He-Man Woman Haters Club!. No Gurlz Allowed! If the video game world was a treehouse, this might be the sign outside if you were to believe the popular media. There is a common misconception that video games are only by, for, and about boys. The documentary Girls Game shows how women have been there from the beginning and are still struggling to have their contributions recognized.
“…shows how women have been there from the beginning and are still struggling…”
While I enjoyed the documentary, my biggest problem with it is all the redundancy. Every story follows the formula of discovering video games, loving video games, getting into the field, and now things are great. It is a fault we see in many new filmmakers who are so eager to show us a subject they are passionate about. They neglect to notice that they are giving us what is essentially the same story over and over. In director Natalie Rossetti’s desire to give voice to a marginalized section of the community, she failed to “trim the fat” from her narrative. And so, because of only the best intentions, Girls Game gets bogged down, and the narrative in the first third crawls along at a snail-like pace.
Eventually, we get an exploration of why women aren’t a more prominent force in video games, and you hear a lot of the same reasoning and rationale you’ve seen in think pieces all over the interwebs. But then Billy Mitchell, the villain of the documentary The King of Kong, is allowed to give his two cents. And he doesn’t come off great. His attempts to show how “woke” he is doing, however, blend into a segment with Amber Rufkin and Lauren Van Kuren discussing their musical based on his infamous attempts to be the champion of Donkey Kong. He even attends a performance and is a good sport about it. So Rossetti shows him in a more nuanced light than anyone else has.
"…a waking nightmare ranging from questions of legitimacy, to awkward sexual advances, to threats of rape and murder..."
I was the original concept creator of “No Princess in The Castle”, a 2014 intended documentary focusing on the history of women in gaming. I created the title, concept and did the initial casting of 14 women. Natalie Rossetti alongside Dave Danzara and Eric Tessler were the first producer line up associated with the film. “Girls Game” is what was left of the film after I resigned in 2016 due to Rossetti, Danzara and Tessler introducing a well known serial harasser of women and the film, into the cast behind my back. In fact, he was cast months before I learned of this deception. His name was Rudy James Ferretti. Last month he murdered a woman and then killed himself.
https://www.wired.com/story/retro-gaming-violent-tragedy-rudy-ferretti/
Ferretti was not a merely a troll but a longtime serial stalker and online harasser of various people including women. He brandished firearms in videos, came to gsming events srmed with 9mm and threw out continuous sexual insults at women. He was deeply racist, made many statements against racial minorities and what he felt were a lack of rights for white men. The makers of “Girls Game”, including the original producer line up of Dave Danzara, Natalie Rosetti and Executive Producer Eric Tessler (who funded the film), had full knowledge of his abusive and malevolent stalking and sexual harassment as early as 2014. Ferretti, in fact, stalked and harassed all three directors during the film’s Kickstarter in 2014 and created several petitions of protest. Ferretti made 17 defamatory video podcasts against the film, including ones where he stated that certain women deserve to be raped. In an email I still have, Rossetti asks me for this footage. So they knew he was deranged. There no way they can deny it.
So…why did they cast him in a film about women being written by a woman he was harassing? Money. Both Rossetti and Danzara were afraid they’d lose Executive Producer Eric Tessler’s financial support. Tessler indeed was known for funding numerous projects in the classic gaming community and he was overly generous with people he liked. Tessler liked Ferretti. Tessler didn’t like me because Tessler saw me as a “feminazi”. So I was seen as someone who got in the way of Tessler’s cash flow. Rossetti and Danzara wanted to keep that flowing. They wanted to keep enjoying the fancy dinners, theme park private parties and being in his favor. Integrity is often lost over money.
“Girls Game” producers aided and abetted Rudy Ferretti, a man who made it his focus FOR YEARS to stalk, harass and threaten people including me. By casting him behind my back, an action that led to my resignation and retraction of my script and ideas, they assisted him in his attacks upon me. That he went on to murder one of his victims, Amy Molter, an ex girlfriend, isn’t shocking at all. Many of us saw murder in Ferretti’s future and warned of it many times. Unfortunately the producers of “Girls Game” cared more about money and helping Ferretti enact revenge upon me than making a film worthy of the women I cast in it. So much was lost in the process…dignity, compassion, ethics. The history of women in gaming (1949-present) has yet to be told and perhaps may never be.
“Girls Game” is a absolute failure.
Rudy was nothing but a has been wannabe that thought he was something he wasn’t. The tragedy is instead of ending his worthless existance years ago he choose to be a coward and take an innocent woman with him . If there is a Hell I hope he is rotting in it. That being said the world is a better place without this SOB in it.
Rudy ferretti is in the film wtf he doesnt know nothing about gaming the only thing rudy ferretti knows is to bully people online.
Rudy is like the greatest gamer of all time. I never seen someone so adaptable
If you supported this loser , you deserve all the karma in your life that will come your way I hope its long and painful
Rudy is nothing but a scrub who had one world record that was ever any good (Splatterhouse), but he lost that so hard that he’ll never get it back LOL
Rudy ferretti had mental problems since he was a child and he wouldn’t take his medications for his illness and how could he carry a gun if he’s mentally unstable.