ME 3 Trailer Shows Default FemShep in Action

[Amethyst Wind]

Kaiden, Miranda, Jacob, Vega and Samara.

I like exactly one of those characters, that being Samara. Why are your human squadmates always such unlikeable characters? Well no, that's a little unfair, I'm neutral towards Zaeed and Jack & Kasumi are pretty fun.

 

[Fappy]

Ugh all the comments about Jennifers Hale's voice...just because a woman is a badass doesn't mean she's a *****...It's like the minute a woman shows a little back bone everyone says it could never happen.

Pretty much this. Though... I have never had a problem with Hale's voice acting to begin with.

I was excited for this reveal, but to be honest... I think I am going to stick with my custom Femsheps. Too much makeup for a space marine imo.

 

[Freechoice]

snip

It might be a real differentiation if he wasn't so omnipresent.

For reference, this is vocal disparity.

Ugh all the comments about Jennifers Hale's voice...just because a woman is a badass doesn't mean she's a *****...It's like the minute a woman shows a little back bone everyone says it could never happen.

The comments are either that she sucks or that she's typecast as a *****.

As a gross oversimplification, the problem is mostly western interpretations of what a badass has to be. Because of the cultural associations with soldiers (who are mostly male) as gruff, foul mouthed killing machines badasses, there has to follow some parallel thought when creating a version of that with a uterus. If you transpose those qualities to a female, you will most likely come to the conclusion that you end up with a character people find unfavorable.

What needs to be recognized is that a female that is a badass does not need to be on a testosterone trip to kick ass. See Kasumi Goto, Jill Valentine or Veronica Santangelo.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

What needs to be recognized is that a female that is a badass does not need to be on a testosterone trip to kick ass. See Kasumi Goto, Jill Valentine or Veronica Santangelo.

Veronica comes across as a normal woman (with powerfists) rather than a badass. Kasumi Goto and Jill Valentine (the recent version) are pretty much male fanservice in spray on clothing. (I can't believe you mentioned Jill Valentine in the same paragraph as good voice acting...)

My conclusion would be that if I decide to be a goddamn baddass I don't care if people find me favorable or not because I have a shotgun.

Women can be volatile, violent and argumentative too. More so than men a lot of the time. Why can't that be represented in video games.

Let's look at it this way when a man acts like that it's a positive trait while when a woman does it it's negative. All it comes down too is that women are expected to sit quietly in the corner while men do the talking.


Screw that.

 

[Freechoice]

My conclusion would be that if I decide to be a goddamn baddass I don't care if people find me favorable or not because I have a shotgun.

And that's exactly why gaming doesn't go anywhere. It's a community of (wo)manchildren that want whatever the fuck they want regardless of how it comes across in the narrative. And the narratives do suffer because the developers have to appeal to what they think will sell.

I'll go through and refute all of your points because fun.

Kasumi's a badass: Her love was killed and yet she still manages to be a playful, lively thief and emotes like a fucking human being if the only memory of her beloved is erased. She also manages incredible feats of agility and is decent in combat.

Jill's a badass: She saves Chris' stupid ass from Wesker. Yeah, she pulls a damsel in distress because Wesker's a jerk, but she still manages pretty heroic shit anyway.

Veronica's a badass: She's split with her love, goes out to scavenge on her own and tries to make her extended family not be a bunch of self destructive dicks. I had her as a companion when I took out Lanius on Very Hard. She could take 5 hits from his big ass sword before dying (my courier could only take like 3) and took his fucking head off with a ballistic fist, something Craig Boone, a man whose DT is increased by silent rage, couldn't do.

Notice how they all have soppy romance and yet it doesn't get in the way. It complements them and adds a new dimension to the characters.

So what if males are volatile, violent and argumentative in most games? That doesn't mean they're good characters. The kind of mentality you have still makes shallow, one-dimensional females that look like they're trying to be a part of the shiteater's club.

Marcus Fenix is a fuckoff. Nathan Drake is a fuckoff. Grayson Hunt is a fuckoff.

Badass because they swear/snark and kill shit? Sure. Still douchebags? Absolutely.


What you want is just copy pasting of a meaningless archetype that holds the medium back from evolving into believable art that explores the human condition. Maybe you just want the relentless catharsis of a female Duke Nukem. People aren't comfortable with that. You're not going to change it and it's much simpler to just make a well developed female who kicks ass as part of her day job.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

My conclusion would be that if I decide to be a goddamn baddass I don't care if people find me favorable or not because I have a shotgun.

And that's exactly why gaming doesn't go anywhere. It's a community of (wo)manchildren that want whatever the fuck they want regardless of how it comes across in the narrative. And the narratives do suffer because the developers have to appeal to what they think will sell.

I'll go through and refute all of your points because fun.

Kasumi's a badass: Her love was killed and yet she still manages to be a playful, lively thief and emotes like a fucking human being if the only memory of her beloved is erased. She also manages incredible feats of agility and is decent in combat.

Jill's a badass: She saves Chris' stupid ass from Wesker. Yeah, she pulls a damsel in distress because Wesker's a jerk, but she still manages pretty heroic shit anyway.

Veronica's a badass: She's split with her love, goes out to scavenge on her own and tries to make her extended family not be a bunch of self destructive dicks. I had her as a companion when I took out Lanius on Very Hard. She could take 5 hits from his big ass sword before dying (my courier could only take like 3) and took his fucking head off with a ballistic fist, something Craig Boone, a man whose DT is increased by silent rage, couldn't do.

Notice how they all have soppy romance and yet it doesn't get in the way. It complements them and adds a new dimension to the characters.

So what if males are volatile, violent and argumentative in most games? That doesn't mean they're good characters. The kind of mentality you have still makes shallow, one-dimensional females that look like they're trying to be a part of the shiteater's club.

Marcus Fenix is a fuckoff. Nathan Drake is a fuckoff. Grayson Hunt is a fuckoff.

Badass because they swear/snark and kill shit? Sure. Still douchebags? Absolutely.


What you want is just copy pasting of a meaningless archetype that holds the medium back from evolving into believable art that explores the human condition. Maybe you just want the relentless catharsis of a female Duke Nukem. People aren't comfortable with that. You're not going to change it and it's much simpler to just make a well developed female who kicks ass as part of her day job.

The thing is Femshep has a backstory and romantic involvement too where as you are just trying to paint her as some sort of Duke Nukem-a-like.

My problem is that men seem to think that women can't behave in a 'tough' way without them coming across as negative and people putting down their character. It get's pointed out that it's not realistic and she is just a 'little girl trying to act tough'.

People are absolutely fine with male characters acting like jerks, no complaints in the thread about maleshep being a "badass". When it comes to a woman it's suddenly taboo.

That's kind of ridiculous.

Let me put it this way; It's as much an offense against deep characterisation not to have tough women and to make them all 'normal women who happen to be good fighters'.

 

[Freechoice]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

Spoiler: And yet there is really fruity gay guys that can be likable and popular characters like the heroic and competant Shore Leave of Venture Brothers who is pretty much a fan favorite. He manages to be a stereotype and the complete destruction of one at the same time.

If we are going to have deep and varied characterisation we are going to have to move outside tropes and gender norms. In real life people don't stay sequestered into those boundaries.

 

[Freechoice]

And yet there is really fruity gay guys that can be likable and popular characters like the heroic and competant Shore Leave of Venture Brothers who is pretty much a fan favorite.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft, Shore Leave? Heroic? Lulz! He's the most shameless cast member save for that idiot fat kid whose name I forget. I was just talking about seeing a gay guy at a party fitting the Family Guy defintion of "Oh my God, here they come, floatin' around, makin' noise" gay guys, not the fix up your house gay guys." Like just picture that in your mind and imagine how strange it is.

If we are going to have deep and varied characterisation we are going to have to move outside tropes and gender norms. In real life people don't stay sequestered into those boundaries.

And thanks for agreeing with me on my point.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

And yet there is really fruity gay guys that can be likable and popular characters like the heroic and competant Shore Leave of Venture Brothers who is pretty much a fan favorite.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft, Shore Leave? Heroic? Lulz! He's more camp gay than the fricking Alchemist. I was just talking about seeing a gay guy at a party fitting the Family Guy defintion of "Oh my God, here they come, floatin' around, makin' noise" gay guys, not the fix up your house gay guys." Like just picture that in your mind and imagine how strange it is.

If we are going to have deep and varied characterisation we are going to have to move outside tropes and gender norms. In real life people don't stay sequestered into those boundaries.

And thanks for agreeing with me on my point.

That was opposite of what you were saying you were saying we have to stick to them and have women who don't act tough because people find it strange and offensive.

Erm and Shore Leave is just Brock but gay...so just because he's camp you think he isn't heroic. Riiiight, seems legit.

 

[Freechoice]

That was opposite of what you were saying you were saying we have to stick to them and have women who don't act tough because people find it strange and offensive.

Erm and Shore Leave is just Brock but gay...so just because he's camp you think he isn't heroic. Riiiight, seems legit.

"What needs to be recognized is that a female that is a badass does not need to be on a testosterone trip to kick ass. See Kasumi Goto, Jill Valentine or Veronica Santangelo."

That's what I said. My whole point was just to throw out the archetype of shallow badass entirely. How did you even get from that to where you did?

And I managed to edit my post before you were able to complete your counterpost because I knew I didn't say it right. I even checked the TV Tropes page and while they did use the word competent, they also used the word shameless.

Brock is heroic because he's willing to disobey orders to protect the people he cares for. Shore Leave dicks around without purpose because he doesn't care.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

Did you forget about this entire post or something? I have bolded the part that I was referring to. There's no reason why a woman can't be a badass, saying that she can't is sticking to stereotypes and gender roles.

As for Shore Leave he fights bad guys for the safety of mankind I'd say that's pretty heroic. Also if your saying Brock is never careless then you obviously didn't watch the show closely enough

 

[Smeggs]

I know I'm in the minority here but god damn I hate Jennifer Hale's voice.
Still, seems like it's gonna be good. Looking forward to it.

I'll back you up on that one, bud. You can always recognize her in every instance she voice acts, ever. She's Steven Blum or Nolan North, but with a uterus.

I couldn't agree more. And now thanks to Bullet Storm, every time I hear her speak my mind immediately flashes back to, "I WILL KILL YOUR DICKS!"

 

[Freechoice]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

Did you forget about this entire post or something? I have bolded the part that I was referring to. There's no reason why a woman can't be a badass, saying that she can't is sticking to stereotypes and gender roles.

As for Shore Leave he fights bad guys for the safety of mankind I'd say that's pretty heroic. Also if your saying Brock is never careless then you obviously didn't watch the show closely enough

But did I say women couldn't be tough? I didn't. I said society interprets them as such. I linked to TV Tropes to show you how much it gets exemplified within media as proof that what I am saying is true.


And as for the guy that made post number 74. Welcome to the Escapist. Your forum health bar indicates you will enjoy the next 12 days you have here.

Veronica's not a ***** btw.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

Did you forget about this entire post or something? I have bolded the part that I was referring to. There's no reason why a woman can't be a badass, saying that she can't is sticking to stereotypes and gender roles.

As for Shore Leave he fights bad guys for the safety of mankind I'd say that's pretty heroic. Also if your saying Brock is never careless then you obviously didn't watch the show closely enough

But did I say women couldn't be tough? I didn't. I said society interprets them as such. I linked to TV Tropes to tell show you how much it gets exemplified within media as proof that what I am saying is true.


And as for the guy that made post number 74. Welcome to the Escapist. Your forum health bar indicates you will enjoy the next 12 days you have here.

Veronica's not a ***** btw.

That was your point though, that because society doesn't see women as being tough very often so women in video games shouldn't be portrayed like that. Which to me seems like a self perpetuating problem.

I wrote an essay on the roles of women in final fantasy games and one of my points was that there are both tough and meek women in that series and they all have depth and balance to their character.

Tough, mouthy, angry women are as much a valid character as Veronica's cheerful persona.

 

[Freechoice]

snip

I used Duke Nukem to make sure you wouldn't catch me missing your point. I'm not saying Femshep is awful. I'm saying her VA is awful. Bioware would have been semi-respectable to me if they had gotten someone that didn't sound like a teenage girl trying to sound like a grown up.

Women are not frequently seen as tough in the same way that seeing a really fruity gay guy is strange. You might think that you just see people that are inherently capable of anything that anyone else is, but when you see one dude out of a hundred that is flamboyant and excessively colorful in voice in action, it contradicts precepts you have regarding gender roles. Those is just social ingraining that may or may have some roots in biology.

It works both ways. A man is expected to get the job done, be heroic and not complain about it or everyone calls him a pussy if he shirks and shows emotions. The only way to create parity is to just make good characters.

And finally, I invoke TV Tropes to seal my argument.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex

Did you forget about this entire post or something? I have bolded the part that I was referring to. There's no reason why a woman can't be a badass, saying that she can't is sticking to stereotypes and gender roles.

As for Shore Leave he fights bad guys for the safety of mankind I'd say that's pretty heroic. Also if your saying Brock is never careless then you obviously didn't watch the show closely enough

But did I say women couldn't be tough? I didn't. I said society interprets them as such. I linked to TV Tropes to tell show you how much it gets exemplified within media as proof that what I am saying is true.


And as for the guy that made post number 74. Welcome to the Escapist. Your forum health bar indicates you will enjoy the next 12 days you have here.

Veronica's not a ***** btw.

That was your point though, that because society doesn't see women as being tough very often so women in video games shouldn't be portrayed like that. Which to me seems like a self perpetuating problem.

I wrote an essay on the roles of women in final fantasy games and one of my points was that there are both tough and meek women in that series and they all have depth and balance to their character.

Tough, mouthy, angry women are as much a valid character as Veronica's cheerful persona.

No, my argument was that the narrow minded writers that create one dimensional swear buckets like Marcus Fenix need to be kicked to the curb (or curbstomped, as would be ironic) in favor of people that can write well rounded individuals. I basically went on a rant about how the one dimensional assholes that pass for badass are only badass in the tropified sense of killing stuff and not getting PTSD.

Of course you can have angry, potty-mouthed women, but those are just negative characteristics arbitrarily assigned. There's a word for a guy that never has anything good to say: asshole. There's a reason Triskha Novac was a ***** and Grayson Hunt wasn't. Hunt was having fun and ended up learning something in the end. Triskha was being a jerk. Therefore, *****.

The ultimate goal of characterization is to create facsimiles of ourselves to better understand how we as humans function emotionally. Having a female Marcus would only technically subvert the supposedly required female passivity trope, but it still leaves the overarching problem of shallow characters that just aren't worth paying attention to.

I think the most confusion stems from how you use the term toughness. Toughness isn't just an abrasive exterior to deflect problems. A character like Kasumi is tough because she deals with loneliness constantly (by virtue of being a thief) and doesn't fall apart over the last semblances of her love being permanently destroyed. That's toughness, but it's also emotional fortitude, something Marcus Fenix does not have.

As TV Tropes explains, the perceptions of gender roles are polar opposites. Men are expected to be the heroes that go out and save everything without crying over the stress of having the weight of the world bearing down on them. Women, however, are unconsciously expected to emote. The problem is that there are very few female protagonists to express the "war is hell" types of stress that a game hero should be expected to undergo. If anything, females would be better able to break the "tough as nails, but one dimensional" archetype, but there aren't enough of them.

In practice, there's demographical pandering (dat ass), but we also have to acknowledge that there are very few game writers that can pull off a female character that isn't perceivably a *****, but is "tough" or a male that emotes without being ever suspected of being gay.

If you want to argue femshepard's voice acting quality, bring your A game.

Spoiler

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Of course you can have angry, potty-mouthed women, but those are just negative characteristics arbitrarily assigned.

No, they aren't, some people are actually like that. Any friend of mine will tell you I'm argumentative, I shout, I swear, I argue about video games at 6am...

The strange thing is when I watched that trailer I thought 'Yeah lets go kick some reaper butt femshep!' while some people thought 'Pfft that woman is pretending to be a tough guy doesn't she know her place?'

That's the problem. The minute the voice changed from a man to a woman some people rejected the idea of outward toughness (further defining it for you) when it's no less of a valid character.

I understand what you mean about mental toughness but again, there's no reason why a women shouldn't show verbal and physical toughness either. Unless she lives in a Jane Austen novel.

There was another thread on The Escapist about female power fantasy and what that would entail. The few women that posted suggested femShep and femHawke because we really don't want that much different from guys. To women (I know I'm generalising but it was the trend of the thread) FemSheps antics are completely acceptable we see someone who is strong, courageous and demands respect and we want to play as her.

There is a reason why games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are popular with female gamers. It lets us play a respectable female character through simple gender switch.

ps:lol at the Fonzie pic.