She has been called a con artist, a bungling idiot, and the best thing to happen to modern feminism and the gaming industry. But rather than presuming Anita Sarkeesian to be either a sinner or a saint, let us try a simple thought experiment:

Let us assume she is human.

 

By any measurable standard Anita Sarkeesian is an American success story. Born of immigrant parents in Canada and later relocating to California, Ms. Sarkeesian has been featured in the front page of the New York Times (among countless other media outlets), and in the month alone of December 2014 raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars for her organization, Feminist Frequency [1].

But Anita Sarkeesian the person has been obscured by the myth-making of the media and a convoluted, sometimes contradictory, fairy-tale biography told by Ms. Sarkeesian herself [2].  Just who is Anita Sarkeesian, and what does a "Feminist Frequency" signal for a world-wide entertainment industry which outperforms Hollywood and is a key shaper of global culture? To decipher what can be a jumbled cacophony of disparate myths, histories, and facts, it helps to look towards another woman whose life involved the truth speaking in tongues.

Aimee Semple McPherson lived a quiet life, until she became convinced she was chosen by God to change the nation [3]. Born in Canada, McPherson traveled the world as a young missionary before claiming God spoke to her in a vision to establish her ministry in America. Afterwards she began preaching at itinerant tent revivals, ultimately earning the name "Sister Aimee" and relocating to California where she founded her ministry and radio program [4]. [Maybe work on this part a bit more?]

However, it wasn't the voices of the angels Anita Sarkeesian hearkened to, but that of Alex Mandossian, a telemarketing guru [5]. Founding her organization on the principles of modern marketing and the politics of the personal, Ms. Sarkeesian quickly found a willing audience for her preaching on the devils of society and specifically in the world of gaming. The formerly obscure office worker soon found herself garnering front page coverage in mainstream gaming outlets, her every word going unchallenged as if sacred scripture. Like "Sister Aimee", Anita Sarkeesian sought nothing less than the salvation of the masses, to redeem gamers from what she perceived as a state of hedonistic barbarity and misogyny. Sister Aimee had her church and radio station: Anita Sarkeesian would soon have her own pulpit from which she would broadcast her Feminist Frequency.

And In The Beginning, both women looked upon their works, and deemed them good.

 

The Great Depression had come even unto the pearly gates of "The City of Angels." From her church in Los Angeles (named Angelus Temple), Sister Aimee and her congregation fed the hungry and the outcast, and helped with disaster relief at home and abroad [6]:

"In 1927, she established a temple commissary that, as the Depression settled in, emerged as "one of the region's most effective and inclusive welfare institutions." According to [her biographer] Epstein:

When the schools stopped feeding children free lunches Aimee took over the program. When city welfare agencies staggered under the load of beggars, the women of Angelus Temple sewed quilts and baked loaves of bread by the thousands. When bread lines stretched for city blocks . . . Angelus Temple was the only place anyone could get a meal, clothing, and blankets, no questions asked.

She brushed aside the distinction between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor, and that between legal and illegal residents. One Mexican, the actor Anthony Quinn, who as a teenager acted as a translator for her, told an interviewer, "During the Depression . . . the one human being that never asked you what your nationality was, what you believed in and so forth, was Aimee Semple McPherson. All you had to do was pick up the phone and say, 'I'm hungry,' and within an hour there'd be a food basket there for you. . . . She literally kept most of that Mexican community . . . alive." [7]

A fundraising dynamo with skills honed from her days traveling the small towns and rural back roads of America, Sister Aimee commanded an impressive fortune during an unprecedented period of economic hardship. Decades later, Anita Sarkeesian would follow in those footsteps. With her background of telemarketing tactics Ms. Sarkeesian created a crowd-sourcing scheme through the website Kickstarter. Just as Sister Aimee extolled the need to her faithful to raise funds for combating the evils of the modern world, so did Anita Sarkeesian offer a vision of a world where women were in constant peril, where the righteous must stand up and be counted so that the suffering of countless souls would no longer go unheeded. In the shadow of the near-total destruction of the global economy, she shortly raised over $150,000 [8].

A good number of genuinely good people handed over a good sum of money for a project that was esteemed to be nothing less than the Good Work of a righteous crusader. For both women, however, the demands of the world would soon make themselves known and forever change their lofty utopian goals.

*          *          *

Salvation is one of the easiest and simultaneously hardest things to sell. It is an idea, a concept. As such this product was perfectly suited to be sold as a form of multimedia experience by Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian. For "salvation" in this form results are not necessary, only cooperation with the idea itself. It is also an idea which is inherently attractive to the target audience, who are often insecure, anxious, and weary people lost in the modern world and stumbling haphazardly over their own humanity. The gaming media that Anita Sarkeesian sold her concept of salvation to were no different [9]:

"I really don't want to open an article with how I cried when I saw Yuna again. Crying over video games is uncomfortable to talk about, and it's the mark of a "feelingsy" game critic, isn't it?... for a teenager or young twenty-something, even the simple idea that there are people or values larger than yourself is revolutionary.... I didn't do feminist analyses of game protagonists at that age. I was not a game critic. I was just an unhappy young person, then, and I wanted to go someplace beautiful...."

----Leigh Alexander, Editor-At-Large of Gamasutra. [10]

"Ever since I figured out how easy it was to be judged for loving video games, I felt ashamed of them..... I was one of those kids that attended gaming conventions, and entered Super Mario Bros. 3 tournaments on screens so big they rivaled those in Fred Savage's The Wizard. By the time I acquired a Playstation in adolescence, I... wait, what did happen for the next three years?

I cringe even trying to remember.

.....When I thought about leaving my parent's house, I wasn't just afraid. I entered a full-blown existential crisis.... I sold my PS2 and N64 to an anemic computer science student. I went from an obsessed reader of GamePro to a somber admirer of The Economist and The New Yorker.... As the years progressed, however, I found that I could never quite kick that old, nasty habit. The desire to spend hours in digital rapture-and that's what it had begun to resemble in my mind, anyway. Something for which rehabilitation clinics should be built. ...But, back then, I envisioned rooms filled with pimply men-half of whom were verging on diabetic coma-gathered around a sponsor dressed in a Men's Warehouse suit. "My name is Andy, and I used to be addicted to Chrono Trigger."

----Editorial on the gaming website Kotaku. [11]

"Gamers are over, and that's a good thing"

-----From gaming site RPS [12]

For Sister Aimee, the huddled masses sitting in Angelus Temple not knowing whether or not they would be able to eat the next day were quite receptive to the idea that the world was fundamentally an unjust place. For Anita Sarkeesian, the self-loathing of the gaming media and their general ire towards their industry, culture, and gamers themselves [13] provided an eager choir willing to sing her hymns and praises. Yet beyond the superficial assuaging of perceived injustice, actual results are not part of the multimedia salvation sold by Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian. As such, a greater injustice must always be found, a new crusade launched, a new round of fundraising setting sail. The ideal quickly replaced by the need to have ones' adherents cooperate with the idea that they are perpetually in need of salvation.

In this sense it is no surprise that the clickbait mentality which dominates the press found natural allies in both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian. The supposed ideals of both women and their crusades were tailored precisely to appeal to a specific narrative drama that could play out in the pages of newspapers and across all forms of media, and from which creative editors could embellish and milk the most salacious scandals. As Matthew A. Sutton writes in the Journal of Policy History:

"Flanked by choir lofts on both sides, preaching occurred from the center of the stage, on which Hollywood actors, publicity agents, and directors helped McPherson design elaborate productions." [14]

In Anita Sarkeesians' case, the elaborate Kabuki theatre playing out on social media is staged with Hollywood talent of the modern era:

 [15]

 [16]

Director of billion-dollar grossing films such as The Avengers, writer-director Joss Whedon.

The utopian Kingdom of Heaven sought by Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian quickly became replaced with a Kingdom of Make-Believe manufactured in Hollywood:

"Although McPherson sang traditional hymns, preached the "old-time" gospel, and sometimes dressed as a rural milkmaid, she relied on behind-the-scenes professionals to help popularize the pentecostal movement from her location just blocks from Hollywood. Like Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson decades later, the evangelist was supremely aware of the revolutionary potential of mass communications. McPherson's "publicity engineer" was, according to journalist Louis Adamic, "generally conceded to be one of the best in his business." She constantly recruited sympathetic reporters....." [17]

Anita Sarkeesians' own "publicity engineer", Jonathan McIntosh, has also been acclaimed as the creator of "some of the best, well-made propaganda I've ever seen" by Glenn Beck, a statement which is proudly touted on the very website of Feminist Frequency itself [18]. Anita Sarkeesian also recruits sympathetic reporters, cultivating them into evangelists of her gospel of gender who report not facts but tales of the cruelty she fearlessly faces from bullies and "the patriarchy." For both women, what once might have been a crusade for a Greater Cause had devolved into a cult of personality:

"Her fame and her aura transcended those of a religious figure; she consorted with Hollywood stars as an equal and charmed even H. L. Mencken, no booster of evangels. (He felt...that she was persecuted by the Babbitts and official bullies...." [19]

 

Anointed by the press and Hollywood as modern saints, Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian now offered not a vision of salvation, but a dogmatic series of sanctified lies. For Sister Aimee, this would be evolutionary theory:

 

"While [William Jennings] Bryan was engulfed in the 1925 Scopes Trial, McPherson sent a supportive telegram to him affirming: "Ten thousand members of Angelus Temple with her millions of radio church membership send grateful appreciation of your lion hearted championship of the Bible against evolution and throw our hats in the ring with you."  " [20]

 

Rather than addressing the true concerns and moral quandaries of bioethics and how Man should pursue knowledge, the approach Sister Aimee took to evolutionary theory resulted in those valid concerns being subsumed by spectacle, drama, and a media circus. In this very same manner does Anita Sarkeesian preclude legitimate debate about the role of women in culture and industry by repeating long-debunked myths and blatantly presenting falsehoods about the culture, industry, and people she rages against [21]:

 

"When men are depicted using female NPCs as tools or commodities, their actions are portrayed as part of what makes them powerful, which is by extension part of what makes the player then feel powerful. So these interactive algorithms transmit cultural messages of near constant affirmation of male heterosexual dominance, while simultaneously reinforcing the widespread regressive belief that women's primary role is to satisfy the desires of men (either literally or voyeuristically)." [22]

 

However, the actual data on the matter disagrees:

"Anti-pornography feminists content that pornography tells lies about the nature of women, thereby promoting and reinforcing sexist attitudes. Feminist critics of pornography maintain that pornography instills the erroneous belief that women are inferior to men and do not deserve equal rights. They further argue that men are taught by pornography to treat women as mere sex objects, having no other worth or importance apart from their capacity to provide sexual gratification to men. Contrary to the assertions of anti-pornography feminists, most research suggests that exposure to nonviolent pornography is unrelated to attitudes toward women." [23]

 

Yet truth appears to serve as no impediment to the evangelizing of Ms. Sarkeesians' gospel:

 

"Of course, we can't really talk about sexual objectification without also addressing the issue of violence against women, since the two are intimately connected. Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted." [24]  

 

However, as an article in the Journal of Law and Society argues:

 

"The evidence" [that pornography causes violence] "might, at best, be 'suggestive', but it is not 'alone dispositive'. For this reason, many feminists reject reliance on causation arguments. Karen Boyle, for example, argues that linking a feminist case against pornography to 'flawed effects research' has 'significantly damaged' the feminist anti-pornography argument." [25]

 

In the dogmatic world of Anita Sarkeesian, women are objects, toys, helpless maidens with nothing better to do than wait for some dastardly mustache-twirling villain to come along and shape women to his desire:

 

"So why does any of this matter? What's the real harm in sexually objectifying women? Well, the negative impacts of sexual objectification have been studied extensively over the years and the effects on people of all genders are quite clear and very serious. Research has consistently found that exposure to these types of images negatively impacts perceptions and beliefs about real world women and reinforces harmful myths about sexual violence." [26]

 

 Fortunately, women are made of sterner stuff than in the wild fantasies of Anita Sarkeesian:

 

"The second aspect of this radical feminist argument centres on 'objectification' and the constitutive capacity of pornography. Here pornography is an act, rather than mere speech; a series of 'institutions and practices' which 'constitute' rather than simply express 'the ideas they embody'. The claim is that pornography enshrines a particular, degraded image of women; it defines them in a peculiarly sexualized way, and in doing so denies their humanity..... The possibility that a kind of speech can construct a harmful act, in a general as opposed to particular instance, however, remains hotly contested. Further, as with causation arguments, it is ultimately futile in its attempts to persuade those in conflict with this fundamentalist position." [27]

And as an article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy states:

 

"The claims...are wildly overstated. [It's suggested] that pornography provokes sexual violence. The correlation between pornography and sexual violence, however, is strong only among a very small subset of already pathological men, comprising less than one percent of the male population In the aggregate, it appears that the availability of pornography actually reduces the frequency of sexual assault." [28]

Yet amongst all the frenzied furor over "male gaze" and what entertainment media is acceptable for viewing, what is overlooked by Anita Sarkeesian is any solution to the devils and demons borne from the displays of female sexuality she preaches against. Perhaps it is because there can be no solution to a problem that does not exist in reality. As Don Adams writes:

"Pornography might trigger antisocial behavior in boys and in unbalanced men, but the only legal restrictions this causal power could justify would be measures to keep pornography away from minors.... It is not clear how pornography could act like the "squib in the marketplace," nor is it clear how a piece of pornography could physically overwhelm anyone. A part of maturing into normal adulthood is taking responsibility for one's sexual drives. Regardless of what lustful thoughts or desires one may have, acting on those thoughts or desires is a very different thing. If the only sort of cause recognized by law were an exculpatory cause, then probably the only legal action that the causal power of pornography could justify would be to enact restrictions on the access of minors to pornography." [29]

 

Solutions, however, are not the goal. The only goal is the preservation of the dogma itself:

 

"Likewise a sex object is still a sex object regardless of whether or not you personally choose to use and abuse her. And that fact, in and of itself, still communicates extremely regressive ideas about women." [30]

Yet this argument was already debunked by women decades prior. Entertainment media had already proven with the television series "The Bionic Woman" that strong representations of women and sex appeal were not mutually exclusive. As Sharon Sharp writes:

"The Bionic Woman attempted to negotiate feminist themes within a field of representation that emphasized femininity and sex appeal, aimed at drawing in male viewers...." [31]

Followers chosen due to their emotional vulnerability, who are consequently cruelly and callously exploited. A sensational drama meant to prey upon the most egregious and pernicious stereotypes of a marginalized subculture. The Kingdom of Heaven replaced with a Kingdom of Make-Believe: and all that these new monarchs needed to trade in exchange to rule over the television and radio waves was their soul.

Which might not seem so bad a deal, if one believes they have cornered the market on salvation.

*          *          *

Fame is a strange beast. In many ways it is a chimera, a mismatched assemblage of goals, desire, zealotry and obsession. Fame and salvation, twin ideas which for both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian became indistinguishable from the other. Ones' "good works" not measured by treasures stored in Heaven, but by the number of interview requests and gossip column writings pouring in like mana from above. To not be in the front page of the New York Times becomes the equivalent to being erased from the Book of Life. The hallmark of salvation in the gospel of Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian thus becoming the hysteria of a mighty Revelation of which refusal to Listen and Believe is by itself all that is necessary for moral damnation: 

 [32]

 

The gospel of both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian have their foundation in Millennial eschatology: the narrative is of an unrepentant society hurtling towards Judgment, where salvation itself is not the goal, but the destruction of the demon-haunted world, this revelation itself serving only to demarcate the righteous and the corrupt so as to better guide the world towards ruin.

In such an ideology this anarchy serves as a prelude to a totalitarian injunction against free will and modernity: the belief being that humanity cannot be trusted to listen to the better angels of their nature, and for their benefit must bow and scrape at the command of a new social structure or system of belief. Or as the writer and producer of Feminist Frequency declares:

 

 

 [33]

 

Ultimately, this is what the Feminist Frequency of Anita Sarkeesian signals for an industry which is a global shaper of culture which outperforms Hollywood. Like the Pied Piper, Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian played a tune for the disgruntled and the discontent, leading them away from logic and sympathy, and towards a vision of humanity that is stunning in its nihilist myopia. As Donna E. Ray writes:

"Sister Aimee's large gatherings were indeed meant for the average person....and her preaching in these contexts was often authoritarian, alarmist, sensational, emotional, and cast in simple terms." [34]

For Anita Sarkeesian, her Feminist Frequency became an apocalyptic screed declaring gamers and their culture and industry a forsaken enterprise in need of a grand Judgment:

 

[35]

Dissent became blasphemy, and both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian had allies in the media all too willing to purge any and all opposing views (the Editor in Chief of The Los Angeles Times even attended the ceremony celebrating the opening of the radio station for Angelus Temple) [36]. On the website Reddit, tens of thousands of users found themselves censored by a mass deletion of comments relating to the "GamerGate" controversy [37], and on a Nightline segment interviewing Anita Sarkeesian which ABC News uploaded onto YouTube, a wave of false flagging of the comments caused several thousand users to have their comments disappear, which took ABC News a staggering several weeks to restore [38]:

[39]

 

Perhaps it was all a matter of course. Historical inevitability, the great processional cycle of History itself unwinding to deliver these women unto the world stage where they could let their drama play out: that, in itself, a key component of Millennial eschatology and of the Progressive ideology espoused by Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian.

But then they both decided to go off-script.

As Matthew Sutton writes of Sister Aimee, she once:

"Quite simply...saw herself as the new Paul Revere, alerting the nation to an impending Crisis." [40]

However, the impulse to save another, the impulse to change another, can so very quickly become the desire to reign over all others. As Matthew Sutton continues:

"The purpose of Angelus Temple was to provide a place where McPherson could build a national market by inculcating Christians with her via media." [41]

It is remarkably similar to the efforts of Anita Sarkeesian. From the Feminist Frequency website:

"Anita lectures and presents at universities, conferences and game development studios internationally. She's been a presenter and panelist at various fan, media and technology conferences and has also facilitated and taught multi-day filmmaking workshops.  She has been interviewed and featured in publications such as Forbes, Wired, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Her videos are freely available via the Feminist Frequency YouTube channel and widely serve as educational tools in high school and university classrooms.

Anita was the recipient of the 2014 Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, she was given a 2013 honorary award from National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers and was nominated for Microsoft's 2014 Women in Games Ambassador Award.

She is currently an adviser to Silverstring Media and has served as a judge for the Games for Change Awards." [42]

No longer a mere critic, Anita Sarkeesian admits to seeking to get a global multi-billion dollar shaper of culture to alter itself to her dictates, under the seemingly-innocuous phrase of getting "media makes to improve their works of fiction" [43]. And should the global market not heed to her demands and content creators find their works banned or blacklisted? As the writer and producer of Feminist Frequency stated in the wake of "Grand Theft Auto 5" being banned from stores in Australia and New Zealand:

   [44] [45] [46] [47]

Which seems to give much needed (and quite chilling) context to this bit of gospel from Anita Sarkeesian:

 

 [48]

 

 

 

No longer content being mere heralds of a greater good, Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian both proclaimed themselves to be justice and salvation itself:

 

   [49]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[50] 

 

 

 

 

The Millennial eschatology of Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian now only needed a foe to rally against. For Sister Aimee it would be modern society from which the devils arose that she would marshal her forces to war with: for Anita Sarkeesian, it would be not just gamers or the "GamerGate" movement, but the human soul itself:

 

 

[51]

 

 

 

 

[52]

 

 

 

 

[53]

Positioning herself as a martyr under assault from a licentious howling mob, framing a narrative around militant rhetoric and ecstatic frenzied fanaticism, Anita Sarkeesian produced in the media a passion-play no different from the elaborately-staged ritual performances of Sister Aimee at Angelus Temple: and like Sister Aimee, the figure of redemption in this ongoing drama was the star performer herself:

"This set of events...was her major theme and her constant orientation...because she herself, with her Pentecostal movement, represented the culmination of salvation history. The arrival of Full-Gospel Christians on the world stage was necessary, she said, for the ushering in of the spectacular end described in scripture. The belief that the world is on a fast track to hell is an essential part of the pre-millennial/pre-tribulation eschatology that McPherson espoused. Personal readiness was, therefore, all-important: 'Civilization is doomed ...... 'God has wound this clock of ours, and it is about to strike the midnight hour.'

Millennialism created (and still creates) constant spiritual excitement for the believer, as it generates suspense, expectation, fear, and speculation...Anticipation of the second coming has a moral component, too, and with it a sense of urgency:

"We believe that the second coming of Christ is personal and imminent; ... [and because] no man knoweth the hour of his appearance, which we believe to be near at hand, each day should be lived as though He were expected to appear at eventide, yet that in obedience to His explicit command, 'Occupy till I come', the work of spreading the Gospel.' "

The necessary work of evangelism-lest the whole world be lost-was a bracing challenge to the faithful and an opportunity for spiritual adventure and heroism. Each and every Christian had a crucial role to fill, for life and death were at stake. The ultimate nature of the end times and the spirit-filled Christian's part in it made for unbeatable existential drama." [54]

Similarly, Anita Sarkeesian instilled fear and speculation amongst her followers and the general public, merging a moral crusade with a moral panic: and positioning herself as the only figure capable of leading the forces of the righteous into a Brave New World, her followers became transformed into evangelists of her gospel of gender:

 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ah8mhDW6Shs#t=697] [55]

The formerly obscure tent-revivalist and office worker had become, through their testimonials of the "true religion", saints and stars in the cosmology of Hollywood and the very culture they had once preached against. In turn their Millennial eschatology indoctrinated new initiates into a cult of personality where the same sense of divine decree and supernatural agency embraced by these idols became the gospel for a new generation of evangelists of the politics of the personal, swarming out from the gates of Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay like a Biblical cloud of locusts:

"[These followers] whose number and religious beliefs and practices contribute to the now-legendary reputation that Southern California earned, deservedly or otherwise, as the nexus of spiritual cultism and fanaticism in the United States. Californian historian and writer Carey McWilliams commented on this reputation in 1946:

"No single aspect of Southern California has attracted more attention than its fabled addiction to cults and cultists. 'I am told,' said Mrs. Charles Steward Daggett [a local resident] in 1895, 'that the millennium has already begun in Pasadena, and that even now there are more certified cranks to the acre than in any other town in America.'"

Every religion, freakish or orthodox, that the world ever knew is flourishing today in Los Angeles, wrote Hoffman Birney in 1930. "This lovely place, cuckoo land," wrote the editors of Life, "is corrupted with an odd community giddiness....nowhere else do eccentrics flourish in such close abundance. Nowhere do spiritual or economic panaceas grow so lushly. Nowhere is undisciplined gullibility so widespread."  "Here," wrote Bruce Bliven in 1935, "is the world's prize collection of cranks, semi-cranks, placid creatures whose bovine expression shows that each of them is studying, without much hope or success, to be a high-grade moron, angry or ecstatic exponents of food fads, sun-bathing, ancient Greek costumes...and the imminent second coming of Christ." [56]

*          *          *

Believing themselves infallible, attended to by joyous worshippers and their gospel resounding over the airwaves, Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian were catapulted forward by their own zealotry and fame, and yet at the zenith of their power and infamy came to learn the same lesson as Icarus: those who seek to ascend to godhood are, invariably, those with the farthest to Fall.

The standards and roles that both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian adopted became too great to measure up to. And there is no mistake, these are roles which were willing accepted [57] [58] [59]. Sister Aimee broke her own religious vow not to remarry (three separate times) [60]. Anita Sarkeesian broke her pledge to complete her (fully funded) video series by December 2012 [61]. Nor has she managed to even prove the most basic tenet of her gospel of gender, that there is a riotous assault on women in society, as those she harangues as harassers instead fund scholarships and charities for women [62] [63], as well as supporting female-created works in the free market [64]. So divorced from reality are the ecclesiastical eccentricities of Anita Sarkeesian that an entire movement arose to revolt against the co-opting of women and minorities for the morally-panicked crusade of her and similar advocates of the gospel of gender, called "Not Your Shield" [65].

But as the sanctified lies of Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian became publicly exposed, the intensity of their fanatical fervor only increased wildly. As an article in the Journal of Religious History titled, "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment" reveals:

"Progress" essentially became a "faith," which redefined providence as the benign nature of the historical process that produced the transcendental resolution of human problems. In this, Man's perfectibility was at once materialist yet still obviously a spiritual odyssey. The origins of feminism.... [reveals how feminism] could also take on a secular millennial character." [66]

Thus with their ideology floundering in the marketplace of ideas, Anita Sarkeesian and her Feminist Frequency group directed their faithful followers to wage war on the free market itself. As the writer and producer of Feminist Frequency states:

 

 

 

    [67]

As "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment" notes:

"It is hardly surprising that many commentators have suggested that Marxism and its various offshoots represent the zenith of secular millennial movements... Thus there was a clear millenarian tinge to the suggestion from adherents that positivism was not to be a replacement for religions but their ultimate fulfillment...In this positivism had much in common with the craft socialism of William Morris since both contended capitalism and industrialism had undermined and were in the process of reversing human progress." [68]

    

  [69]

 

 

As David Nash and David S. Nash note in "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment":

"While Barbara Taylor in the 1980s argued that an early revocation of rationalism had been a net loss to feminism, the work of others discredited its rationalist roots as end of millennium feminism embraced messianic versions of goddess worship and mystical motherhood. Similarly, the defeat of patriarchy has also been depicted in millenarian and apocalyptic terms and the technological apparatus of Popper's "World 3" has been challenged from species of eco-feminism that identify its ability to reinforce patriarchy. Likewise there have been feminist challenges to the scientific and rationalist delineation of time itself as uniform and governable....Rationalism, for all these critics, did not create freedom; it perpetuated inequality and subservience." [70]

Faith and fury drove Sister Aimee, and Anita Sarkeesian and her Feminist Frequency organization, to shun the world which was awakening to their falsehoods and embrace the divine derangement peculiar to oracles and seers whose treasuries are in danger of running empty. The "Feminist Frequency" became an increasingly bizarre and belligerent series of ramblings, and in a desperate attempt to deflect any criticism, a commandment was issued stating that questioning the divine order was itself a form of impiety:

 

  [71]

 

 

As the gospel of Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian reached ever-newer heights of outrageous public pageantry and ignominy, they and their faithful screeched ever louder to be heard over the rising chorus of voices questioning them, their methods, and their ideology. As a contemporary of Sister Aimee remarked, her theology was:

"utterly devoid of sound thinking, loose and insubstantial in its construction, preposterously inadequate in its social implications ... No American evangelist of large enough caliber to be termed National has ever sailed with such insufficient mental ballast ... To visit Angelus Temple ... is to go on a sensuous debauch served up in the name of religion." [72]

Yet rather than display a humble spirit as ostensibly dictated by her own theology, Sister Aimee became ever more prideful and profligate, counting on controversy to counter criticism. It was soon claimed that when Sister Aimee spoke it was "smilingly said, but the tone is that of Napoleon before battle" [73]. Angelus Temple soon resembled a war zone more than a house of worship. As one observer noted:

"Of the almost bewildering program which followed there is time and space to say little. The singing was stupendous, cataclysmic, overwhelming...The more than five thousand voices filled the temple that the eardrums were bruised and beaten by the thunderous concussion. "Sister" led with voice and waving arm, though she had choir and organ and trumpeters behind and around her. It is her service, let no man forget that. Not for one moment does she drop the reigns." [74]

Or in Anita Sarkeesians' case:

 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ah8mhDW6Shs#t=697]       [75]

In attempt to rationalize for their followers the critiques and questions that were finally being directed towards them, both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian framed these events in the rhetoric of their Millennial eschatology: which might have had special significance for their adherents, who may have recalled how two thieves were also crucified with Christ. Placing these events in the context of the world persecuting those who had come to save it, the narrative of both Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian sought to reaffirm their roles as the stars of an existential and spiritual drama, silencing dissent by reframing any inquiry into their character, behavior or practices as assault or harassment. For these pioneers of propaganda, producing such a narrative to play out in the media was an ability which, if nothing else, always appeared to be divinely inspired. For Sister Aimee, her narrative would play out in the "Mexicali Rose" scandal:

"She claimed to have been kidnapped by a trio of malefactors named Steve, Jake, and Mexicali Rose; she escaped, she said, from an isolated shack by sawing through her bonds with the jagged edge of a syrup can and walking for seventeen hours across the desert. For all its suspect details (she emerged from her desert ordeal neither sunburned nor dehydrated, wearing unscuffed shoes and a watch that she had not taken with her to the beach), she stuck to her story through a number of hearings and trials." [76]

For Anita Sarkeesian, the drama deflecting her unraveling narrative would be the "GamerGate" movement, an online consumer revolt against corruption in the gaming press and gaming industry [77]. As with Sister Aimee, however, the claims of coming under assault from shadowy forces were never substantiated, although the sensationalist narrative proved too inviting for lackadaisical reporters to bother investigating, even when outright refuted by authorities [78] [79].

The tactics employed by Anita Sarkeesian follow the standard script of the preachers of Millennial eschatology. As David Nash writes:

"Ultimately, religious millenarian sects regrouped around millennial prophecy explaining away failure as delay, postponement, or misinterpretation" [80].

 

 

 

 [81]

It is here that the only noticeable difference between Sister Aimee and Anita Sarkeesian emerges. Whereas Sister Aimee was willing, at the least, to engage with her ideological opponents, Anita Sarkeesian has yet to agree to public debate, or to even acknowledge dissent and critique as more than "harassment."

Furthermore, by erasing the identities of her female and minority critics and framing opposing views as only the "misogyny" of "angry white males", Anita Sarkeesian reveals how she doesn't even hold herself to the standards and beliefs of her own theology:

 

 

   [82]

 

With over a quarter of a million followers on social media; with front-page accolades across media watched or read by tens of millions of viewers; with influence in an industry outperforming Hollywood, it is undeniable that Anita Sarkeesian is one of the very individuals she speaks of.

 

And she uses all that power and influence to silence the voices of those whose only sin is to speak truth to power.

 

 

 

 

[83]

 

 

 watch?v=HJihi5rBEk

 

 

[84]

 

watch?v=Ee8RgbS9ESE

 

 

  [85]

 

watch?v=OPJeqRHVShg

 

 [86]

 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YyUmPRPhOe8#t=0]

 

 

 [87]

 

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6-OyRWzcl4Q#t=1]

 

 [88]

While only a small sampling of the number and diversity of female and minority critics of Anita Sarkeesian, it is telling that her theology has no room for such people and views. In this regard, Anita Sarkeesian is correct when she states that one cannot remain silent. Especially when Feminist Frequency is included in a $300 million campaign where such hateful ideology might be used to indoctrinate the coming generation. [89]

The warning one writer gave about the era of Sister Aimee rings true today in the world of Anita Sarkeesian:

"In all the world there is not a town so blighted by fake religions as this. Every year, thousands upon thousands of men and women are caught up in the net of these preaching charlatans and bled of their pennies, and in some cases even robbed of their good senses." [90]

*          *          *

Our oldest tales tell us that for humanity to approach and appropriate the divine is hubris. To proclaim that one speaks the gospel truth requires a measure of faith, but to speak in tongues so as to never speak truth while abusing the faith of others is more than hubris: it is perhaps one of the few sins still acknowledged in the post-modern world. Amongst all the myths and histories and elusive facts in the tale of Anita Sarkeesian and Sister Aimee is the simple lesson that claiming a monopoly on truth is to invite tyranny: all opposition thus instantly becomes a seething horde of barbarians, all dissent is silenced lest "sinful thoughts" tempt the faithful.

Yet as would-be messiahs Anita Sarkeesian and Sister Aimee leave much to be desired. That is because ultimately they are simply human. The root of all evil is found in that flawed and tragic humanity, or perhaps it is more correct to say that it is found when that humanity is abandoned, all in the name of "the gospel truth." For the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and how quickly what appears to be the path of righteousness becomes a place where even angels fear to tread.

Larry Carney is the author of Dreams of A Distant Planet: Chrono Trigger and the World Revolution of Video Games. A scholar of the industry and culture of gaming, he can be reached on Twitter @JazzKatCritic

 

 

 

 

 

Sources and Works Cited:

 

 

 

1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/24/anita-sarkeesian-releases-kickstarter-breakdown-raised-440000-in-2014/

 

2.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL0-AKOjgHQ

 

3. Sutton, Matthew A. "'Between The Refrigerator And The Wildfire': Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Pentecostalism, And The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy." Church History 72.1 (2003): 159.

 

4. "Aimee Semple Mcpherson." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2013): 1.

 

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaPbgNVuaEI

 

6. Blumhofer, Edith L. "Sister." Christian History 17.2 (1998): 31.

 

7. Updike, John. "Famous Aimee." New Yorker 83.10 (2007): 76-79

 

8. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games

 

9. http://www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk/2012/03/06/mass-effect-3-backlash-why-gamers-should-be-ashamed/

 

10. http://gamasutra.com/view/news/219588/Lets_revisit_Final_Fantasy_X_Anyone.php

 

11. http://kotaku.com/5959147/i-was-ashamed-of-being-a-gamer-i-dont-feel-that-way-anymore

 

12. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/01/the-monday-papers-4/

 

13. http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-opinion-video

 

14. Sutton, Matthew A. "Clutching To "Christian" America." Journal Of Policy History 17.3 (2005): 308-338.

 

15. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/527685454598926336

 

16. https://twitter.com/josswhedon/status/553341645572571138

 

17. Sutton, Matthew A. "Clutching To "Christian" America." Journal Of Policy History 17.3 (2005): 308-338.

 

18. http://www.feministfrequency.com/about

 

19. Updike, John. "Famous Aimee." New Yorker 83.10 (2007): 76-79.

 

20. Sutton, Matthew A. "'Between The Refrigerator And The Wildfire': Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Pentecostalism, And The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy." Church History 72.1 (2003): 159.

 

21. http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/11/27/an-open-letter-to-bloomberg-s-sheelah-kolhatkar-on-the-delicate-matter-of-anita-sarkeesian/

 

22. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/06/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/#more-18661

 

23. Baron, Larry. "Pornography And Gender Equality: An Empirical Analysis." Journal Of Sex Research 27.3 (1990): 363-380.

 

24. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/06/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/#more-18661

 

25. McGlynn, Clare, and Ian Ward. "Pornography, Pragmatism, And Proscription." Journal Of Law & Society 36.3 (2009): 327-351.]

 

26. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/06/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/#more-18661

 

27. McGlynn, Clare, and Ian Ward. "Pornography, Pragmatism, And Proscription." Journal Of Law & Society 36.3 (2009): 327-351.]

 

28. Koppelman, Andrew. "Why Phyllis Schlafly Is Right (But Wrong) About Pornography." Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy 31.1 (2008): 105-125.]

 

29. Adams, Don. "Can Pornography Cause Rape?." Journal Of Social Philosophy 31.1 (2000): 1-43.

 

30. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/06/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/#more-18661

 

31. Sharp, Sharon. "Fembot Feminism: The Cyborg Body And Feminist Discourse In The Bionic Woman." Women's Studies 36.7 (2007): 507-523. While the author of the piece does find the Bionic Woman somewhat "problematic", there is a nuance to the exploration of feminism and the portrayal of women in media which is entirely lacking in the simplistic dichotomy offered in the ideology of Sarkeesian.

 

32. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/357577656444792832

 

33. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/199682780613976067

 

34. Ray, Donna E. "Aimee Semple Mcpherson And Her Seriously Exciting Gospel." Journal Of Pentecostal Theology 19.1 (2010): 155-169.

 

35. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/525080886337748995

 

36. Sutton, Matthew A. "Clutching To "Christian" America:." Journal Of Policy History 17.3 (2005): 308-338.

 

37.http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/ 

 

38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAyncf3DBUQ

 

39. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7ew9_3CMAEH5dI.png

 

40. Sutton, Matthew A. "Clutching To "Christian" America:." Journal Of Policy History 17.3 (2005): 308-338.

 

41. Sutton, Matthew A. "'Between The Refrigerator And The Wildfire': Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Pentecostalism, And The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy." Church History 72.1 (2003): 159.

 

42. http://www.feministfrequency.com/about/

 

43. http://www.feministfrequency.com/about/

 

44. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/540364180495138816

 

45. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/540362218395561984

 

46. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/540361427618254849

 

47. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/540339671448825857

 

48. Helgeson, Matt. "Critique and Controversy." Game Informer. Issue 259.

 

49. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/522218963778809856

 

50. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/507620969666461696

 

51. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/525084119751860224

 

52. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/525781140943011841

 

53. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/533445611543363585

 

54. Ray, Donna E. "Aimee Semple Mcpherson And Her Seriously Exciting Gospel." Journal Of Pentecostal Theology 19.1 (2010): 155-169.

 

55.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ah8mhDW6Shs#t=697

 

56. Parmelee, Stephen E. "Trouble In Paradise: Dillwyn Parrish, "Praise The Lord!," And Religious Fervor In Southern California In The 1930S." Christianity & Literature 61.1 (2011): 55-76.

 

57. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/564877731221893120

 

58. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/04/the-2014-game-developers-choice-ambassador-award/

 

59. http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/article/view/73

 

60. Maddux, Kristy. "The Foursquare Gospel Of Aimee Semple Mcpherson." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 14.2 (2011): 291-326

 

61. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games

 

 

62. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/TFYC-Discuss-GamerGate-Recovering-From-Hacks-4chan-Support-67239.html

 

63. http://www.thefineyoungcapitalists.com/

 

64. http://nichegamer.net/2014/11/seedscape-is-easily-the-cutest-harvest-moon-inspired-game-yet-and-its-on-steam-greenlight/

 

65. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Hashtag-Shows-Multi-Cultural-Support-GamerGate-67119.html

 

 

66. Nash, David, and David S. Nash. "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment." Journal Of Religious History 24.1 (2000): 70. 

 

67. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/532346548319821824

 

68. Nash, David, and David S. Nash. "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment." Journal Of Religious History 24.1 (2000): 70. 

 

69. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/545150951493869568

 

70. Nash, David, and David S. Nash. "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment." Journal Of Religious History 24.1 (2000): 70. 

 

71. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/357577656444792832

 

 

72. Ray, Donna E. "Aimee Semple Mcpherson And Her Seriously Exciting Gospel." Journal Of Pentecostal Theology 19.1 (2010): 155-169.

 

73. Parmelee, Stephen E. "Trouble In Paradise: Dillwyn Parrish, "Praise The Lord!," And Religious Fervor In Southern California In The 1930S." Christianity & Literature 61.1 (2011): 55-76.

 

74. Parmelee, Stephen E. "Trouble In Paradise: Dillwyn Parrish, "Praise The Lord!," And Religious Fervor In Southern California In The 1930S." Christianity & Literature 61.1 (2011): 55-76.

 

75. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ah8mhDW6Shs#t=697

 

76. Updike, John. "Famous Aimee." New Yorker 83.10 (2007): 76-79.

 

77.http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

 

78. http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179

 

79. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gamergate-guns-and-threats-against-women-collide-in-utah/

 

80. Nash, David, and David S. Nash. "The Failed And Postponed Millennium: Secular Millennialism Since The Enlightenment." Journal Of Religious History 24.1 (2000): 70.

 

81. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/559835331449454592

 

82. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/523238627266928641

 

83. https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/559498020614438912

 

84. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJihi5rB_Ek

 

85. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee8RgbS9ESE

 

86. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPJeqRHVShg

 

87. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YyUmPRPhOe8#t=0

 

88. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6-OyRWzcl4Q#t=1

 

89.http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/codenamecrono_blog/archive/2015/01/09/but-at-what-cost-the-integrity-of-intel-and-selling-out-to-the-hate-mob.aspx

 

90. Parmelee, Stephen E. "Trouble In Paradise: Dillwyn Parrish, "Praise The Lord!," And Religious Fervor In Southern California In The 1930S." Christianity & Literature 61.1 (2011): 55-76.