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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.
"Lara Croft - icon for the power of the female, or created for gamers to goggle at?"
Sit down with every version of Tomb Raider ever made. Play them in order from oldest to most recent, and observer the increase in breast size from version to version.
Then, ask that question again with a straight face.
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Who are you to say what she needs? What if she came here and read your post. How do you think she would feel? Is it right to say that about her? Is her role in life to provide you with sexual pleasure?
I think this is plain rude and insulting to her. To any woman, perhaps, who is made to feel that her worth is related to her body.
Though I shouldn't be surprised, given what I've recently seen about the American porn industry. To all you geeks who watch porn, I suggest you read this. Makes me sick.
The way they trick women, and use the lure of money to get them to do things they didn't want to do, it's sickening and depraved.
That anyone should care one way or the other. Guys like seeing semi-naked girls beat the crap out of each other. So what? We have made a form of entertainment, why should it then be tailored to include girls as well? If they are not happy with the situation, then girls are free to make and market their own entertainment that tailors itself to their needs. The bottom line is sex sells to guys. Games are just games.
A statement such as, "Women as hypersexualized killers distracts attention from their unequal status", distracts attention from the question of why someone wants to spend time watching women as hypersexualized killers.
StarCraft is even worse - the only female combat unit is the air-to-air missile launcher, and that was an add-on unit. Every other female is a support person (the computer, the transport pilot, and the medic) - Kerrigan was an exception, but she was an excuse because they just wanted a character to turn into a Giger-esque chick-demon.
There are some games that do women credit. Oddly enough, FPS games are pretty good at it. For example, Quake II has a male and female character model, and the female is very serious looking. Quake III continues this, including both serious female characters and sexy female characters.
Japanese Fighting games have always been the worst culprits - there have been attempts to stray from the stereotype - one of my favourite characters in Bloody Roar was a big, mean, butch 40-something woman in overalls. She was ugly, but she could kick some serious ass, and was cool in a violent sort of way. She could also transform into a big scary warthog.
The sequel removed her and replaced her with a blond in a super-high miniskirt and a lether shirt that cut down to her navel.
I remember one SNES title called "pretty fighter" that had a cast consisting of a girl in a school uniform, a girl in a school gym suit, a girl in nurse uniform, a cheerleaer, etc.
I often find that the portrayal of females is a good baseline to determine the quality of the game. Sexualized but not obviously so means the game is mainstream - nothing wierd about it. Hypersexualized games are usually tongue-in-cheek humourous about it, like the Tomb Raider and DoA games (play alone or play with yourself). The fun ones are the games that are outright bizarro-sarcastic about the sexuality of the characters, like Space Bunnies Must Die! - which was sort of a redneck tomb-raider.
Very few games take themselves seriously enough to include non-sexual females. From the dev's standpoint, there's little reason to. Girl gamers are fringe in action games, and the males are adolescents who are still discovering the glory of spanking the monkey.
The fact is that games are still pulp. There is very little "high-art" in games. While that continues, women will be sex-objects or neglected.