Jimquisition: The Creepy Cull of Female Protagonists

[CrystalShadow]

Now, admittedly, that makes sense if you think about it, but I doubt that the reasons for her appearing that way are that innocent.

Interesting choice of words... are you saying there is some "guilt" in being interested in such things? That it's some sort of illicit and immoral crime?

I thought we were beyond such tawdry ideas of "innocence" to do with sex. This is not the language of inclusion, tolerance or understanding.

I'm saying that the in context reason for a female warrior wearing what amounts to a bikini under her armour is vastly different to the most likely reason the developers of Super Metroid chose to have an ending where she is posing in her underwear.

There's little narrative reason for such a character to be depicted in that way, which raises the question of why such a scene exists. it's structured as a 'reward', and that feels a little off, regardless of whether I think there's anything wrong with sex or not.

It's tacked on, and out of step with the rest of the game. And that does disturb me somewhat.
But to get to why I refer to it that way, I meant innocent as opposed to deliberate.

That is, even though it's possible to find a rational in-context reason for depicting Samus in underwear/bikini, it looks as though it was done for the sole reason of it being 'sexy'.

It's like depicting a scene of someone getting out of the shower - Of course any normal person would be naked while taking a shower, but if you show this in a film, are you doing so because it makes sense for someone to be naked in such a situation, or because people might be aroused by it?
That's what I'm getting at here.

 

[Quadocky]

I think this whole thing also reminds me of how women have no trouble identifying with both men and women characters yet men have trouble identifying with women as characters.

 

[Treblaine]

Well, there is an extreme amount of evidence outside the scope of videogames that support this argument, and for companies like publishers that only counts in focus group testing. It's called implicit egotism. If you google search that, you will find a lot of articles citing names as what implicit egotism is, it's rather annoying. But, in Psychological sciences, implicit egotism is the natural inclination to favor things that are similar to yourself. Since more guys play video games then the theory states that it makes more sense to have a male lead. Why? All people will favor things they find most familiar in a given situation.

In the situation of an action game, we don't want to imagine our wives, sisters, mothers, etc., in the action, we want to imagine ourselves. So it follows to reason that we may in fact be more comfortable with a male lead in game. This is of course, not explicitly true, it's only speaking in statistical terms which do not apply to individuals. As a matter of fact, there are many situations where terms like racist and sexist come up when it's only implicit egotism at work. That is not to say these things do not exist, they certainly do. There are people out there that hate people with a different skin color, gender, ethic background or religion.

But people who are going out of their way to find these things will often cite things like racism and sexism in a given situation that it may not apply to. It's why white folks mostly marry other white folks, and why a lot of men want to play a male role in an action game. I'm glad the develop stuck to it's guns, but I'm annoyed on how incredibly blown out of proportion this whole subject is quickly becoming.

Just because you can scientifically measure and prove prejudice and give it a name like "implicit egotism", doesn't mean it's acceptable to apply. It's tool in our arsenal to stamp out this destructive force in our society.

Of all the reasons not to have something in a game, excluding it because it doesn't stoke the players selfish ego is the worst. For games and games alone to apply this is the most awful denigration of gaming as an art form. And it is gaming as an art form that has protected video games from the censors, it would end up being hidden and restricted like pornography had it not been argued that way.

Is this the same reason why the leading roles of games are almost universally white?

This should be a scandal, that black leading roles are being excluded because "oh, most of the people who get this are white, and white people don't like things they can't identify as like them".

See my ego is not so bad that I can't imagine myself being anything other than what I am. I can play a game about a black man and imagine I am that black man without any challenge or weirdness to my feelings of ethnicity. I can play a game as a woman and imagine I'm that woman without it being a challenge to my gender identity.

And you admit, this is just a slight statistical trend, then why are we pandering to such a minority? At the cost of such diversity, the lead role must go to the ego of the lowest common denominator.

How can you draw such a distinction between this racial and sexual egotism as not being sexist or racist?!? Simply because they refuse to acknowledge it as an ideology?!?! It doesn't have to go as far as hate, the prejudice is clear and has an excluding result.

Well it's sexist or racist to CATER to this egotism if it's explicitly known, the catering done by the publishers.

Oh don't dress this up with white folk marrying white folks. Who you are in love with and have children with is very different from who you can possibly identify with. And realise that historically the reason white folk married white folk was because interracial marriage was illegal and/or enforced by lynch mobs, and various other factors like de-facto segregation.

 

[daxterx2005]

I've never heard the term "gun bro" before.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

I'm sure someone will say that I'm "missing the point" by saying this.... but regarding game covers (and I'm honestly curious about this):

Has anyone ever purchased a game based solely on the cover art?

Really?

 

[Reyold]

Ok let me get this straight, Publishers don't want to do female protagonists out of a fear of HETEOsexual intimacy? ...what?

Yeah, you'd think they'd at least be cool with it... but maybe that's also partly because gamers (or rather, the dudebros) may assume she's the dominant one in the relationship by virtue of being the player character (which kinda makes sense)... and they probably won't like the idea.

And while we're speculating, perhaps said dudebros don't like the idea of women being portrayed as anything other than a living sex doll. Say you have a female protagonist in a healthy, long-term relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Do you know what keeps these kinds of relationships alive? Sacrifice,love, commitment, time. In this type of relationship, you now have to consider the other person's feelings and desires. You may have to sacrifice things for their benefit. Things like these don't fit very well with a dudebro's idea of a relationship.

The only way to be in that kind of relationship is to understand that the other person is not your puppet or toy, available to use at your convenience, but a living human being with dignity, free will, and desires and goals of their own. In this relationship, she is your cherished equal. Again, things that do not fit within a dudebro's idea of a woman.

But again, this is merely speculation.

 

[Treblaine]

I'm saying that the in context reason for a female warrior wearing what amounts to a bikini under her armour is vastly different to the most likely reason the developers of Super Metroid chose to have an ending where she is posing in her underwear.

There's little narrative reason for such a character to be depicted in that way, which raises the question of why such a scene exists. it's structured as a 'reward', and that feels a little off, regardless of whether I think there's anything wrong with sex or not.

It's tacked on, and out of step with the rest of the game. And that does disturb me somewhat.
But to get to why I refer to it that way, I meant innocent as opposed to deliberate.

That is, even though it's possible to find a rational in-context reason for depicting Samus in underwear/bikini, it looks as though it was done for the sole reason of it being 'sexy'.

It's like depicting a scene of someone getting out of the shower - Of course any normal person would be naked while taking a shower, but if you show this in a film, are you doing so because it makes sense for someone to be naked in such a situation, or because people might be aroused by it?
That's what I'm getting at here.

Look it's fan-service. I'm mature and secure enough not to start going on about how "it's a little off" having the blatant fanservice in Twilight series.

Just don't start acting like heterosexual attraction is something sinful or defiling of innocence. That doesn't make sense to mean "innocent as opposed to deliberate."

And yeah, for straight women and gay men, it's not much of a reward, but it's not like it's any punishment. But it's not exactly a significant reward for the straight male or lesbian player either, otherwise google-image search would be worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox. It's just a little something, it's not like it's persistent throughout the game.

You don't seem to get "fan-service" it's not supposed to trick the player. It's also a throwback to the original Metroid by how they revealed you'd been playing a woman all along, with such limited pixels and memory of 8-bit graphics and cartridge they of course decided to show her in a bikini.

And the suit would have to come off occasionally for narrative reasons... to remind that she's a woman, you can't even tell that walking metal thing isn't an alien or a robot. I'd really like a story about a humanoid robot, but if you're going to have a human, putting them in a metallic suit always... it's little different than if you had a robot.

And yeah, shower scenes are usually fan-service, except I think the shower scene in Apollo 13 where she loses her wedding ring down the sink hole, symbolism there for fear of losing her husband.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Was hoping these topics would start to fade away by now but seems they're still going strong. Anyway, don't particularly disagree with Jim, though not convinced it's such an important issue that it needs to be constantly discussed. I mostly play RPGs, and of those that allow a choice of PC, I usually do multiple run throughs. I do this to see all the game has to offer as good/evil, male/female and the different romance options.

I've done Mass Effects 1-3 with male and female Shepards (all Vanguards however!), good and evil, and romanced all the options (except Garrus (too weird) and Jack (too....yeah)); male with Liara, Ash and Miranda and female with Liara, Thane and Kaiden (twice). Not Jacob though; he's even more boring than Ashley. I've played Male and female Hawkes in DA2 and romanced Merril, Isabella and the tall elf (not Anders though, because he's a prick). In DA:O I romanced Zhevran (bloody hard work!) and Alistair as a female, had him take up Morrigan's offer then became his Queen (really cool transitioning into Awakening this way actually (and when King Alistair appears in DA2 to talk to the Champion there's a nice touch there too). I romanced Sky in Jade Empire with me playing Wu the Lotus Blossom and Cassavir with my female Warlock in NWN2.

So I have no issues with insecurity. I don't particularly care about a protagonist's gender or race (or even species quite frankly), but also don't really care whether the "industry" as a whole changes or doesn't in this regard. There is a place for protagonists of any gender/race depending on the game and/or story being told and I really don't care enough about women's portrayal to worry about it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Oh look more people saying women aren't real gamers.

Excuse me I'm going to go take my anger out on some guys in Bioshock Infinate on max settings and no your not invited.

 

[Baresark]

snip

Just because you can scientifically measure and prove prejudice and give it a name like "implicit egotism", doesn't mean it's acceptable to apply. It's tool in our arsenal to stamp out this destructive force in our society.

Of all the reasons not to have something in a game, excluding it because it doesn't stoke the players selfish ego is the worst. For games and games alone to apply this is the most awful denigration of gaming as an art form. And it is gaming as an art form that has protected video games from the censors, it would end up being hidden and restricted like pornography had it not been argued that way.

Is this the same reason why the leading roles of games are almost universally white?

This should be a scandal, that black leading roles are being excluded because "oh, most of the people who get this are white, and white people don't like things they can't identify as like them".

See my ego is not so bad that I can't imagine myself being anything other than what I am. I can play a game about a black man and imagine I am that black man without any challenge or weirdness to my feelings of ethnicity. I can play a game as a woman and imagine I'm that woman without it being a challenge to my gender identity.

And you admit, this is just a slight statistical trend, then why are we pandering to such a minority? At the cost of such diversity, the lead role must go to the ego of the lowest common denominator.

How can you draw such a distinction between this racial and sexual egotism as not being sexist or racist?!? Simply because they refuse to acknowledge it as an ideology?!?! It doesn't have to go as far as hate, the prejudice is clear and has an excluding result.

Well it's sexist or racist to CATER to this egotism if it's explicitly known, the catering done by the publishers.

Oh don't dress this up with white folk marrying white folks. Who you are in love with and have children with is very different from who you can possibly identify with. And realise that historically the reason white folk married white folk was because interracial marriage was illegal and/or enforced by lynch mobs, and various other factors like de-facto segregation.

Wow, you completely missed the point of everything I said. Implicit egotism is the reason for a great many things. I'm not excusing racism, or misogyny, or sexism. I'm also not saying that those things do not definitely exist. But Implicit Egotism is not those things. People have a natural tendency to favor things that are most like them. That doesn't mean you should kill gay people, hang black people for being black, or keep women as a second class of society.

These things are not what implicit egotism is. Likewise, implicit egotism is not a fancy word for racism, sexism, or anything of the like. Implicit egotism isn't a tool of the majority to use against a minority, as you seem to think it is, as racism or sexism is. Implicit egotism is the reason why people are far more likely to marry someone with same first initial or same sounding name. It's the reason why ghettos exist and immigrants often times fail to integrate into the societies they place themselves in. It's also why people who are highly educated prefer to be friends with other people who are highly educated, or why second grade boys prefer to hang out with other boys and second grade girls prefer to hang out with second grade girls. It's why union members prefer to hang out with union members and not "scabs". It's why the term, "preaching to the choir" is a thing at all. Because like-minded people prefer to hang out with each other.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. And just to say it, it's why racists hang out with other racists. Because people are pack animals and yearn to be parts of groups.

Edit: This is the type of thing men like Kahneman warn about, or why we can't fully explore the differences of people. Because people aren't allowed to be different. You don't want equality among people, you want a homogenized society where no one is different.

 

[Treblaine]

Wow, you completely missed the point of everything I said. Implicit egotism is the reason for a great many things. I'm not excusing racism, or misogyny, or sexism. I'm also not saying that those things do not definitely exist. But Implicit Egotism is not those things. People have a natural tendency to favor things that are most like them. That doesn't mean you should kill gay people, hang black people for being black, or keep women as a second class of society.

These things are not what implicit egotism is. Likewise, implicit egotism is not a fancy word for racism, sexism, or anything of the like. Implicit egotism isn't a tool of the majority to use against a minority, as you seem to think it is, as racism or sexism is. Implicit egotism is the reason why people are far more likely to marry someone with same first initial or same sounding name. It's the reason why ghettos exist and immigrants often times fail to integrate into the societies they place themselves in. It's also why people who are highly educated prefer to be friends with other people who are highly educated, or why second grade boys prefer to hang out with other boys and second grade girls prefer to hang out with second grade girls. It's why union members prefer to hang out with union members and not "scabs". It's why the term, "preaching to the choir" is a thing at all. Because like-minded people prefer to hang out with each other.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. And just to say it, it's why racists hang out with other racists. Because people are pack animals and yearn to be parts of groups.

Edit: This is the type of thing men like Kahneman warn about, or why we can't fully explore the differences of people. Because people aren't allowed to be different. You don't want equality among people, you want a homogenized society where no one is different.

That's a false dichotomy... just because it doesn't go as far as murder doesn't mean it isn't racism or sexism. Racism is not only hatred.

"Implicit egotism isn't a tool of the majority to use against a minority, as you seem to think it is"

No, I said it should be used as a tool to recognise this prejudice to make it easier to wipe it from society, not that it is being used as a tool to destroy society.

You haven't explained how implicit egotism on sex and race is different from sexism and racism. You've simply said it's not relevant to the worst extremes of racism and sexism.

It's why union members prefer to hang out with union members and not "scabs".

Oh this is ridiculous, you mean this is the explanation why loyal union members might not get on with those who break from their union? their Ego acting through their subconscious?!!?

You've suddenly contorted this into "like minded people" when earlier it was something completely different.

You don't want equality among people, you want a homogenized society where no one is different.

Where the hell did you get that from?!? You pulled that right out of... nowhere.

 

[Treblaine]

Apparently to these internet feminists, women need to be lonely, or only fall in love with other women.

I just got back from the shitstorm on "Tomb Raider writer expressed an interest in making Lara gay?" thread and no a female character can't fall in love with women either... that's pandering to males who like lesbianism, so that makes lesbianism bad.

Just because men might like it. Never mind that this would be great for lesbian gamers.

Another problem with female protagonists is how when some people create them, they have to be in god mode. They can go around beating up and killing men, because apparently that makes a strong woman. Oh, but don't you think about having a man who's capable of kicking her ass. Woman have to always win, or else the internet feminists will call you a misogynist.

Which is a shame because the best kind of stories are those of the underdogs. Women being technically weaker than men means they are ideal underdogs, weak yet rooted for.

The Rocky series got to 6 movies as it was all about how rocky didn't stand a chance against the latest challenger, that everything was against him. But he found a way to pull through.

Look at the game stats for something like Duke Nukem. Pig cop has as much health a duke and a gun as deadly, killing Duke on stock health in 2 hits, duke must also hit them twice. And that's an entry level enemy. The game is all about things other than strength and toughness.

 

[DementedSheep]

It?s not just games. This bullshit seems to be very pervasive.
And often even when you do get female protagonist often they down their own gender, its pointed out how they are one off and supper special lest you start thinking they women who aren?t pathetic are common and their amazing for doing things every male character is doing because being a women is treated like them overcoming some fucking disability. You don't get them as background characters in anything combat related or among the ranks of the regular enemies.

Games are getting better at it at least. For some reason rpgs tend to be the best at it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Oh look more people saying women aren't real gamers.

Excuse me I'm going to go take my anger out on some guys in Bioshock Infinate on max settings and no your not invited.

And who is saying girls aren't real gamers, or can't enjoy games like Bioshock? Oh, that's right, no one, that's who.

But go ahead, be sexist and take it out on guys in games, or on here, like you always do. And you wonder why some guys want to take there anger out on girls like you.

Pretty sure I've seen plenty of people in this thread say we only play casual games and by guys I meant the enemies, not just men. sigh.

Not entirely sure what you mean by 'girls like me'...

 

[Treblaine]

And you wonder why some guys want to take there anger out on girls like you.

You took it too far.

 

[RafaelNegrus]

Oh look more people saying women aren't real gamers.

Excuse me I'm going to go take my anger out on some guys in Bioshock Infinate on max settings and no your not invited.

And who is saying girls aren't real gamers, or can't enjoy games like Bioshock? Oh, that's right, no one, that's who.

But go ahead, be sexist and take it out on guys in games, or on here, like you always do. And you wonder why some guys want to take there anger out on girls like you.

Pretty sure I've seen plenty of people in this thread say we only play casual games and by guys I meant the enemies, not just men. sigh.

You know, I would love to see some current numbers on that, broken down by genre or by platform. Because as it stands now, no one knows anything about it, at least publicly.

Wow, you completely missed the point of everything I said. Implicit egotism is the reason for a great many things. I'm not excusing racism, or misogyny, or sexism. I'm also not saying that those things do not definitely exist. But Implicit Egotism is not those things. People have a natural tendency to favor things that are most like them. That doesn't mean you should kill gay people, hang black people for being black, or keep women as a second class of society.

These things are not what implicit egotism is. Likewise, implicit egotism is not a fancy word for racism, sexism, or anything of the like. Implicit egotism isn't a tool of the majority to use against a minority, as you seem to think it is, as racism or sexism is. Implicit egotism is the reason why people are far more likely to marry someone with same first initial or same sounding name. It's the reason why ghettos exist and immigrants often times fail to integrate into the societies they place themselves in. It's also why people who are highly educated prefer to be friends with other people who are highly educated, or why second grade boys prefer to hang out with other boys and second grade girls prefer to hang out with second grade girls. It's why union members prefer to hang out with union members and not "scabs". It's why the term, "preaching to the choir" is a thing at all. Because like-minded people prefer to hang out with each other.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. And just to say it, it's why racists hang out with other racists. Because people are pack animals and yearn to be parts of groups.

Edit: This is the type of thing men like Kahneman warn about, or why we can't fully explore the differences of people. Because people aren't allowed to be different. You don't want equality among people, you want a homogenized society where no one is different.

That's a false dichotomy... just because it doesn't go as far as murder doesn't mean it isn't racism or sexism. Racism is not only hatred.

"Implicit egotism isn't a tool of the majority to use against a minority, as you seem to think it is"

No, I said it should be used as a tool to recognise this prejudice to make it easier to wipe it from society, not that it is being used as a tool to destroy society.

You haven't explained how implicit egotism on sex and race is different from sexism and racism. You've simply said it's not relevant to the worst extremes of racism and sexism.

It's why union members prefer to hang out with union members and not "scabs".

Oh this is ridiculous, you mean this is the explanation why loyal union members might not get on with those who break from their union? their Ego acting through their subconscious?!!?

You've suddenly contorted this into "like minded people" when earlier it was something completely different.

You don't want equality among people, you want a homogenized society where no one is different.

Where the hell did you get that from?!? You pulled that right out of... nowhere.

I think it's overly simplifying to call it ONLY racist or sexist. It can lead to that, but it's a more universal phenomenon. People that are alike have more in common, and so they're more comfortable spending time together. I'm all for experiences that push the boundaries, but those can and are often supposed to be uncomfortable as they challenge preconceived notions, and the vast majority of people aren't going to seek those out all the time. And this would doubtfully show up amongst all people all the time. If most of us, for instance, saw Elizabeth on front cover we would be perfectly fine with it, but it might not stick out as cool to the guy who is just casually browsing whereas that soldier game might. He's not really saying in his mind "Ew, a girl game" he's just saying "Ooh look, a soldier game!" Kind of like the way I react to dinosaurs or spaceships.

Is that sexist? Eh, kinda, but it's also not really conscious and not something that can be easily changed. And as long as games have such huge budgets that they need to pull in a more casual/mainstream crowd then that's the kind of thing we're going to have to deal with.

(That's why I've been buying so many indie games lately)

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

(A rather vehement, but oft-repeated sentiment regarding the perception of feminism and defenders of such on the internet)

See, when some strawman feminist figure comes and says something outrageous, you're not supposed to lower yourself to the strawman's level. No, that just leads to idiocy on the internet, which we've all got rather too much of thank you. You're supposed to rise above and point out the hypocrisy of others, not be a git. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Also, you seemed to have cherry-picked some rather odd examples to try to prove your point. Women falling in love with other women in games is usually to pander to men, as there's an established (if rather creepy) audience for that--the idea that women would prefer female characters to fall only for other women shows a distinct and clear lack of awareness of what interests the heterosexual feminine audience. No, seriously, just within the past few years we, as a culture, simply cannot look at vampires the same way again. (Now, lesbian audiences would probably not mind hooking up a lady, to be fair. They are not, as you might imagine, a majority, nor are their opinions a majority opinion.) Nobody bats an eye when a male protagonist "god modes" and defeats a bunch of mooks with ease, so why should a female protagonist doing the same somehow be some offense hoisted upon one's masculinity by "the feminist agenda?" (Nevermind that women aren't part of the privileged demographic and therefore aren't in the, ahem, "privileged" cultural position where media and attitudes are willing to treat a female hero as simply a hero rather than an oddity or the result of "goshdarned feminists being goshdarned feminists") Nobody's saying that men (outside of some notoriously patriarchal societies but that's neither here nor there) are actively going out of their way to oppress women in some grand conspiracy, but there ARE publishers actively trying to repress art and products that might portray women as something other than disposable eye candy.

Frankly, I think you're confusing the issue at hand with past baggage vis a vis feminists and operating on some rather backwards assumptions, though I'll grant it's very easy to develop those assumptions on the Terrible Opinions Echochamber we call the internet. Interestingly, most self-professed masculinists on the internet have the slightly unfortunate tendency to fall victim to both on a regular basis.

Also, Soldiers are okay I guess, but Infiltrators and Vanguards are much more interesting. FemShep's actress, Jennifer Hale, is clearly superior in all respects compared to ManShep's VA. But ManShep is the only way to romance Tali so it's a tossup between the two, really.