Reactions In The #GamesSoWhite Tag Show A Deeper Problem In Geek Culture.

I rarely try to venture into the discussion of video games and it’s cultural impact on us all, there are already a lot of great voices in that arena working on those topics, but when I saw the #GamesSoWhite hashtag trending, I let curiosity get the better of me. I hoped to find an actual attempt to discuss racial diversity issues in fantasy but once again all I found was hateful racist, misogynist trolls defending their desire to be terrible, lazy people.

A lot of the responses from those against the notion of putting effort into creating an inclusive video game industry try to push the burden of change on those who desire to see equality, not realizing the difficult barriers they have created by refusing to even have a discussion about how their privilege has effected those who are not themselves. Others try to exclude themselves from blame by saying the free market of ideas will prevail and if people really want more PoC in games, then they will magically appear out of thin air because of demand. This school of thought fails to take in account for the fact that we are not in a free market of ideas, there are indeed invisible systemic forces working to keep marginalized groups from being represented fairly in media and pretending there isn’t will not help. For these people, their own privilege is like water surrounding a fish. The fish doesn’t even realize the water is there, it just accepts the forces and influences of the tide.

From avoiding harmful stereotypes, to carefully crafting interesting stories that tackle tough subject matter, creating socially conscious pieces is not easy work but it’s work that has to be done. Creators shouldn’t be afraid to look outside their sphere of experiences and look for others to help them craft their visions to include the views of groups who previously have been left out of the discussion. As we saw with the recent movie Mad Max, it’s possible to create a fantastic piece of art with tough subjects treated correctly.

Gaming and geek culture in general still has a long way to go and the the road to change is littered with trolls and bigots. But in the end, they are just that. A tiny, loud portion of an otherwise fantastic community that together is working to push out these hate mongers and create a safe space for people to explore and expand a wonderful and diverse art form.

Comique Con: First Ever Comic Convention With All Women Creators

It’s always a wonderful feeling whenever you hear news of events that celebrate women in male dominated industries. That breath of fresh air that change is actually happening thanks to some brave people working towards more inclusive spaces in media.

Comique Con 2015 in Dearborn, Michigan has been crowdfunded and is now looking for sponsors and volunteers. The convention will be a one day celebration of women who create and collect comics and a tribute to this form of storytelling. It is also great to hear about women in geek culture without it being solely a reference to cosplay.

This is especially positive after Denver ComicCon’s “Women in Comics” panel ended up being all male. That obviously was just for business and trying to satisfy some of the outcry from women about our misrepresentation in the industry and it’s lack of diversity but genuinely shows that the ComicCon organizers are not listening. So I guess it’s time for us ladies to show them how it’s done and run a convention ourselves.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Comique Con, you can visit their website here: http://comiquecon.com/

And don’t forget, with all these events coming up, now’s a great time to help support your favorite content creators. Even if you can’t support them directly through Patreon, Kickstarter or Tilt, spreading the word about these projects by retweeting and sharing helps raise awareness of these awesome people!

Thoughts on Harley Quinn in Convergence

DC’s Convergence storyline was just finished this month. I have been waiting to write about it in a small series and to break it up into a more digestible format because there are so many issues to go through and contains many problematic themes in it’s writing. The first issue I would like to discuss is Convergence: Harley Quinn #1. Part of the Convergence arc, we meet up with Harley as she is has been recovering awhile from her traumatic relationship with the Joker. There is nothing new about the abusive relationship that her character has been subjected to since her introduction. In this issue we get to see the effects of it in the beginning as she is clearly being haunted by the memories and experiences with the Joker but trying to deny it. She even attempts to hide her pain by joking that she can’t even be nice to a guy without him trying to kill her.

Harley is allowed caffeine and as a part of her rehabilitation she goes to the hospital to visit a cop she injured. They end up becoming a couple and he “takes care” of her, implying a control over her in return for keeping her in line and not on the streets. It’s in these pages that we are first exposed to the writers desire to convey to the reader that the women in this story clearly need strong male characters around to keep them from “misbehaving”.

Shortly after we are shown a scene where she thinks the Joker is there and in a moment of ptsd she thinks the Joker is in her apartment. After screaming for her partner Louie, he comes to her rescue by aggressively grabbing her and trying to talk her down from her attack. The episode must not have been too bad for Harleen as she then decides to reward Louie with sex, which is all to please to take advantage of despite her shaken and disturbed condition.

As the action escalates, Poison Ivy and Catwoman bust into Harleen’s apartment demanding the old her back. Louie resists them, trying to maintain a sense of his male control over the situation but Poison Ivy manages to give her an injection that results in changing her back to her previous state. She then is projected to traumatic echoes of past experiences including the Joker and her partner Louie. We get to see how unstable the Joker has made Harley Quinn throughout their relationship and how she will now be unleashed onto the word again. It’s a story that walks a fine line between empowerment and victimization of her character. While on one hand, Harley is strong enough to be a survivor of this style of abuse over and over again, but we are left asking ourselves if there is any other way the writers could convey her strength as anything else but a side effect of the psychological abuse she has had to endure.

Conversations With Culture Part One: Trauma and How Stories Like The Killing Joke Project it.

     With the recent release of promo photos featuring Jared Leto as the Joker for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, flashbacks of the trauma inducing The Killing Joke story came back to share the comic spotlight once again. The Killing Joke, for those unaware, was one of the more popular Batman based graphic novels, winning multiple awards and creating a controversy about the treatment of Barbara Gordon. This same controversy reared it’s head again with the variant cover of Batgirl #41 which rehashed Barbara’s traumatic ordeal of humiliation by the Joker.

       In this story, the Joker forces his own traumas onto Barbara Gordon in an effort to deal with his own mental health issues by proving that anyone, even Commissioner Gordon, could be pushed to insanity under the right circumstances. Unknowingly, Alan Moore created a societal commentary on how men reenact their own insecurities and force them on the women in their lives, leading to the creation of very real abusive power structure that promotes a lot of the real world violence against women today. On top of these stories being an excellent example of the Women In Refrigerators trope, it teaches the young male reader that the quickest way to obtain their own empowerment is by keeping a women in a subservient state and disposable.

   The Joker in The Killing Joke has flashbacks to his life before his creation as a villain. We see him with his pregnant wife, struggling to make ends meet and to pursue his career as a comedian. He made the decision to leave a well paying job for an unsure future at the expense of his wife and future child. The pain the Joker experiences is not only in losing his wife, but in the light of his own survival re-experiences the trauma. The Joker then experiences his original ordeal a second time as he survives his brush with Batman and comes out of the chemicals, finally becoming the villain we know him as. Stating that “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy,”the Joker admits that his plan of humiliating Barbara Gordon was to get to her father. However, after the mind rape of Commissioner Gordon and the sexual assault of Barbara Gordon, both come out in a better state of mind than the Joker.

     Despite making it out better than the Joker, we are shown Barbara as an emotional, traumatized wreck as she wakes up on the hospital, while after the events, Commissioner Gordon, while shaken, remains calm and steadfast in his desires to bring Joker in by the book. Not only do we see Barbara as weaker, but we see her ability to physically function has been taken away by a man. This is extremely problematic for her character and results in issues she has to deal with for years to come. Of course she becomes the Oracle eventually, but this is essentially reducing her to a secretary in the superhero world.

     The Joker successfully enacted his traumatic past by creating a trauma for Barbara and thus rendering her unable to be the person she physically once was. Just like our society today, where men actively work to cripple women in both their everyday life and the fields of work they persue. She is used in the Joker’s story arc as a tool for manipulating her father’s mental health. This is one of the main examples in well known stories that makes a woman out to be a prop and dehumanizes her character as an individual. On the variant cover of Batgirl #41, in case the viewer is not familiar with the homage that the scene is referencing, we see the Joker humiliating Batgirl (again) by drawing across her face with lipstick while she is bound in a sexualizing pose. Thankfully due to enough people speaking out this variant was not released, so Batgirl escapes the clutches of dangerous tropes this time but it does not change the fact that it did happen and that it took an outcry from fans to change it.