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Charlie Creevy

Representations, Ideology and Hegemony: Women of colour

Updated: Jan 17, 2023

Representations of women, how do you limit 50% of the population into a easy to talk about issue, by adding another one into it. I joke of course.


The first product is the one I will always try to include in anything media is Overwatch. Women in overwatch are represented incredibly well especially women of colour and just non-white women, look at the Overwatch 2 season 1 release characters, all 3 are strong independent women and 2 of those being non-white. The latest character of colour is the Canadian hero sojourn who is a good representation of black women as the voice casting is spot on looking like the character and all and she is a leader and role model whilst having darker skin being a character many women of colour love. Even if she is overpowered in the game, as she should. Sojourn has been constructed to be fighting stereotypes whilst mediating reality as her va who plays her is so similar obviously showing it is not just fiction it can match reality. Continuing, the Japanese character of Kiriko is also a good representation as she is strong and isn't afraid to break laws to do what's right, obviously going against the other female support role stereotype. Being either a ditsy cheerful side character, or being overly nurturing but Kiriko was made to be a character people can pick up and fight with, not just be the sit back woman healing character. Furthermore she is a good character due to her incorporation of her culture in her design and character whilst still being naturalistic. You can tell Asian representation is bad when I see the name of an Asian character underlined in red whilst typing this...


Away from overwatch, another way women are represented is through the twitter art community. If you remember my first post, I have strong feelings on this. They love to misrepresent and accidentally demonize women of colour as they try to draw artwork that is progressive but ends up in more negativity than positivity due to them drawing women of colour as overly politically correct to the point it looks like mockery for example Mohammed Agbadi talks on this issue in this video surround VeeFixesArt.


Another positive rep but for a different reason is Fire Emblem Three Houses (fe3h) they rep racist discrimination through the place called Duscur. They use this a severe plot point throughout the biggest story the Blue Lions not using it as a backstory for one character it links to many. However in terms of women of colour Petra is an amazing example as she has it implemented into her design, story and more. She is fierce strong but also conforms to the stereotype of people coming from abroad not knowing English. However, her story of being a hostage princess explains this therefore mitigating these claims.


Beauty is a thing always associated with women. Black women are no exception therefore Il Makiage makeup is a good representation. Black women have always pointed out the racist shades of makeup as there are not shades that work for darker skin without lighting them as popular OTV streamer sydeon pointed out in this video.





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