Do You Want to Date My Avatar?
Hi, My name is Debi and this is my first blog post. I am a pretty avid gamer, who gets very frustrated with how women are portrayed in games, as well as the meme that women don't game.
I just saw this video called Do You Want to Date my Avatar? on iTunes and while I thought it was funny, I also thought it very sexist because I wasn't sure whether to take it seriously or not.
Now that I started watching the webisodes of the guild I realize, it is a very funny satire of these misogynistic attitudes.
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Yeah, this video is a pretty funny, satirical take on WoW's gender issues. The one thing that bothers me about it, though, is the way the one plus-size woman is shown eating and drinking - the other women get to dance and be sexual, but she's just sitting there eating and drinking because I guess that's what fat girls do. I haven't watched the Guild, so I don't know how they portray her on a regular basis, but it does irritate me in this instance.
I've watched The Guild and Clara's pretty much portrayed as any other character. I don't recall a single instance where her weight became an issue.
I'm definitely thinking this is satire, and it seems pretty awesomely done, too. The clincher for me was this line:
"Click your mouse and stroke the keys
here in cyberspace there's no disease"
This is undoubtedly satire. It is somewhat feminist as it satires the idea of choosing a fantasy/virtual girlfriend over a real-world one.
From the refrain, "She's a star, and she is hotter than reality by far." exemplifies why a guy might do this. Choosing a fantasy/virtual girlfriend for this reason is akin to sexual objectification. This video I think does a good job of making fun of all that.
In the main series 3 out of 6 members of the guild are female, and they're never really depicted as passive or worried about getting a boyfriend.
There are a lot of "bad mom" type jokes on Clara who is a mother of 3 but forgets them in the car, or ignores them to play WoW. Tinkerbella takes care of them for a day, and locks them in an animal cage. (Funny in fiction, horrible in real life.) Turns out Clara went to a pole dancing class, and reminds others that she got impregnated three times somehow.
Do you think these jokes are sexist? There is too much criticism of mothers out there, but it is also unfair to depict all women as natural mothers.
The relationship between Codex and Zaboo would be classified as repeated sexual harassment in real life. Codex repels Zaboo, but takes pity on him, and dealing with Zaboo's issues provide the main conflict of season one.
Satire, definitely.
In the context of The Guild, this video is a huge departure, and the costumes and style are a joke in and of themselves.
The Guild is about the Real lives of a group of MMO players (it's World of Warcraft, but they can't officially say so last I checked), so in the series they all look normal and mundane (well, Hollywood normal, but still).
So to make a point in the video, they makeup everyone and put them in costumes of their characters. And the fetishizing of the main woman (Felicia Day)'s costume is extremely deliberate: equipment looks that way on female avatars in WoW, whether the player wants it to or not.
Is this cashing in on the sexiness factor as a method of advertising? Yes. But it is also taking a shot at real problems of gender and sexual harassment in WoW. The lines, particularly the early lines, are just descriptions of WoW objects and characters, but sexualized to the point of ridiculousness.
I think it's also good to note that The Guild is completely written, directed and produced by women. Which is awesome, especially for such a stereotypically male genre.
Yes, I'm a Felicia Day fangirl, how could you tell?
yeah, I put this in satire, and calling out the ridiculousness of guys who want to do this. the people above talking about "in cyberspace there's no disease" and hotter than reality by far, but talking about never seeing her face, and keeping the relationship only online strike me as showing how this is inherently going to be an incomplete and superficial relationship. and given how much sexualized crap I received just during a 10 day demo of the game, that's stuff that needs to be called out.