Finding the Fun: Sarkeesian and the Joy of Gaming.

As a feminist girl gamer I am occasionally asked what I think of the work of Anita Sarkeesian. 

I think that the abuse she has suffered is disgusting. In no uncertain terms the full-scale tantrum of a select few is without justification, and their response has enormous ramifications for the video games industry. Bullies must not be tolerated. Nor does Sarkeesian need to give them a platform, such as a barely mediated comment system on youtube. 

In the process of becoming the face of feminism within the games industry, Sarkeesian has counted the ways that misogyny has pervaded video games and found them to pacify women, to to undermine them, to objectify them. She has become hardened, and positioned herself against games... forgetting that games are fun. We play them for fun. We play them to feel like this: 

A couple of weeks ago  Sarkeesian posted the above picture of her and a friend playing Super Nintendo. On their faces, the girls have a look of intent, relaxed focus. They wear the half-smiles of gamers who know what they are doing. 

For critics of her work, Sarkeesian comes across as conservative and po-faced. The school-mistress of video-games who tuts, and says, "it's all very well and good having your fun but whom are you hurting." Her blog posts have trigger warnings, her feminist frequency twitter tweets that: Playing games like DmC is the worst part of my job. Remarkable @NinjaTheory managed to cram so many repugnantly sexist tropes into one game... brushing over fabulous, tight gameplay and an impressive aesthetic. By positioning herself as being less interested in gameplay, she detaches herself from an audience that loves games for how they feel to play:  Frustrating that game reviewers will often trash games for minor gameplay issues but let blatant misogyny pass without comment.

Without doubt the games industry needs to be shown that the shit they do to women, is uacceptable. But Sarkeesian infers that enjoying the gameplay of inherently misogynistic games is to be complicit with their continuation. The problem is, if I were to review DMC and say "this game is disgusting, but I love how it feels to play", I still paint myself into a sexist corner. 

Rather than tread these more complicated lines of inquiry, Sarkeesian chooses to play the role of a hardened, no-nonsense feminist. She is willing to deny herself the addictive and fast-paced fun of a game if it recapitulates tired and sexist tropes. To the defensive and immature, it seems as though she is saying: either continue to play these games and be a sexist, or take my bitter pill for a brighter future. In highlighting only the negatives, Sarkeesian pushes away the very people that need to be questioning and rejecting sexist tropes in games. 

 In contrast, her personal snapshot is glimpse of the times when she played the games for fun. Until she reconnects with this focused, invested, and instantly relateable video-kid, she will continue to be an outsider.