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• 1 term 2019-11-29T15:11:08-08:00 Ready Player One: Identity and Gender Elements 6 How virtual realities force us to change our identities to be socially acceptable visual_path 2019-12-02T08:32:58-08:00

  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a novel exploring the future of 2044, in the virtual reality world of gaming through the lenses of the main character Wade Watts, who is apart of a “virtual utopia” known as the OASIS. Through this OASIS, we stumble upon other major and minor characters vital to this virtual experience, and one of those characters is one of Wade’s closest friends, Aech. Through Aech, we see that there are gender elements involved in the gaming world that cause females like Aech to hide their identities and invest in being someone else that they feel is “better” or more acceptable to the public. 

  In the novel, Aech is first introduced to us as a male in Wade’s virtual reality world. There is no indication that this character has a possibility to be anyone else from its raspy voice-over and bold appearance. However, once we get to chapter 33, the tables begin to turn. Beginning on page 317, we find out the Aech Wade thought he knew wasn’t who he said he was. In fact, he wasn’t a “he” at all. When Aech approaches Wade in the RV, he describes Aech as “a heavyset African American girl [sitting] in the RV’s driver seat, clutching the wheel tightly and staring straight ahead. She was about my age, with short, kinky hair and chocolate-colored skin that appeared iridescent in the soft glow of the dashboard indicators” (318). Not only is Aech revealed to be a female, but she is also an African American female. The gender elements to the virtual reality of the gaming world immediately jump out at us, because for as long as games have been invented, male characters have always been dominant. In games such as Mortal Kombat and NBA 2K built their franchise from male characters. Mortal Kombat’s popular characters include Sub Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, and Lui Kang. These are all male characters. Although this game has evolved with adding female characters such as Cassie Cage, Skarlet, Jacqui Briggs, and D’Vorah, male characters still dominate the gaming industry. Therefore, it was a surprise to see how Aech’s reality didn’t match her avatar. 
  
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  In addition to the gaming world being male-dominated virtually and in reality, all identities are still not socially accepted, even in the gaming world. As the story moves along with Aech, we find out that it was her mother who told her that she needed to hide her identity in the first place being an African American homosexual female. On page 320 it states: 

  “Her real name, she said, was Helen Harris...Her mother, Marie, worked from home...In Marie’s opinion, OASIS was the best thing that had happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given. When Aech first logged into the OASIS, she followed her mother’s advice and created a Caucasian male avatar. “H” had been her mother’s nickname for her since she was a baby, so he decided to use it as the name of her online persona….Her mother lied about her daughter’s race and gender...Aech had finally come out to her mother about her sexuality. At first, her mother refused to believe she was gay. But then Helen revealed she’d been dating a girl she met online for nearly a year” (320-321). 

  Aech was taught by her mother that her identity wasn’t good enough from the very beginning, and she wouldn’t be accepted the way she was. Therefore, Aech felt the need to build a virtual reality character outside of who she really was that she thought was “better” in order to not only be accepted by people like Wade but also in general. This is similar to a TV show called Catfish. The MTV favorite targets online dating, and how people pretend to be someone else for their own enjoyment or because they really believe they won’t be accepted by the other person. In Aech’s situation, Wade still accepted her for who she was. However, with Catfish, a majority of the people end up being very upset when they find out they aren’t really dating the person that they feel like they built a connection with.
  
  
  
  Unfortunately, the movie version doesn't tackle this issue with identity and gender as well as the book does, according to Forbes who discusses how the virtual reality of the gaming world is not reality, and the aspects encompassed in this gaming world are taken too literally. A movie review done by Slate discusses how the film fails to tackle Aech's character as the book does. To start, the context of Aech's identity is completely removed from the film. In the novel, Wade asks Aech about her story and sees her race and her appearance, which he then realizes doesn't match who he thought she was. However, in the film, Wade encounters Aech while on the run and he doesn't pay attention to any of those details nor does he acknowledge anything about her story. Also, the movie version of Aech is physically different than the novel version. While the novel version depicts Aech as a "heavyset" African American female, the movie version of Aech is skinny with long dreads with a tomboyish style assumed to make it more clear of her homosexuality, which is very stereotypical. 
  
  
  
  Works Cited 
  Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. New York: Crown Publishers, 2011. Print.
  Fink, Charlie. "The Reality of Virtual Reality in Ready Player One." Forbes Magazine, ND, https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2017/10/23/the-reality-of-virtual-reality-in-ready-player-one/#645d785020d0. Accessed 29 Nov. 2019. 
  Sanders, Jasmine. "What Ready Player One Leaves Out of its Third-Act Twist." Slate, 4 Apr. 2018, https://slate.com/culture/2018/04/what-ready-player-one-omits-about-aech.html. Accessed 29 Nov. 2019.