I produced an Indiana Jones’s type game and I created a dominant signifying image that was essentially masculine  and stereotypical. Although the antagonist was not really a male character, even though it may appear as male. This corresponds to Toril Moi’s analysis of the distinction between female, feminine, feminist categories of representation (1987). Only in my production there is a clear focus on masculinity. This can be identified in the typical stereotype of adventure games, where the main protagonist(the adventurer) is a man and has two sidekicks(one of which typically a woman).

Further to this I have exaggerated the muscular attributes of my character with expanded arms, legs and torso. I also included clothing that would be efficient for the story and confrontational, including an antagonist – signifying combat, aggression, conflict etc – and ancient clothing. In some ways this inverts Laura Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze in that my main character is there to be objectified and looked at, in the words of Laura Mulvey he is a character “establishing ways of looking and spectacle” (Mulvey, p. 883, 1999). However, the notion of the male gaze is quite distinct as it relates to the sexualisation of the dominant signifier, which is not the case for my character.

Nevertheless, I believe that it is generally accepted in society that masculinity is seen as much more aggressive, confrontational and violent than femininity. So in this sense my product is a reactionary representation of masculinity.

However, I don’t think this is a positive representation of masculinity as I personally believe that an over-aggressive (toxic) masculinity is not healthy for males to aspire to. As such, if I was to create this product again, I would avoid the stereotypical representation of an over-muscular, over-physical man and look to create a character that was more radical in representation. Perhaps inhabiting a range of signifiers that would connote a more feminine (ie less masculine) character. I could do this by re-sculpting my character in terms of their physical appearance, their clothing, their posture and even their gender. Changing the protagonists gender to female would make the product radical but a game which has already explored this idea is the ‘Lara Croft’ game franchise, although it may sem like a positive representation initially the game art/cover oversexualises Lara which I think is the wrong approach to creating a radical game. As such, I would be sending out a much more positive message (for me) about masculinity, if I made a radical product, one that used a positive countertype to present a radical and challenging representation which could help gamers to adopt a new ways of thinking about gender representation, with more positive role models for young people to aspire to. As Keith Stuart notes ‘the power of video games [is] a reflective, empowering and emotional influence on the lives of players’. (Why diversity matters in the modern video games industry, Guardian, 18 July 2017)