jhkimrpg ([info]jhkimrpg) wrote,
@ 2007-09-12 15:37:00
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Entry tags:dnd, feminism, game culture, industry

Cerise Magazine, September 2007 and "D&D for Girls"
The September 2007 Issue of Cerise has been out for over a week now. Cerise is a monthly webzine intended as a resource by and for women gamers.

There are a bunch of articles in this one of interest, including:



Related to that, I also have a news article of sorts there regarding Shelly Mazzanoble's new book, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game, and the controversy of a set of threads on the Dungeons & Dragons boards. The article is entitled
It's not my best work, written quickly after a specific request for an article on the topic in the IRIS Network forums. And in the three weeks since I wrote it, there is now a new sub-forum in D&D 4E boards called Astrid's Parlor. It doesn't have a fully defined mission statement yet, but at least it now has a set of posting guidelines.

The top-viewed topics include the designated thread for complaints about the forum ("The 'I Hate Astrid's Parlor' Thread") along with content like "Art of Females" ; "The Cult of the Chainmail Bikini" ; "The merits of emphasized roleplaying in attracting female gamers" ; "Pink Dice" ; "Are female gamers different?" ; and "Races that Appeal to Female Gamers". There is a fair amount of activity, and it shows some promise -- but it is clearly still dealing with the early stages of dealing with gender issues. Still, given what I first reported on in the article, I think the forum is a good sign.

A few other feminism-related links over the past several months, while I'm at it:

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[info]zhai
2007-09-13 06:43 pm UTC (link)
Hi John -- thanks for the link. :) Yes, that photo is definitely meant to be ironic -- it's art from Soul Calibur, Taki specifically, who is probably one of the all time most ridiculous game heroines in terms of her bust size compared with the athletic feats she performs.

Very cool article regarding the hubbub at GenCon as well. I hadn't heard about it, which is odd considering the circles I run in. I remember the April Fools joke about the My Little Pony RPG -- they'd've had better luck with that one!

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[info]jhkimrpg
2007-09-13 09:28 pm UTC (link)
Yup. Taki was featured in one of the articles linked to that I had already read - Ben Richardson's "A tale of souls and swords, and ridiculous breasts" (which featured her even more ridiculous armor with boob holes). Sadly, though, I think that the picture may not be ridiculous enough to be obvious irony in many circles.

Thanks for the praise of the article.

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[info]tekanji
2007-09-15 03:25 pm UTC (link)
Yes, that photo is definitely meant to be ironic

Sorry to tell you this, but that was a classic case of "irony fail". There was nothing in the image itself to suggest it as anything but a failure for the editors to understand or care about the content of the article.

Personally, the non-ironic approach of using a character such as Jade (from Beyond Good and Evil), April Ryan (The Longest Journey), or some other character that embodied the spirit of the piece would have been the appropriate choice, especially since The Escapist has a history of using improperly sexualized pictures being run against articles on gender.

Please do us women a favour and stop encouraging the male gaze -- even if you think it's ironic -- because it's not helping things. It's really, really not.

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[info]zhai
2007-09-15 05:31 pm UTC (link)
I generally agree with you, and I probably also wrote the other article you're talking about, though there have been a handful of gender-focused articles in the Escapist. But I wrote a piece called "The Fourth Dimension of Game Development" for them last year and was summarily appalled at the art that was designed for the piece. It might be that that experience inured me to this one, but in this case I think the use of Taki specifically is much more appropriate. She looks absolutely ridiculous, and particularly in a separate context, underscores the level of over-the-top fanboy drooling that goes on -- and I do honestly think the artists and character designers involve should be embarassed by it. I think by juxtaposing that image with the text it serves as an indictment. But I can see where you're coming from, again, in general, and it's not the art I would have chosen.

At the end of the day as a contributor I have no power over how the art for the different pieces is selected. I think that the magazine runs good content and it has a very distinct visual style that I generally find very appealing. I'm not sure what entirely is at work on what I do think was accidental irony on the "Fourth Dimension" piece. But I would encourage you as a reader to write a letter to the editor and send it to them if you feel this strongly about it. They actively encourage feedback and I think it would be a relevant thing to address about how the magazine handles these things. If you've been in the gaming community any length of time you know that it's hard to get those testosterone driven wheels to turn in another direction, but if it happens it will come from proactive discourse that is sharp but fair and as bulletproof as possible in its analysis of the situation.

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Hello
(Anonymous)
2008-08-15 09:35 pm UTC (link)
I'm new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.

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