This is Anita Sarkeesian’s Ms. Male Character video from her Women vs Tropes video series that analyzes sexist tropes in video game industry.

A few things:

Note the MUCH MUCH higher quality in editing, logo use, footage use, video/image quality, etc. And the much greater length and attention to detail. The video is also very thorough and clearly explained.

I don’t get where people get off acting like this is no more high quality or detailed than her older videos. It obviously is.

Also note all the references she makes. Some are quite obscure and definitely show a thorough and extensive knowledge of gaming tropes and characters. So people claiming she doesn’t know her shit are obviously full of it. I’d be willing to bet there are examples here many male gamers who regularly call Sarkeesian and other women fake nerd girls have never heard of. She uses well-known examples, too, and a variety of examples from different genres and articulates her points clearly and persuasively.

I also appreciate that sarkeesian used the term “all genders,” brought up the gender binary and erasure of nonbinary people, and also briefly addressed how the trope at hand has also been used to perpetuate transphobia in gaming.

The video is a good introduction to this particular trope in the gaming world that is also applicable to all media, and does make some good and interesting connections. I don’t think it’s super advanced, but I wish all gaming designers and people new to feminism, gaming, or analyzing sexism in gaming would watch these videos because they do a good job introducing vocabulary to talk about feminist issues in the gaming industry.

A couple minor criticisms I have are gendering kirby as male (Kirby’s gender has remained unspecified), and keeping the section on good examples of female characters too short. I think she could have included more positive examples of female representation, and a few more well-known ones—as well as a bit more commentary on what makes those examples good female representation.