Gender and Intersectionality in Video games

For this task we were told to take note of 2/3 links that were provide on the presentation sheet and to relate them to a game of our choosing.   

Peggy McIntosh - White Privilege and Male Privilege:

I must acknowledge that this paper is dated now but this does not mean that what is written in this paper has no relation still today, it still does hold great relevance to this present day and unfortunately most likely for a while longer. Still many people to this day are uneducated about the rights of people's privileges. Many games and films still portray the protagonist as a white male who is most of the time, good looking, straight and powerful. The only film that I can say that I have seen recently that has not got a white protagonist is probably the new Star wars film, one of the main characters in this film is dark skinned. Unfortunately I remember reading that some people were complaining about his skin colour. In video games this is still a problem like I mentioned above about characters that are shown as males with white skin. Some examples of games that show this are games such as, the last of us, Uncharted and The witcher games. The only game that I can say that I have played recently that does have a dark skinned character is Franklin in GTA 5, were you can play as this character just as well as the other two white male characters, even though in the past with this series it has not had the best representation with its privileges.

Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: 

I would class this article very dated now, still parts are very relevant. As we see today which is still a topic that does get spoken about especially with women is how women are objectified, and to this day with games and films it is still a problem that has not been put right. A lot of AAA games portray the women in the games for something for the male to gaze at, short skirts, busty tops that pretty much show a lot of flesh. The white males in these games or films use the women mostly a mere sex objects or to fight/save in the story, Women characters are not classed as important for the story they could be mere pieces of the scenery. The witcher series a very popular game that many love, I included. It is known for its sex scenes with many female characters especially two of the main women characters Yen and Triss. I must admit that I do enjoy the witcher games especially its characters that includes its women characters. The relationship within Geralt and either Yen or Triss is something that I am happy with both are classed as powerful sorceress, but I don't agree that the character Geralt can have sex with prostitutes in game on the side, it reminds me of the GTA series when you can pick up a prostitute in your car. This makes the women characters have less of a meaning and are there just for entertainment.