Conference Presentation
Reference
When the medium is (not) the message : intersectionality and procedural rhetoric in vegan video games
MADSEN, Deborah Lea
Abstract
Ethical veganism as an historic philosophy represents a complex intersection of rights discourses that translates into lived practices of care and sustainability based on equal respect for other-than-human animals, the natural environment, and women. This intersectionality promotes anti-speciesism, anti-racism, anti-vivisection, anti-militarism, anti-poverty (especially food scarcity), anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, anti-extractivism, and the rights of labor, women, LGBTQ+, environment, and other-than-human animals. Vegan feminists, for example, note the shared discursive feminization of “animals” and “Nature” as exploitable resources within hetero-patriarchal anthropocentrism. Communicating this intersectionality through activism is a challenge met, in part, through contemporary digital technology including social impact video-games. This presentation examines the design of vegan games created by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) through Ian Bogost's concept of “procedural rhetoric”: the process of “learning by doing” that is prescribed by the rules that control player behavior within [...]
MADSEN, Deborah Lea. When the medium is (not) the message : intersectionality and procedural rhetoric in vegan video games. In: Art, genre et environnement : vers une intelligence de la nature ? (Cours en études genre), Genève, 18 décembre, 2020, p. 23
Available at:
http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:146827
Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.
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vers une intelligence de la nature ? »
Cours en études genre, 18 décembre 2020
When the Medium is (not) the Message:
Intersectionality and Procedural Rhetoric in Vegan Video Games
Deborah Madsen
Professor of American Studies Department of English, UNIGE
Vegan Video Games
Let's Play!
I have chosen to focus on video games that are
● Explicitly marketed as “vegan games,”
● Free to download,
● Can be accessed on different platforms,
● Do not require special equipment (e.g. a console),
● Are easy to play,
● Do not demand a great deal of time to play.
Games that satisfy all of these criteria are offered by the animal rights organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
WARNING:
many of these games contain scenes of graphic violence.
ANYONE ONLY VIEWING THE RECORDED PRESENTATION – instructions are on the next slide.
LIVE PRSENTATION: show these short video play-throughs:
Cage Fight. (show 0:23 – 3:06)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vDD5zMLpqA Super Tofu Boy. (01:10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDogsSJk5M Meat is Murder. (show 0:40 – 1:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fQwR1lAl-QU PETA's Pokemon Black and Blue. (show to 2:03) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4adARQAPms
Please keep these games in mind, while I turn to some theoretical contexts, starting with the concept of “intersectionality.”
Let's Play!
To get a sense, in advance, of the kinds of video games that I will be discussing, I suggest that you STOP NOW if you are watching the video recording of this lecture and
follow these steps ...
On your smart phone, tablet, or computer:
Open a browser and navigate to https://www.peta.org/features/games/
Click on one of the following games or use the direct links below:
● Meat is Murder : https://games.peta.org/meat-is-murder-game/
● Cage Fight : https://games.peta.org/cage-fight-mma-game/
● PETA’s Pokémon Black and Blue :
https://games.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody/
● Super Tofu Boy : https://games.peta.org/super-meat-boy-parody/
Spend a few minutes playing one (or more!) of these games before returning to this video.
If you have more time, you may also like to play the more complex and longer game:
Kitten Squad: https://www.peta.org/features/kitten-squad-peta-game-for-ios-android/
Play the game at https://store.steampowered.com/app/547820/Kitten_Squad/ but note that you must create a free Steam account to access the game.
For those present at the “live” lecture, we will look at a very short video play-through of each game (the URLs are listed at the end of the presentation) ...
This slide is not included in the “live” presentation.
Vegan Video Games
INTERSECTIONALITY
If you read the resumé of my presentation you will know that intersectionality is central to ethical veganism; I wrote there:
“Ethical veganism as an historic philosophy represents a complex intersection of rights discourses that translates into lived practices of care and sustainability based on equal respect for other-than-human animals, the natural environment, and women. This intersectionality promotes anti-speciesism, anti-racism, anti- vivisection, anti-militarism, anti-poverty (especially food scarcity), anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, anti-extractivism, and the rights of labor, women, LGBTQ+, environment, and other-than-human animals.”
What is “intersectionality”?
The term was coined by US legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) - to describe overlapping forms of discrimination
- to which African-American women are subject, and
- that are invisible from the single focus of sexism, racism, etc.
Categories of inequality that intersect to empower and sustain each other can include:
gender, sex, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, class, affluence/poverty, educational level, religion, (dis)ability, age, physical appearance, etc. ... and SPECIES.
The forces behind intersectional discrimination and oppression can include:
Patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, colonialism, globalization, capitalism, etc. ... and ANTHROPOCENTRISM.
Ethical Veganism as an intersectional practice exposes the limits imposed by HUMAN rights discourses in the analysis of systematic oppressions and privileges.
As I will explain shortly:
Vegan feminists, for example, note the shared discursive feminization of “women,”
“animals” and “Nature” as exploitable resources within hetero-patriarchal anthropocentrism.
ETHICAL VEGANISM
Vegan Video Games
You may have noticed that I use the term “ethical veganism” rather than just plain “veganism.” The reason lies in the difference between
“Ethical” veganism versus veganism for health:
A “health vegan” adopts a “plant-based diet” for their own personal benefit and will not eat animal products for health reasons, but would have no problem wearing a leather jacket to visit a zoo or using an animal-fur brush to apply cosmetics that have been tested on animals..
Ethical vegans will not use animals for food or entertainment or labor.
What is “ethical v eganism”?
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the
development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
(The Vegan Society, https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism) Ethical veganism as an historic philosophy represents a complex intersection of rights discourses on the human/animal axis, which translates into lived practices of care and sustainability based on equal respect for all living entities.
This intersectionality promotes:
● anti-speciesism,
● anti-racism,
● anti-vivisection,
● anti-militarism,
● anti-poverty (especially food scarcity),
● anti-capitalism,
● anti-colonialism,
● anti-extractivism,
and the rights of labor, women, LGBTQ+, environment, and other-than-human animals.
“Ethical veganism” is opposed to:
=> species discrimination: this includes animals/fish/insects used for food, fashion, entertainment, forced labor, or military-industrial-scientific experimentation;
=> exploitation of “inanimate” nature (which is not considered inanimate in ALL cultures) like
rivers and lakes (water for hydro-power), trees (for fuel, paper),
mountains and geological entities (mining for minerals, oil, gas)
– ALL are linked to violence against animals: e.g. deforestation for industrial meat production, the pollution of rivers and streams by CAFOs
(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), or destruction of habitats for mining
=> sexism – this has been captured in the image of “the hierarchy of oppression” (on the next slide)
The Hierarchy of Oppression
CULTURE human
“rights”
“NATURE”
resources
other-than-human rights-less
http://human-animal-liberation.blogspot.com/2009/06/roots-of-oppression.html
While this hierarchy is explicitly gendered, it is also based on the binary opposition between human / non-human:
Culture is Masculine and Human Nature is Feminine and not-Human
Vegan feminists, for example, note the shared discursive feminization of ALL exploitable resources within hetero-patriarchal anthropocentrism,
arguing that entities become “exploitable” as a consequence of discursive feminization.
So we could add “feminization” to the “3 Fs” of animal exploitation
= fun, food, fashion.
Note that discursive animalization works in the same way to transform women into exploitable or consumable commodities.
“ethical veganism” and “eco-feminism”
The shared discursive formation (“feminization”) of women, environment (“Nature”), and other-than-human animals as exploitable resources, e.g.:
“Surprisingly few people, including feminists, are aware of the fact that a cow needs to be pregnant and give birth in order to produce milk (as must any mammal female). Cows are routinely forcefully impregnated (using a so-called “rape rack”), an act that is in all sense equal to sexual violence, only to have their newborn children torn away from them to be sold as veal, for us to steal and sell the milk intended for them. These animals’
reproductive systems are systemically exploited for human gain and pleasure, keeping female animals enslaved for life.” (Colerato 2016, n.pag.)
Rhetorical/linguistic naturalization of this literal exploitation:
● “cow” as an insult: “a woman who is stupid or annoying” (Merriam-Webster);
● “cash cow”: a business that does not stop returning a profit;
● “milking” for profit: “If you say that someone milks something, you mean that they get as much benefit or profit as they can from it, without caring about the effects this has on other people.” (Collins Dictionary)
Feminism and veganism are not identical or even parallel movements.
Feminist issues are incorporated into ethical veganism, which identifies the
“ground” of all oppression as speciesism (not sexism).
It is easy to be a feminist but not a vegan;
It is difficult to imagine an ethical vegan who is not feminist.
“Vegetarian feminism”is a movement, the name of which was coined by Carol Adams; the two concepts are brought together in the lived philosophy of ethical veganism.
CONSEQUENTLY ...
The video games I will discuss do not have explicit feminist or gender studies themes
but they DO have important implications for Gender Studies.
“ethical veganism” and “eco-feminism”
The shared discursive formation (“feminization”) of women, environment (“Nature”), and other-than-human animals as exploitable resources:
Marina Colerato (2016): the lack of vegan-feminist intersectionality = “the difficulty of breaking free from the imposed cultural patterns and naturalised processes that turn animals into pieces of meat” ... food, OR fashion, fun.
Vegan Video Games
Vegan and eco-feminist activism recognizes the shared rhetorical
construction of women, animals, and nature as exploitable resources.
BUT this link is not obvious even to some feminists; see the Colerato quotation on the slide.
My most important points:
1) Vegan activism devotes a lot of effort to making visible this “naturalized”
(and hence mostly invisible) assumption that animals and women exist only to serve the appetites and desires of humanity / men.
2) “Feminization” and “Animalization” are effects of discourse; they are rhetorical constructions and so it is through rhetoric that the activist work of “defamiliarization” is pursued.
The theorist Ian Bogost offers a powerful tool for the analysis of these discursive effects in video games which is his concept of “procedural rhetoric.”
What is “procedural rhetoric” (Ian Bogost)?
“... the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions, rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures” (Persuasive Games 2007, ix, emphasis added).
Game design prescribes learning by doing (rather than hearing, seeing, reading) through:
1) the rules of the game and naturalized values (ideology) according to which the diegetic world actually works, and
2) speculative alternative modes of knowing and being in the non/diegetic world.
Video games can do this because they “represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them.”
In other words, the rules of the game = the rules of the game world.
Bogost builds on this:
Players must make diegetic judgments that = values in the extra-diegetic
“real” world.
Think of the “doubleness” that is characteristic of a VG avatar = Internal narrative character + the external player, at the same time.
Perhaps, at this stage of my presentation, you are asking yourself: why is this relevant to gender studies?
My answer: Video games are a POWERFUL vector of cultural values and naturalized processes of interpretation/knowledge
among which can be counted -
the “naturalization” of “inferiorization” (of women, animals, nature)
which happens through, what Judith Butler discusses in Bodies that Matter (1993) as the processes and structures of objectification, ownership, and control, that define which bodies are worthy of protection, rescue, or mourning.
So video games matter!!
Why do Video Games Matter?
Large game development companies are part of the corporate-entertainment- industrial complex that produces, promotes, and sustains status-quo ideologies.
1 in 3 people play or are closely familiar with video games, indicative of a cultural influence that exceeds cinema.
In 2020, the global games market will generate revenues (sales) of $160-180 billion, with year-on-year increases of approximately 10%. Most of the increase in 2020 comes from the expected $77 billion in revenue from mobile gaming (for tablets and smartphones).
Especially in the age of coronavirus, video games have greater popular impact than cinema and they rival TV: “The movie industry as a whole has lost close to
$10 billion thus far in 2020 according to multiple analyses as the shutdown hammers other sectors of the entertainment and leisure industries.”
(Field Level Media, Reuters, 2020, n.pag.) Game development corporations are conservative and resistant to social
change, but video games constitute a major ideological vector within popular culture.
Vegan Video Games
So finally I come to the actual video games mentioned at the beginning, that I will discuss in the context of
Ian Bogost’s concept of “procedural rhetoric” - the process of “learning by doing” that is prescribed by the rules that control player behavior within the game system rather than the content of the game world.
So I will focus on
the “medium” = the mechanics or the game RULES, that dictate the BEHAVIOR (of the player/character = avatar) and
the VALUES that motivate behavior.
But when the procedural rhetoric of the game medium is not consistent with the activist message, then in these vegan games conflict is created with implications for sexism and speciesism.
In contrast, a positive example of an intersectional video-game (but one that is not marketed as “vegan”) is offered by the Iñupiaq puzzle-platformer Never Alone (2014), which is where I will end my presentation.
Games where the medium and the message are NOT coherent:
The message and the medium are in contradiction:
Meat is Murder (2016) save animals from slaughter by shooting them
(even if you use “rainbows” as bullets).
Game uses the generic mechanics of arcade shooting games like the classic Space Invaders
BUT
the player-skill of precision shooting is not consistent with the ludic aim of
animal liberation or the vegan aim of “doing the least harm.”
Many of PETA's vegan video games are fraught with problems that become obvious when they are subjected to literary or narrative analysis because the
Form and content Medium and message
Procedural rhetoric and social activism are in conflict.
A very clear example is the game Meat is Murder ...
...Or the game Cage Fight, where the conflict between the medium and the message requires a “warning notice” at the beginning of the game!
This game deliberately blurs the boundary between game world and “real”
world by requiring the player to choose an avatar from a selection of MMA (mixed martial arts) celebrities - Aaron Simpson, Georgi Karakhanyan, or Jake Shields.
Aim of the game is to kill the scientist to stop him killing the animals;
= simple reversal of the hierarchy of oppression.
The game changes the hierarchical position of the entities but without changing the dynamics of oppression.
The medium and message of this parody game are more coherent, converging in the effort to expose the ideology of speciesism that is
expressed in human entitlement to possess, exploit and treat animals with violence.
Image 1: Professor Juniper stresses that humans are more important than Pokémon.
Image 2: Ghetsis explains his business idea to use the skin and meat of
“used up” Pokémon so they “will not go to waste.”
Super Tofu Boy (2010)
parody of the award-winning, multi-platform games Meat Boy (2008), Super Meat Boy (2010), and Super Meat Boy Forever (2020)
Story:
Main Game Mechanic:
jumping to avoid lethal obstacles
(using keyboard or controller)
Game Challenge:
Tests the player's fine motor skills
(control, timing, strength, stamina)
Message of the medium:
rewards physical prowess Activist message:
vegans are not malnourished and hence weak.
Medium and Message are coherent ... but GENDER? The game
feminizes animals and animalizes women;
and both depend on a “boy” for rescue.
Another game in which the medium and message are relatively coherent, but which fails absolutely to engage the intersectionality of ethical veganism, is Super Tofu Boy.
A positive example of an intersectional “ethical vegan” video game
“Polar Bear Cave” episode
Game Mechanics
● collaboration between human and fox entities
● switching between TWO avatars to interact with the game system
● respect for the integrity of all creatures (do not try to kill the bear!)
>> a non-anthropomorphic and non-anthropocentric point of view;
>> a coherent relation between
gameplay mechanics and game objective (in this episode the player could do nothing;
the bear's anger will destroy the obstacle so Nuna and Fox can progress)
("I am not alone")
Show playthrough of this sequence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK9xlSMS_fA
Aim / Message -- Means / Medium AIM = to save the village from
an endless blizzard caused by a giant digging in the ground MEANS = using knowledge of all the entities in the diegetic environment (including weather, geology, spirits) that are elements of a sentient Earth (Siḷa)
– the giant is defeated by making him laugh!
● Procedural Rhetoric and Social Activism are mutually supporting;
● Learning (the message) by doing through Ian Bogost's “rule-based representations and interactions”
(the game medium).
Never Alone / Kisima Inŋitchuŋa
Video games = a vector that communicates naturalized ideologies -- that include attitudes, values, and behaviors that are relevant to issues of species and gender discrimination/exploitation.
If the intersectionality represented by ethical veganism is to reach the massive audience required to deal with the intersecting crises that we currently face, then vegan video games could be an effective vehicle for teaching the values and behaviors necessary to environmental
sustainability, gender equity, and the promotion of anti-speciesist biodiversity.
Further examples from PETA:
Kitten Squad (2018):
https://www.peta.org/features/kitten-squad-peta-game-for-ios-android/
Paintball Hero (2017):
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/paintball-hero/id1197127542?ls=1 Super Chick Sisters (2007):
https://www.petakids.com/games/play-new-super-chick-sisters-game/
Some examples (not PETA supported):
Butcher Goes Vegan (2015):
https://dreamfarmstudios.com/portfolio/butcher-goes-vegan/
Human Farm (announced for release 2021):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1276510/Human_Farm/
Adams, Carol J. Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals. London: Continuum, 1994.
---. The Pornography of Meat. London: Continuum, 2004.
---. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. London: Continuum, 1990.
Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Boston: MIT Press, 2007.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” London: Routledge, 1993.
Colerato, Marina. “Let’s Talk About the Intersectionality of Veganism and Feminism.” Vilda. March 6, 2016. http://www.vildamagazine.com/2016/03/veganism-and-feminism/
Crenshaw,Kimberlé. “Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later.”
Columbia Law School: News. June 08, 2017.
https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later Field Level Media. “Report: Gaming revenue to top $159B in 2020.” Reuters. 12 May 2020.
https://www.reuters.com/article/esports-business-gaming-revenues-idUSFLM8jkJMl Human Animal Liberation. “Roots of Oppression.”
http://human-animal-liberation.blogspot.com/2009/06/roots-of-oppression.html PETA. “All Animals Have the Same Parts.”
https://www.peta.org/features/pamela-anderson-shows-animals-same-parts/
Vegan Society, “Definition of Veganism.”
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
Vegan Video Games
WORKS CITED
Cage Fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vDD5zMLpqA Super Tofu Boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDogsSJk5M Meat is Murder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fQwR1lAl-QU Never Alone / Kisima Inŋitchuŋa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK9xlSMS_fA PETA's Pokemon Black and Blue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4adARQAPms
List of Gameplay Videos used in the presentation
