Female Characters - Empowering or Endangering Equity?

deacon_jay writes "There's an interesting article from the NY Times (registration required) about what the depiction of female protagonists in video games is doing for female empowerment. Obviously, there are opposing views put forward, such as: 'Women as hypersexualized killers distracts attention from their unequal status' or 'I do not think playing these games encourages women to be victims'. I'm tending to the latter argument, but the article raises some interesting questions." For example, Lara Croft - icon for the power of the female, or created for gamers to goggle at? This is even an academically discussed question.

Comments

Re:Are you kidding me?

[elid]

It looks like things are changind. Did you read the NYT article? Quote: When a new Tomb Raider game subtitled The Angel of Darkness is released for Playstation 2 and the PC, expect a refashioned Lara Croft who engages in hand-to-hand combat with evildoers. (In previous games she either ran or shot them with her handguns.) Her infamous bust line, which prompted some women to complain that the character was gratuitously sexualized, will be reduced to more lifelike proportions.

The altermative

[smoondog]

The alternative is Samus from Metroid. Do ya think anyone noticed (that 'it' was female)? Or maybe Dora the Explorer (Dear god why do I know that?) Female characters with ridiculous figures are the only ones that are noticed. There are lots of characters that are not. Samus, Dora, the woman from Zelda, the princess from Mario -- all don't have stylized figures. Hey guess what? Lara Croft was made for the women, like fark's boobies links are for women. (Anyways, I blame Anime, a really, really cool genre with some serious testosterone issues, IMO)

-Sean