Why Not Books?: “Sweden Mulls ‘Sexist’ Video Game Labels”

So Sweden’s video game trade association
and the country’s “government-funded innovation agency, Vinnova”
(god help us all) are talking about rating video games on the
grounds of “sexism.” Reports the English-language site The
Local:

Project manager Anton Albiin said it was unclear at this stage
if all games produced in Sweden would be given a label, or if
companies developing games that promoted equality would be given
some kind of certification to use for their own marketing
purposes….

“I do not know of any other project in the world asking
this question and of course we want Sweden to be a beacon in this
area”.

He said that as well as analysing the content of the
games, Dataspelsbranchen would also look at the processes used by
different developers to promote gender equality and diversity, with
a view to “helping others to learn from their
innovation”….

“…games can be about fantasy but they can be so much
more than this. They can also be a form of cultural expression –
reflecting society or the society we are hoping for. Games can help
us to create more diverse workplaces and can even change the way we
think about things”.

Given the questions about sexism in the gaming world
raised by #gamergate, I think it’s kind of interesting to think
about why video games (or comic books, say, or pop music) get
singled out for such state-supported or state-mandated re-education
processes rather than, say, opera or novels. How many folks would
feel good about reading this?:

Project manager Anton Albiin
said it was unclear at this stage if all novels
produced in Sweden would be given a label, or if
publishers developing novels that
promoted equality would be given some kind of certification to use
for their own marketing purposes….

“I do not know of any other project in the world asking this
question and of course we want Sweden to be a beacon in this
area”.

He said that as well as analysing the content of the
novels, Dataspelsbranchen would also look at the
processes used by different developers to promote gender equality
and diversity, with a view to “helping others to learn from their
innovation”….

“…novels can be about fantasy but they can be
so much more than this. They can also be a form of cultural
expression – reflecting society or the society we are hoping for.
Novels can help us to create more diverse
workplaces and can even change the way we think about things”.

More
here.

Of course, you can see the glimmerings of such semi-official
sanctions for works of “art” in the movement toward so-called
trigger warnings at U.S. colleges. But I’m guessing that the
bluebloods at Hachette and other publishing houses would flip their
wigs if a government agency doled out a grant to study the sagacity
of putting warning labels or “some kind of certification” on books
based on their accordance with a politically correct vision of
cultural commisars. The difference, of course, is that video games
are “just” entertainment, right, whereas novels (now, anyway) are
“art.” And you don’t fuck with art because only educated people,
smart people, wealthy people – people like us! – consume
art.