I first stumbled across Hotel Art Thief’s work while scrolling on X (formerly Twitter). “The Bechdel Test video game actually looks cool,” Comedian Michael Kandel wrote in an article It includes live-action video of a woman walking down a Brooklyn street with a Greater Toronto Area– Inspiration overlay. For reference, the actual Bechdel Test, designed to illuminate patterns and biases in the media, asks some questions: Are there two or more female characters in a certain work? Have they ever talked about anything other than men?
“Talk to a woman,” reads a prompt that pops up at the beginning of the clip. “I’m looking forward to talking to a fellow woman,” the character on the screen says, with the artificiality common in old-school video games. Within seconds, she heard a beep as she was crossing the street and realized it was a female driver scolding her. “Hey girl!” she shouted, waving like a broken robot. “The glass ceiling is shattered,” the game announcer shouted triumphantly.
But when the protagonist attempts to pass through a door, a warning pops up on the screen indicating that this is a male-dominated space. “I don’t think I should go there,” she said cheerfully.
The video then cuts to the developers of the “game”, and of course, they are men. “We wanted to make a game for women, made by ourselves,” they said in unison. “Because we had to. Our last game, Jerk It 3: Crankfest 2K24 Putting us in legal trouble or even jail. Our merry protagonist then meets another woman who says she’s not doing so well because her brother is missing. “Oh,” she said, as the screen flashed red and an alarm sounded, signaling she was in harm’s way. “Discuss a man,” the game warns. “Click B to change the topic.”
The rest of the film is more of this: Pitch Perfect Greater Toronto Area Plagiarism is mixed with biting social commentary. This is one of several video game knockoff videos produced by the New York comedy duo (made up of Kandel and Joe Miciak), including one based on the FX series, which is hilarious. Bear. “Bear Video games actually look cool,” Kandel wrote in a post sharing the video. I see patterns.
I reached out to Hotel Art Thief via email to find out about their video game inspirations, what types of games they like to play, and to confirm if it’s possible to get beyond the level of two women discussing a man without dying. This is what they said:
How did you get started on films like The Bechdel Test and The Bear Game?
Joe: We first got into this with a sketch we did last year called “User: Brian(box),” This is a retro-futuristic VR chat room. This is our first time playing a first-person, first-person perspective style comedy in a video game environment, and we love the immersive feeling it brings. I learned a bit of Blender to animate and we used ambient moments from the N64 game perfect darkness for background. We had fun creating a surreal world that combined the absurd with the humdrum. Bear It was a continuation as I learned how to animate better.
microphone: For the “Bechdel Test,” we’ve always wanted to do one Greater Toronto Area– Just like the sketch, the characters have more mundane goals but can still crack open golf clubs and beat people up. It was just a matter of finding the right home for the idea.
Are you all gamers? What are your favorite games?
Medium size: I’m not very good at playing games. What I mainly play is Explosive, 2Kand mario growing up. I’m a complete loser and not good at video games, so you can imagine my predicament.
J: I’ve played it many times smash and Mario Kart, Some Salda and Pokemon. I have great memories of watching my friends play faint or call of Duty growing up. I usually lose or die early and watch the rest of the game like a TV show.
What games have you found easy to emulate/use as reference in your films?
medium size: As comedians, we try to choose games and visuals that enhance the ideas we’re working with and build on that.
J: Yes, we usually come up with the idea first – e.g. Bear This came about because I love the idea of a stressful cooking game like this Cooking Mom Appear thoughtful and calm. We then start from the core of that idea and look for other ideas from games with similar settings, tone, or characters. Like we got some ideas from watch dogs Because it’s set in Chicago Bear.
What are your thoughts on the current state of gaming? Are you involved in all the culture warring stuff?
medium size: We’re not too keen on video games.
J: I hear things are becoming super equal and no one is harassing anyone anymore.
How did the women involved feel about the Bechdel Test game?
medium size: I refused to talk to them on set, but maybe Joe knew.
J: Mike was just kidding! We had a great day filming with them (Rachel Coster, Danielle Clark-Fisher and Whitley Watson). We read it through with them to see how it read, and they helped us edit it into a version we were both happy with. Then we recorded all the narration first, which was mostly scripted, but they were all improvised and added some great lines. I think many, if not all, of Rachel’s interjections were improvised. And then it was great to be outside filming the gameplay. They all incorporate very interesting hand/body movements that look very game-like. We are all very tired from filming another sketch It was earlier in the day so we were moving quickly. All the women loved how it turned out and were excited about the reception.
Tell me more about expansions and add-ons – they’re obviously meant to be funny, but they point to how the games industry continues to make players pay for new content.
medium size: I’m not a gamer, but almost every media/software company these days forces you to buy a monthly subscription or a never-ending series of add-ons that you don’t even want. We thought having our characters create “feminist” add-ons would be an interesting upgrade in our sketches.
What’s the next video game parody you’re working on?
J: We haven’t written it yet, but I really want to make a side-scrolling game where you travel through a party where you don’t know anyone.
medium size: We’ll actually be debuting our next video game parody at an upcoming live show, so we don’t want to spoil too much. But you can come and see it on September 13th at Union Hall.
What do you hope people take away from your video game videos?
medium size: I want people to laugh and be happy.
J: I want people to take radical political action.
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