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Portrayal of women in video games

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The portrayal of women in video games has often been the subject of both academic studies and controversy. Two recurring themes are the level of independence of female characters from their male counterparts, and their objectification and sexualization.

Early portrayals presented women in subsidiary roles, dependent of a male protagonist. More modern video games have evolved to include women in active and self-reliant attitudes, but in some cases have also increased the level of physical attractiveness catering to the audience of male players. Controversy centers on the same lines of the portrayal of women in general media including sexism, the girl treated as an archetype, and violence towards women. The latter has been perceived as being aggravated by the interactivity inherent to the media.

Female protagonists in video games

According to data gathered by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), few video games have exclusively female heroes. This is in part because, according to EEDAR, "there's a sense in the industry that games with female heroes won’t sell."[1]

In a sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games selected by EEDAR in 2012, only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist, and 300 (45%) provided the option of selecting one. Examining the sales data and review scores of these games, EEDAR found that the games that included the option of selecting a female hero obtained better scores, but the ones with male-only protagonists sold better than the others. However, games with a female-only protagonist had, on average, only 50% of the marketing budget of female-optional games, and 40% of the marketing budget of games with male-only protagonists.[1]

Roles of female characters in video games

Non-player characters

Apart from roles as ancillary non-player characters, some games include women in a prominent role within the storyline.

Female characters are often cast in a role of damsel in distress and their rescue as the final objective of game. Princess Zelda in the early The Legend of Zelda series and Princess Peach through much of the Mario series are paradigmatic examples. Both of them, however, became playable in the later games of their series.

A number of games will feature a female character as an ally or sidekick to the male hero. Some of them, like Ada Wong and Mona Sax, were turned into player characters in later instances of their series. Alyx Vance, a supporting protagonist of Half-Life 2, was praised for her "stinging personality" and intelligence, developing a close bond with the player without simply being "eye candy".[2][3]

Some games feature female characters as major enemies or even main villains. The Dark Queen in the Battletoads series, is one of the first major female villains in video games,[4] and GLaDOS, an insane computer with a female voice, which was widely appraised by game critics and public as one of the best new characters of the decade.[5]

Player characters

Many video games include selectable female characters. This is especially prominent in fighting games, including the popular Dead or Alive, Darkstalkers, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, BlazBlue, Soul, Tekken and The King of Fighters series, where the women are most often fighting against male characters as equals.

Role-playing-games offer the player the choice to assume the role of a female character in addition to featuring the established female characters, usually as the party members, such as the female protagonists and supporting characters in various Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy games. The effects of choice of male or female gender in most games are often limited to the appearance of the character and responses from non-player characters and rarely affect the attributes of the character, like in Pokémon Crystal and the games following it. However, certain RPGs have character classes of which some are exclusively female and featuring unique abilities and attributes, such as in the case of Diablo 2.

Among real time strategy games, some games include female units that can be created (or recruited) and controlled by the player and also include female characters as part of the storyline. While Warcraft III (2002) features a fair share of female combat units, earlier titles like Age of Empires lacked female units altogether, though they appeared later in this series as well.[6]

Female protagonists

There has also been an increasing trend for women to be used as the sole protagonists in modern games.[7] In the 1980s, outside of a few Japanese arcade and console titles, such characters were featured mostly in the role-playing and adventure games (the first western action game with an exclusively female hero was Saboteur II: Avenging Angel in 1987), but this has changed through the 1990s and 2000s.

Samus Aran is held up as a positive example of women protagonists in video games, as players were unaware that the protagonist was female until the end of the first Metroid game (1986), due to a heavy suit of mechanical armor, which she wears for the majority of the game. Thus, her female characteristics are not emphasized over her viability as a character and are ultimately incidental in the plot of the series.[8]

Lara Croft is the best known in a trend of strong, beautiful women in a variety of media that do not depend on men to achieve heroic deeds, with ambivalent reception for their independence as action heroines and their eroticized portrayal.[9] April Ryan, protagonist of The Longest Journey, has been compared to Lara Croft in that respect, as she shows less prominent physical feminine attributes than Lara but more feminine psychological traits, as contrasted with Lara's masculine connotations like aggressiveness and force.[10] Contrarily, Jade, the protagonist of Beyond Good and Evil, was widely recognised as a strong and confident female character lacking any overt sexualisation[11] and Chell, the main character of Portal was noted for the fact that she was neither in third-person or sexualised unlike most female characters in first-person shooters.[12]

Claims of negative portrayals

Further information: Video game controversy § Portrayal of gender

"The girl" as a character archetype

Much of the criticism regarding the portrayal of women in video games mirror that of comic books. At its core is a fundamental perception of "the woman" as an archetype in and of itself, and simply being female being considered enough of a "trait" in comparison to the male "norm". Unlike with male characters, who are defined by what they do (i.e. the way they interact with the world surrounding them), excessive emphasis is given on what "the woman" is, sometimes going as far as negatively influencing their character proper in stereotypically "female" ways.

Gender discrimination and censorship

The titular hero in the Japanese game Ninja Princess was turned into a male character in the English version of the game, re-titled as Sega Ninja.[13] A number of female enemies in the Japanese beat'em up games were also either gender-changed or removed in the export versions.[14]

Objectification and sexualization

See also: List of adult video games

Female video game characters tend to suffer from a particularly extreme manifestation of the male gaze[15] — even when not serving the male characters (be it as a plot device, reward, or something else), "the woman" will virtually always find herself serving the male players through the systematic enforcement of sex appeal,[16][17] with rarely much regard to how gratuitous, out-of-place or out-of-character such appeal might be (e.g. high heels in armed combat). Another common feature often used for sex appeal is the use of "jiggle physics," when a female character's large breasts bounce, sway, and make various other random movements. Like with many other media, complaints have been made regarding a perceptible underlying implication that there is quite simply no point for a female character to even exist if her presence does not in some way entail the sexual pleasure of male consumers.

Since her introduction in 1996, the character of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series in particular has been criticized for her unrealistic breast size; Lara was claimed personify "an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification."[18] However, the game's creators maintain that she was not designed with marketing in mind, and have claimed to be rather surprised at her pinup-style adoration;[19] in fact, it has been claimed that this fandom objectification is harmful to the character (in Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara underwent a radical redesign, ostensibly to make her less sexualized[20]).[21][22]

Similarly, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball has been criticized as being more about eye candy than it is about the sport of volleyball, having been created merely for the purpose of displaying women's breasts.[23] In two sequels of fighting games Soul Calibur and Tekken that take place several years after the original issue, recurring male characters were allowed to age but all female characters were kept the same age or replaced by their daughters.[24]

Women in scanty armor

A recurrent representation of women in fantasy settings is the woman warrior dressed in unrealistically scanty armor. They feature armor designs which have been described as metallic lingerie, largely consisting of small decorative plaques that reveal large portions of the body skin to the weather and that expose vital organs, thus being completely noneffective as protection. [25] The prevalence of this portrayal is an instance of the common sexualization of women in video games. [15]

As a reaction of this widespread rendering, the art blog "Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor"[26] compiles depictions of female fighters wearing realistic protective gear. [27]

Rape

The 1984 game Custer's Revenge was first noted for containing elements of rape and some Native American groups and the National Organization for Women have criticised this as well as alleged racism.[28] More recently, major controversies were sparked by some Japanese games such as RapeLay and Battle Raper.

Violence

Violence in video games is a hotly debated topic, especially with regards to the Grand Theft Auto series; however, some sources have specifically condemned the series and similar games for promoting violence against women.[29]

Reactions

See also: Women and video games

Ubisoft has formed a group of female gamers called the Frag Dolls; the intent is to create "role models for a whole legion of girls out there who may have been too intimidated to play games online - or even play at all".[18] Some game companies have attempted to make their games more, "family friendly," allegedly to persuade female consumers to buy them for their male relatives or friends,[30] whereas some franchises, such as Mass Effect, reacted to studies suggesting over half of gamers are female[31] by allowing complete customisation of the protagonist character, up to and including gender. Mass Effect in particular received praise for its minimal adapting of both script and armour for the different genders, allowing portrayal of a, "remarkably serious and capable-looking woman," which has been welcomed by some female gamers as an indication the gaming market is beginning to lose its record of using women solely to appeal to male gamers.[32]

See also

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References

  1. ^ a b Kuchera, Ben (21 November 2012). "Games with exclusively female heroes don't sell (because publishers don't support them)". Penny Arcade Report. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  2. ^ Top 50 Videogame Hotties. UGO.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-14
  3. ^ Top 11 Girls of Gaming. UGO.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-28
  4. ^ Steven A. Schwartz, Janet Schwartz, The Parent's Guide to Video Games, Prima Pub., 1994 (p.8)
  5. ^ "The 25 best new characters of the decade". GamesRadar. 2009-12-29. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
  6. ^ Geoff Richards. "Age of Empires II : Age of Kings". Retrieved 2008-09-22.
  7. ^ Janz, Jeroen (2007). "The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female Characters in Video Games". Sex Roles. 56 (3–4). New York: p. 141. doi:10.1007/s11199-006-9158-0. {{cite journal}}: |page= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Nadia Oxford (2006-08-07). "One Girl vs. the Galaxy - The Woman Inside the Suit". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  9. ^ Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon; Smith, Jonas Heide; Pajares Tosca, Susana (2008). "Player culture". Understanding video games: the essential introduction. Taylor & Francis. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-415-97721-0. Retrieved 2011-07-03. "Helen Kennedy [...] summarizes these arguments, and Lara Croft's ambivalent role as both an action heroine [...], and an eroticized object of the male gaze with a great deal of voyeuristic appeal".
  10. ^ Lie, Merete. "Lara Croft and her sisters" (PDF). Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Retrieved 2011-07-03. She is attractive, but no sex bomb" "April may, however, appear as more feminine because even if she is tough and brave, she is depicted as both sensitive and vain
  11. ^ "Jade (Rebel with a Cause)". thumbbandits.com.[dead link]
  12. ^ Joe McNeilly (7 December 2007). "Portal is the most subversive game ever". GamesRadar. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
  13. ^ Ninjas in Games | An evolution of ninjas in video games throughout the years., UGO.com, June 4, 2008
  14. ^ Sidbillies | ScrollBoss: the Minus World
  15. ^ a b Harris O'Malley. "Nerds and Male Privilege". Kotaku.
  16. ^ Top 20 Overlooked Game Babes, GamesRadar, July 8, 2008
  17. ^ The 50 Hottest Women In Video Game, Complex, November 8, 2010
  18. ^ a b Zoe Flower. "Getting the Girl: The myths, misconceptions, and misdemeanors of females in games". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  19. ^ N'gai Croal and Jane Hughes (1997-11-10). "Lara Croft, the Bit Girl". Newsweek. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  20. ^ "Lara's curves reduced to appeal to female gamers". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2005-05-21. Retrieved 2007-07-09.[dead link]
  21. ^ Poole, Steven (2001-06-15). "The extraordinary life of Lara Croft". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  22. ^ Robin Yang. "The Man Behind Lara". GameDaily. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  23. ^ Brad Gallaway (2003-01-29). "Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball". GameCritics.com. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
  24. ^ Geordie Tait. "To My Someday Daughter".
  25. ^ "Fantasy armor and lady bits". MadArtLab.com.
  26. ^ Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor
  27. ^ "Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor: An Idea Whose Time Has Come". io9. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Autho= ignored (help)
  28. ^ "Top Ten Shameful Games: 1. Custer's Revenge (Atari 2600)". GameSpy. 2002-12-31. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  29. ^ "Women's role in popular video games: Stripped down and killed off". Media Report to Women. 31 (1): p. 1. 2003. Retrieved 2007-09-09. {{cite journal}}: |page= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  30. ^ Jennifer Kulpa (2001-06-25). "PC games are becoming kinder, gentler to attract females". Drug Store News. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  31. ^ "New Study Gets Into the Minds of Women Who Game Online - SEATTLE, Nov. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/". Washington: Prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  32. ^ Cook, Sarah. "Found Feminism: Mass Effect 3 Pre-order Box". Bad Reputation. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
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