Representation Matters!!

I have an incredibly awesome son and his 15th birthday is crashing down upon me in just a few days. Now let me clarify, I am 51 and nothing strikes terror into a 51 year-old woman quite like trying to figure out what to get a 15 year old adolescent boy for his birthday. Gone are the days of playdough, crafts, lego kits and stuffed animals. While I adore my son, our "shared" interests are dwindling each and every day so when I sit down to order him something he will like I am at a bit of a loss.

Since his mother studies and writes through a cultural studies lens my kid has to suffer through endless (endless but highly engaging I am certain!) rants about representation, equal rights, social justice and all those so-called 'political correctisms' that seem to irritate the right these days. Poor guy can't watch a television show or movie listen to music, see and advertisement or have a conversation without having to hear his mother go on about the stereotypes, stigmas and misrepresentations embeded within and the injustices these representations impose on populations of difference. I know I am annoying and fortunately he is patient with me and seems to have developed a good sense of humour about it all, well at least he appears so anyway I am fairly certain he might have a different tale to tell.

I adore this young man and thoroughly enjoy watching him mature, engage his own interests and take on the world in his utterly unique way. I admit I am pleased when he rants on his own about fighting injustices he witnesses in his teen world. Okay, so great right... this is what all parents are supposed to feel yes? So, the problem that brings to me this post.

My kid is a gamer, both virtual and strategy board games (see what I mean about relating!!). He has a really great group of friends, I mean the kind of friends parents can really only dream of... super responsible, good students, critical thinkers, full of humor and most important.. they treat him with respect. This group loves gaming-- after all they are 15-18 year old nerds and that is what 15-18 year old nerds are up to these days. Naturally, for his birthday celebration he wants to have them over for a robust day of gaming and celebration. I decided to try to find him a new board game, something slightly less focused on dominating the world than the usual suspects (you know who you are Stratego and Risk). I spent an hour scrolling through Amazon and game sites, and damn, it is nearly impossible to find strategic games that do not rely on stereotypes and stigmas to market their products. If you do not believe me go ahead and scroll through Amazon for awhile and see for yourself, I will be right here.

Take the image of the collaborative role-play game Dead of Winter. I am okay with trying to conquer zombies, I mean really how can you go wrong when all surviving members of society gather to project the future of humankind from the living dead. I will even confess to at times enjoying watching The Walking Dead when my husband and son have it on (although the glaring lack of black and latino protagonist characters early in the series was impossible to ignore). So, I thought "this is okay, this is not a terrible message to send and I can live with the idea of fighting off the mythical living dead" and in fact it even looks like it might be a lot of fun. Then I got a good look at the box.

15 faces. 13 white faces. 2 non-white faces. So, as Stuart Hall suggests, the lack of representation here already says something about who might feel welcome and significant to the marketers that designed the package.

Now, these next observations might seem to some a bit like picking at nits but that is kind of what I do and I believe they are critical nits to discuss, especially as the white parent of a white teenage boy. Take a good look at the black character and then compare the way he is represented to the white characters. We have three white women with blonde hair with non-menacing or welcoming looks, a redheaded woman with a neutral expression on her face, an older white male with a look of what is probably shock and suprise driven by a random zombie attack, a determined white man with glasses (again not at all menacing), the classic old gritty white male with a fur lined snow suit, a young white male with kind and gently eyes and another twenty-something white male looking very serious and concerned. Now seriously, look at the black man in the upper left corner (he is easy to spot since he is the only black representation on the box). How is he represented? If you are a young black man into gaming what does this say about how the world looks at you? If you are a black woman, or any female minority, does this box make you feel invited into the game? What about the construction of the space on the box? What about the woman in the lower right corner in the red hood?

Really these observations are nothing new to those so frequently misrepresented, under-represented and un-represented by cultural industries. What is critical here is whether white kids, particularly young white males, even notice! So, yes I RELUCTANTLY ordered the game (shh don't tell him) and my poor kid and his friends will have to sit through a very brief rant after he opens it. Then, I hope as they move to slaying zombies they also consider slaying the pervasive misrepresentations, stereotypes and stigmas that dominate their world.

#representation