00:00Back in 2009, Anita Sarkeesian started making videos applying basic feminist analysis to
00:05her favorite things, like video games, and posting them to her website, Feminist Frequency.
00:11Sometimes black female characters are exotified entirely through clothing that
00:15simultaneously sexualizes them while also evoking racist stereotypes.
00:20She found herself subjected to a relentless and coordinated campaign of harassment, threats,
00:27and doxing, including this video game where they beat her face into a pulp.
00:36I'm Amanda Knox, and I too have been subjected to harassment and death threats.
00:41The character assassination that put me in prison is now perpetuated by trolls who call me a whore
00:47on the internet, who demand that I just disappear. That's why I'm here in San Francisco to speak with
00:53Anita. We've both survived attacks on our gender and sexuality, but we also continue to grapple
00:59with the question, what is the cost of having a voice?
01:12Anita? Hey! Hi, it's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Come on in. Thank you.
01:19This is my apartment. This is my little cat. Hi. Do you want to be interviewed too?
01:26She certainly does. Okay, so how did you get into pop culture, video games? Where did that come from?
01:36Well, so I started playing video games when I was like five. I would go to my neighbors and play
01:42the
01:42NES. Games have always kind of been around, and then, you know, TV's always been a big part of my
01:48life, right? Like, I would spend summers in our basement just watching TV instead of being outside
01:53playing, like, a normal child. Fast forward to college, and I got plugged in with folks who
01:59taught me about feminism, and that's where feminist frequency started. I tacked fabric up on my wall,
02:06and I, like, borrowed some equipment, and I just started talking about some that I was watching.
02:11This list would not be complete without Natalie Portman. Her young and bubbly childlike character
02:16in Garden State just might be the quintessential manic pixie dream girl.
02:19With her growing fan base, Anita wanted to use her new platform to talk about something that always
02:25bothered her, the portrayal of women in video games. Take me and crush me with your love.
02:31I launched a Kickstarter for Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. I asked for $6,000 to make five episodes.
02:40I was about to hit publish on the campaign. I was like, I don't think we can raise $6,000.
02:45We should
02:46drop it to $4,000 just in case. It was funded within 24 hours. I was elated and shocked.
02:52Two weeks in, the harassment hit. Instantaneously, everything changed in that moment. YouTube comments
02:58were flooded with misogynist and racist slurs. It hit all of my social media hacking into all of my
03:05accounts. They would try to flag my videos as porn or terrorism to try to get them taken down. My
03:13face was
03:13superimposed onto pornographic images. Yeah, no. So everything I say, like nothing is unique to me.
03:20Some of the most horrifying pornographic images were of me and my family and also like child porn
03:26stuff that came up that was just like lots of death threats, lots of rape threats. I've got several
03:33bomb and shooting threats at a lot of events that I spoke at. There is a textbook way that harassers
03:40go through this process. It's unacceptable to ask us to like lose our humanity in order to
03:48do our work or to just survive or just be plugged in online. Yeah, just to exist on the internet,
03:52it's just like, oh, that's what you get. Elizabeth is an example of a female sidekick who is reduced to
03:57a tool. Two years after Anita's harassment began, the treatment of women in gaming finally broke into the
04:03public consciousness with the hashtag Gamergate. For two months now, Anita Sarkeesian's name has
04:08been splashed across the headlines as a central figure in what's been described as a war on women
04:13in the video game industry, something the media has come to refer to as Gamergate. Gamergate, you might
04:20have heard that term. It's the story that has produced threats of mass shootings, forced a woman to move
04:25from her home recently after rape threats and made front page headlines around the country in recent
04:31days. It's an online battle of the sexes over how gamers are portrayed and the sometimes violent
04:36reaction to women who speak out. Gamergate started because the ex-boyfriend of developer Zoe Quinn
04:44basically saw what happened to me and other women in the games industry and created a situation to create
04:49that kind of attack on her. So he wrote this screed on WordPress and posted it all over 4chan saying
04:55that she had slept with all of these people to get positive reviews of her game. This started a
05:02torrential harassment campaign against her. So first of all, her game was free and there's no review.
05:09So it should have ended there, but it didn't. And it just spiraled. And you know what? The games
05:16industry didn't do about it. They did not speak up. They did not speak out against this. They didn't
05:20say harassment against women is bad. For me, the harassment, which was already really bad,
05:27and I had already been getting bomb threats at events, it just tripled and quadrupled.
05:32I couldn't do anything but just try to deal with the harassment.
05:38What is it about you and feminist criticism in general that people find so threatening?
05:46So being a woman, being visible and getting any kind of attention, and adding that to video games,
05:54where they feel like this is like the last bastion of masculinity or some other puke-worthy thing.
05:59Like they literally used the language of video games to talk about how they were harassing me. I was the
06:05final boss that needed to be taken down and they were like fighting this war and all this.
06:10When you've been playing games your entire life and those games have been marketed to you and they
06:16tell you that you are the king of the world and you are the only one that can save the
06:21day and that
06:21women are here for your sexual pleasure, it's a recipe for disaster. At some point after years of this,
06:28I was like, I can't keep living like this. Despite the avalanche of hate she received,
06:33Anita persevered and kept on making videos.
06:36We can think of the Super Mario franchise as a grand game being played between Mario and Bowser
06:40and Princess Peach's role is essentially that of the ball.
06:43I got really lucky that I was able to turn Feminist Frequency into a full-time job and have staff
06:49and that they could handle social media. Taking time away from it made such a massive difference.
06:54When there's a huge harassment wave that happens, it hurts more now.
06:59Which is also good because it means I feel more now.
07:03Yes.
07:03Like, oh maybe I am healing and getting better.
07:06I actually have the same exact thing like in the prison, in the thick of it.
07:10Like I retreated into this like tiny little kernel of a person inside of myself where I felt like no
07:17one could touch me and hurt me and it was like the last part of me that I had left.
07:20And like I got numb. And one of the things that people like you know complained about me when I
07:26got home was
07:27look how cold she looks. Look how like unemotional. And I like I was so emotional like I had numbed
07:34myself.
07:35Of course.
07:35And so when stuff hurts now I'm like oh god I'm still healthy.
07:39It's survival. Like it's what we do to survive.
07:43The Tropes vs Women video game series, I was so cold. I was like deadpan. I didn't make jokes.
07:49Everything used to be so scripted and I'm getting to a point where I'm like
07:52it. Like what else are you gonna do to me? I've been through it.
07:57Like I am still going through it and I'm choosing to be a human again. And I'm choosing to live
08:01again.
08:02So you misconstrue a joke that I made? Whatever.
08:05Right.
08:05It's not the end of the world.
08:07Oh that was, that was freaky.
08:09That was freaky.
08:10Alright, high five.
08:12I'm going to get you up.
08:14So push those two buttons in the back.
08:16These two?
08:17Yeah.
08:23Did I hit you with a great deal?
08:25Yes you did.
08:26Yes.
08:26At any point Anita could have decided it's not worth it anymore. It's not worth the threats. It's not worth
08:33the trouble I have to go to to protect myself. It's not worth fighting.
08:41I want a world where someone doesn't have to take the punches.
08:44But in the meantime, she has just volunteered herself.
08:48So, let's go to the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the
08:56side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of
08:56the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side
08:56of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the
08:56side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of
08:56the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side
08:56of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the
08:56side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of
08:56the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side
08:56of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the
08:56side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side of the side
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