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Tag Archives: GTFO

John Oliver on online harassment

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Ken Gagne

Weekly news show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver takes a satirical approach to news, similar to The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. But that doesn’t mean the issues it addresses aren’t serious. On the June 21, 2015, episode, Oliver tackled the issue of online harassment, opening with a clip from the documentary GTFO and featuring interviews with Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu:

I’m sometimes asked why I focus on sexism in gaming and not in other fields, like politics or the film industry. It’s not because gaming is the only arena in which sexism is rampant — it’s not — but it’s where it’s most flagrant. As Oliver said, "This does not just affect women in gaming; it can potentially affect any woman who makes the mistake of having a thought in her mind and then vocalizing it online." Harassment is not free speech when it scares other people into sacrificing their own right to speak their minds. We need to all feel safe enough to stand up for ourselves without fearing threats to our lives, bodies, and loved ones.

Fortunately, as Oliver reported, some major players in the online space are starting to take responsibility for their role in allowing such harassment to occur. In the past months, revenge porn has been prohibited by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Whether these new policies will be effective or enforceable remains to be seen, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Posted in Elsewhere | Tags: GTFO, harassment, HBO, John Oliver, Last Week Tonight |

Polygamer #23: GTFO director Shannon Sun-Higginson

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Ken Gagne

GTFO is a documentary about women, discrimination, and misogyny in video games. Featuring interviews with Brianna Wu, Maddy Myers, Courtney Stanton, Jenny Haniver, and more, the film examines gamers’ experiences as developers, journalists, competitors, academics, and community organizers. Filming began in 2012 and concluded in mid-2014, months before GamerGate broke, demonstrating that these issues are systemic, extending beyond a few high-profile incidences.

In this interview with director Shannon Sun-Higginson, we discuss what prompted her to make gaming the subject of her debut film; how being a casual gamer helped rather than hinder her approach to this topic; pursuing funding on Kickstarter; how she incorporated GamerGate into the film’s coda; who the film’s target audience is; how she hopes the film will change perception of the gaming industry; and her experiences as a woman director showing GTFO on the film circuit.

Co-hosting this episode of Polygamer is Monica Castillo — film critic for International Business Times, co-founder of the Boston Online Film Critics Association, co-host of the Cinema Fix podcast, and feminist who introduced me to Anita Sarkeesian. You can find Monica on Twitter and Tumblr.

GTFO released on June 9, 2015, for streaming via multiple outlets, including Vimeo and iTunes. Monica saw GTFO at SXSW, while Ken was comped a ticket to its Boston Independent Film Festival screening by Women in Games Boston co-organizer Nina Huntemann.

Download the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive.

http://media.blubrry.com/polygamer/p/www.polygamer.net/wp-content/uploads/podcast/pg23-gtfo.mp3

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:27 — 25.3MB) | Embed

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Posted in Podcast | Tags: director, documentary, film, GamerGate, Get The Fuck Out, GTFO, misogyny, Monica Castillo, movie, Shannon Sun-Higginson, Vimeo, Vudu, women |

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