The Finale: “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here.”

In “Dressing Commander Shepard in Pink: Queer Playing in a Heteronormative Game Culture,” the

Week 7: “In video games, heteronormativity manifests on two levels — within their content (including fiction and system rules), and in the performance of gameplay.”

Week 5: “Acts of altruism are repeatedly presented in heavily gendered ways that are bound up in harmful myths about women as perpetual victims and men as paternalistic saviors.”

Week 10: “Boys will be boys, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

Not in the Kitchen Anymore reminded me why I never play with my microphone on when I play MMOs and why I go to great lengths to hide my true identity (i.e. I hide the fact that I am a woman) when I play those types of games. I am completely…

Week 8: “Even a game with queer characters, queer plotlines, and queer approaches to game design can be recast by players resistant to diversity.”

Before this class, I never really questioned representation and diversity in video…

Week 2: “Video game characters are just functional cursors for players to manipulate.”

Week 11: “All things being equal, and even when they are not, if the computer — or life — assigns you the “Straight White Male” difficulty setting, then brother, you’ve caught a break.”

Week 1: The Beginning

I had always grown up believing that I was incapable of playing Kingdom Hearts. I am obsessed with Disney, so I loved watching my older brother play Kingdom Hearts’ beautiful storyline, but after playing the game myself, I honestly believe that Kingdom Hearts was created with gamers of…

Week 3: “Female sprites…[are]… trophies for the active, typically “male” sprites.”

Robert Mejia and Barbara LeSavoy discuss how in the Atari 2600 “gender and sexuality emerged from character interaction as opposed to representation” (87). While the female characters in…

Week 4: “[V]ideo games glorify violence towards and objectif[y] women and perpetuat[e] a crass view of sexuality.”

I know that it is only the fourth week of playing, but Kingdom Hearts has left me feeling hopeless and defeated after every gaming…