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Ready Player One, the best-selling ode to virtual reality and nerd-dom, is finally becoming a movie, but not everybody is a fan. The first teaser trailer has gotten.

The Trophy Woman of Ready Player One. Ready Player One, the best- selling ode to virtual reality and nerd- dom,is finally becoming a movie, but not everybody is a fan. The first teaser trailer has gotten some backlash for how it glorifies nostalgia. However, a bigger issue comes from the book itself in how it treats women—namely, its trophy love interest. This is coming from someone who actually enjoyed the book, and has read it several times. But just because we like something doesn’t mean it’s impervious to criticism, just as we don’t have to hate something because it has problems. And Ready Player One certainly has problems.

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It positions heroine Art. In (virtual) reality, she’s little more than a prize to be won. Ready Player One is about a teenager named Wade Watts, known in- game as Parzival, an Ultimate Fanboy who’s become obsessed with nostalgic pop culture of the 1. Watch Atlas Shrugged: Part I Download Full. OASIS. His obsession leads him to become one of the top players in the contest, and he ultimately wins the whole thing.

Art. 3mis is introduced as another obsession of Wade’s. She’s a strong, smart, and high- level gamer who runs a popular blog and, later, clothing line for plus- sized avatars. He follows her on every social media account he can get his virtual hands on, going so far as to save all her avatar photos on his computer. He even admits it during their first online chat, telling her: “I’ve had a crush on you since before we even met. From reading your blog and watching your POV. I’ve been cyber- stalking you for years.” In both virtual and real life, this is never cute or romantic. It’s a red flag. Wade’s internal monologue is full of leering comments about Art.

Big hazel eyes, rounded cheekbones, a pointy chin, and a perpetual smirk. I found her unbearably attractive.”) However, they’re usually followed by a declaration that the only reason he likes her is because she’s not like other girls. This type of narrative tries, and fails, to excuse the objectification, because it’s for a woman who doesn’t fit what the man believes is the status quo. Art. 3mis’s body was also somewhat unusual. In the OASIS, you usually saw one of two body shapes on female avatars: the absurdly thin yet wildly popular supermodel frame, or the top- heavy, wasp- waisted porn starlet physique (which looked even less natural in the OASIS than it did in the real world). But Art. 3mis’s frame was short and Rubenesque. All curves. Sure, he might praise her for being “different,” but it’s still objectification.

Just because she doesn’t look like a Barbie doll doesn’t mean he’s not treating her like one. Note: This is not the first time Cline has been accused of this particular problem.)Art. Wade’s search for the contest’s legendary Egg, with his attempt to begin a romantic relationship with her serving as a sort of side quest that distracts him from his primary one. The more time he spends with her, the less he spends on everything else.

He ignores his best friend Aech. He neglects the contest. Cline treats Art. Wade to beat, not the reasonable responses of an independent character. She’s basically an NPC. During their many encounters, Art.

When I wasn’t hanging out with my pseudo- girlfriend, I devoted the rest of my time to leveling up my Avatar.”) Any woman who’s been in that situation knows how that feels. It’s awful. Still, it takes her a long time to actually punish him for his actions. For a good portion of the book, she enables his bad behavior while making snide remarks about why she shouldn’t. The following conversation is immediately followed by a bunch of chats and dates. Parzival: When can we chat again? Art. 3mis: After one of us finds the egg. Parzival: That could take years.

Art. 3mis: So be it. Parzival: Can I at least keep e- mailing you? Art. 3mis: Not a good idea. Watch Foxcatcher Online Freeform here.

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Parzival: You can’t stop me from e- mailing you. Art. 3mis: Actually, I can. I can block you on my contact list. Parzival: You wouldn’t do that, though.

Would you? Art. 3mis: Not if you don’t force me to. Eventually, after several weeks, she is forced to block him, but only after really dire circumstances. During a party, Wade confesses his love for her, telling her he’ll get on a plane that instant so he can meet her in person. Art. 3mis becomes uncomfortable around him and decides to suspend their friendship so she can focus on the contest. I felt like I’d been punched in the throat. Are you breaking up with me?”“No, Z,” she said firmly. I am not breaking up with you.

That would be impossible, because we are not together.” There was suddenly venom in her voice. We’ve never even met!”It’s an acceptable response to a bad situation.. Wade doesn’t actually accept it. Instead, he stalks her for weeks, sending her hundreds of messages and literally dropping gifts like bombs over her home base.

He even goes so far as to stand outside her door for hours, holding a boombox over his head playing “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel, like Say Anything. The book is clear in that his obsession is not Art. Wade’s treatment of Art. He was simply acting out of love. This is really alarming–not only because it romanticizes online stalking, but also because he still wins her in the end.

His behavior is ultimately rewarded, not punished. After saving the day and winning the contest, Wade finally logs off of the OASIS and finds Art. Adventure video game labyrinth. She becomes a literal prize for him to find. And when he does find her, he fully discovers her big repulsive truth she’d alluded to earlier in the book (“Trust me. If I ever let you see me in person, you would be repulsed.”).

She has a birthmark on her face. In the end, her conflict with Wade isn’t from how he treated her in the past, but caused by her own insecurities. This gives Wade a chance to (again) play the hero, since he’s able to look past it and still find her attractive. He then pledges to “spend the rest of [his] life” with her, even though they’d just met.“I’m in love with you.”Her lower lip started to tremble. You’re sure about that?”“Yes.

I am. Because it’s true…“Listen,” I said. We can take things as slow as you like. I’m a really nice guy, once you get to know me. I swear.”She laughed and wiped away a few of her tears, but didn’t say anything.

So, how does a strong and empowered woman become a silent, crying, and lovesick trophy at the end of the game? There are several reasons why. Conventional, male hero storytelling. A need to satisfy an atypical power fantasy.

But I think the main reason comes down to how the story is framed. Ready Player One suggests that nostalgia is universal, how similar interests can bring strangers together, but all of that nostalgia is filtered through a distinctly male lens— and not just because Cline insert a lot of his personal fandom into the story.

In the book’s world, OASIS co- creator James Halliday created the contest that the entire world is obsessed with, so everyone’s nostalgia is filtered directly through him. The only thing Anorak’s Almanac seemed to indicate was that a familiarity with Halliday’s various obsessions would be essential to finding the egg. This led to a global fascination with 1.

This framing leaves little room for women to desire anything that doesn’t also reflect what men want. Just like the game, Art. Sailor Moon or Jem and the Holograms, but she sure as hell likes John Hughes). If your entire world is centered around the obsessions of one man—first James Halliday, followed by his protégé Wade Watts—what purpose do you serve that doesn’t also serve his needs? It’s a failure of the story to give women true agency, and a failure of the writer to understand nostalgia that exists outside of his own sphere.

We’ve only gotten a brief glimpse at Art. Artemis) in the upcoming film, played by Olivia Cooke. Who knows, the film might do something different with her character, perhaps even give her a background that consists of more than a giant birthmark that makes her feel like shit.

Julian Assange, Eclipse Truther. Astronomers, doctors and other experts alike are in total agreement on one point—don’t stare at a solar eclipse without eye protection unless you want to damage your vision or go blind, you goddamn idiot. This warning was in large part heeded by all but the very uninformed or the very impulsive, categories which both naturally included President Donald Trump, who soaked in as much luxurious unshielded eclipse viewing as he could on Monday. Now Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, whose behavior and vaguely pro- Trump leanings have grown more concerning in direct proportion to the amount of time he has spent locked inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, is warning the public not to fall for Big Safety Glasses’ grift. Early Monday evening, Assange tweeted “There’s no danger staring directly at the moon during a total eclipse. Before/after, the moon only partly covers the sun = usual sun danger.”He added, “You look away when you see it ending. Eyes also move to protect themselves.

The hysteria seems to be sustained by glasses company profits.”In fairness to Assange, he’s not wrong that a total solar eclipse is, in theory, safe to look at during the very short period of time that the main body of the sun is covered entirely by the moon. In that extremely limited circumstance, only parts of the the sun’s corona which do not emit enough energy to damage the eye are visible. But the vast majority of people viewing an eclipse never see a totality.

They’ll see a partial eclipse, which is when only a significant percentage of the sun is covered (as in New York today, where only 7. Because so much of the sun is covered during a partial eclipse, one’s eyes may not “move to protect themselves.” Instead, the sun will dim enough that one could get fooled into staring at it, even as it’s frying the interior of their retinas. As NASA noted, the reason one should still use protective glasses or other equipment during a total solar eclipse is because as the moon rotates in front of the sun, it’s very difficult to determine the exact window of time someone might have to look at it.

Again, since the vast majority of people are not in the path of the totality—though may believe they are, especially if they’re close to it—it’s really, really for the best that everyone just wears the damn safety glasses. For both of these reasons, advocating otherwise sounds an awful lot like a teenage boy arguing he doesn’t need to wear a condom because he knows when to pull out. There was no safe time for Trump to look at the eclipse, because the sun was only 8. Washington, D. C.“Glasses company profits” seems a little naive, considering high demand took retailers by surprise and the rarity of major eclipses does not really seem all that conducive to the formation of an astronomy- industrial complex, but hey—the next time Assange wants to take a cake out of the oven or something, he’s free to defy Big Oven Mitts too.