not, in order to win a "sinful night with two hot girls.")
3. EA comes back with a not-apology that they weren't implying anyone ought to demean or molest women, that they spek english good and it was just a simple misunderstanding on your part that you didn't understand their clever word play.
Having just done a whole circuit over the GLAAD thing reminding people that it's not just the LGBT community that's harassed in video games and online communities, EA could not have made the point for me any better. Although it's pretty abysmal that this story came not a week after they hosted a panel on said issue, trying to make the argument that they were above such sophomoric behavior.
Sadly, much the same as a large percentage of feedback on the GLAAD issue, common consensus seems to be that it's the fault of the female employees at these events for putting their breasts in harm's way. This mentality has been infuriating me, mostly because of the determined effort of others to put the blame on the person exploited, harassed or victimized for being in that situation to begin with. A discouraging majority of comments specific to the EA thing have boiled down to proclaiming if women don't want to be groped or sexually assaulted at comic conventions, they shouldn't work at them. Right behind that argument is the dismissal that these things are just how they are because gamers are hormone-addled, sex-deficient, socially-maladjusted idiots so move on, nothing to be done about it.
The last part I'm having a lot of trouble understanding. It's mostly coming in the same breath as statements calling this behavior inexcusable, but then they trot out the penultimate excuse to validate their opinion. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't resemble an oversexed drooling idiot who loses control of my mental faculties the moment I'm in the presence of a woman. But this keeps coming up, whether people are dismissing complaints about sexist or homophobic behavior in virtual communities, or pointing out situations like this where those anti-social activities bridge into the real world. It's your own fault if you get gay bashed online, if you didn't want it you shouldn't have said you were gay. It's your fault if you're sent sexually explicit messages (or groped in public), if you didn't want it you should have kept that you're a woman to yourself, or skipped the comic convention. Right? What's to be done when the companies involved in these boneheaded decisions can't even man up enough to make a proper apology about it? Oh I forgot, they picked the gay guy's picture, so everything's cool.
I don't particularly like these guys being my spokesperson. At a certain point the people who keep reiterating stereotypes of the worst of the internet or video games or comic book conventions need to stop throwing their hands in the air and proclaiming what's done is done; that sort of behavior is only punishing the people who speak out against this stuff. It doesn't hurt the idiots who act badly, but dismissing criticism against them creates a shelter they're free to act like asshats under.
Possibly Related Posts:
Infinity Ward's PSA is brought to you by "FAGS"
Homophobia, sexism, racism and online games
Summarizing opposition to LGBT players in MMOGs
The real failure of gay rights
Suspect charged in horrific murder of Puerto Rican gay teen
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Samantha
30 Jul 2009 · 1:47 AM Samantha[quote this]
I love this. In fact your entire blog is awesome.
Adri
30 Jul 2009 · 2:41 AM Adri[quote this]
The shit of it is, Comic Con is not a male-dominated space.
That having been said, while our society has come a long way in terms of things like recognizing rape EXISTS, that sexual harassment isn't flattering, and that women have a right to non-hostile workplaces, it still puts the burden of enforcing these things on the women. We don't teach our boys NOT to harass women, we teach women how to avoid it (don't dress slutty, don't go there, don't smile too much, but don't smile too little, either). This is fucking bullshit.
I've really been enjoying your posts lately. When are you and Adam coming to SF?
Joshua Meadows
30 Jul 2009 · 2:46 AM Joshua Meadows[quote this]
<3 Adri.
Traveling is such a pain right now with the whole GLOBAL FINANCIAL ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE thing. Adam and I had originally intended to be in the US for the SLCC and the SL Tea Party things, but both with it being several thousand dollars to get out of Australia now along with our waning interests in SL (and my hatred of flying) we've scrapped it. I still want to attend the Austin games conference one of these days though.