A Kickstarter project, entitled GTFO, has only a little over a week left to reach its goal of $20,000 by May 10th. So far $15,463 has been raised. Created by Shannon Sun-Higginson, who it’s important to note is a casual gamer and knows little about the industry, it’s aim is to supposedly create a film that documents the experiences female gamers have while playing video games. She hopes to also include “the portrayal of women in video games, the history of women in gaming, the experiences of women in the industry itself, the culture of games, the discouragement of young girls from participating, and more.”
Let me stop here for a moment.
Now, take in a deep breath. Good. I hear it helps clear your head, and when it comes to this topic I think it’s safe to assume it’s sometimes hard for all of us to keep a clear head.
Let’s retackle that again. So, what exactly is GTFO? For those not very familiar, GTFO stand for Get The F* Out. I’m sure I can leave the star to your intelligent imaginations to fill in. Let’s face it, this term is not something that is new to any group of people, let alone women gamers. Insults such as these have probably been occurring since Bob Caveman didn’t like the way George Dinolover wasn’t able to hold his own against Mr. Woolly Mammoth.
Ok, we got that. Now, who is this Shannon Sun-Higginson?
She is a filmmaker from New York City. She currently works for a production company and has worked on documentaries such as “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel and “Parts Unknown” on CNN. The idea for this documentary came from when a friend talked to her of the harassment that many female gamers and other industry figures must deal with on a daily basis. She intends to film interviews, classes, tournaments, and conventions, and she has in fact already begun doing so. She has been to PAX East and other prominent gaming scenes in order to accomplish this. A trailer for the film can even be viewed on her project page.
It’s hard to draw a conclusion about how Shannon’s documentary will turn out. Shannon doesn’t have very much gaming experience, which might make one wary of her qualifications. I myself at first wondered if it would make sense to have a casual gamer create a documentary about this. It’s like we have this inherent distrust of those who don’t love gaming as much as we do to portray things the way they should be. I mean, she’s an outsider isn’t she?
On other hand, being an outsider for a documentary isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She may have objectivity as a result. She also may be able to compose a more professional piece than someone who had no knowledge of how a film is supposed to be put together. After all, she does have a degree from Wesleyan University in Film Studies and English. Most documentaries aren’t put together by experts in the subject they are filming. They are created by an outsider using a collection of media of people involved within the subject.
That brings us to the real topic at hand – sexism in the gaming industry.
There is a problem. It’s not the only behavior linked problem that exists in the gaming industry (or the entire planet for that matter), but it’s there nonetheless. Shannon gives great sites as references to some of the behavior – sites that I didn’t even know existed until I saw her Kickstarter. If you don’t think this behavior exists you merely need to shuffle on over to fatuglyorslutty.com or notinthekitchenanymore.com and you can see and hear these comments for yourself. Yea, literally hear.
Although her focus is on women, in many cases she mentions that no person should have to endure harassment of any kind. She emphasizes on Kickstarter:
“…women are not the only group who experience harassment in gaming. Many other people are attacked due to their ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. However, due to the vast nature of the subject, I chose to focus primarily on women for this documentary. A film profiling ALL abuse towards ALL groups would be too large and complex to fit into 90 minutes. I think it would be wonderful to see a film, for example, about the experiences of people of color in gaming. I hope one day that film will be made as well.”
Shannon also points out that “…when women in the industry come forward, they often experience much more criticism and backlash than their male counterparts.”
With Shannon’s documentary the major question is how will this problem be addressed? Will she only dish out hate and criticism on all the cruel evil men in the world (insert sarcastic voice here), or will she be truly objective. So far she has funded the project herself, which leaves me to believe she is at least invested in this subject. One can only hope that she could use this fantastic opportunity to truly collect an informative view on this subject and give it’s viewers as much of an unbiased insight as possible into the truth of how things currently are.
Her own words on the goals of the documentary are encouraging. She states:
“There are a few goals, one of them is to make more awareness and more of a stigma for those people so that they see it and they’re like ‘oh, wait, maybe this is not an acceptable thing to do, maybe bad things will happen if I do this.“
At some points, Shannon does go a little extreme. Such as when she proclaims that “…half of the community, meaning women, are being abused and their talents aren’t really being used in the video game industry as much as they could be.”
This statement seems to be a tad out of hand since it’s obviously not true that the entire female gamer population is being abused. Though she makes sure to point out that “of course not all gamers are trolls or abusers – many are kind, supportive, and equally disgusted by this type of behavior.”
So should you back the GTFO Kickstarter project or not?
I was struck by a comment in an article written on GTFO on Games Industry Internation website by someone with the username Anonemous:
“Or maybe it’s because she is annoying the community at large by trying to make a bigger deal out of what is a small problem.”
Another user, NoUseForMonkeys, answered with:
“Having the colored people ride in the back of the bus was not a big problem for most white folk back in the day either…”
A lot of people feel like this behavior that women (and indeed others) put up with isn’t a big deal. That when people use disgusting or over the line language and or behavior we should report it, ignore it, and pretend nothing happened. That we need to have a tough skin and face the reality of this harsh world. What I want to know is – why? Why should we turn the other cheek and not raise our voice against something that is obviously not a positive thing? Remaining silent never solved anything. Shannon has begun to dig into the world of gaming to address something that we have all long talked about and will most likely continue to talk about. Whether good or bad, the voices she will give to real people all around the country will be in there. People that obviously had something to say.
I for one would like to see what she finds out.
