Flanagan’s “Next Level”

After Locating Play & Politics, I read Flanagan’s earlier Next Level (.pdf). Generally, in order to fully understand a writer’s present argument it helps to read some of their earlier ideas. So too with Ms. Flanagan.

Flanagan comes at games from the trenches of cyberfeminism. That is to say, while Locating talks about how Urban Games allow to research and experiment with everyday environments, Next Level is equally rooted in art theory. Both offer a survey of art projects that somehow address the main thesis. In Next Level, this boils down to how “feminist artists conceptually remap political, aesthetic, and epistemological aspects of culture by using the tropes and conventions of computer games in unique ways.”

An impressive review of work by women artists that, in one way or another, deploy and critique a “mainstream” notion of video games, argues how these games

“strongly counter seamless, cohesive commercial-style game spaces and complicate identities offered by popular gaming practices…” (374)

Flanagan’s background in feminist theory carries the discussion well beyond mere representations of women in games. (Yes, we know…) Instead she hones in on “the relationship we have to that image through game-style interaction and the subjectivities offered through games.” (369, bolding JD)

Despite establishing that games “do not themselves reflect specific narratives but [...] structurally reflect specific cultural narratives or issues of race, gender, or politics,” her survey of feminist game artists does not really deliver. Flanagan argues, “women’s games celebrate the act of playing as a means of self-discovery.” (381) Yet, it remains unclear why that would be different in a “women’s game” than in, say, Zelda. Self-discovery, it seems, is uniquely feminine, and I’m not sure it is.

Following, women artists seem predominantly focused on offering a critique “through appropriation  of gaming conventions.”  More so, women take up “gaming as a discourse.”  (380) Although both of these  statements are true and necessary, I’m not exactly sure how that rhymes with the popularity of casual games, like Diner Dash, with women. Admittedly male-produced, Diner Dash casts the player in the role of Flo, an entrepreneurial waitress, bent on establishing her own restaurant chain. A friend of mine, a real-life entrepreneur, calls these “blue collar games.”  So I’m having difficulty understanding how Flanagan’s examples connect with a larger reality in which self-discovery (i.e women as entrepreneurs) seems to propagate women take on the role of server. Where is the discourse in that?

Although I wholeheartedly agree with her ideas, I think it breaks down on the following points.

First, video games are not new. That is, the appropriation of the feminine through game play existed long before contemporary games. And so I wonder what Flanagan would make of chess, in which the queen is by far the most powerful piece on the board. The absence of a larger historical game context, made synonymous with “feminist studies of science and technology,” weakens the argument.

Second, “real-world social commentary” may start in the minds and work of artists and designers, but its ultimate realization requires the break down of the privileged position of authors, designers, and their ilk. Democratic, egalitarian, constructive game play involves the participation of all, not just the professional and authorized. Sure enough, Flanagan’s examples speak towards exploring the intimacy of our individual relationship with technology, but such isolation does not contribute to a greater social cohesion.

While there remain a few smaller inconsistencies in this text for me (e.g. the ‘mainstream’ industry is at once ominous and anonymous), I appreciate her efforts in carving out some terrain for gamers and those that speak through them within the existing dialogue of cyberfeminist theory and technology. One question would be: how likely is communicating an alternative perspective if it is left to the few, and how can cyberfeminist theory transcend its position as merely critical to constitutive?

Flanagan, Mary. “Next Level: Women’s Digital Activism through Gaming.” Digital Media Revisited. Edited by Andrew Morrison, Gunner Liestøl & Terje Rasmussen. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003, 359 – 388.