Video Game Offers Feminist Commentary in Action

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Finally, there is relief for women plagued by catcalls hollered from speeding car windows, unsolicited innuendos offered by complete strangers, and proverbial one-liners greasy enough to make you gag. Well, virtual relief that is, courtesy of the folks at the video game production company LadyKillas Inc.

In the recently released first-person shooter game Hey Baby, a lone female wields a loaded AK-47 as she walks along city streets à la Grand Theft Auto, ready to “pulverize the leering scumbags” that verbally and physically threaten her safety and security. The New Statesman picked up on this bizarre addition to the gaming world, noting that “video games have long been an acceptable outlet for men’s fantasies and everyday frustrations, however unpleasant. Hey Baby is similarly about familiar frustration–in this case, the kind of frustration that women feel when strangers treat them as sexual objects in a public space.”

So as much as Hey Baby is ostensibly a shoot ’em up gorefest, there’s way more to it than that. It’s art, activism, and social commentary operating under the novel guise of a recreational pastime, and despite its in-your-face presentation, its underlying message is meant to be discussed seriouslyand it should be.

Source: New Statesman

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