Less of a
campfire tale to delight and amuse, and more of a reckless tap-dance through a minefield
this week, as I try to tackle the slightly controversial topic of women's
depiction in video games. And let's be honest right from the start; it's quite
sad, isn't it? Let's establish that right now. Apart from a few noteworthy
examples, female characters are over-sexualized and passive or preternaturally
bad-ass and extremely over-sexualized. Neither of which is good characterization
in my book.
(Oh really,
Hjels? Mr. Never-been-published... Tell me more about characterization.)
A lot of bloggers have tackled this subject before, and
probably quite a bit better than me, so instead of storming at it head on, I'll
sneak around the outskirts, and focus this post around the thing that bothers
me the most. Utility.
Warning: Games spoiled in this blog post: Prince of
Persia: The Warrior Within, Various Tomb Raider games, Mass Effect 1+2
The Quickest
Way to a Woman's Heart
"The right tools for the right job."
That's what my father taught me, when I was young. A mountain hiker wears
sturdy, comfortable boots and layers of clothes to keep warm. A firefighter
wears a helmet and clothes that don't catch fire even if it gets quite hot. A
hockey goalie wears enough padding to not be killed by the small rubber
missiles launched at him at 200 mph. These people all dress from utility. They
dress so that they are equipped for the task they are faced with. With that in
mind, could someone please tell me what task this young lady us dressed for?
Take your time.
You back? Hey! Eyes up here, buddy!
That's right, that's Shahdee from Ubisoft's 2004
game Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within, and in my mind, a, if not the prime example
of all that is wrong with women's depiction in video games. But instead of
going into all the pandering atrocities this character consists of, let's get
back to utility. What task is this woman equipped for? It would have to
be something indoors, seeing as she's hardly wearing anything at all. And given
that the first time you meet her in the game, she's on the deck of a ship in a
raging storm; I have an issue with this already. She is obviously a
warrior, so wearing some kind of armour is something I'd at least consider, but
it doesn't look like she's... Oh no, wait, there is. I just couldn't see it
without squinting.
Now, I'm not going to claim to be any kind of
armouring expert, but to a layman like me, it seems like the prime function of
any kind of body armour would be to protect major organs, most of which are
located in the human torso, something her metal bikini somewhat fails to do.
Even the inside of her thigh, which houses one of the biggest arteries in the body,
is completely exposed. And here we come to the heart of my problem.
I cannot respect a character that is designed with
a bigger emphasis on titillation than utility. Stylizing the character is one
thing, and it can be done really well, but sadly, stylizing a female character
these days just means giving them impossible proportions and breasts big enough
to give the most adept yoga master back-pains for life. I'm not even
going to go further into the body design, because it's been discussed by
smarter people than me before, and this little article isn't about that. But we
should all be alarmed when even I, Hjels, a prototypical disgusting, hairy
sweaty man who unabashedly enjoys ogling the many iterations of the female
form, am embarrassed to talk about my hobby because it seems incapable of
portraying women as anything but an object of desire for the male eye.
Shahdee is the banner figure for a trend that if
it continues, will prevent video games from ever growing up as an art form. But
all is not hopeless. Occasionally, someone gets it right. And I will get to
that in a moment, but first I'd like to discuss another character, one which
you may disagree with me actually does a few things that should be applauded.
Namely, Lady Lara Croft. I completely understand
if anyone with strong feminists sensibilities reading this just got a drop or
two of their green tea down the wrong pipe just now, when I claimed that the
prototype for the over-sexualized female character in gaming has any merit as
an antithesis to what our friend Shahdee represents. Believe me when I say that
I completely see that point of view. However, going back to the criteria I'm
focusing on today, utility, Lara stands head and shoulders above most of her
sisters. Some of the time. Well, at least, there is an effort involved.
She knows how to equip herself for any climate or environment.
If she's exploring ancient Himalayan ruins in sub-arctic temperatures, she
wears clothes that keep the cold out. If she's diving, she wears a wetsuit. If
she's trudging through the tropics, she wears something breezy. Everything
about the character does not work quite as well, though. She is clearly
designed as eye candy to the player. In her first few outings she had an
impossible large chest, which quickly became her key identifying attribute,
which is a shame, seeing as she has a lot going for her. She is well educated,
she is supremely competent and above all, she is driven. Not driven to find a
man to protect her, but driven to seek out adventure. In recent games, ms.
Croft has received a bit of a redesign, making her appear slightly closer to
human, but she still has a lot of characteristics pandering to the lowest
common denominator. But all in all, I'd say she is a step in the right
direction. There is nothing wrong with an attractive character, as long as she
has other redeeming features that ensure that she is not defined solely by her
looks. I cannot respect a character like that. In the end, Lara doesn't quite
get a pass. But a B for a manner of effort.
Throughout recent gaming history, there have been
a few really good female characters that don't cause the usual eye rolling I
tend to experience when booting up a new game. Jade from Beyond Good and Evil,
and Alyx Vance from Half life 2 are two examples that usually come up when this
discussion arises. Me, I'd like to finish this article by going to one of
favorite game universes, Mass Effect. The obvious place to go here would of
course be the female version of the player controlled protagonist Shepard,
otherwise known FemShep across the internet. Sure, FemShep is in many ways a
good example of a strong female character, but there is one problem I have with
putting her forth as the poster for the proper way to write a video game woman
who you can respect.
She was written as a man.
The Mass Effect games give the player the option
of customizing their Shepard character, down to appearance, back-story,
personality and gender. But apart from the voice acting, which is stellar,
there is nothing to give FemShep her own character traits to separate her from
her male counterpart, because the character behaves the same way regardless of
sex. This results in the character taking on a lot of masculine virtues and
mannerisms, which isn't a bad thing, considering that Shepard is a supremely
accomplished soldier with the fate of galaxy resting on her shoulders. But the
mere fact that she is simply a female version of another character makes me
want to look elsewhere. Like for example Dr. Liara T'Soni. Now I have to
preface this part by saying that Liara is not technically a woman; she is an
alien, from a species that... You know what, forget it. Liara is in every way a
female character.
Now, what are the chief characteristics of Dr.
T'Soni? When you meet her in the first Mass Effect game, she is working as an
archeologist, specializing in the Prothean civilization, an extinct species
which a strange relevance to Shepard's ongoing mission. Though she has achieved
her doctorate at a young age, she comes across as somewhat naive and timid, and
more or less remains so for the duration of the first Mass Effect game. She is
a romancable option for the player character of Shepard, whether Shepard is
male or female. It is in Mass Effect 2 that Liara really comes into her own,
and more specifically the DLC called Lair of the Shadow Broker. When Shepard
encounters Liara in the game, two years after the events of the first game, she
has gone through some tough ordeals, which has led her to a career change. She
is now working as an information broker, buying and selling information, one of
the hottest commodities in the Mass Effect universe. It is immediately apparent
that she has changed in a significant way. She nurtures an obsession.
This may not seem like much, but to me, this is a
truly refreshing bit of storytelling, because obsession is usually a character
flaw seen 9 times out of 10 in male characters, very rarely in female ones.
When Shepard asks Liara to come with him on his mission, she flatly refuses,
and not until Shepard offers to help her accomplish her own goal does she agree
to team up again. Utility. She doesn't drop everything that's important to her
just because the handsome hero comes calling. She has her own agenda, one she
even takes too far little while later. When Shepard gets knocked down in a
fight with one of the villains, and said villain proceeds to flee, Liara gives
chase, without even throwing a glance in Shepard's direction. Not a nice thing
to do, but good characterization for a character like Liara and the place she
is in emotionally.
**Please note, I'm about to spoil the ending of
Lair of the Shadow Broker**
After a rip-roaring chase through a metropolitan
skyline, and a brutal fight through the antagonist's hidden space station,
Liara and Shepard find themselves face to face with the intimidating final
boss. And it is Liara, not Shepard who takes charge. Shepard is along for the
ride, and actually goes toe-to-toe with the boss at one point, but in the end,
it is Liara who not only figures out how to defeat him, but also executes the
plan. It is in every way her show, and she is the one who comes through in the
end. And only after her enemies are conquered and his empire is now hers, does
she let her shields drop, and you see that underneath, she still has all her
insecurities and her doubts intact. She just doesn't succumb to them when the
situation calls for her to hold it together.
I'm pretty sure I lost my own direction at one
point during the writing of this blog post, (I'll blame the fever I've been
hallucinating my way through this past week for that) so let me return to the
post's initial point.
When creating a character, be they male or female;
equip them for what they will be facing, physically and mentally. And if your
character is going into a sword fight, for the love of God, put armour plating
on them, no matter how tempting it is to show off her lovingly rendered cleavage.
Because the quickest way to a woman's heart; it
goes right through the rib cage, just like with the rest of us.
