The Sarkeesian Effect: Inside the World of Social Justice Warriors
- 2015
- 2h 36m
The Sarkeesian Effect focuses on the controversy surrounding feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, Social Justice Warriors, and the GamerGate movement. The title is a play on 'The Streisan... Read allThe Sarkeesian Effect focuses on the controversy surrounding feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, Social Justice Warriors, and the GamerGate movement. The title is a play on 'The Streisand Effect'.The Sarkeesian Effect focuses on the controversy surrounding feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, Social Justice Warriors, and the GamerGate movement. The title is a play on 'The Streisand Effect'.
Photos
- Self - Narrator
- (voice)
- Self
- (as Brad Wardell)
- Self
- (as Tim Meehan)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOn November 25, 2020, writer/director Jordan Owen issued a public apology for creating the film and for his actions towards Anita Sarkeesian.
- Quotes
Himself - Narrator: By the time Anita Sarkeesian ascended on to the GDC awards stage there were two conflicting stories on how she had gotten there. The one put forth by Mr. Druckmann was the one put forth by the media at large. The story of a heroic young woman who overcame impossible odds to gain ground for women and minorities everywhere. It was a compelling narrative, one that fit well with the civil rights stories of the past. PBS even saw fit to compare Anita Sarkeesian to Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk and Martin Luther King Jr. But this appealing narrative doesn't tell the whole story. As Anita grinned ear to ear with trophy in hand thousands of gamers were watching something else entirely, the video game industry bowing down to a bully like none it had ever encountered before, a bully that used guilt and political correctness to have her way. The two narratives about Anita Sarkeesian, one heroic, one heinous had come to define the two sides in a bitter culture war in modern gaming that would soon explode in the controversial consumer revolt known as GamerGate. While the world at large looked on with confusion gaming culture stood divided over what can be called The Sarkeesian Effect.
The video quality is, mildly put, poor. You'll find Troma films from the 1980's with greater image quality.
The audio is absolutely terrible, it is quite amazing that they failed the audio with the budget they had available - speaking as someone that have filmed plenty of YouTube videos outdoors and indoors, I know first hand that even a budget microphone and a little bit of knowledge produces a much better end result than this.
My only real complaint is towards the end where a longer narrative part jump cuts numerous times between an animated clip and Anita Sarkeesian talking about something.
The rest of the framing, camera angles and editing are mistakes commonly made by people new to the production of video making.
The same goes for the audio levels, but as the captured audio from the interviews are of such low quality from the start, it is not a good place to compare it with the background music that on some few occasions do steal focus.
My final critique is regarding the length of this film, it needed not be anywhere near the 2 hours and 36 minutes it is - It can easily be shortened by 1 hour if not even more.
The message of the film, however one sided it is, is a necessary one - it counters a blatant media bias.
(In case you are still oblivious to what is going on - Media (mostly, but not exclusively limited to games media) openly thinks of and behave towards gamers as "loser virgins living in their mothers basements and that they are unwashed, smelly as well as ugly with no prospect of ever leaving home or finding a girlfriend, they were also born with white skin so they are the privileged class in the western world with all the power, with which they are violently oppressing and physically preventing women and minorities from ever being allowed to play even the smallest video game on any kind of console or computer".
That sounds quite absurd does it not? Even if gamers were just trying to keep women out of gaming and that was the entire message, then gamers have done an embarrassingly poor job since 53% of gamers are women in 2015 according to these very same journalists and media outlets.
It should be made clear that Sarkeesian, the "journalists" mentioned in this film, Quinn etc. have no interest in talking or debating this, hence the lack of their "side" in this documentary, their motives are purely financial and their fan base will quickly turn on them if they step out of line, but that is too much to go in depth here. Further, there is no denying the facts that the games media had been on a crusade spewing hatred on gamers, it earns clicks to their websites which in turn increases their ad revenue.
To elaborate briefly; There is nothing stopping you from becoming a gamer, despite these journalists attempt to claim there is. Girls and ethnic minorities have played video games since the start in the 1970's with the rest of us, but the main games media have tried for more than a decade to obscure this fact, which is where the #NotYourShield came from - These gamers simply wanted media to stop talking on their behalf, especially since all media said was pure nonsense and contained more fiction than the actual games themselves. It is this mistake that journalists made when they decided to "kill the gamers" in 2014.
Gamers, long used to being mocked and ridiculed, finally said "No." Games Media realised it had finally gone too far with its overbearing and often bullying tactics tried to back pedal, only to find themselves up against their very own audience of gamers who were fed up and demanded accountability from these "journalists".
Instead of owning up to their mistake, journalists doubled down, started attacking the gamers instead branding them as misogynists and openly declaring war on its own audience culminating in an embarrassing episode on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (Season 16 Episode 14 Title: Intimidation Game) that made a cringe worthy episode grabbing details from the very headlines produced by these journalists and showed them how reality would have looked like if what they proclaimed was even remotely true.
Since the coordinated "attack" on gamers in 2014, gamers proved just how meticulous, dedicated and determined they are about their passion for gaming and have unearthed substantial amounts of quite embarrassing details regarding these "main figures" from Anita Sarkeesians early day trying to "teleseminar" her way to some quick money and fortune, to Zoe Quinns colourful past and the slew of so called "journalists" and their misdeeds.
This is what this film tried to capture and to some decent length succeeded with. It was definitely not value for money spent making the film and the price charged on the video website is not on par with its overall quality. To the credit of the producers, they did do a good job of letting people previously ignored or even actively blocked by the media speak, for that alone the price of the rental is worth while.
However as with any film or documentary telling you only one side, you should always do your own research, for this particular title you'll find that it is factually accurate, but being constantly attacked with "bad" identity politic labels, even reviews here on IMDb states that so and so is "racist/homophobic/misogynistic" - These labels do not counter any of the facts, arguments or events that took place or were presented within this film.
- Viperbane
- Nov 25, 2015
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- The Sarkeesian Effect
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $50,000 (estimated)
- Runtime2 hours 36 minutes
- Color