Who’s in Control?: Negotiating Hierarchies, Neoliberal Subjectivation, and Feminist Resistance in the World of Work

In Control (Remedy Entertainment, 2019), the player-protagonist Jesse Faden starts a journey looking for her missing brother and ends up as Director of a secret agency—the Federal Bureau of Control. Battling a supernatural threat of corruption by the “Hiss”, Jesse discovers a workplace full of otherworldly dimensions. Drawing on different elements of work in the game, this chapter will explore the representation of Jesse. This will involve considering the neoliberal expectations placed upon her and the corporate environment she is in, the ways a process of neoliberal subjectivation is evident, and how Jesse demonstrates resistance to individualism in favour of intersectional feminist approaches. Furthermore, I will consider the relationships and roles that frame her within this new world, including male/female camaraderie and Jesse’s rejection of hierarchies. Considering some of the challenges Jesse faces, I suggest that the game offers an astute commentary on women in power in the workplace, and the tensions of the choices they must make. This builds on Rettberg’s (2011) argument that games serve as training for work environments in terms of both ideologies and skills amassed, to explore Control also as a training ground for the challenges of women in work.