I have been invited by the UC Santa Barbara Multicultural Center to give a talk for their Race Matters Series. I am looking forward to seeing UCSB again, getting to be a guest in my sister’s game studies seminar, and to sharing some of my recent ideas and work with the UCSB community.
Brown Skins, White Avatars: Racebending and Straightwashing in Digital Games
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
6-7 PM
MCC Theater
Given recent critiques of the lack of diversity in digital games, this presentation examines the many ways games are stereotypical and normative particularly regarding race, gender, and sexuality even as gamers and developers evince their promises of power, freedom, and play with identities. How then might we unpack the ways characters of color are often rendered as either lighter-skinned protagonists or darker-skinned enemies? Or how might we understand how the algorithmic underpinnings of programming and game design allow for and problematically constrain and recuperate gender and sexuality?
