The damsel in distress: gendered spaces, power and subversion in video games

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