Jimquisition: The Creepy Cull of Female Protagonists

[JemothSkarii]

Funny, I just got a game with a female on the cover today. Granted, Hyperdimension Neptunia isn't exactly a feminist ideal...

Here's a fun little bit of trivia too: The people behind Hyperdimension Neptunia are actually three women. Wish I'd saved the picture showing it...

OT: Yes, women are under-represented in games, and I find it terrible that a company would refuse to have a female protagonist. But to be fair, the market isn't going to change unless there's a HUGE push. Want some change? Gonna have to market and buy the shit out of Remember Me and anything like it.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Not that many women play those types of games and a female lead wouldn't change that.
Granted I want a female leads more often.
I'm tired of male leads they aren't interesting anymore.

Then blame that on the writers, not the fact that the character is male. Many male protagonists are written to be very generic and many characters in different games seem to act the same as one another. It's like they have a checklist on how men in their games should act. If you took that male character and made him female, but kept the same traits, why would it honestly be better? Because he is now a she and has breasts and a vagina?

Because of sexism new things arise. Dragon Age is the best example.
A female will often be ridiculed by men.

 

[seizon]

hrm, as an Assassin's Creed fan, this makes me want to play a game where desmond has to relive one of his female ancestor assassin's lives...

 

[Tim Chuma]

Tropes vs. Women the short version and I didn't turn off 2 minutes into the episode like I did with that due to the condescending tone I got from it.

As to men objectifying women, it does still happen and there are even forums devoted to men "reviewing" sex workers as if they are a car you take for a test drive or a high end stereo system.

Gaming is a lot more inclusive these days when you think about all those apps for Facebook people send you requests for and games such as the Sims.

Are you sure you really want to make that offer Jim? Someone will take you up for it and then you will be stuck.

 

[Starik20X6]

Now more than ever do I want Link to be female in the next Zelda game, if only as a stiff middle finger to anyone who says a game with a female protagonist won't sell, and to those people who for some reason would have a problem with it.

 

[pinkerton]

Great post, needed to be said.

I'm sad that I can't shake the feeling that if a women had said these exact words, the response from the internet at large would have been aggression and threats.

Thoughts?

 

[Dark Knifer]

Now more than ever do I want Link to be female in the next Zelda game, if only as a stiff middle finger to anyone who says a game with a female protagonist won't sell, and to those people who for some reason would have a problem with it.

I really do not see the point of that. A silent protagonist's gender being changed for no real reason as link's character is never explored in games and I don't see that changing. Make one about zelda herself, that would be much more interesting.

 

[JemothSkarii]

Now more than ever do I want Link to be female in the next Zelda game, if only as a stiff middle finger to anyone who says a game with a female protagonist won't sell, and to those people who for some reason would have a problem with it.

From all the fanart I've seen, Link would be cute as fuck as a girl. Not really that sexy, but a nice kind of cute...Damn that sounds creepy...but you know what I mean. Plus it would give a nice twist on not only the game, but the entire series.

"But what if Zelda was a girl?"

 

[LoLife]

Have heroines like Ellen Ripley & Sarah Connor been long forgotten? =/

 

[PunkRex]

I will be playing as Femshep on my next play through of ME so I can fuck the shit out of Garrus... thats not gay right?

 

[PunkRex]

hrm, as an Assassin's Creed fan, this makes me want to play a game where desmond has to relive one of his female ancestor assassin's lives...

I never played the games but didn't he have a female Egyptian ancestor? That sounds quite dapper.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Not that many women play those types of games and a female lead wouldn't change that.
Granted I want a female leads more often.
I'm tired of male leads they aren't interesting anymore.

Then blame that on the writers, not the fact that the character is male. Many male protagonists are written to be very generic and many characters in different games seem to act the same as one another. It's like they have a checklist on how men in their games should act. If you took that male character and made him female, but kept the same traits, why would it honestly be better? Because he is now a she and has breasts and a vagina?

Because of sexism new things arise. Dragon Age is the best example.
A female will often be ridiculed by men.

Sometimes females ridcule men and are sexist towards them, like in the Oblivion expansion The Shivering Isles. What's your point? Why do writers only have to tell those kinds of stories for their characters?

Because all of the stories are already done?

 

[Jandau]

Bioware. Say what you will about then, but they have a long running tradition of allowing female protagonists who also happen to initiate sexual encounters. From KotOR through Jade Empire through Dragon Age (with homosexual romances tossed in for variety's sake) to Mass Effect, Bioware's female protagonists stand up to the male ones without any problems, with Mass Effect's FemShep being often regarded as the better version than BroShep. Even in cover art, they manned up (so to speak) and put FemShep on the cover of ME3. Sure, it's not a 50/50 split across all their titles, but it's more than most (JE, DA1 and KotOR don't have the protagonist on the cover, DA2, ME1&2 use the male protagonist).

Beyond that, I kinda agree with this episode of Jimquisition, it is kinda sad how the industry (not talking about gamers themselves right now) is scared of casting females. I was saddened when I heard about the Remember Me thing a few days ago. Personally, I rarely create female avatars when given the option to pick (though I did play through most Bioware RPGs with both genders), but I gladly play them if they are predetermined and have no problems with female characters getting it on and being sexually forward.

I do hope this gets the attention it needs and that publishers take a nice big can of internet backlash for the whole "gotta make it a dude" thing so that they stop forcing it so much...

 

[Monsterfurby]

Jim has a point there:

Making female characters overtly attractive, even sexy is not the problem.

Making them exist ONLY for that purpose, however, is.

However, the public discourse often can't tell the difference - even if you have a well-developed female character who engages in physical contact with a lover, you WILL have people going "OMG OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN!" no matter how well done the entire thing is.

So yeah, the problem does not solely lie with publishers. Their policies are also (but not exclusively) a defensive mechanism to a degree, and we can only hope that gamers will eventually display the amount of maturity that will allows studios to use great female protagonists more often.

Edit: I was on the "can we finally end this bloody debate?" side of things before this - but this video pretty much turned me around. Enough evidence there to HAVE an opinion. I am a guy, and I actually prefer female protagonists (as in: actual characters) because they are less likely to be a walking cliché like most male protagonists.

 

[Starik20X6]

Now more than ever do I want Link to be female in the next Zelda game, if only as a stiff middle finger to anyone who says a game with a female protagonist won't sell, and to those people who for some reason would have a problem with it.

I really do not see the point of that. A silent protagonist's gender being changed for no real reason as link's character is never explored in games and I don't see that changing. Make one about zelda herself, that would be much more interesting.

I see what you mean, but it's also one of the reasons I think it would be great if Link was a girl- it wouldn't matter, at all. As you said, Link's personality is never really explored in-depth, and he's a legacy character anyway, so there's no established personality to "ruin" by changing him. The fundamental mechanics of the game wouldn't adjust either, so as far as I can see, there's zero reason to be annoyed by it, other than if you're insecure about playing as a female.

 

[Treblaine]

I'm gonna try this one more time. Having a preference isn't the same as bigotry. You make choices every single day that mean you prefer one thing over another. If I want grapefruit juice with breakfast, that doesn't mean I hate or have something against oranges. There work explains that people make choices and have preferences that do not always follow a set of concise rules. It shows us that if people have every single reason in the world to make the same choices from day to day, they will not make the same choices from day to day.

I revere their work. You are reducing simple preferences to earth shattering bigotry, racism and sexism. I'm not allowed to prefer to play a game as a certain protagonist why exactly? In one playthrough of Dark Souls I play someone who is like me, large and physically powerful. Likewise, sometimes I have an inkling to play as a female character I modeled after my girlfriend (small, athletic, quick on her feet). Both of these things are wrong to you? Afterall, I'm making a choice based on a preference, which by your definition seems to be a result of bigotry to the opposite character.

Irrationality isn't "indulged". It's who people are. You act as if people are making a choice to be that way. They aren't. The opposite is true actually. In a given situation, people ALWAYS think they are being rational, even when they are not being rational.

It doesn't matter if I don't like oranges (and I really don't like them) because no one is depriving others of oranges on the basis that I don't like them.

And oranges aren't depictions or people. Fruit is not protected as an art form of expression.

if people have every single reason in the world to make the same choices from day to day, they will not make the same choices from day to day.

Yeah... they change their minds. That's what choice is. This isn't profound, this is blatantly obvious.

I'm not allowed to prefer to play a game as a certain protagonist why exactly?

You reject certain games purely on grounds of race and sex? Yeah that's racism and/or sexism.

And even if that isn't racism/sexism, it most certainly is when organisations deliberately exclude by race and sex to cater to that prejudice, and it's certainly bigoted to support that practice.

Egotistical attitudes to consumption of the arts is not something to be so encouraged. I don't think you see how this damages games as an art form, if they really are just playing by "Majority Rules" along lines of race and gender.

I don't care if they are choices or compulsions, they can get worse with pandering. What started as a mild prejudice is reinforced by familiarity, over and over again, white-male as the protagonist, no exceptions. Why can't we have a lead role with a black guy with a gun or a woman with a gun. I don't think they are ideological sexists, the high frequency of black and/or female companions sees they want to have the window dressing of inclusion... but nothing that contradicts their white-male ego.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Not that many women play those types of games and a female lead wouldn't change that.
Granted I want a female leads more often.
I'm tired of male leads they aren't interesting anymore.

Then blame that on the writers, not the fact that the character is male. Many male protagonists are written to be very generic and many characters in different games seem to act the same as one another. It's like they have a checklist on how men in their games should act. If you took that male character and made him female, but kept the same traits, why would it honestly be better? Because he is now a she and has breasts and a vagina?

Because of sexism new things arise. Dragon Age is the best example.
A female will often be ridiculed by men.

Sometimes females ridcule men and are sexist towards them, like in the Oblivion expansion The Shivering Isles. What's your point? Why do writers only have to tell those kinds of stories for their characters?

Because all of the stories are already done?

Are they incapable of writing their own?

Pretty much.
Most game stories are rehashes or borrowed from other popular things.
Writing on a level beyond the most basic takes effort.
Not an excuse for them, but that is how it is. How I wish it weren't.

 

[Treblaine]

The definition of objectification is more complicated than the explanation you gave.

objectification, n.

1. The action or an act of objectifying something; a material thing which embodies or expresses an abstract idea, principle, etc.

2. spec. The demotion or degrading of a person or class of people (esp. women) to the status of a mere object (see objectify v. 2); reification; (also) behaviour or an attitude characterized by this. sexual objectification: the regarding of a person or class of people (esp. women) only as a sex object.

objectify, v.

1. trans. To express (something abstract) in a concrete form; to render objective.

2. trans. To degrade or demote (a person, class of people, etc.) to the status of a mere object; to treat as an object; to reify. Also: to identify (a person) with a particular stereotype; to stereotype.

- Oxford University Press, accessed 26 March 2013. http://www.oed.com.ezproxy/view/Entry/129625?redirectedFrom=objectify#eid and http://www.oed.com.ezproxy/view/Entry/129623?redirectedFrom=objectification#eid


The objectification referred to by Jim and by others is the latter of those definitions (#2 in each instance). Not Jim nor Legion were at fault in referring to objectification as "a lack of agency or control."

Yes but it can't possibly be the "To degrade or demote a person to the status of a mere object" in games where for one they literally ARE objects in the game world, they literally are polygon models. Everything the game designer does turns them from objects into characters, it's not like you are starting with human actors or models and turning them into objects by contrived treatment. If you try to be too ambitious giving them AI controlled agency you risk turning them back into objects when the AI breaks and you can so clearly see it's a wind-up-mechanoid, running around mindlessly in circles... only playing voice recordings of real people.

So I think Jim is taking kind of a cheap shot at the AI comrade in Last of Us, it's not going to behave exactly like a fully fleshed out person... because really, it isn't.

Again, this term is inherently problematic for how it was coined in criticism of media like Film and print ads, it is subverted to the point of losing all significance in games as an art form from how integral the player's agency is in the story acting through the player-character, as an essential design element. It doesn't take account of subjectivity, the importance of player input in the narrative mode.

The "remote control toy" model for player-character in games was outdated when it was introduced and it's always been known to be without basis. People don't say "ahh, my character model died/got-hit/fell-off" they almost always say "aaah, I died/got-hit/fell-off". The term "avatar" for such characters is deliberate, drawing from the concept from Hinduism as a kind of "incarnation" of the player, how they transcend worlds from the real world to the virtual.

There are some games where the players are so detached it's like the "remote control toy" model but that's considered a failure of immersion in design.

The only form of "Sexual objectification" that is relevant is in the sense of how a game might have female characters who can only be defined by their how they are the objects of perspective in sexual terms, because of their sex.