Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture (PhD)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Humanities

Advisor 1

Stefka Hristova

Committee Member 1

Diane Shoos

Committee Member 2

Carlos Amador

Committee Member 3

Adam Crowley

Abstract

While the video game industry has attempted to address their years of mistreatment towards women, within games and how they are produced, by hiring more women and including more female characters as playable options, these fixes have been superficial at best. Not only are there still few females as main characters in video games, but that there are so few female video games. By this I refer to the fact that video games told through the eyes of female characters often do not feature a gendered narrative, unlike multiple games with male POVs in which the storyline directly reflects their gender. This issue, however, is not just about inclusion of more female stories, but also execution. Female FPSs may lack a narrative reflecting their gender, but they often feature gameplay that represents a stereotype of females as weaker and less aggressive than men. The purpose of this analysis is to explore how first-person shooter video games gender (or not) their female texts, through both narrative and gameplay.

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