League of Legends: A negative depiction of women? (Extended Response)

On the 28^th of September, Riot Games MOBA, League of Legends, unveiled their latest champion, Jinx, the Loose Cannon. Like most unveilings, the soon to be champion was criticised, loved, hated, praised and everything in between. Players criticised her for being totally ‘OP’ and broken, immediately asking for a rework before she even hit public servers. Aside from her skill set and stats, her physical appearance was also put under intense scrutiny. Unlike most female League of Legends champions, Jinx did not possess the over sexualised body that the others had. League of Legends has always been criticised by players for over sexualising their female champions, many having large breasts, toned thin bodies and attire which, unlike their male counterparts, did not seem appropriate or practical for battle. The change from the normal depictions of women in League of Legends created many jokes within the community about her chest needed a ‘buff’. Initially I didn’t see an issue with the character or any other character until I started reading posts by other Summoners about how they feel about gender representation within the game.

                                    New champion Jinx, copyright League of Legends, Riot Games.

The League community has shown to have several different views on how Riot depict women in their games, with many supporting their designs as the norm and in similar to most other games, while others saw the characters as sexist depictions of women aimed at pleasing a male dominated audience. This is an example of Hall’s idea of three readings that audiences can take from a product. The readings are the dominant or preferred reading, the negotiated reading and the oppositional reading. This article will discuss how players within the League community take different readings from the way Riot depicts their female champions.

Many players feel there is a large amount of sexualisation within the game. One particular player, L2 Sentinel, wrote a large scathing article in the League of Legends forum regarding his view on the topic. While the game is predominately played by males, there are a large number of females playing the game. L2 Sentinel discusses the large range of female characters in the game which are depicted in a more sexual way than their male counterparts. He then goes on to describe various characters and their skins, highlighting how they promote a sexist view of females.

Riot Graves, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games

“Officer Caitlyn is in many ways the most disappointing. She is in a position of authority. She is the Sheriff of Piltover, but she gets a stripper cop outfit. No officer in real life dresses like Caitlyn. They’d never be taken seriously. She could have been a badass. Real missed opportunity here. Meanwhile Riot Graves, gets to be the real deal.”

Officer Caitlyn, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games

Batte Bunny Riven, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games

There are several more examples where characters are dressed as skimpy nurses, playboy bunnies and French maids, all while showing a large portion of their breasts and exposed mid drifts with supermodel thin waists. L2 has then calculated that over 78% of female champions are depicted in a sexual manner while on 3% of male champions can be considered to 

be sexualised as well. L2 Sentinel then goes out to point

that while there is very little diversity in female appearance in the game, males characters vary in appearance, age, size and stature. Certain males are depicted as classically strong, tall and heroic but there are also those who are obese, old and even just plain creepy. L2 Sentinel’s view of Riot’s depiction of women is certainly an oppositional one, where he entirely disagrees with how the characters should be depicted, regardless of gender.

Old man Zilean, Copyright League of Legends, Riot Games

The amateur post and article written by L2 Sentinel is further supported by a study done by James Ivory of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His study found that “Of the 32 reviews with pictured female characters, 41% (N =13) contained sexually suggestive imagery of females; only 4% (N = 3) of the78 reviews with pictured males similarly included sexually suggestive male representations.” However the results could be seen as most of the subjects were males, but that also ties with the idea that video games are more likely to be played by males rather than females, which is why content is created to appeal to them over females. The study also found that there were more male playable characters than women, which exacerbates the issue where there are only a small amount of women in games and most of them will be depicted in an over sexualised manner. Ivory also points out that there is a large portion of people who hold a negotiated or preferred reading to gaming content in regards to the sexualisation of women in video games. Ivory points out that most gamers and gaming staff are ‘primarily male’ who hold an “ambivalent or unsupportive” view “toward sexualised portrayals in video games”.  With Ivory’s study showing that the majority of female characters are depicted in the same manner in games, suggests that negotiated or preferred readings are perhaps only so due to such depictions being the norm in video games and therefore, gamers are never exposed to any oppositional views within the game.

It is clear within the gaming community of League of Legends that there is a difference in gender representation when it comes to champion creation. Many within the community hold a strong oppositional reading, where they find offense in the lack of diversity in female characters and a clear sexualisation within those champions. However, the majority of players are male and they seem to find no issue with the depiction of any character within the game. With games being a clearly male dominated business, the pressure for content to be appealing to males is evident and perhaps game producers are creating content which suits the preferred reading of the majority. Through this study I have found that I hold a negotiated reading over this issue, as I can see how both preferred and oppositional readings feel on the issue. While I do believe that there is need for more character diversity within League of Legends, and all video games, it would be hard to sell to a male dominated audience if your content does not appeal to them.

References –

Hall, S 1980, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp. 55-58, accessed 12 Sept 2013

Raessens, J 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of Computer Game Studies.MIT Press Cambridge.Mass, pp.373-388.

L2 Sentinel, 2012, Senior Member, ‘@ Riot A serious discussion about gender. Please read’ League of Legends Forums,  http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2646142&highlight=l2+sentinel

James D Ivory, 2006, ‘Still a Man’s Game: Gender Representation in Online Reviews of Video Games’, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jivory/JIvory2006MassCommunicationandSociety.pdf

Hollywood and Asianisation

Hollywood has always been predominately controlled by the ‘white man’, but over time there has been an influx of foreign stars which America has decided to adopt. While already a star in China, Jackie Chan didn’t rise to fame until his appearance in Rush Hour in 1998. Before then, Hollywood had adopted Asian ideas into their films, such as the Karate Kid, but the movie still revolved around a white male lead.

In the case of Jackie Chan, the idea of Hollywood being “Asianised” is not entirely true as Jackie Chan himself didn’t particularly like the movies he made. When asked about the film, Jackie Chan said that he was ‘very disappointed because it was a movie I didn’t appreciate”, he also said “I felt the action was too Americanised and I didn’t understand the American humour”. While Jackie was pleased with the results from the box office, it is obvious that the Hollywood style of filming was not Jackie’s style and that “he has been squeezed, patted, nipped and tucked in order to fit into a different culture industry” (Klein, 2004). Jackie Chan only agreed to film the sequels because the money offered was irresistible.

Hollywood is currently embracing more talents from Asia today but it is evident that while they are happy to adopt certain cultures and styles, the final product will always be Americanised instead of Asianised.

Klein. C, 2004, 'Martial arts and the globalization of US and Asia film industries', An International Journal, SAGE Publications, New Delhi. pp. 360-383

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/09/30/jackie-chan-admits-is-not-fan-rush-hour-films/

Fishing on Facebook

Sometimes being on Facebook is just like being back at high school. My news feed feels like a school ground. Through everyone’s posts and photos, you could see everyone’s cliques, groups and connections. And just like high school, everyone is self-conscious of their appearance. Marshall (2010) “would call the ‘specular economy’ where collectively we are becoming more conscious of how we present ourselves and how others perceive us and this change is migrating to the epicentre of our knowledge economy.” People need their walls to represent how they want to be viewed by their peers, an image which is popular among their online ‘friends’. Such popularity is like specular economy, in that social media gives users a sense of celebrity, with your persona being broadcast to all of your friends.

My social media life revolves around a chain of jokes among me and my friends. Like most normal people, we try to paint ourselves in the best light for those who ‘stalk’ our pages. We try to get the coolest display pictures, the funniest statuses and to get as many ‘likes’ for both as possible. Initially my friends and I made jokes about who got the most likes for their statuses or display pictures, but our competitiveness took over. These days it’s all about the likes. The display picture doesn’t have to make us look cool, our statuses don’t have to make sense and we even created a fake persona online, to collectively collect likes. We call the attempt for obtaining more likes ‘fishing’. Basically one would put out some bait, such as a status about how ‘gangsta’ we are or a cover photo about some classic 90’s movie or celebrity in order to catch as many ‘fish’ or ‘likes’ as possible. Facebook has now become the most serious joke my friends and I have ever had.

Marshal, P.C 2010, ‘The Specular Economy’, Society, vol. 47, no.6, pp. 498-502

League of Legends

Choosing a game for this topic was so difficult, it wasn’t til now I realised how much of a massive gamer nerd I am. But alas, I was able to figure out which game I would most like to discuss on my blog, the most popular eSport game in history, League of Legends.

Source - Google Images

League of Legends is a massive online battle arena (MOBA), where teams of up to 5 players, select characters or “champions” and fight on the fields of justice to destroy the opposing enemy nexus. I highlighted League of Legends as an eSport since, unlike most other games, there is a lack of narrative in the game and the pure point of playing is competition. There are no quests to take, no story to progress through, simply fighting for the sake of competition. Competitions in LoL have gone to a point where professional players are rewarded with enormous sums of cash for victory, the last world championship saw the winning team, Taipei Assassins, awarded $1 million US dollars. But the game does have a small form of narrative, the champions they choose come with their own backgrounds and stories, creating lore within the League of Legends universe.

The League of Legends universe revolves around the magical world of Runeterra. Once a land ravaged and torn apart by war, powerful summoners created a competition for rivalling parties to settle disputes and end the pointless bloodshed between countries. In the lore, this competition was known as the League of Legends. The conflict between cities was very much political with countries fighting due to a clash of beliefs.

A dominant reading one could take from the game is that, disputes can be solved without violence, or war. Countries can differ and disputes could be settled in more “peaceful” terms (the League had become more of a spectacle and entertainment in the LoL world). A negotiated meaning could come from players believing that violence is never the answer but the League, which can be interpreted as their form of sports, is not a real indicator of a country’s power (just look at the results from the last Olympics :P). The oppositional reading could see players disagree with the League’s idea of peace, and that the game still shows that violence is the only way to resolute conflict.

Hall, S 1980, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp. 55-58, accessed 12 Sept 2013

Hating your job, in real life and online

After a hard day at work I just wanna sit down, put my feet up and relax. After a hard day I wanna do that all the lot more. I don't really get those who have the energy to rant on and on about how terrible their job is such as those mentioned in the study by Richards and Kosmala. However, while I am an employee I am also a manager and with it comes a responsibility and sense of pride in what I do.

“Richards’ (2008) study suggests work blogging should be viewed as an expanding forum for self-organised employee resistance and misbehaviour, rejecting a reductive view of blogging platforms as forums for ‘Cyber-waffle’”

I disagree with Richards’ idea. Blogging is not simply a forum for “cyber-waffle”, people with complex and relevant ideas are able to express themselves and share what they believe or think with the world. Those who find solace in discussing their troubles and hardships in their workplace are more than welcome to do so, with care. But those who are simply online to “slag” off their employers, co-workers and workplaces are doing no justice to themselves or their workplace, an act I consider complete cowardice.
Taken as a serious matter, blogging about workplace issues could help those in serious need of guidance, from peers and others browsing similar blogs to seek help, but if work if such a hardship for those who blog for such reasons then professional help within the professional world may be a more practical way to go. 

Ever read Naruto? I helped make that.

The concept of prosumer is quite simple, one who is able to both consume and produce media. The internet is full of prosumers, while some may be more of one than the other; we all have an input in internet culture.  Ritzer’s concept is quite fascinating as I began to review my input as both a producer and consumer.

I am largely a consumer, I’m no Superwog of KevJumba. I constantly consume information from all reaches of the web, but I’m considerably lacking in the producer department. Over the last couple of years I have only been producing on social media, the odd Facebook post or Tweet is all I seem to do. However, as I delved into my past I found that I was once a very active producer. Back in my high school days, image was everything. The need to be with the in crowd, to go to the coolest parties and to attempt to cover up my obvious nerdiness were my biggest problems going through adolescence. The internet was my haven, a place where, under the guise of a username, I could satisfy my nerdy cravings. I was a constant poster on many forums, ranging from football, lacrosse and a forum for Asian Australians, but my largest input was in the anime and manga online scene. I was a constant poster on those sites and had befriended many people, most notably the guys who run the sites and illegally collect and distribute the anime and manga we all loved. My popularity with these people, got me a spot in the scanning team for some of the more popular manga series. 

This was the high point of my producing phase. I was an assistant for the expert scanners and online publishers I learnt how to edit scans and clear pictures and how to input translations.

When I look back at my prosumer history, I feel a sense of accomplishment. The joy and wonder I get from my weekly dose of anime and manga is something I cannot imagine living without, and for that small portion of my life I am happy that I was able to help in bringing the same joy to others from anywhere around the globe.

Ritzer, G & Jurgenson, N, 2010. Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’. Journal of Consumer Culture, 10/1, 13-36

Piracy

Australian television channels are mainly dominated by American television shows. As such, they have a large influence on Australian television culture. As a child I loved shows such as The Simpsons, South Park and Everybody Loves Raymond, and they were a big part of my childhood. However, as I grew older, I began to realise that the episodes I was watching were made several years ago or that they were a re-run and I became frustrated and impatient with having to wait a whole week before a new episode, if Australian broadcasters were even able to get a copy from the US. The solution was piracy. The internet is a powerful tool for globalisation, the ability to upload a television show from one location and to have it be downloaded from anywhere across the globe is amazing. Now I can keep up to date with all my favourite shows and even shows which are unheard of in regular Australian programming. Nowadays my regular internet piracy programming consists of a weekly dose of anime, manga, Dexter, Suits and the greatest show of them all……. GAME OF THRONES!!! (Seriously, get on it)

An article last December, shows that Game of Thrones has become the most downloaded television series in the world, with single episodes being downloaded over 4.28 million times! Recently I heard on the radio that 20% of those downloaders are from Melbourne!

US Ambassador, Jeffrey Bleich has even warned us Australians over the ridiculous amount of piracy happening in our country. Jeffrey Bleich, is however, correct. Just because we cannot wait a few weeks or months, does it mean we can break the law to watch a television show. But if piracy is such a large issue in the country then shouldn’t there be more enforcement of the laws? Occasionally I’ve gotten emails, with warnings but to be honest, they are a weak deterrent to such a large scale problem. I cannot give a solution that could possibly be practical and please both parties of creators and consumers, but for now I, like the millions of others who need their daily dosage of Hollywood, will continue to do what we do until someone finds a way to stop us.

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/us-ambassador-explains-his-fight-against-game-of-thrones-piracy/story-e6frfmyi-1226634534605

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20836739