Blog: Diversity, censorship, and criticism

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There's a lot of debate right now about diversity and inclusivity in games. The fact that there is a lot of debate is good, the nature of a lot of the debate less so. Today I want to talk about a specific facet of one argument; the idea that feminism, or more broadly thegeneral diversitymovement, is out to 'censor the artistic creativity' of games designers.

The idea is that by criticising sexist or exclusionist elements in videogames, proponents of diversity are actually seeking to control and censor the work ofthe artistsdesigning these videogames by forcing them to adopt more inclusive, more 'PC' elements.

Now a lot of this argument can be boiled down to 'actually I like chainmail bikinis, so everyone else should shut up' which is simple enough to write off, but then I remembered the debate aroundthe gameDragon's Crownand thought that it might actually be worth having a discussion about artistic freedom, criticism, censorship, and the difference between those last two words.

Dragon's Crownis a game by Vanillaware designed as a homage to the oldGolden Axestyle of scrolling beat-em-up. The game features hand dawn art byGeorge Kamitani, and drew ire at the time, particularly from Kotaku writer Jason Schreier, for its portrayal of its female characters. The who don't know their meme can get aquick rundown here, view theoriginal article by Schreier here, anda response by Penny Arcade'sJerry Holkins, which represents the common opposition to Schreier's view at the time.

I remember being conflicted. On the one hand, I can see why people would see the art as distasteful - at first glance it looks exactly like the sort of bad-anime oversexualisation designed to appeal to adolescent boys at the exclusion of everyone else. One the other hand though, I reallylikeKamitani's art, grotesque sexualisation included, and respect his right to draw whatever the hell he likes.

The argument - at least initially - seemed to be that for games to become more progressive then we need to see less art like Kamitani's, which I disagree with on personal grounds - because I like his art - but also because this smacks of censorship. Progressiveness should never call forlessartistic expression, regardless of whether that artistic expression is deemed tasteful or not.

This seems to be the argument wielded by a lot of those against the social justice movement - that progressives are seeking to censor art and homogenise entertainment by forcing designers to cater to every possible point of view with each of their products. Art that caters to the male gaze is still art, after all, so surely decrying the overabundance of it is also a cry for censorship?

In fact, the progressive movement is actually about criticism, rather than censorship, and there's a big difference between the two. It's the difference between designers making informed artistic decisions and falling unwittingly into using tropes without knowing any better. This is actually the point of projects likeTropes vs. Women in Video Games- not to highlight every moderately sexist element in games and declareyou should not do this, but to bring these tropes to people's attention so we can address them critically and constructively.

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Blog: Diversity, censorship, and criticism