I was struck by one of the answers given by an interviewee in Shaw's reading. When thinking of minorities in media, Ephram noted that he became frustrated with identifying with the minority position. "It just got to the point that I got tired of it. And I want to break... If I hear one more coming-of-age of a minority overcoming adversity, I'm just going to scream!" As a minority, I very much feel the same way, although I typically fear expressing this because I don't want it to be misinterpreted. I think navigating the player's identification with a minority in a videogame is a very tricky subject. It seems as though representation in media can very much fall into two dangerous categories.
The first is that a company is doing it so that they can accumulate moral capital. Companies will portray minorities in videogames because they know that as a society, we are attempting to increase and support diversity and representation in these games. However, this just objectifies minorities and makes them marketing tools rather than humans with experiences to share. A great example is how Shaw points out that Tomb Raider used Lara Croft not to appeal to female gamers, but as a way to stand out in the gaming industry. Further evidence is that the game was obviously marketed to men to play WITH Lara rather than AS her. It is easy to quickly applaud media for having a minority in it, but one must ensure that the minority is a developed character and not a tool.
The second is what Ephram described. In social psychology, the stereotype threat is a situational predicament where minorities fear conforming to their stereotypes and as a result, lower minorities' academic performance and emotional health. I believe media that is attempting to continue showing the downside of being a minority can often reinforce stereotypes. Shaw gives the example of True Crime: The Streets of L.A. and often portrays minorities as "the other side." With this, we have reduced the life a minority to just that. A minority with a hard life.
Of course, this is not true for all games. There are plenty of examples of great representation of minorities in videogames. Halo 3's Avery Johnson is a great example of representation that does not fall into these two categories. Avery Johnson was a black officer working with Master Chief. He was not a black character, but a character that just so happened to be black. Furthermore, that is not to say that there should not be games about the experiences of minorities... I am suggesting that there should be an extra level of defense before we praise a company for putting a minority into a videogame.
Very nice post. I agree with the two “dangerous” categories you mentioned – media either using minority movies to accumulate moral capital or showing solely the downside to being a minority. I feel like regardless of why they’re being made though, movies like Black Panther, Hidden Figures, etc. are still so important to people. And you are absolutely right that minorities should be involved in writing the stories. Hopefully one day diversity can just be normalized in media and there won’t even need to be a demand for representation, but for right now the only way for that to happen is for movies like Black Panther to be made.
@bagatelos Thanks for the input :) Yeah, this is a particularly tough issue right now to talk about for a few reasons. First of all, I totally agree with what you said about Black Panther. That movie would not have come about if it wasn't for the fact that diversity in media in making money. At the same time, it's hard to have open discourse about this with the public because there was a hype train of pride following this movie and it felt almost wrong to stop the joy. My friend and I were speaking about this yesterday after I wrote the blog post.
I don't think the solution is to completely rid media of these representations because there…
Thank you for sharing. I think you're making some really important points. I've thought a lot about your first point: companies using minority-driven narratives to accrue moral capital, particularly in the film industry. For example, what does it mean that Marvel Studios released Black Panther this year? Are we to applaud them for finally releasing a minority-driven film, or are we to denounce them for capitalizing on the current social terrain (after all, the film is the ninth-highest grossing film of all time. This level of capital accumulation can hardly be described as social justice)? However, I think this issue is particularly relevant to games, as games allow us to identify both as and with characters, as well as to…