Harassment and response The harassment continued as the series went into production. Due to her previous experiences, Sarkeesian disabled comments and ratings for her videos. In August 2014, after the release of the sixth episode of the video series, which focused on the "Women as Background Decoration" trope, harassment of Sarkeesian had reached such levels that she announced that a threat drove her out of her home. She was quoted as having posted on Twitter, "Some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now", followed by a later tweet, "I'm safe. Authorities have been notified. Staying with friends tonight. I'm not giving up. But this harassment of women in tech must stop!"
Critical reception Nate Carpenter reviewed the "Damsel in Distress" video positively in the journal
Women & Language. Carpenter commended the series for rendering the ideas and language of media criticism into a format accessible for a general audience. He judged it limited in failing to analyze the cultural milieu that perpetuates damaging tropes, but overall found it an "intelligent, engaging, and entertaining point of departure" for viewers interested in media studies. Chris Suellentrop of
The New York Times referred to the first four videos of the series as "essential viewing for anyone interested in video games". The series inspired Suellentrop to ask
Nintendo designer
Shigeru Miyamoto about his frequent use of helpless "damsels" in his games; Miyamoto responded, "I haven’t given it a lot of deep thought over the years."
Jesse Singal of
The Boston Globe wrote that the videos' strength lies in Sarkeesian's "deft[ness] at anticipating rebuttals", and said such work was important in challenging the industry to move away from overused tropes. Paul Dean of
IGN described the videos as an analysis of sexism that, while possibly "difficult to swallow" for some video game players, did not attack gaming itself but only "disappointing" stories in games. Writing in
Entertainment Weekly, Joshua Rivera said the series "illustrates in painstaking detail" video game designers' penchant for using violence against women as narrative shorthand, calling it "lazy storytelling", and said Sarkeesian's work is valuable because "as video games mature as a medium, they need to be held to the kind of scrutiny we hold other art forms to."
Chicago Sun-Times columnist
Neil Steinberg wrote that Sarkeesian's attackers effectively deter legitimate critique of her work, as many commentators are wary of being associated with the harassment. Noah Berlatsky wrote in
Newsweek that some
sex workers have objected to Sarkeesian's discussions of video game portrayals of their industry, particularly her use of terminology that they believe plays into the objectification she criticizes.
Cathy Young wrote in
RealClearPolitics that the
Tropes vs. Women videos are "full of selective and skewed analysis" that overlooks evidence that may challenge Sarkeesian's arguments.
Tropes vs. Women claim that women characters fit narrow roles in
Arkane Studios's 2012 game
Dishonored initially made the studio defensive, but led the team to realize that the game's female characters were solely servants, prostitutes, witches, queens, girls, or mistresses, though this was not their intention. As a result, the development team decided to expand
Emily Kaldwin's role as a playable main character in
Dishonored 2. == See also ==