In the article Sex Lives in Second Life by Robert Alan Brookey and Kristopher L. Cannon, they aim to, “offer an alternative to the liberatory perspective on gender and sexuality in cyberspace” (Brookey & Canon 2009, p. 149). Additionally, in using a
“liberatory perspective”, they critique SL in cyberspace as a liberatory
environment, where it would seem people have more freedom and power (agency) to express and explore non-heteronormative gender roles.
However, their arguments focus on SL women as sexual objects and the marginalization of LGBTQ users. While this is a fascinating extension of gender theories posited by Judith Butler, John Sloop, and Michel Foucault, it is ultimately disappointing, as it reiterates heteronormativity and the notion of the existence of only two genders: male and female.
Butler’s notion of gender trouble asserts that the lack of fluidity in gender identities creates gender trouble for any gender identity or performative act that lies outside the boundaries of heteronormativity. Sloop's concept of disciplining gender focuses on how, "public discourse and media representations have served to reinforce
dominant norms and constrain or 'discipline' any behavior that blurs or
subverts conventional gender boundaries" (Sloop 2004). Foucault’s theory of the docile body asserts that, “individuals align their sexual practices with established norms, and actively assumed the responsibility for their own sexual health” (p. 148).
In looking at support for Brookey's and Canon's arguments, I researched sexual objectification of women and marginalization of LGBTQ identities in SL. Here is what I found:
1) Women as sexual objects in SL is the norm. The clothing is revealing and tight-fitting and make-up and hair are overdone and exaggerated. As Brookey and Canon mention in their article, the SL "Post 6 Grrls" models are an excellent example of how this objectification pervades cyberspace (p. 151).
The following picture is an example of the SL Post 6 Grrls, which is tame compared to many:
2) Dating sites in SL promote heteronormativity and sexual objectification as well, as seen in this IMVU video:
3) Lastly, I was able to locate only one video offering tutorials and advice on “Transgender in Second Life”. While it’s not expertly produced (poor audio/editing), it does allow an invitation for transgendered people to join SL as a way to “fit in” to a world outside of RL. It even promotes the SL Transgender Outreach Center, the SL Hate Crime & Suicide Memorial, and the SL Annual “New Orleans Style” Transgender Celebration. It's really unfortunate there aren't more SL resources promoting sexual liberation and gender fluidity; after all, gender is not finite in the real world. Why should it be in SL?
Simply defined, intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. In Brian Ott's and Cameron Walter’s article Intertextuality: Interpretive Practice and Textual Strategy, they discuss intertextuality as, “an interpretive practice of audiences and a stylistic device consciously employed by producers of media” (Ott & Walter, p. 429). The authors focus on “intertextuality as textual strategy”, and posit three different types: parodic allusion, creative appropriation, and self-reflexive reference (p. 431).
Intertextuality in interpretive
practice can have limited (Fiske) or limitless/infinite (Barthes,
Kristova) audience interpretations of texts (pp. 431-433). Intertextuality as a textual strategy use stylistic devices such as imitation and parody in the media through allusion (p. 434). Allusions are based on the assumption that there is a body of knowledge that is shared by the author and the reader and that therefore the reader will understand the author’s referent.
In terms of imitation, a parody imitates the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect. Parodic allusion then, is, “a stylistic device in which one text incorporates a caricature of another, most often, popular cultural text... that seeks to amuse through juxtaposition” (pp. 435-436). Here, the audience knows enough information about the original text to find humor in the parody. A good example of parodic allusion is Jimmy Fallon’s and Stephen Colbert’s “Friday” musical skit, a spoof on Rebecca Black’s viral YouTube music video:
Creative appropriation, or inclusion, “actually reproduces a portion of the original text”, and is often a commentary on how that text plays a role in a broader view of culture (p. 437). While inclusion can be used as a critical device, it can also be used to celebrate the text from which it is taken (p. 438). For example, Sean Comb’s & Faith Evan’s tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., I’ll Be Missing You, samples Every Breath You Take by The Police, which was the most popular song of 1983.
Lastly, self-reflexive references are, “subtle gestures that to be appreciated require specific knowledge of the text..." (p. 439). The article references a specific scene in Ally McBeal, at a time when the show’s star Calista Flockhart was very thin and rumors of anorexia ran rampant in the news. In the scene, she literally runs into Lara Flynn Boyle (who starred in The Practice at the time and who was also very thin). Boyle said, “Maybe you should eat a cookie,” to which Flockhart replied, “Maybe we should share it” (p. 440). The EW article below discusses the scene, calling it “self-referential fun”.
As Ian Bogost points out in the chapter entitled “Political Processes” in his book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, ideology in politics has evolved over time. According to Bogost, “hidden procedural systems that drive social, political, or cultural behavior are often called ideology” (p. 115). From from Antoine Destutt de Tracy’s concept of how we as humans amass the ideal from the real, to Napoleon’s ideologues, in which people utilize abstractions for what is real in politics, to Karl Marx’s belief that ideologies themselves are the material (Bogost, p. 116), we see many different interpretations of ideology.
Other concepts of ideology, such as Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony and Louis Althusser’s process of interpellation, wherein the material subject is created through ideology, led to Michel Foucault’s theory that the real world actually structures ideology through discourse (p. 117). More recent theorists such as Slavoj Žižek, see this material reality as “distorted”, leading us to become victims of Max Weber’s concept of the iron cage (p. 118). From this, Alain Badiou’s concept of the state of a situation, which can only be changed through an event, is also founded upon subjectivity (p. 118).
From these ideological concepts, Bogost posits, “Videogames are particularly useful tools for visualizing the logics that make up a worldview (following Gramsci), the ideological distortions in political situations (following Žižek), or the state of such situations (following Badiou)” (p. 119). Thus, “Political videogames use procedural rhetorics to expose how political structures operate, or how they fail to operate, or how they could or should operate” (p. 119). The Political Machine, which is an election simulator game, focuses on winning through electioneering and political strategy rather than politics and public policy. The premise is that you create your own candidate, assemble your campaign, choose your policies [not the ideology surrounding the policies, just the policies themselves (e.g. pro-universal health care or anti-immigration, etc.)], gather your staffers and lobby your supporters, attack your opponents, and run your race. The following video, The Political Machine 2008 - Official Trailer, demonstrates how the game is played:
Here, the ideology is that the best electioneering strategy will win the race. Bogost himself said it best: “If election games make any political statement, it is one about the utter divestiture of politics from elections, such that electioneering’s replacement of policy has become ideology” (p. 143).
