I first stumbled upon the work of Hotel Art Thief while doomscrolling on X (formerly Twitter). “The Bechdel Test video game actually looks pretty cool,” wrote comedian Michael Kandel in a post that includes a live-action video of a woman walking down the streets of Brooklyn with a GTA-inspired overlay. For reference, the actual Bechdel Test, meant to illuminate patterns and biases in media, poses a few questions: Does a given work have two or more female characters in it? And do they ever have a conversation about something other than a man?
“Have a conversation with a woman,” reads a prompt that pops up at the start of the clip. “I’m looking forward to speaking to a fellow woman,” says the character on-screen, with the kind of wooden affectation you’d expect from an older video game. Within seconds, she’s beeped at while crossing the street, and realizes it’s a woman driver who’s chastised her. “Hey girl!” she shouts, waving like a broken-down robot. “GLASS CEILING SHATTERED,” the game announcer shouts triumphantly.
But when the protagonist tries to walk through a door, a warning that it’s a male-dominated space pops up on-screen. “I don’t think I’m supposed to go there,” she says cheerily.
The video then cuts to the “game’s” developers, who—of course—are male. “We wanted to make a game for women, by us,” they say in unison. “Because we had to. Our last game, Jerk It 3: Crankfest 2K24 got us in legal hot water—and jail.” Our cheery protagonist then encounters another woman, who says she’s not doing too great because her brother is missing. “Ow,” she says, as the screen flashes red and an alarm wails, indicating she’s taking damage. “Discussing a man,” the game warns. “Tap B to change topic.”
The rest of the video is more of this: pitch-perfect GTA rip-off mixed with searing social commentary. It’s hilarious and one of several video game knock-off videos the NYC comedy duo (composed of Kandel and Joe Miciak) have made, including one based on the FX series The Bear. “The Bear video game actually looks pretty cool,” Kandel wrote in the post sharing the video. I see the pattern.
I reached out to Hotel Art Thief via email to learn about their video game inspiration, what kinds of games they like to play, and to confirm if it was possible to get past that level where two women discuss a man without dying. Here’s what they had to say:
How did you guys get into making videos like The Bechdel Test game and The Bear game?
Joe: We originally got into it with a sketch we did last year called “user:Brian(box),” which was a retro futuristic VR chatroom. It was our first sketch playing with first person, POV-style comedy in a video game environment, and we liked the immersive feel it allowed. I learned a little bit of Blender to animate it, and we used ambient moments from the N64 game Perfect Dark for the background. We got a kick out of creating a surreal world that combined the absurd with tedium. The Bear was a continuation of that, once I had learned how to animate a little better.
Mike: For “Bechdel Test,” we had always wanted to do a GTA-like sketch where the character had more mundane objectives, but could still break out a golf club and beat people up. It was just a matter of finding the right home for the idea.
Are you both gamers? What are some of your favorite games?
M: I’m not much of a gamer. I mostly played Madden, 2K, and Mario growing up. I’m a sore loser and bad at video games, so you can imagine my predicament.
J: I’ve played a lot of Smash and Mario Kart, some Zelda and Pokémon. I have fond memories of watching my friends play Halo or Call of Duty growing up. I’d usually lose or die early and would watch the rest of the game play out like a TV show.
What games do you find are easy to parody/use as reference in your videos?
M: As comedians, we try to choose games and visuals that heighten the idea we’re working with and go from there.
J: Yeah, we usually come up with the idea first—like The Bear came about because I liked the idea of a stressful cooking game like Cooking Mama being presented as meditative and calm. And then from the kernel of the idea we look for other ideas from games with similar settings, tones, or characters. Like we got some ideas from Watch Dogs because it was set in Chicago like The Bear.
What do you think about the current state of games? Are you plugged into all the culture warring stuff?
M: We are not very plugged into the state of video games.
J: I heard things got super egalitarian and no one harrasses anyone anymore.
How did the women involved feel about the Bechdel Test game?
M: I refused to talk to them on set, but maybe Joe knows.
J: Mike is kidding!! We had a great day filming with them (Rachel Coster, Danielle Clarke-Fisher, and Whitley Watson). We did a read-through with them to see how it read, and they helped us edit it into a version we were all happy with. Then we recorded all the VO first, which was mostly scripted, but they all improvised and added some great lines. I think a lot of, if not all, the exclamations from Rachel were ad-libbed. Then filming the gameplay outside was a blast. They all coalesced on really funny hand/body movements that looked eerily game-like. We were all pretty tired from filming another sketch earlier that day so we moved pretty quickly. All the women loved how it came out, and were thrilled about the reception.
Tell me more about the expansions and add-ons—they’re obviously for laughs, but they point to how the games industry continues to keep players paying with new content.
M: I’m not a gamer, but just about every media/software company these days will force 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 a funny escalation in our sketch.
What’s the next video game parody you’re working on?
J: We haven’t written it yet, but I really want to do a side-scrolling game where you’re navigating through a party where you don’t know anyone.
M: We’re actually debuting our next video game parody at our upcoming live show, so we don’t want to spoil too much. But you can come see it September 13th at Union Hall.
What do you hope people take away from your video game videos?
M: I hope people laugh and enjoy themselves.
J: I hope people are exhorted to take radical political action.
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