Covering Your Ass

I read a thing by this guy called Yoshino called "The New Civil Rights Movement." It posed a lot of interesting points and ideas about equality and liberty. The idea behind it is that we need to move into a new age of civil rights... create a new "paradigm" of it that doesn't make minorities equal, but makes all practices, activities, and ideas the liberty of all people. It's simple and interesting concept, that the focus shouldn't be on assimilating everyone into one group, or completely diversifying everything for the purpose of equality, but that we should celebrate what we already have in common and each be and act as our own, unique person.

What's that got to do with video games, crazy person? A lot! Video games, as well as any form of media, often prove to be the driving force of creating and celebrating culture. As video games become a bigger and bigger industry, designers need to focus more and more on making them diverse when and if they can. As Extra Credits puts it, adding diversity into a game can add to its value, but not all games need to put a focus on it.

So... in the text, Yoshino talks about "Covering." Covering is basically putting on a veil for society and others to see, to make yourself seem more like everyone else, in order to fit in. It's formed by a most basic human desire to be social. It's not necessarily good or bad, but it can be. Covering, in an of itself, is amoral. Everyone does it at some point or another. It can be good because sometimes being able to fit in is pretty important, say, if you're a spy- I'm sure there's more realistic reasons too. But it can be bad too, if say, we cover ourselves to the point that our real self doesn't ever come out; then we're leading a secret life, or force ourselves into an identity crisis- which, if you've ever had one, is actually really scary.

Naturally, this ties pretty well into the LGBTQ community, and into gender roles. We live in a society (in the US, at least) where homosexuality is viewed, for the most part, taboo, ungodly, or just wrong. Lately things are getting better, but relatively speaking, compared to straight and/or "normal" people, members of the LGBTQ community and people who naturally defy certain gender roles lead a fairly challenging life. One of the biggest "covers" is the straight(gay) cover. Video game designers can reflect that in games to represent a more realistic world, create more believable characters, and ultimately, show players a part of the world that they may not have seen otherwise. How many games so far have had a character that's gay or transgender, or even just a character that defies modern gender roles? Not a lot.

Personally, I haven't seen this in any of the games I've played, except for maybe Red Dead Redemption which I talked about in my last post, though I've heard about a few that do include that topic, and even fewer that include it as a part of the game outside of a main character's personal and romantic options. I think it's a shame how little games manage to include on this topic, especially considering its importance in modern times as we try to become a more open society.

Video games is just one industry too. If you look into movies, music, and other forms of media, the issue doesn't come up a whole lot in there either. Maybe it says more about developers and publishers that shy away from the issue, and sweep it under the rug because of how it could negatively affect their reputation.