The damsel in distress: gendered spaces, power and subversion in video games
Date
2020
Authors
Hayes, Andrea
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Abstract
This dissertation works with theories on spatiality within video games to determine how the damsel in distress, as a narrative trope, is perpetuated. There are three distinctive spatial modes that this dissertation has defined: The phenomenological mode of space, the screen mode of space and the diegetic mode of space. All three modes of space have been deconstructed and analyzed through a gendered lens. Through theories on ‘queerness’, each mode of space can be subverted in order to challenge the damsel’s trope. An analytical focus on the case study, Donkey Kong (1981), has been applied to this dissertation
Description
Research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits School of Arts, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in Digital Arts, 2020