Yesterday the 16th Annual Webby Award Winners, i.e., for the year of 2011, were announced, with more than one hundred categories like Activism, Games, Humor, Science, Weird, and Law. Most Webby awards are not given to individuals, but rather to things like websites, blogs, ad campaigns, videos, and internet capable mobile apps from all around the internet. However, the Webbys give out Special Achievement Awards each year to specific people who they feel did particularly interesting things with or on the internet, typically with more standard Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Tony-like categories like Best Artist, Lifetime Achievement, Breakout of the Year, and Person of the Year, depending on who the Webbys see fit to honor and what they did. Last year, honorees included Dan Savage, for the It Gets Better Campaign, Martin Cooper for making the first mobile phone, and even the supercomputer Watson. This year, they include an award for Webby Actresses of the Year, jointly given to Juliette Lewis and Graydon Sheppard (co-creator of Shit Girls Say) for their work in Shit Girls Say. Graydon Sheppard, to clarify, is a man.

Lets talk about why this is problematic.

Gather around, boys and girls, and let me tell you a familiar story. It’s about a person who works in the game industry, who said some things about games five years ago. Then a week ago, some gamers took screenshots of those things and photoshopped them next to a picture of that person, a nickname that drew negative attention to the person’s physical appearance, some completely unrelated quotations (made to appear attributed to the person) and added a list of descriptive words: “CANCER INFECTION BLIGHT VERMIN DISEASE SEWAGE PLAGUE WASTE.” Then they put it up on Reddit, in post calling the person “the cancer that is killing Bioware.” Upvotes and downvotes were voted, gamer rage was raged, and eventually moderators on r/gaming deleted the post entirely because that person from the game industry had started getting harassing calls on her home phone.

Shortly afterward this Jennifer Hepler launched a twitter account tied with her professional identity and was immediately accosted by requests that she commit suicide; imprecations that verbally reduced her to her genitalia and implied low intelligence and lack of subjectively appealing physical qualities; and accusations of forcing gay characters “down gamer’s [sic] throats,” moreover, accusations that she had a “fetish” for such characters and relationships.

Oh, did I not mention that this person who works in the gaming industry is female? That’s because I don’t want this post to be about gamers hating women. Do I think the fact that Hepler is female made some of the vitriol leveled at her more vitriolic than it would have been otherwise? …Possibly. Do I think that there were misogynist aspects to the specific words that were chosen to be used against her? Absolutely. But I think what this is actually about is some gamers violently reacting to a perceived scapegoat that they can blame for a trend in games towards a greater measure of inclusivity, a topic that is related in a number of ways to the acceptance of women into gaming, both as fans and creators.

Have you heard of that movie John Carter? Sounds pretty boring, right? I mean, what’s it even about? Some guy named John Carter? Ok, I’m being obtuse for effect, I know what John Carter is but the evolution the film’s title has made just got a little more awful. Writer/director Andrew Stanton recently discussed why the film, based on the novel A Princess of Mars, lost the “Princess” and the “Mars.” Hint: it has to do with us fickle little girls. 

So Nick Willing is writing/directing a Syfy original Peter Pan prequel and Blastr asked him why he’d chosen to add an original female character to the story. He responded and I made the following faces.

Start your promotional video for a new documentary show about geeks with a grown man doing a Wookie impression and it’s safe to say you’ve already played your cards. TLC has ordered a new geek dating show called Geek Love that premieres next month and it’s safe to say, it isn’t doing anything to help break the stereotypes the general public have about geeks.

Were you one of those kids in school who was made fun of for what you liked or how you looked? Remember the sick feeling you’d get in your stomach when that one jock would round the corner and you just knew to expect the worst? Say hello to New York Comic Con cosplayers and Men’s Fitness. One of the magazine’s reporters, Jordan Burchette, attended the pop-culture convention this weekend to post photos of unsuspecting cosplayers and make fun of them. And here we thought conventions were a safe zone.

The good news: Catwoman is a playable character in Batman: Arkham City. She’ll have a leveling progression just like Batman’s, where you upgrade her armor, weapons and moves; her character will be integrated into the plot in such a way that you will have to play as her at least some of the time, but with other sections pretty much optional (needless to say, I will be playing them all).

The bad news: that means we get trailers like this.

“I think there’s a lot for women to enjoy in this film,” he said. “Remember ‘Armageddon’ [and] the Aerosmith song that got girls who probably wouldn’t have originally gone to see ‘Armageddon’ hearing there was a love song, and [saying], ‘Oh, maybe there is something in the film?’ . . . So it’s pure commerce, to be blunt, and I want women to see this film.” --Matthew Vaugn, director of X-Men: First Class, on featuring the song Take That in X-Men: First Class.

The X-Men expanded canon is one of the most diverse team superhero concepts in the business. Rogue, Storm, Jean Grey, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Mystique and more. This is about as good as we’ve gotten it in a single comic franchise.

Listen, Mr. Vaughn. I can’t wait to see X-Men: First Class. The ads look really good. It is also reviewing really well. That’s all that anyone needs to know to go see it.

(via MTV Splash Page.)

Literally one of the first things I did when The Mary Sue had a real posting backend to work with was make this category: If We Got Angry About This Kind of Thing We’d Be Angry All The Time. It was in intended to be used in two situations:

1. For all those times when you realize the subtle problems of the current fandom you’re experiencing, but you just can’t summon the energy to confront them, or you just want to keep playing World of Warcraft (in spite of jokingly effeminate male dragon bosses) or watching Battlestar Galactica (where a very culturally diverse, gender equal, and sexually liberated universe has exactly two gay people in it and then only if you watch the show’s supplemental material) and enjoying it. Because it’s your entertainment and we’re all human beings who just want to like the things that are presented to us.

2. For when what you just saw was actually truly wrongheaded through and through, but, as so often happens on the internet, getting angry about it will have little to no effect on anyone who was responsible for it, and, in fact, may actually encourage them do to more of the same thing.

I feel like Jim Sterling’s recent vlog for The Escapist (brought to my attention by reader Sarah and another anonymous tipster) on sexism in gaming falls squarely in the second category.

When you woke up and came to our site today, I’ll bet you had no idea you’d be told that Audrey 2, the plant from Little Shop of Horrors that eats human flesh, was among one of the top 100 female characters of all time! (Fact: Plants are actually hermaphrodites, so maybe there’s nothing wrong here.) But according to a list published last month by British film geek site Total Film, Audrey 2 is a lady.

The list was broken down on The Double R Diner, where it’s pointed out that most of the women are not listed with their full names, half of them are victims of some kind, a third have been sexually victimized, and only four of them are not white. (As far as “Miss” Audrey 2 goes, six of the characters listed are not human, and three are not even “humanoid.”) The analysis goes further, and the site proclaims Total Film to be totally sexist. Ehhhh, I’m not quite ready to go there.