It seems it's that kind of year where sexist people seem to have it their way.
A few months ago, it was Rush's idiotic and disgusting comments about Sandra Fluke. A few weeks ago, it was Augusta's inability to realize that women exists in the world (again, I'll write more about that in another diary post).
However, this time an incident occurred somewhat outside of the political realm. However, I'm hoping that with this diary post, that enough people see it that it gets the attention and action that is needed.
At the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East 2012, a female that got caught in a controversial policy, Jessica Nigri, a costume player (or "cosplayer") was permanently banned for dressing as the lead character of the upcoming video game Lollipop Chainsaw. Only, the policy seemed to only have been enforced on the second day, the outfit that she changed into was deemed inappropriate when the exact same outfit was worn without incident the day prior, and a shirtless male that was standing next to her when she wore the first "inappropriate" outfit seemed to be acceptable to the PAX officials.
It begs to be asked: what is it about sexism that is becoming "the thing" in 2012?
Let me first give you the lowdown about these kinds of expos. As you might know, I'm an avid gamer (I've gamed all my life, starting at age 2 with the Atari 2600), and I follow the latest gaming trends and news, and follow the conventions such as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3, the sort of "Super Bowl" of the expos) and, the one in question (PAX). At these expos, several new games are put on show for gaming media to see and demo. Sometimes, the public is invited, as the case is with PAX.
Here's where the shit hits the fan, though. Though the practice has been toned down in recent years, game booths at these shows sometimes have what are called "booth babes", attractive females aimed to get your attention and, in turn, direct your attention to their game. It's common, though somewhat cheap for an industry with a male demographic (though female gamers have increased in numbers in recent years). PAX had enacted a way to really nip the issue in the bud: ban them altogether. No problem, right?
However, there seems to be one now. The incident, which gaming blog Destructoid first reported on, concerned one particular game, the aforementioned Lollipop Chainsaw, a game that puts you as a high school student in a cheerleader outfit with the namesake weapon in hand as she battles a zombie outbreak, caused by her now dead boyfriend, at the school. The outfit itself is risque, but not unlike what gamers like myself are used to. Plus, many gaming companies have put female protagonists as those that are strong willed people that can definitely hold their own (case in point, the lead character of the famous game franchise Metroid is a female).
So the publishers of the game in North America, Warner Bros. Interactive (the Japan-based Grasshopper Manufacture is the developer), had an idea of how to promote the game at the PAX expo: enlist the services of cosplayer and avid anime and manga fan Jessica Nigri (shown at left). According to her official site, the 21 year old New Zealand native has cosplayed since 2009 and has been at several expos since. She also has recently began work as a journalist, doing a few interviews for the site comicbooktherapy.com. She also is a member of a nonprofit group in order to have children read more (the group focuses on comic books as the main source of reading). She has been described as very easy going by those who have interviewed her in the past. Even though her cosplay outfits can at times be revealing, it's not in an inappropriate fashion, and the outfits are done to be authentic to the character she is trying to portray (an important aspect of being a cosplayer is that the outfits and how they are worn are in the same way as how the onscreen characters wear them).
Her task at the expo? Dress as the main character in the upcoming Playstation 3/XBox 360 title. A simple task, though one might think that it might be risking being caught in that "no booth babe policy". However, there was no incident on the first day. It's on the second day that things began going south. She dressed in another, more revealing pink outfit (the cheerleader outfit, while showing midriff, is far less revealing) that the lead game character can also wear. The officials of the expo saw this as an issue, and asked for her to change into something less revealing. She does that, into the cheerleader outfit she had on the day before (and the one that didn't cause any issue previously). This time, the officials DID have an issue (they claimed that they had received complaints from the attendees), and forced her to change again. Their rumored suggestion: a sweater, something that would make her very unable to do her job (the lead character in the game is not known to wear any kind of sweater). She refuses to change this time, and, in turn, the officials have her removed, and ban her permanently.
These are the three outfits that Jessica wore to promote the game. The "cheerleader outfit" (left) was worn on day one, which wasn't deemed inappropriate until the second day when she changed into this once they asked her to change the first time. The pink outfit, worn on day two, sparked the initial outrage, and what she changed from. The rightmost outfit is exclusive to this picture. All outfits are worn by the game's lead character.
This is, however, while there was a
male robot cosplayer, who was wearing a robot mask (the mask is the mascot of the Destructoid site that broke the story). The male was shirtless and actually shot still images with Jessica at the booth in which this incident occurred. At no time was this male told to do anything about his bare chest.
PAX does have the "no booth babe" policy, but it's called into question here. Jessica was not even looked at as anything to question on day one of the expo. Thus, there seemed to be no problem on that front. There are comments on gaming sites that are talking about this story about there being such a policy. However, if that was the problem, then why was there no issue on the first day? Officials had to have been going past this booth a lot during day one, so someone had to have taken some notice to it (not to mention that the game itself is being hyped across the gaming media, making it a high profile title). The policy did not apply on day one.
Then, in addition to that, it was on day two, when she had the pink outfit on, that officials took notice and told her to change. She was willing to comply at first. One would think that if officials didn't have any issue with the day one attire, then her wearing it on day two would prove to be okay since there was no issue. However, this time, the officials did a flip-flop. How is this when the attire was exactly the same as what they had to have walked past several times during the day? Her refusal to change only came after they told her to change from day one's attire. The rumored "approved" attire, along with the shirtless male, makes for an interesting conversation, not to mention the harsh punishment.
And it would not be as controversial, even with all of that lingering, if it wasn't for the notion that the convention and it's owners have stroked that sexist flame before. The PAX expo is an expansion of Penny Arcade, a site that runs a regular coming parodying the gaming industry with other, risque subject matter. The site, and the expo, is headed by the same two people that author the comic, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. There was one comic in particular that grabbed attention that became a subject of much bad publicity at the following PAX. You can read what the actual comic was about here (it'll take a while to explain the origin). But the comic in question brought up the subject of rape in a lighthearted manner, and the creators were forced to apologize for bringing up the subject in such a way (rape was not a punchline). However, at the following expo, the two authors, during a Q&A session, were asked to draw the actual character in question, and the feed for the show had it's title changed (info as to the name of the character in question and what the feed's name was changed to is also at the link, as I won't repeat it here). The incident caused several things to occur, and someone actually posted a timeline of the events that occurred from the linked controversy to their Tumblr.
In other words, PAX is no stranger to incidents like these, and Jessica Nigri's ordeal is one that should put the final nail in the coffin as to how these guys operate.
The policy is a failed one. It's not enforced consistently, and the policy itself, with developers and publishers themselves have restrained themselves of the practice in recent years, is severely unnecessary. One could argue that the policy is only there in order to have a reason to be sexist in the first place. The woman who was removed was only doing what she was hired to do, and she was not doing anything wrong, and was only deemed to have done something wrong when the officials of this conference saw fit to question her, and then be hypocritical of their opinions about attire after the fact. The outfits she wore complied with how the lead character of the game she was to promote dressed during the course of the game, and the officials did not have any issue with the game itself.
The claim that they got complaints do not make sense, either, and this is also due to the lack of action on day one (again, the cheerleader outfit was an issue on day two when it wasn't before), in an expo with several M rated games clearly on display (business development president Robert Khoo told another gaming blog site, Kotaku, that the policy was to make the expo family friendly. If they had complaints about the cheerleader outfit, wouldn't they have approached her the first day?
None of the arguments that were brought fit because of the lack of action on day one, nor was there any action taken against either the male or Warner Bros.
In fact, if the policy was what was being enforced here, then it should be WB that was punished, not Jessica. WB was the one who hired her, and she wasn't under any impression that cosplaying was taken as being a "booth babe".
As if they should be punished, anyway. As I said at the offset, this comes at a very bad time for PAX. Not only have they been on the wrong side of this subject before (and they seemed to not care, and even embrace, that they were), but 2012 seems to be the year of the sexist. As we've already had Rush Limbaugh call activist Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute before giving us a backwards apology that solved nothing and the Augusta "males only" policy once more taking center stage, this only adds to the issue that something must be done about male chauvinists.
Hopefully, enough people on Kos take notice about this incident and tell any gamer they can that PAX needs to be held accountable for these actions. Regardless of what you think about the actual outfits, the actions and timing of them by the officials showed a lack of consistency and reeks of suspicions of their real intentions. Of course, it's easier said than done to take action against someone if the person in question is uncaring about their reputation and, as the case is with Augusta, uncaring if they ever have any fans or sponsorship again, but making differences takes hard work.
It's sad to see that no one industry is immune to incidents that can spark a major political firestorm like this, and that no one industry is immune to such disgusting behavior.
7:02 PM PT: UPDATE: Another gaming blog recently posted a video interview with the girl in question about her role and the game. One of the loopholes about the policy that created this issue (I've read the comments; maybe I'm not explaining the position I have, which I stand by, well enough) is that any "cosplayer" has to know something about the game, and is able to explain what the game is about and all. I've mentioned that Jessica is an avid fan of anime and manga. She's also a gamer, and as you will see in the video, she knows about the game she's promoting and has played it (she even says that she knows something she can't tell anyone else, probably due to standard business NDA's). This should not only show that the officials were wrong, but also that no one noticed the first outfit.
10:29 PM PT: Okay, so people who are worried about Jessica being banned can rest easy, as the Destructoid story got things mixed up (gaming media can be like Fox News sometimes). Jessica tweeted that she was only told to change, and there was some confusion as to what was actually appropriate, but things got squared away, and there was no other altercation, as originally reported.
She returned for day three of PAX wearing the rightmost outfit, which, to me at least, is very attractive in the black stockings.
However, the policy is still not a very good policy that doesn't exactly do what it's intended to do, and is instead very good at enforcing gaming stereotypes as well as opens the door for the possibility of sexist actions down the line. According to the Kotaku story I linked, costumed reps are allowed and are allowed to have revealing clothing as long as it doesn't cross the line into partial nudity. I still call on PAX to address this issue and clarify what they deem acceptable.
That way, we don't end up thinking that PAX is ran by the fat fuck himself!