Feminist culture critic Anita Sarkeesian’s new video, “All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games,” true to form misrepresented the games it covered. In the video, Anita demands that more overweight women be represented in video games because that totally makes sense for female characters that are constantly running, climbing sheer cliffs and fighting hordes of monsters.
And in true social justice warrior fashion she ignores the games that are the most egregious offenders of her rules and instead focuses on the ones that are the most widely played and loved. In this case Overwatch and League of Legends.
Her greatest mistake comes when she says that League only features playable female characters of one Barbie doll body type. But this characterization is far from reality, an understandable mistake because Anita does not like or play video games.
She does concede that a few characters like Ilaoi represent differing body types, but then negates her point when she says their are no female monsters. “Where are the female skeletal priests and rock creatures,” she asks. In reality there are many female monsters and varying body types peppered into the games’s 132 playable characters.
Web cartoonist Kukuruyo went off on Twitter, displaying the wide range of female body types available in League.
Say hello to a female character in Lol pic.twitter.com/H18ZuX6hyl
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
Another female one pic.twitter.com/1ang8l5qtj
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
And another pic.twitter.com/aJkcQlt0k3
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
Look at how much flesh she shows! disgusting! pic.twitter.com/Oa3aYszvjW
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
Not a single female monster in lol, ejem pic.twitter.com/pzXjepawBa
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
Not zarya enough? pic.twitter.com/qJavxwxRGM
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
The dragon is a female playable character pic.twitter.com/JGNw3S8KeY
— Kukuruyo (@kukuruyo) September 3, 2016
Maybe Anita could increase her gamer cred by, I don’t know, actually playing the game she tears down in her videos. Then she may find they’re not always as problematic and triggering as she thinks.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks
Correction: the original article said Anita did not mention the large-bodied character Illaoi in her video which she did.
