Cultivating Virtual Feminist Violence in Alice-Madness Returns and Inferno

Analysis of Video Game Adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Dante’s Inferno

Abstract

The work of media is twofold- one shaping individual
perspective of the world and two, synchronizing thoughts with what is
being represented through the medium. Although study on the violence
inflicted by television has been subjected to research; nevertheless, studies
on hyperreal instillation of social reality and stereotyping requires
potential insight. The current study keeping in view the cultivation of
stereotypes and social identities through hyper-reality i.e. video games,
aims at analyzing implicit/explicit representation of feminist violence in
the video game adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Dante’s Inferno.
The study employs Hutcheon’s three modes of engagement i.e. 'telling,
showing and interactive’ as the theoretical basis to answer five W’s of
adaptation. The methodological rubric is built on the Mulvey’s feminist
film theory with cultivation theory of violence couched within to develop
themes out of the textual/visual content of the two video games i.e. AliceMadness Returns and Inferno. The results of the study reveal the
representing, producing and spectating of female characters as violent
and subjected to fetishism. Moreover, the depiction in Alice-Madness
Returns exposes females perpetrating violence and that of Inferno victim
of violence. The study highlighted the gender stereotyping specifically the
representation of females subjected to obscenity. Apart from this, the study
also contemplated the depiction of violence led various levels in the video
games.