Jimquisition: The Creepy Cull of Female Protagonists

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

446 posts later that I'm not going to read, nor respond to further posts or posts that may quote mine....*sigh*....here we go:

There are ways to which write good female protagonists. There are examples that exist prior to all of the hulabalu that has gone on recently. Find those examples, examine them and then realize...

IT'S THE SAME GODDAMNED WAY YOU WRITE A MALE ONE!!!

Seriously, Terra and Celes from Final Fantasy 6, Sue, Feena and Leen from Grandia, Cecilia from Wild ARMs, Samus from Metroid Fusion, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil...there are probably more than I can think of right now, but holy Jesus H. Fucknuggets Christ, guys and gals...

Women are human, too. It's not THAT hard to understand. Although, I was once told that women were more complex than men because of the chromosonal makeup: women have XXXX, where men have XXXY and therefore are 25% more complex than men (or something to that effect).

I'll be damned if people associated with games, both from within and without, aren't proving that point more and more as the seconds pass...

 

[Metalrocks]

seriously. what is the big problem playing a female?? nothing. its simply idiotic to think like this. i love playing a female character more then playing a male character. if i have the chance to play as a female, she comes first. same as in ME games. i made a femshep and later on more. and if some are really disgusted to see the female protagonist kissing a man, then there is really something wrong with them.

i really hope that companies ignore this stupidity and carry on using the female protagonist as planed.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Snip

That's true. This would also imply a possibility of a male zelda as well though by the sounds of it. Or even a female ganon I suppose. I get what you mean but since it doesn't really change anything I don't really mind one way or the other. I would just prefer it if it did change things so we have a new dynamic to explore, which we could with zelda as the main character but a gender swapped link doesn't bring anything to the table unless they change other things about the franchise. Which would be interesting.

 

[Treblaine]

Male gamers want cool male protagonists in their escapist fantasies, who knew? I guess the only solution is to call dude bros insecure closeted homosexuals in order to feel like a big man!

Don't blame culture, blame biology and economics. You have to accept that most males, especially males that play shooty games, are going to want to play as strong males and want their games to have an air of machismo to them. Most males are just programmed to be that way, if you make them a single struggling single mother in their action game looking for love while simultaneously filling the role of the strong male action hero, then you're just going to be ruining their entertainment for the sake of your own agenda.

If you want to make a change, try starting a movement actively boycotting "dudebro" shooters and game publishers who hinder developers from making games with strong female characters with genuine feminine traits. They'll start caring more about the damage to sales more than they ever will the condemnations of some overweight gamma male on the internet.

Actually, they don't. Study of WoW players at least 53% of men actively chose a female character (distinct from ME series where it heavily encourages to chose a male Shepard) how much larger would that percentage be with accepting of female heroes. Suddenly the percentage that are Male and "will only play as same gender, no matter how good the game" is pretty small.

It doesn't matter who likes to play shooty games, shooty games don't require male lead. The whole point of a gun is that it isn't about brute strength, it's about accuracy and agility. For head to head mano-a-mano (that literally means hand to hand) fights then the masculine traits of raw strength and size matter. But FPS games are all about gunning down enemies who are bigger and stronger. Heavy is the single worst class in Team Fortress 2, to spite having almost 3x the health and the highest DPS they are almost absent from competitive matches except for on certain points needing a slow strong push and even then they absolutely need a healer class.

if you make them a single struggling single mother in their action game

That's obviously a false dichotomy, "heads I win, tails you lose". Choose the male hero who is suited to the role vs a women with no suited attributes. But those suited attributes are not inherent to men or women.

Women of course make good action roles. This didn't used to be a problem, in the supposed "bad old days" of the 90's women were everywhere in action games, every race in Unreal series had a female alternate and they were often used. Capcom released 6 Resident Evil games before Resident Evil 4 (lol, they can't count) of those 6, four had women as the prime protagonist, the other 2 men were an alternate option.

Resident Evil 4 came along and the primary protagonist was Leon Kennedy, no problem, this is his turn, the next turn will probably be Jill or Claire's turn... nope. Round about this time women just disappeared from leading roles.

Biology isn't the problem, it wasn't the problem back in the good-old-days and biology hasn't changed in 15 years. It's down to the rise of disingenuous cynicism on the internet attacking female representation in games and have this warped expectation of women's depiction that is a blatant double standard.

There is no actual inherent problem with male players playing the role of a woman in violent action games

To hell with the need for feminine traits in shooters. Murdering people with guns isn't a "masculine trait" while we are on it, or if it is, it's not a positive one to be encouraged as relevant to real life. There is no reason a female action hero would have to have to espouse "feminine traits".

The essential traits of an action hero simply are not at all exclusive to male characters.

 

[Holythirteen]

IamLEAM1983, Ukomba, and everybody else with the Jennifer Hale/FemShep love. Yes she totally rocks. I tried explaining to my friends that it is a way better experience to play Mass Effect as a female, but they just got real quiet and moved to the other end of the couch...

I feel like all these people vehemently decrying rampant sexism in videogames are just now waking up to realize that the industry is largely marketed towards the uninhibited, teen-to-college age male. It's like complaining that Playboy, Maxim or the latest spring break movie are sexist.

That argument is a bit narrow-minded my friend, you're not exactly wrong, but Playboy, Maxim and spring break movies would be UNIVERSALLY geared toward those looking for T & A and cheap sexist humour. By comparison there may be a majority of gamers looking to be Master Chief with the badass guns or racing dude number 1789 with the fastest car or football guy number 15,678 with the biggest balls but that's not the same thing, markets expand, kids who play barbie horse adventures and dora the explorer grow up and want something deeper without having to join the dudebros. I personally want people who aren't typical gamers to be able to enjoy games as much as I do, I think we should all do what we can to let them in. Even if its just the token "I'm a 15-30 year old male but I think it would ok" blurb at least we're supporting new ideas and not raging and spitting and acting like only our opinions matter and we want it to stay that way.

Not that I'm ranting at people for having normal, perfectly reasonable opinions regarding who they play as, but I don't think its too much to ask for publishers/developers to take the first step to at least make an effort on this front. I know they take a risk with every game they make, and they should offer their audience what they want, but gamers never know what new thing is gonna be awesome until somebody grows a pair and MAKES IT. At the very least it would go a long way towards the image of gamers and game-makers if they would stop making the same mistakes they always do when they portray women in their games.

I can see how it might affect your immersion and enjoyment of a game to make you as a guy sit through a semi-sex scene between your character and another guy, I would partly agree, I would feel very awkward if it went beyond a little romantic kissing(meh if its for the sake of good story-telling I'll get over it). But I found it WAY more offensive when infinity ward put in a level where you gun down unarmed civilians. How in the hell is that ok but a little pcgirl/npcguy love is not? That I find really disturbing. (Yes you can skip that level I know)

If being a mass-murderer in damn near any shooter doesn't bother you then you will probably get used to the idea of identifying with a realistic female character.

 

[minimacker]

Hey, wait. Where's DeFoe?

 

[Balkan]

The player doesn't kiss the dude, the character does.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

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?

Nope. I did a FemShep Thanemancer playthrough, didn't feel creeped out at all. Still haven't gotten around to importing that one to ME3... but I'll get to it, fear not.

 

[Funkyfists]

It isn't wrong to NOT like roleplaying a woman in a videogame, it's got nothing about homophobia. Male gamers are always going to be able to relate better to male characters. If there was a market for it, there would be more female lead characters. Look at the rest of mediums; books, movies, music. A game should be able to stand on it's own, by it's own merits.

Simply put, this video makes no sense.

 

[Sepko]

It isn't wrong to NOT like roleplaying a woman in a videogame, it's got nothing about homophobia. Male gamers are always going to be able to relate better to male characters. If there was a market for it, there would be more female lead characters. Look at the rest of mediums; books, movies, music. A game should be able to stand on it's own, by it's own merits.

You've got about 13 pages worth of stuff that you've seemed to miss that proves you more or less hideously wrong.

 

[Erttheking]

Actually, I just kinda realized something...what are we arguing about again? Seriously people are just going at each other over...what exactly?

 

[Partezan]

It isn't wrong to NOT like roleplaying a woman in a videogame, it's got nothing about homophobia. Male gamers are always going to be able to relate better to male characters. If there was a market for it, there would be more female lead characters. Look at the rest of mediums; books, movies, music. A game should be able to stand on it's own, by it's own merits.

You've got about 13 pages worth of stuff that you've seemed to miss that proves you more or less hideously wrong.

I admit that I would prefer a male character to play as, it doesn't make me spineless or any less of a man, it just makes me someone that has not been shamed to the point where I need to wear a dress simply to make other people feel better,

If people want to play as female characters, fine, and there are some games that it will not matter, but my preference remains and I will speak with my money and leave it up to the developers to decide what kind of games to make. Evolution will let us know who is wrong and who is right as the companies that make those games win or fail.

 

[Partezan]

It isn't wrong to NOT like roleplaying a woman in a videogame, it's got nothing about homophobia. Male gamers are always going to be able to relate better to male characters. If there was a market for it, there would be more female lead characters. Look at the rest of mediums; books, movies, music. A game should be able to stand on it's own, by it's own merits.

Simply put, this video makes no sense.

I agree with you 100%

Just like I read male focused books and have nothing against women reading books with female protagonists I have a preference to playing male characters.

I would not complain that there isn't a stronger male character in any female orientated book, I would simply not buy it. Thankfully we still have a choice to buy or not to buy games and can let our money speak for itself and leave everyone else to complain about it.

 

[Partezan]

Actually, I just kinda realized something...what are we arguing about again? Seriously people are just going at each other over...what exactly?

It seems that one side is stating a very rational and what one would think is a normal statement of a preference as males to play a male character, and the other side is trying in vain to convince us that there is something horribly wrong with us that needs to be changes so we can be more enlightened like them...

Then when the other side realizes they can't really change or shame some men out of their preference they get all pissed off and start getting really emotional

 

[maninahat]

This whole situation makes me want to buy Remember Me -Even though I think it'll be shit- to stand for women in relationships in gaming. We should be able to explore every type of situation and relationship in gaming, and I will fight for it tooth and nail.

This is my issue. Judging from the previews and gameplay footage, it looks like a bad game, which means it'll probably sell badly too. I'm worried that this sort of thing has a cooling effect, as producers will point to the female protagonist and go "yep, that's why it didn't sell". Somehow, they looked past the terrible writing, poorly implemented gameplay, and a dull protagonist whose character design began and ended with "let's make her a strong!Independant!Sexy! Female". We have nowhere near enough female protagonists as it is, and when the likes of Hydrophobia, Mirror's Edge, Red and Velvet Assassin flop, it discourages writers and devs from even trying.

 

[Erttheking]

Actually, I just kinda realized something...what are we arguing about again? Seriously people are just going at each other over...what exactly?

It seems that one side is stating a very rational and what one would think is a normal statement of a preference as males to play a male character, and the other side is trying in vain to convince us that there is something horribly wrong with us that needs to be changes so we can be more enlightened like them...

Then when the other side realizes they can't really change or shame some men out of their preference they get all pissed off and start getting really emotional

That sounds like a very biased statement.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Being a man and preferring to play as one doesn't necessarily bill you as a xenophobe, but the problem is the industry leads are twisting this out of shape. People like Partezan, above, simply like to play as guys. That's fine.

Then why the Hell do we keep seeing devs conflate that to playing as Caucasian gunbros with the requisite five o'-clock shadow?

I'm never going to bash on anyone's preferences, but the general message the industry is "getting" is that gamer dudes want their dude avatars. Making an effort and swapping your chromosomes around for a good cause could change things, or at least send a more progressive message. Otherwise, your absolutely decent preference for playing as a man is going to get smashed in with idiotic man-child opinions like Aris Baktarians' concerning female contestants in fighting games.

Unfortunately, that's what the industry goes by. The douchecanoes wanting to play with other douchecanoes exclusively tend to yell louder than the sedate ones, who either simply have a marked preference for the male gender or who've played as a female character and have never suffered from it.

Mind you, I'm not considering stuff like World of WarCraft or TERA. TERA's female models are rather egregiously sexed up precisely because they're looking to titillate male players into giving their product a shot. That's degrading on general principles. On the other hand, Vanilla Skyrim's female models are sedate.

At the same time, I can't criticize titles who push the female form for the sake of pure comedy. Rack up the "Sex Appeal" slider for female characters on Saints Row: The Third. Not only do you get horribly impractical breasts, but a silly walk/run cycle on top of it, to reinforce the fact that your character's body is ludicrously attempting to hold up these mutant mammaries. When it's pushed to that extreme, I really don't mind because the intent of parody or comedy becomes obvious.

There's a reason why I haven't touched stuff like Caliente's suite of mods for Skyrim, though. Women in the north of Tamriel are more likely to have functional armour around, and tantalizingly exposed skin wouldn't go too well with the Sea of Ghosts' frigid waters. So personal tastes dictates that I avoid making my Dovahkiin look like Jessica Rabbit.

 

[Mahoshonen]

Jim is the pussy calling men's preference to play a male character as spineless.

It's more spineless of men not to admit that yes, they prefer to put themselves in a male role when we fantasize and more likely than not the people designing the games also wish to write a story for the experience of a male character.

Men don't need to appease women by playing female characters if they don't feel like it anymore than we should make it mandatory to put some sports in female magazines, it sounds crazy to say this and it really shouldn't but if you are a guy it's OK to want to play as a GUY character. Enough with the shaming.

You see this? This is what we call 'Privileged.' A defense of the status quo that willfully ignores the underserving of an important market segment because it might take away the rarefied position that the speaker inhabits.

This might be a valid point if there was an even spread of male and female protagonists in the industry. As it stands, there isn't, and so your argument has about as much sympathy as saying that the Civil Rights movement was an unfair infringement on Southern Traditions(tm).