GLAAD video games award – Still no love for video games from GLAAD
It’s that time of the year again when the GLAAD award noms are out. The 20th Annual GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Awards presented by IBM will be held in New York on March 28, 2009 at the Marriott Marquis; in Los Angeles on April 18 at the Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE; and in San Francisco on May 9 at the Hilton San Francisco.
As you are no doubt aware, the awards are for recognition of media for fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Given these are “media” awards and not Television / Film awards, we’d still like to see GLAAD include gaming (mentioned last year). This would make sense given the far reaching hand of our hobby (which generates more revenue than the Hollywood film industry).
We’ve decided to contact GLAAD again this year and ask them for thoughts on this issue (last year they didn’t reply for those that wondered). Perhaps there just aren’t enough games out with gay content? That being the case, perhaps GLAAD should host a special award, like the Special Honorees of this year (Tyra Banks and Suze Orman) and have it be for excellence in character development or inclusion in a video game? This year Fable II should surely have got a nod.
Thoughts?
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As one of the three professional game writers who forced the Writers Guild of America to give out a “Best Videogame Writing” award, I’d suggest that you target your efforts towards the people who can do the most good. Call GLAAD to find out (a) who’s on the awards committee, and then (b) write them a letter citing specific examples of gay-friendly game content, (c) maybe include a DVD of said content (you’d be amazed at how many people haven’t touched a modern game), (d) remind them that videogames out-earned DVD & Blue-Ray sales in stores this year, and (e) point out that videogames are a primary source of entertainment for teens, gay & straight. Encouraging more game companies to include pro-gay characters and content would go a long way towards accomplishing the goals of their organization… you’ve just got to sell it to them in the language that they’re used to speaking.