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Men Incapable Of Portraying Videogame Women Fairly?
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing whether men can be trusted to portray women fairly in videogames. The author references Metroid ("I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line"), and Ico ("Yorda... [is] this supposedly sympathetic female character in a video game that can do absolutely nothing for herself and is constantly in danger of being kidnapped"), and ends by leveling the charge: "I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games."
Samus being a woman is not a joke, it's a realization that a woman CAN do powerful things and CAN be a hero. It's not an insult, it's something that makes you think.
Women are inherently incapable of driving cars
Men are inherently incapable of getting in touch with their feeling
Women are inherently incapable of logical thought
Yeah, let's polarize and call each other names.
As a kid I spent quite a while playing this game, had come to know and like this character, and when I found out the hero was female I thought, "Cool, that's unique. I don't see why the ass kicking protagonist /can't/ be a woman." Ever since then, any instance of female action heros has never struck me as being out of the ordinary. I think if anything, it in some way helped break down the gender wall. At least for some of us.
- Cigar chomping muscle-brains
- Weasley little pick-pocket wimps
- Corpse-obsessed psychopaths
- Spineless cannon-fodder clones
- Sex-obsessed jocks
- Coke-bottle glasses nerds that love computers
Etc, etc, etc. It isn't a sexism thing, it's a "the story writers are stupider than the game's AI" thing.A study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that fully 64.3% of all persons born female, show markedly below average, or even undetectable, senses of humor. Their hyper-emotional nature and comparitively large hormonal fluctuations appear to impede the detection of the logical discontinuity necessary for humor.
When it comes to video games, I am not looking for female characters that I can take home to mom.
I want big titties on a tough as nails ass kicking chick like Lara Croft or B. Orchid, or big titties on a soft helpless babes like the babe in Final Fight or the hookers in GTA:3 and VC.
Video games are like porno, the target market is mostly male. As a result the contents are going to be geared towards male fantasies.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Seriously, not only should it be rather obvious that the majority of game developers lack any and all ability to portray real women AT ALL, but the author of this article choose some really poor choices of women in games to prove his point.
Why not attack the games laced with idiot-centric content like women with oversized breasts who are always the victims.
Samus is the one, true video-game heroin that hasn't, (yet), fallen to the same traps as nearly every other female in most other games. She is strong, silent, confident, and not a sex symbol. (Some may argue that the removing of her suit at the end of a quickly completed game is leaning in this direction, and I could understand that, but I still respect Nintendo for at least throwing her in a modest single piece bathing suite when most other developers would have her sporting a scant bikini or a lace nightie).
Yorda from Ico could be seen as a weak female in a game, but she is still infinitely more interesting and unique as a supporting character than most of the aforementioned bad examples. Her character is successfully timid without becoming a weak, victim-ish sex-symbol.
I can't wait to see more *real* women in games, but this will most likely come with the arrival of more mature developers.
"I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games." Perhaps you could make that case if they were TRYING to properly represent a female in thier game. But they were not. They typically make games geared towards males. As for Metroid, Samus being female was a small tiny part of the game MOST people didn't know about for the first five years the game was out. I remember hearing Samus was female 3 years after I first played it.
An example (note: I live in DK):
In the neighbourhood I grew up in, there are a lot of immigrants, and since 1997 (long story) these have mainly been from Somalia.
From what I understand, Somalia is not a nice place to be, for anyone. People die from famine.
So of course, people emigrate to another country.
They come to Denmark and become as complacent and decadent as us. They watch TV with their kids. (80% of the TV shows in DK are from the US) Their kids see black people acting a certain way. They think it's cool.
Suddenly, they're walking around with bandanas and FUBUs and shit I've never wanted to know about, trying to even sound like the actors on TV. Hell, it's even more pitiful to see than when I was in Greenland and saw Greenlandish Niggers*.
Talk about your off-topic-I-haven't-slept-all-night rant.
* Note: I've been to Greenland 13 times. Never saw a black person there.
Warning: Some moderate (possibly heavy) Ico spoilers will ensue after the quote.
I never finished ICO. Not only did I get stuck at a certain point about halfway through, but more to the point, I grew sick and tired of the girl, Yorda, and her uselessness. This character was so pathetic, it almost made me angry. I admit that this is not the effect the game was intended to have on me or on anyone; however, here's this supposedly sympathetic female character in a video game that can do absolutely nothing for herself and is constantly in danger of being kidnapped. Who better than a man--or in this case, just a boy--to come to her rescue.
If Greg had played Ico all the way through, he would've realized that Yorda was only pathetic because she had been repeatedly injured and abused. The real Yorda was quite a bit more capable, just as the injured, abused Ico was just as pathetic (if not more so) than she was when she was injured.
This is what happens when someone starts their analysis of a game with the words, "I never finished..." That's like watching the first two minutes of the Spider-Man movie, turning your DVD player off, and then devoting two paragraphs to asking why someone would want to watch Peter Parker act like a geeky loser for two hours. If you're going to review or analyze something, you should at least have the maturity to take in the whole thing before gracing us with your ignorant opinion.
That's pathetic. It really is. Why does he feel the way he does? What kind of horrible psychology has warped his mind into this sad state?
He feels guilty that Samus is a woman? And that Samus *can* be seen in a bathing suit? Oh dear lord! Someone call the thought-police, he might start forming an attraction to the opposite sex! How horrible! -- Though the true horror is that he feels this way. That, every time he views an in game portrayal of a woman even REMOTELY attractive, it is somehow a violation of "womens rights".
Let me tell you something guys. Not as a woman, because i'm not. But because i'm a MAN, and I no longer tolerate this "acceptable society" bullshit. Women in games? Thats great. SEXY women in games? Thats even fucking BETTER! Now before the "facist-femme militia of well-whipped men" decends on me, i'd like to point out one interesting fact: Women LIKE sexy portrayals of women. Women LIKE to feel sexy. They LIKE to feel attractive, they fucking ENJOY the power to reduce a man to a quivering puddle of goo with their bodies. Come on men, don't you too? All
I know, I know... a lot of you probably don't believe me. Well look right here. Its a page all about female characters in video games. Browse through the ratings, go ahead. Check out some good examples and some bad. Notice anything? Notice any attractive females with high ratings? Women are not offended by their own genders display of sexuality and power. They love that shit just as much as guys do. What's offensive is unrealistic images and blatant focuses on sexuality. Guys, a woman is a mind and a soul as well as a body, and if they're going to play games then thats the kind of avatars they expect.
I strongly encourage poeple to read this article if you haven't already. And check out some of the quotes too. This one was on the infamous Lara Croft (sp. the box art):
Whoa whoa whoa - back that up there. She LIKES the cover art? Lara Croft? What the hell? Look at her breasts! They're huge! And those shorts are TINY! How could any woman *LIKE* Lara Croft's signature pose? Its so blatantly sexual! By definition, all women should hate it, right?! WRONG. Like I said again and again: Women do not mind attractive females in games. They enjoy their sexuality too, because its *part* of how they define themselves as a woman. They IDENTIFY with a woman's sexual power. So what do they hate? Read on:
And BINGO! It was the marketing! The focus! Here, a female gamer was impressed not only with the attractiveness of Lara, but with her strength and confidence as well. For a b
The problem isn't that attractive female characters are shown, it's rather the very narrow definition of attractiveness that plauges all media. Most attractive women seem to be come from the same mold. I personally find the girl-next-door geeky girl infinitely more attractive, but then again, I'm a geek myself.
Objectification is another problem. I completely agree with the criticism against Lara Croft and how a strong, capable kick ass woman is reduced to drool material by stupid marketing. It's perfectly fine with me to drool over her body, but when that's all there is to her, something's wrong.
As for Yorda in Ico, I agree that not playing the full game is unfair, but she's also a product of a society (Japan) that still is very inequal. I believe her passiveness and inability is as much a game device as it is a reflection of the view of girls in Japan. Compared to other kinds of oppression, Ico is a harmless fantasy for boys in the end. I mean, who hasn't dreamed of being a hero and saving the girl?
"The author references Metroid ("I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line")"
Yeah, that Metroid game, nothin' but a barrel of laughs...
If Samus' sex is a "punch line," what was the joke?
I admit that the character art at the end of the two GBA games makes me roll my eyes (a little too "cheesecake" for my tastes), but here he's arguing that the entire premise is flawed, that her sex is a gimmick no matter what she may look like. This makes me wonder just what he thinks about women in general. He seems to be awfully sensitive to Samus' lack of a Y-chromosone and I wonder if this means that he finds the idea of a woman doing all those things to be unbelievable. After all, he's the only one I've seen who thinks her sex is a "punch line" to begin with.
"each game in the series encourages them to reach the finish line as quickly as possible to catch a glimpse of the woman beneath the suit."
Personally, I try to get the endings so I can catch a glimpse of the person beneath the suit. One of the series' cornerstone is the tantalizingly little information on just who she is and why she does what she does. I'm more interested in situations and facial expressions than her body (and on that note I'm happier with what Retro did with her than what Nintendo has done in the last two GBA installments). I chalk the cheesecake up as a failing by Nintendo to understand just what makes the games popular outside of Japan to begin with, the inability of a group of Japanese programmers to quite relate to gaijin gamers, not a failing of men in general.
Being as sensitive as he is to the pictures at the end, why exactly does the author himself play through the games? How many other gamers here are actually encouraged by the drawings of a scantilly-dressed woman at the end of the game?
Ah, wait a second...
"That's also not what I've been taught by my parents. My mother is a neurologist. Her mother is a physician, as well. The women have always worn the pants in my family, so to speak. Perhaps this helps you understand my perspective."
Now this is interesting. Here he implies that women must "wear the pants" in order to be worth something.
"Alis wears a pink hair band, lipstick, and a skirt, but she's still OK in my book."
I'm as sick of seeing women in pink as much as the next guy, but I didn't realize that actually liking pink is such a black mark against a woman. They can have any favorite color in the spectrum so long as it's not pink?
I think his problem is that he's equating strong female characters with characters acting more male, that men are inherently better and women must act more like men to be better themselves.
Personally, the more I think of what I've seen Samus do so far, I'm not sure if she could have been a man.
It's even a male who wrote it.
And just because a man wrote it, that means it's instantly not polarizing, no matter what it says, and it's automatically considered rational, well thought out, enlightened criticism, regardless of actual merit.
Sure. Pull the other one. It's got bells on.
...because I can think of several "fair" portrayals of women in games.
First, let's look at the Final Fantasy series. I can only speak to the ones I've played, so here goes:
- Tina--strong woman, though she has some emotional baggage due to
being only half-human. Never portrayed as particularly "sexy," though she's
quite pretty in most official images of her (kind of hard to tell from her
sprite
;-) )
- Celes--definitely a strong woman! She was a general in the army, for
Mu's sake! Not only that, but she can use every bit as big a sword as any
guy in the game (same goes for Tina).
- Relm--she may only be 10 (or so; I forget her exact age), but she's
awesome. She takes the womanizing Edgar down a few notches with her wit, and
has more spirit in her than any roomful of "typical" videogame
characters.
Don't see much to fret over there.- Aeri(s|th)--She may not be physically strong, but she certainly has a
strong personality. Not to mention she sacrifices her life to save the
planet. A bit more stereotypically "weak needs-to-be-protected girl," but
hey, some girls really DO need to be protected.
- Tifa--OK, here we're getting into kind of shaky ground, not for her
character, which I think is fantastic, but for her looks, which are a little
over the top...take that how you will...especially in FMVs.
- Yuffie--heh, you've gotta love Yuffie. She's cute, tough, and funny;
what more do you want?
Again, no real indication that men are "incapable" of portraying women fairly.- Dagger/Garnet: She's beautiful, tough, strong, and still vulnerable at times. I can find no unfairness whatsoever in the portrayal of Garnet's character. Nor is she visually portrayed as anything stereotypical.
- Freya: Not particularly feminine (and not even human); however, she's also both strong and sensitive. Included because she's technically female
;-)
- Eiko: Cross Relm with Yuffie, and you've got Eiko. 'Nuf said.
Still not seeing much problem here.Well, that's all the Final Fantasies I've played through, and in all of that, there isn't a single example of the kind of "unfair" treatment the article was talking about. True, some of them are visually portrayed as "sexy" (though only Tifa, I think, is specifically made sexy without being especially pretty), but this is not at the expense of their character.
Maybe it just goes to show that in the type of action games he's talking about, no one bothers to make the story or characters believable. (I know that's not universally true, but I also know it is true in some cases) RPGs, I have found, tend to make more of an effort than other genres to make their stories and characters if not realistic, at least believable and human. This is probably because their primary purpose is to tell a story.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Someone has already discussed ICO. So here's some other games Greg apparently didn't play.
Beyond Good & Evil: Not only is the main character strong, forceful, and not sexualized, there are several other characters in the game that are as active in the resistance movement as she is. I guess Greg was one of those people who didn't buy it.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty. And exhibits a remarkable ability to slide through cracks. Still, it's quite obvious as you play the game that your character, male character, is an obnoxious idiot, and that the Princess has been right all along.
KOTOR: Not only can your main character be a female, but one of the primary NPCs is also a Princess-Leia-esque female. Sure, you save her, but she doesn't really need it. Same goes for another female member of your party. They're both quite capable. Well, as long as you level them up. So I guess Greg was focusing on the stereotypical macho Mandalorin?
Deus Ex: IW: Again, main character can be female or male. One of the supporting female characters is diplomat of one of the paths you can take, and is quite forceful.
There's many others, but I'm getting bored of listing them for someone who probably doesn't care. Immediately I'm thinking of Anachronox, Panzeer Dragoon Orta, and then there's a large portion of the old Sierra adventure games. The King's Quest series, the Gabriel Knight series, Phantasmagoria series, and the Quest for Glory series were all developed by women. If I thought a little harder than Greg did in his article, I think I could conjure up some more.
So Greg might have a point: in the games he plays, which doesn't seem like many save the original Metroid and the first 2 hours of ICO, women are probably under-represented. For the rest of us, you know, the people that play games, I think it's fair to say that while it's not an equal representation yet, it's far better than it was even 5 years ago. And oh yeah Greg, you make mention of it, but apparently not enough to convince yourself. There are quite a few women in leadership positions in the game industry, who are approving these "embarassing" "malecentric" games. For example, the president of Activision is a women . Hmm. Greg doesn't play games, and he doesn't know about the people that make them. Can I be executive editor too?
There is a middle ground--like female characters that are competent without only being sex objects. It really isn't such an impossible thing to wish for.
So a man writes an article about how men are inherently incapable of portraying women properly in a videogame.
He knows this because so far, no man has ever portrayed a woman properly in a video game.
He knows that women have never been properly portrayed because he has a good idea as to how they should be portrayed and none of the women in videogames has ever measured up.
He is a man so he inherently doesn't know how to portray women properly.
But he knows how they should be portrayed.
But he can't know how they should be portrayed.
But...BRAIN EXPLODY
Thank you GameSpotting. Your amazing Zen koan has caused me to reach enlightenment.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
Yorda was a pathetic character, useless in every possible way.
Yorda is super cool. She glows in the dark and can make giant stones move by shooting electric arcs from her body.
Also, when the shadows are coming to kidnap her (and therefore turn you to stone), if she gets close to the green doors her electric arcs vaporise the shadow ghosts. Yeah, those guys you have to beat forever with a big stick to kill them? She can zap 'em all in an instant.
Ico needs Yorda and Yorda needs Ico. She can unlock the doors, he can jump and fight.
Just when you start getting up to a good jog, she slows you down by jerking on your arm.
That is because you are a jerk.
If you pull her along gently and give her time to get running too, she'll run as fast as you. If you start running and forcibly pull her along, yeah, she'll slow you down. But you obviously never even tried to be gentle, or else you would know that.
You can't take the sky from me...
well, at the risk of getting flamed...
;)
I thought the female Juggernauts in Unreal Tournament are a spot-on representation of some lesbian activists I've met in the past.