Anita Sarkeesian Makes TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People List for 2015

Anita Sarkeesian, most well known for her video series, Feminist Frequency, is on TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list for 2015. For those that are unaware, TIME Magazine breaks this list down into subcategories such as “artists,” “pioneers,” “icons,” and people who are “shaping the future.” Sarkeesian was placed under the last aforementioned category. In this list, she is featured for her controversial series, “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.” Despite numerous death threats and harassment, she perseveres. Wil Wheaton is quoted in the magazine, praising her. He says, “In the face of hysterical and childish abuse, Anita has refused to back down. She continues to speak around the world about the role of women in video games and popular media.” Her goal is to make the video games both “inclusive” and “representative of everyone who plays them.” As for some background information, Sarkeesian is apparently the only video game personality to ever be featured on this list and joins other gaming icons such as the creator of Minecraft, Markus “Notch” Persson, who made the list in 2013 and Shigeru Miyamoto, a designer for Nintendo, who made the list in 2007. Personally speaking, I am all for it. I can’t claim to know the ins and outs of her series Feminist Frequency, I have watched a few of her videos in “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.” I do not like her all that much and I have a problem with some of the content of her videos because I do think that they are heavily biased and do not give a complete assessment of the state of the video game industry. For example, in “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games,” she has two videos dedicated to the damsel in distress trope. She uses one video to discuss the damsel in distress trope in the past and one to discuss the trope in the present. In both videos she pretty much argues that women are treated as objects to be saved and are passive among other things. However, she does not take the time to acknowledge any video games that have moved past such archaic notions. She does not discuss any video games that actually have the opposite occurring. Off the top of my head, I think of Final Fantasy X-2 where you play female character, Yuna (among two other female characters), as she goes around kicking ass and looking to save her lover Tidus. Though the number of video games that do subvert the damsel in distress trope or even just don’t play into the trope are small, I don’t think that they are worth completely omitting when you are trying to accurately portray the state of representation in video games. I also have some problems with some of her videos within that series, but I shall leave them for another time. Overall, I do believe that she has influenced 2015 with her video series as they have been useful in creating dialogue on the subject of women in video games. Though some of her videos maybe problematic at least from my standpoint, she is pointing out some huge problems that currently exist in the video game industry. If they are getting people riled up and getting them to question why she is right or why she is wrong, I think that she is making a positive impact. Any discussion is better than no discussion. However, I’m curious as to what my fellow bloggers think. How do you all feel about this? Do you agree with TIME magazine’s choice to place Anita Sarkeesian on the list of 100 Most Influential People of 2015? How do you feel about Feminist Frequency?