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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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Stylized killer uber women in games sells. Sex sells, its a well known advertising fact. Everyone wow'ed about how well rendered Lara's titties were when Tomb Raider first came out, and were annoyed that you couldnt get a full front view. Kids would spend hours trying to find the best position to look at. Nowadays we have Dead or Alive beach volleyball....and we can all attest to the niceness of them well rendered titties. Nothing's changed except for the graphics quality.
I'm more worried about the boys who play these games, and their warped sense of the female form. I've met some guys who watch a little too much porn, to many anime cartoons, too much GTA, too many "Maxim"-type magazines, and have no real concept of what a real women is.
Come on guys, you're getting off on a corporate logo. Go for something with a soul, something real, not a cartoon designed by dweebs in the marketing and design departments. Are you really that easy to control?
Try thinking for yourself more often.
I hate when women say "empowering". Do women not have power by default? They need something to "empower" them? Empowerment seems sexist to me b/c it implies that women don't naturally have power.
...a paper for my media studies class, discussing how women's voices were used in Homeworld: Cataclysm. I basically came to the conclusion that women were portrayed as weak:
It seems inane to be arguing equal gender representation in a video game, but such games are becoming an increasingly popular form of entertainment and can be immensely compelling. Accordingly, we should examine how female voices are portrayed. In the original Homeworld, there were 28 vessels, only one being voiced by a female. While Cataclysm has improved that ratio some, the voice acting has become more personalized. Homeworld's voice acting was very flat and devoid of individuality. However, in Cataclysm, there is definitely a characterization associated with different ship types. The Recon Probe voice sounds to be an alto in her 30's. Her voice is relatively smooth and often has an ironic tone. The Hive Frigate appears to be a soprano in her 20's, as her voice is high pitched and often seems strained. Fleet Command is personified by a female tenor in her 60's, and sounds like a self-assured chain-smoker.
The implications of these positions are extremely important to note, for they are exceedingly subtle. The Recon Probe for all intents and purposes is an expendable ship, cheap to build and for the most part superfluous. However, the voice acting is very cocky and aggressive. Responses to the attack command are "Just say the word," and "I'll take 'em out." As a result, this particular female voice is derided and mocked for having male attitudes but being unable to act them out.
The Hive Frigate is essentially designed to be bait for enemy affronts at the beginning of a battle, and then to fall back and act as a support vessel. This soprano voice is nervous and edgy, perhaps giving the impression of a young woman who is in over her head and is about to snap and start screaming. Contrary to the impression given by the Recon Probe, the Hive Frigate is a weak powerless character, once again forming negative stereotypes.
Finally, Fleet Command is the tactics officer on the Mothership, giving suggested attack strategies and fleet directives. The voice is relatively deep for a woman, but is very self-assured and confident. It's a poignant aspect that the only secure female voice in the game is an 'old' one, suggesting that women only become robust and poised in old age.
This is not to say that all the male voices in the game are cocky and confident. There are units that sound like teenagers going through puberty and even mentally insane men. However, the ratio of male voices to female voices is unbalanced, and the attributed personalities contribute to stereotypes.
Few large-scale studies have been done on the number of female video game players to male players, but the proportion is heavily weighted on the male end, and probably will continue to be for a while. Therefore, it's important that all aspects of human representation in games are carefully considered. The voice acting in Homeworld and Cataclysm is one of the last things to be noticed after the gameplay, strategy, graphics, music, and sound effects, yet its subconscious effect can be very pronounced. This is most revealing when we consider that of the three (out of sixteen) female voices in the game, only one is assertive, and she sounds like Grandma.
What do you folks think? Any ladies care to chime in?
Enough of this empowering nonsense! No video games for you! Get back in the kitchen and make me dinner!
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
On the one hand, it will be argued that there are not enough female protagonists in video games. So video game companies step up and say, "you're right, we'll put some more female characters out there." Then, the complaint is always made [by someone] that the women are just there to be eye candy and that guys love ogling them. It always makes me wonder if these people want female video game characters to be ugly or if they want them to be dressed in ugly clothes. This despite the fact that women often spend thousands per year trying to look as pretty as they possibly can. I'm a fat, ugly, pasty guy but I'm sure not out there agitating for Kilik of Soul Calibur to gain 50 virtual pounds, nor would I ask that Mario get some warts.
Another drum they like to pound is that women in fighting games send the signal that it's okay to beat up women. This one makes me think that those folks have no problem with assault when a male is the victim. Fighting games, in particular, are completely neutral in terms of gender. It's very rare that a female character is so under-powered that she's going to be beaten by any of the male characters. I can recall several successful sessions where I took on all comers as Sonja in Mortal Kombat or Chun-Li in Street Fighter (I like kicking, what can I say?).
Finally, everybody and their grandmother keeps bringing up the killing of women in Grand Theft Auto. My first response is always that if you follow the storyline missions in GTA3 and Vice City you'll find that you won't have to beat down or kill many women, especially when compared to the number of men you inevitably whack. The natural response of these whiners is "That game encourages you to beat up hookers and other women for money." I then ask what percentage of prostitutes are male, followed by pointing out that it's entirely up to the player whether or not they want to beat up female OR male civilians to get cash. If someone is a mass murderer or huge bully in the GTA games, it's because they wanted to be and not because the game encouraged them in any way.
What all this comes down to is that there are more powerful female characters in games than ever before. Whatever they look like, the message that video game women can be just as capable as video game men is being sent by the video game industry every day. As far as I'm concerned, any feminist who thinks that's a bad thing needs to take a huge pill...I'd recommend estrogen but that might be sexist...
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
We talked about this on slashdot a couple of weeks ago, but "The Longest Journey" is a great, plot driven adventure game, with a lead female character who:
- is well acted.
- is realistic (or at least naturalistic).
- is not a mere sex object.
- has a journey of discovery that draws strength from a female perspective (I'm a male, so I could be wrong; but the writing and design are good enough that I think I'm not).
- isn't pandering to men.
- isn't pandering to women, either.
- makes you care about her and her plight.
- has LOTS of dialogue, but also good graphics and interesting story, so I wasn't bored.
- couldn't be replaced with a male character without greatly changing the story (ie. isn't a gratuitous female lead character).
- depicts, as part of the game, the complexities of male/female human interactions.
If ANYONE wants to talk about the potential that women have as "lead characters" in computer games, The Longest Journey should be held as the example of how it can be done without fear of alienating all men, and without exploiting male sexual arousal. Probably no coincidence that is was a game designed in Scandinavia. I highly recommend it.
What struck me most, was that this was a BETTER, more interesting, female lead character than ANY recent mainstream Hollywood movie with a lead female character (which are largely either gratuitous, or pandering to the perceived needs of women, or the perceived needs of men). April Ryan is a better role model for women and men, than most "role models" that are normally foisted on us all by the mass-market media.
Lara croft is an unrealistic depiction of womanhood. But male video game action characters are largely unrealistic portayals of men, too. Getting beyond the sexual elements, Lara does succeed (I think) as a character because her womanhood is not gratuitous (she has big juggs; so do some athletic female friends of mine. It isn't like they turn into missles to kill the bad guys), and her scope is limited to an action role (ie. she isn't portraying a societal 'role model', she is portraying a heroine, which are almost always romanticized ideals.)
I'm glad to see there is at least a trend towards women in computer/video games that is less purely sexual. I think, in some large part, it is because the technology is getting better at allowing "substantive" visual depictions (ie. facial expressions and interactions; see Half Life 2 trailer) that were harder to do previously. Whereas hot-looking bodies are relatively easy to do. I hope gamers are progressing towards more substantive portayals of BOTH men and women (at least as an option).
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
The issues are staring you straight in the eyes and you choose to ignore them.
Society puts far more pressure in women to toe the true line of how a woman should look. Any visit to a magazine shop should convince anybody that women are portrayed mainly as sex objects whose only tasks in life are to keep an eye on their weight and how to find their blue prince.
Men do not have to suffer such humiliation.
Regarding games the problem is one of violence and generalized lack of imagination from the part fo the game makers. It seems like they are addicted to violence in the first place, to make it a possible choice to beat and kill women and be rewarded for it, in spite of the amount of domestic violence everywhere, is frankly crass and irresponsible.
Since its beginnings action games are depended heavely on violence to sell, obviously the talent of most game companies to figure out new ways to entertain people while at the same time promoting positive values (or at least stop promoting negative ones) is sorely lacking.
If porno gaming is your thing, fine, but many females are uncomfortable knowing that strong industries like the gaming one can't come with better ideas but the stereotyping of women as sexual animals.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The article mentions that if you're going to be spending a lot of time looking at a single character, that character had better be pleasant to the eye. That's probably the number one reason right there.
Most importantly, most characters in video games are male. Of all those male characters, almost all have an impossibly ripped body of unnatural proportions. The torso of the video game male is usually almost double the size of what is possible. And a large majority of the time, the males are scantily clad.
Please note that the depiction of the male is as outlandish as the depiction of the female. This depiction is exploitive of the video game character. Since they're not real, it doesn't matter. It's all about fantasy. If a fantasy isn't intersting or intriguing, nobody wants to see it, let alone play with it.
My experience has been that the older a guy is, the lower his expectations get as to the looks of the girl he is looking to court. Listen to a group of 15 & 16 year olds sometime---or maybe even ask them. Their expectations are usually very high because thats what they see on television or on movies.
I think the expectations stay just as high, but the emphasis is on different things. As we grow older we learn that all too often the most beautiful are also the most petty, the most spiteful, and in the saddest situations, the most stupid. In other words, we learn that there are things more important than looks. I would hardly call that a lowering of expectations.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Action games do and have always relied upon violence because violence is far easier to simulate than creation, and the need for action is a repressed desire to be exploited. This is not necessarily a failure of imagination (it can be quite creative), but a reality of the current market. For every tetris that made it into public consciousness, there are about a hundred that were ignored in droves because the public doesn't find abstract gaming to be particularly gripping.
Since the introduction of Chun-Li in Street Fighter 2 (a reasonably endowed female, at least compared to some of the other characters in the game) fighting females have been getting more and more popular. Before then, women were largely reduced to the role of helpless princess to be rescued, medic, or very occasionally villaness (whose attempt to actualize was a defining factor in her evilness). Now they can shape their environment, go toe-to-toe with the 900 lb walking dumptrucks that pass as men in videogames and can do anything that men can do. With the general lack of women as leading action-hero roles (except in terrible game-to-movie conversions) strangely a large cultural spearhead of this has come from, well, videogames.
Does violence happen against protagonist women in videogames? Yes, but the depiction of violence against women has so often been against helpless women that the two separate concepts have become intrinsically linked. It is almost assumed in this culture that *any* violence against women will expose fragility, which is not the case (come out to boston for a women's football match sometime). The problem is the depiction of women being hit by the enemy and falling down crying, not the depiction of women being hit by the enemy and who in turn beats him to a bloody pulp. All protaganists in videogames hit back, and eventually win. That's empowering.
What's disempowering and what you touched upon was the hypersexualization of the female figure in videogames, which is a real problem. Videogaming is probably not the arena to fight this larger societal problem, however. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the characters need gross anatomical differences with wildly differing dress styles to be able to tell the two apart. And with men and women's violation of the age old long-hair-is-woman, short-hair-is-man code, there is very little to be able to distinguish between 32 pixel by 32 pixel male and female characters besides huge hips and big breasts vs giant shoulders and stunted legs. That part probably can't be stopped any time soon. The role variation needs to be upped, as does the number of female characters whose sexuality or sex life just doesn't come up, but arguing against oversized breasts in a medium whose plumber posterboy features a nose the size of his head is like shouting at the wind.
Either way, with female empowerment but continued female sexualization we've taken one step forward and no steps back. That doesn't mean that there is no ground left to cover. That means demonizing a medium which has overall improved the perception of women in our culture is shooting your friends.
If you want a target, start with those aformentioned magazine shops, preferably "YM" and "Cosmo Girl."
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