Depiction of Women in Video Games: Examples for a thesis

[Zeke63]

Hey all, I am doing a thesis on the above topic for my senior year of undergraduate school. I wanted to break free of my own perspective and knowledge by asking for examples on the escapist. Please post about any women characters in games that exhibit a believable personality that breaks gender roles. The opposite is just as welcome also, that being a female character that is depicted stereo-typically. Thanks!

 

[Tom_green_day]

XCom. Gender means nothing apart from cosmetic differences.
Mass Effect has a range- the clever Liara, the more combatty Ashley, the Bitchy Jack and the techy Tali

 

[Realitycrash]

Kerrigan from Stracraft breaks gender-roles and is my personal favorite female character in videogames.
There are a host of them, though. Almost any RPG will have at least one.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Do you want a list? Or do you want detailed examples?

You've got Clementine, Katjaa, Carley, Lilly, Christa and Molly from "The Walking Dead". All exhibit reasonably well developed personalities that don't seem particularly one note or false. None are tied to traditional gender roles, although I suppose you could argue Clementine is the very definition of a damsel in distress...although she's a fucking CHILD so I don't think it really applies.

River Wyles and Dr. Eva Rosaline from To The Moon are well developed characters with absolutely no "traditional gender roles" anywhere to be seen.

Falls from Grace and Annah from Planescape are reasonably well detailed characters that quite obviously do not fall into gender roles or stereotypes. Although this might be stretching the definition of "believable personality".

 

[Lilani]

The first one that springs to my mind is Alyx Vance from HL2 and the episodes. She could have just as easily been a male character, for the role she plays in the game. The first time Gordon Freeman meets her she saves his ass, and she sticks around, helps kill things, opens doors, and does all the talking since Gordon is a silent protagonist. The only time you really get a "gender role" going on is in Episode 2 when she gets hurt by the Hunter and you have to get a thing out of an antlion's nest to save her life, sort of a damsel in distress moment.

Being a female I tend to hate genres of things that really capitalize on the perceived frailty of femininity. I can't stand to watch westerns because they're all about manly men doing manly things, and the only time the womenfolk get involved is when they need somebody for the man to save and get the "Happily Ever After" achievement at the end of the film. Sometimes you'll get the snarky or "strong" woman who carries a gun. And she might be better than some men, but she's never better than the main male protagonist and in the end she learns her place and gets married off to somebody.

But Alyx doesn't bother me because she isn't just "there." She has a reason for being there. Her father's the leader of the rebellion and a good friend of Gordon's, so of course she would run into him. And because her role extends so far beyond that little damsel in distress moment in E2, I wasn't angry or "disappointed" in her when it happened. It could have happened to anyone, but because she was there it happened to her. And when Gordon saved her, that was it. They moved on to more important things. Alyx recovered quickly and wasn't some prolonged and dramatic burden for Gordon to carry. And because of that whole sequents, it set up more of the Vortigaunts as characters and explained more on how their powers work.

And just one more aside, I think I also appreciate Alyx and am willing to forgive the fact that she is sort of second banana to Gordon and really isn't as good as him in the way of combat, because the game doesn't feel the need to point out that she's a woman. Too many times in media they set up a decent female character, but then the entire story is about her being a female and how she fares in the world of men. While there are stories like that to be told, I think it's a bit inaccurate to say we're "over" gender roles and sexism in media when the only time we feature the breaking of gender role conventions is in stories where the entire thing is about the conventions that are being broken. You see this right now especially with minorities. People wave around Remember the Titans and The Blind Side as great achievements in racial equality, but when it comes to your big hollywood blockbuster action film, who is the lead role going to go to? The white guy, of course. I think Moviebob worded it best: Hollywood likes their black people in two favors--badass and comic relief. You can't just have a film with a black lead unless the story is about the person being black. And the same goes with women.

Oh, and one more idea for you. I don't know when this paper is due, but if you can wait I believe the new Tomb Raider game is coming out this spring. If you have the time, you might want to give it a play and add her to your paper. It would be interesting simply because they are redefining a character who broke many "gender role" conventions in the way of not being a dainty little flower of a woman, but was designed physically to appeal to men in the cheapest ways possible. And they are trying to turn her into a real character with depth and motivation. Not just an action game with a woman with big boobs to give the men something to fantasize over--a real, rounded character.

So, there you go. Hope at least a little of this rambling helps, lol.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

You should certainly take a time to look at the state of the gender of main protagonists, since they are virtually always presuming towards male.

You have absolutely always male (most prevalent in FPS games eg. Doom, Halo, any Modern Military Shooter, Gears of War) I think out of the entire third person stealth genre there is not a single female(Thief, Deus Ex, Hitman, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Ghost Recon, Assasins Creed, Dishonored): All absolutely male.

Then there's gender neutral games; Games that let you choose to be male or female, or don't presume either way. You'll see this most in Real Time Strategy games (since the protagonist isn't really shown) Like Simcity, Total War, Civ, Command and Conquer (although C&C Tib. Sun gives you playable GDI/Nod characters, both of which are male)
Simulators (flight simulator etc.) generally don't give the character a gender, but if they do it's male or heavily presumed to be male.
Puzzle/arcade style games are almost all gender neutral, but they don't really count since they don't have a protagonist.

Then there are the games where a choice is given: Again mostly RTSs, a few notable Role Playing Games KOTOR, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout, Pokemon, but there are some RPGs that don't give a choice, like Fable, Zelda, etc.

Finally the games that do have only female protagonists: Tomb Raider, Metroid, some of the Final Fantasy games... that's about it, I can't think of any more dedicated female protagonist games than in those 3 franchises.

You could do an entire chapter alone on Biowares' evolution of the female character in their games, going from KOTOR, which gives a male/female choice that is eluded to in later games that Revans' gender was unknown (although officially he's male and the main protagonist from KOTOR 2 is a female) to Mass Effect, which creates pretty much a split universe depending on whether you played as Shepherd or Femshep, right down to a reversible cover in Mass Effect 3 for people who rolled a female character.

You could even create a neat little chart organising a wide variety of popular games by their genre and male/female/neutral gender choice to see not just how many games actually have the ability to play as a female, but also which genres are the best/worst at giving the player choice.

 

[AD-Stu]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "breaks gender roles" - roles of what era, by whose standards? Should we compare them all to Princess Peach? Here's a few thoughts though:

- Alpha Protocol has women playing all kinds of roles, from damsel in distress (Madison) to deranged arse-kickers (Sis, SIE).

- Miranda from Mass Effect 2 presents some interesting contradictions and issues. On one hand her character is overtly sexualised (when most of the team goes into battle in armour, she's wearing a lycra bodysuit, something which Bioware themselves lampooned in the third game) and held up as an ideal of physical appearance. On the other hand, she's also portrayed as being the smartest person in the room, and one of the strongest fighters on the ship too.

- Sticking with Bioware, you could say pretty much all the same things about Morrigan from Dragon Age: Origins.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Miranda from Mass Effect 2 presents some interesting contradictions and issues. On one hand her character is overtly sexualised (when most of the team goes into battle in armour, she's wearing a lycra bodysuit, something which Bioware themselves lampooned in the third game) and held up as an ideal of physical appearance. On the other hand, she's also portrayed as being the smartest person in the room, and one of the strongest fighters on the ship too.

Sticking with Bioware, you could say pretty much all the same things about Morrigan from Dragon Age: Origins.

Bioware is a pretty bad example, I should think. They make competent female characters, but they're constantly crossing the line into leering fan service. They go there on occasion with their male characters too, so at least they're equal opportunity offenders, but the fact they can't go 10 minutes without giving us a lingering ass shot or some truly epic cleavage or a set of glistening pectorals is kind of depressing for a company that ostensibly prides itself on its mature storytelling.

I guess an exception there would be Aveline from DA2. Although they kind of made up for that by having Isabela do double duty.

 

[Cheesepower5]

You should certainly take a time to look at the state of the gender of main protagonists, since they are virtually always presuming towards male.

You have absolutely always male (most prevalent in FPS games eg. Doom, Halo, any Modern Military Shooter, Gears of War) I think out of the entire third person stealth genre there is not a single female(Thief, Deus Ex, Hitman, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Ghost Recon, Assasins Creed, Dishonored): All absolutely male.

MGS actually has a lot if female characters, and some of them are pretty badass like Meryl or Olga.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

You should certainly take a time to look at the state of the gender of main protagonists, since they are virtually always presuming towards male.

You have absolutely always male (most prevalent in FPS games eg. Doom, Halo, any Modern Military Shooter, Gears of War) I think out of the entire third person stealth genre there is not a single female(Thief, Deus Ex, Hitman, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Ghost Recon, Assasins Creed, Dishonored): All absolutely male.

MGS actually has a lot if female characters, and some of them are pretty badass like Meryl or Olga.

The game has female characters, but the main protagonist: the one you actually play, is Solid Snake or Raiden.

I was talking about the state of games that allow you to play as a female character, or have a female character as the only gender choice, and there are very few out there, for a thesis talking about women in videogames I think it's definitely worth at least a mention, if not a larger section.

 

[Orange12345]

The boss form MGS always seemed like a good female character to me, she was tough as nails but was sit motherly and feminine

 

[wintercoat]

Go look up a young lady by the name of Veronica Santangelo from Fallout: New Vegas. She likes pretty dresses and punching things until they explode. She's one of my favorite female characters. So bubbly and cheerful, but her story is rather sad.

 

[Hagi]

Go look up a young lady by the name of Veronica Santangelo from Fallout: New Vegas. She likes pretty dresses and punching things until they explode. She's one of my favorite female characters. So bubbly and cheerful, but her story is rather sad.

Fully agree on this one.

Especially since they're not afraid to give her a few very traditionally girly things (like her love for dresses and bubbly personality). Many of the other good examples I know tend to shy away from overly girly things, which isn't bad there are after all plenty of women who aren't into traditionally girly stuff. But I think it takes a bit more effort to have a character who is into that stuff without falling into a shallow stereotype.

 

[deathbydeath]

Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is good. Do a paper on her.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

The boss form MGS always seemed like a good female character to me, she was tough as nails but was sit motherly and feminine

Damn, ninja'd. The Boss is one seriously awesome character that I would say broke the usual bad-ass tropes and gave her a real story, with real sacrifice etc. She's definitely one to look up. I don't want to spoil stuff just in case, but she's worth a look, seriously.

Go look up a young lady by the name of Veronica Santangelo from Fallout: New Vegas. She likes pretty dresses and punching things until they explode. She's one of my favorite female characters. So bubbly and cheerful, but her story is rather sad.

Fully agree on this one.

Especially since they're not afraid to give her a few very traditionally girly things (like her love for dresses and bubbly personality). Many of the other good examples I know tend to shy away from overly girly things, which isn't bad there are after all plenty of women who aren't into traditionally girly stuff. But I think it takes a bit more effort to have a character who is into that stuff without falling into a shallow stereotype.

Yes, she's another excellent choice, one of my favorite Fallout characters of all time.

 

[Lilani]

Fully agree on this one.

Especially since they're not afraid to give her a few very traditionally girly things (like her love for dresses and bubbly personality). Many of the other good examples I know tend to shy away from overly girly things, which isn't bad there are after all plenty of women who aren't into traditionally girly stuff. But I think it takes a bit more effort to have a character who is into that stuff without falling into a shallow stereotype.

And of course there is a fine line between "girly" and "sexy." Ballgown dresses are very feminine and elegant, but not revealing. Of course that's sort of muddling the definitions of "sexy" and "revealing," but these days there is a lot of muddling between "girly" and "revealing" which leads to characters that are feminine but clearly made for a male audience. While you can have a strong female character in feminine clothing without being a stereotype, when you cross the line into revealing one starts to wonder if it is for her sake or for gratifying the male demographic (see Lara Croft).

As you said, it takes a lot of effort to straddle that line of "strong" and "feminine" without falling into stereotypes, just because so much media in the past has created those stereotypes in the process of trying to solve the problem of creating strong female characters. It's almost a death spiral, really.

 

[Easton Dark]

truly epic cleavage

Yes please. *my avatar*

OT:

Might check out the main character from one of my all time favorites, Perfect Dark, my namesake no less.

Johanna's such a super bad ass.

Other options are Hammer from Fable 2, the girls from Gears of War 3, Cloe and Helena from Uncharted, Kerrigan in Starcraft.

For stereotypical, look at Mary Kate and Ashley Sweet 16

 

[lacktheknack]

Faith from "Mirror's Edge" is a caring sister and cynic, a rare combo in gaming. She also wears normal clothing.

Her sister, Kate, holds a strict moral code and doesn't kick ass... while being a high-ranking cop. Also rare in gaming.

Catherine from "Myst" doesn't have a whole lot of in-game personality (you have to read the books for that), but after you get her out of her prison, she spends the next half hour running around an island patrolled by a presumably very ticked-off guy with poison darts (Gehn's assistant), carrying wildly illegal materials to evacuate an entire island as said island begins to eat itself. I don't care what gender you are, that takes some serious balls.

April Ryan from "The Longest Journey" is an art student... that's literally all the qualifications she has before she starts dimension-jumping. She's rather headstrong and opinionated, but still extremely likable. The sequel is lead by another girl named Zoe, who's qualifications are... being a BIOLOGY student. She's more reserved and inquisitive than April, but she's still a very human character.

There's also Maggie from "The Binding Of Isaac", who's a small naked girl who sprints around an increasingly horrific cavernous basement facing disgusting and nightmarish monstrosities by crying at them until they go away. I don't know if that fits any part of your thesis, but it's sure as hell non-stereotypical.

 

[LetalisK]

Kerrigan from Stracraft breaks gender-roles and is my personal favorite female character in videogames.
There are a host of them, though. Almost any RPG will have at least one.

Probably the best example I can think of. The character of Kerrigan balances acknowledging what gender she is as an aspect of herself but doesn't wallow in it. I find too many examples of so-called gender role breaking females are actually just male archetypes with their penises cut off. That's laziness, not progression.

 

[DioWallachia]

4 Examples:
1)IJI Kataiser, from the freeware "IJI".
2)Ravel Puzzlewell, from Planescape Torment.
3)Marina, from Mischief Makers.
4)Snow Princesses, from the Sega Genesis version of The Snow Brothers.
5)Samus Aran, from Metroid (Pre Metroid Other M, of course)

1)She is a 20-year-old girl who accompanies her family on a tour of the military research facility her father works at, when strange lights lance through the clouds outside.

Iji awakens six months later to discover that her father and most of the researchers are dead and that a handful of scientists implanted her with nanotechnology in hopes of battling the alien threat that has taken over the facility. Her little brother Dan is hidden in a control room, which allows him to help Iji understand her new abilities and direct her to objectives. After struggling with the fact that part of her family is dead, she is directed to find the alien leader hoping that by taking/talking it out they will stop the invasion. From now on, the rest of the game is Iji questioning the necessity and effectiveness of violence, and either extreme as a valid strategy.

Since this is an Action Adventure RPG, the subtle actions you take on the gameplay will dictate the mental state of IJI, its up to you if you keep her personality from suffering PTSD by avoiding killing aliens to the point that some of them may even be inspired by your lack of murderous intent that they may help you, or can make her an hypocrite that argues with the alien leaders are immoral for killing everyone, while she's been doing just that. She even becomes more inhinged to the point of being a berseker that screams everytime she kills something. Compare that extreme to her initial reaction to killing ANYTHING at all, where she apologies to the victim or even slips a little "no" in anguish. Killing gets easier the more you do it, even for an innocent like IJI.

Overall, she acts like a human being would after being stuck in what it seems to be the end of the human race and its up to them to save the day........even if that involves killing others to survive.

Did i mention that this game is a deconstruction of the "lone person against all odds" that existed for free in 2007?

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More about the other 4 later in this thread...