Where I stand on the issue of feminism in video games

The following is a post I made in Patricks' topic, E3 needs to grow up. Posting here just to keep it somewhere.

I totally get what this is about and care. I hope more people do too.

Too many times have I felt the need to pause/switch off/divert attention from some game that is on my screen when a family member walks in. Not just because there is nudity or sexually explicit content, after all these things appear in legitimate, serious artistic ventures, of which I include games.

The reason for the embarrassment is when it serves absolutely no purpose other than to stimulate a male audience. When my partner asks me why that woman is dressed like she's on a beach in Rio during a "serious" encounter or situation e.g. Zombie apocolypse, nuclear holocaust etc. and the best answer I have is "because video games", it's just embarrassing and I get why people do not respect them as much as they perhaps should. They understandably see them as some adolescent kids pastime.

Aside from that, there is the anger I feel at being treated like some emotionally devoid sex fiend male that will only like a game if it has scantily clad woman and boobs. It's not the case and it's insulting.

I would re-iterate, I'm not a prude. These things in a contextually relevant scenario are no problem whatsoever, however uncomfortable the topic. It's the insinuation that we are all idiots that really irks me.

I don't think the fact that the vast majority of advertising for any product or service does this is justification, or at least it shouldn't be. Wouldn't it be great, if this industry could stand proud and be all "Yeah, we don't need that shit. We sell our stuff on it's quality". A lofty goal perhaps, but something that could happen should we wish it.

The thought of trying to play a DS or it's games whilst it is strapped to some attractive woman is frankly absurd at best, deeply offensive and hurtful at worst.

Anyway, that's my input. Let's talk.

The following is a post I made in Patricks' topic, E3 needs to grow up. Posting here just to keep it somewhere.

I totally get what this is about and care. I hope more people do too.

Too many times have I felt the need to pause/switch off/divert attention from some game that is on my screen when a family member walks in. Not just because there is nudity or sexually explicit content, after all these things appear in legitimate, serious artistic ventures, of which I include games.

The reason for the embarrassment is when it serves absolutely no purpose other than to stimulate a male audience. When my partner asks me why that woman is dressed like she's on a beach in Rio during a "serious" encounter or situation e.g. Zombie apocolypse, nuclear holocaust etc. and the best answer I have is "because video games", it's just embarrassing and I get why people do not respect them as much as they perhaps should. They understandably see them as some adolescent kids pastime.

Aside from that, there is the anger I feel at being treated like some emotionally devoid sex fiend male that will only like a game if it has scantily clad woman and boobs. It's not the case and it's insulting.

I would re-iterate, I'm not a prude. These things in a contextually relevant scenario are no problem whatsoever, however uncomfortable the topic. It's the insinuation that we are all idiots that really irks me.

I don't think the fact that the vast majority of advertising for any product or service does this is justification, or at least it shouldn't be. Wouldn't it be great, if this industry could stand proud and be all "Yeah, we don't need that shit. We sell our stuff on it's quality". A lofty goal perhaps, but something that could happen should we wish it.

The thought of trying to play a DS or it's games whilst it is strapped to some attractive woman is frankly absurd at best, deeply offensive and hurtful at worst.

Anyway, that's my input. Let's talk.

Well my opinion works with you......even though I am of opposite gender :D. I feel that games nowadays do compete in production for the "sexual appeal" for men and of course having the protagonist, or whathaveyou, a provocatively dressed female. I for one am For a sexy lady in my video games. It's exciting as well as ridiculous at the same time. I love playing games alone and going, "alright that was pretty hot.." or with friends, "In reality.... those heels would have broke.... why is that cheerleader wearing simply a sports bra for an outfit? etc."

Competitors feel their main audience for games (types such as mentioned in your post) is men. So what do mean (a typical steriotype though probably accurate for most) like the most? Video games; woman, sex, violence. So as the saying goes: Sex sells.

Agreed. Just because I'm a male doesn't mean I'm an ever-horny manbeast. I would prefer not to be treated as such and subjecting women to that shit in the stupid assumption that I AM said horny manbeast makes it even worse.

I don't see sexism as much of a problem in video games, especially if you are against sexist ideas in video games.  
 
In all of my favorite games, there is virtually no sexist content. When "sex sells", I usually don't buy the product. For example, the Dead or Alive series, Duke Nukem, Bayonetta, and some others that I'm forgetting. But from the list of my favorite games in the past 2 years, I don't remember playing anything that over sexualized any gender or preferred one sex over another. If anything, I see games evolving and becoming more mature, for example Skyrim.   
 
I also don't get why the rape scene in Tomb Raider is so debated.  Rape happens/is implied all the time in movies and television. A beautiful girl is on an island with a bunch of horny bad guys - if she is captured, it's pretty obvious what is going to realistically happen. I don't get how a game striving to be more realistic/human won't accept one of the most basic and evil of human desires. 
 
But that's just video games. The video game industry however is different - much of the curent criticisms are pretty much true. You know, booth babes, stupid comments, etc.

Yeah, that's kinda how I see it. I don't need sexy ladies thrown in my face 24/7, I can get that elsewhere if I want it. But I think with games like Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw, the sexuality is kinda satire in and of itself. It just adds to the overall ridiculous tone those types of games go for and I think that's all in good fun. Seriously, if anyone uses those games as a bullet point for sexism in videogames, you're doing it wrong.

Jesus Christ this is the topic that just won't die. What's worse is that everything I've read about the topic is pandering as hell including Patrick's childish article.

What's so bad about boobs? I mean... chances are if theres a half naked chick shooting zombies with a rocket launcher, it was probably advertised as such. I can't recall a serious video game where some chick just started stripping for no apparent rea--.... oh wait. ... Heavy Rain...

Well, still. The day boobs become more taboo than extreme violence is the day I shoot myself.

@JasonR86 said:

Jesus Christ this is the topic that just won't die. What's worse is that everything I've read about the topic is pandering as hell including Patrick's childish article.

Pretty much, it's funny because people only start writing shit about this "issue" now that Klepek brought it up.

Let's not pretend this hasn't been going on for over a decade.

Really who cares? I mean, why care? Most video games are dumb, they are a dumb past time. The games that strive to be mature about this can still exist. People aren't going to stop making dumb games and they are always going to be seen as childish and mundane to some.

@Dexter_Morgan_ said:

Well, still. The day boobs become more taboo than extreme violence is the day I shoot myself.

Are you fucking kidding me? We already live in that society. Sex is far more taboo than violence.

You can get applause if you shotgun some dude in face in "The Last of Us." But if Janet Jackson shows some boob in the super bowl-its the apocalypse.

@flindip said:

@Dexter_Morgan_ said:

Well, still. The day boobs become more taboo than extreme violence is the day I shoot myself.

Are you fucking kidding me? We already live in that society. Sex is far more taboo than violence.

You can get applause if you shotgun some dude in face in "The Last of Us." But if Janet Jackson shows some boob in the super bowl-its the apocalypse.

Yes, but not in video games!

NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE! D':

I have mostly been avoiding these conversations and didn't read Patrick's article but I guess I feel that many modern games are doing a much better job at representing women than games 10 or 20 years ago. There have been some excellent female characters in games over the course of the past 10 years. Maybe not as many as men, but let's face it, most soldiers (modern, fantasy, or space variety) are going to be men. Since most strongly character driven games involve one of those three groups of people chances are it makes sense to have a male main character. Most modern nations don't even let women take combat roles in armies and in those that do there are much fewer of them than men.

Now the answer to having more well written female characters may be to have games that aren't about soldiers. Very few of the great female characters I can think of starred in games about combat. Jade from Beyond Good and Evil comes to mind as an excellent example. The women in the Dead Space games I think are generally well written. The women in the Uncharted games are incredibly well written (and are written by a women so it makes sense) and Mass Effect has a mix of well written and poorly written women. Alyx in Half Life 2 is a well written woman, Lightning from FF13 I thought was a great leading lady, Elika from the 2008 Prince of Persia was awesome, the girl from Enslaved whose name escapes me at the moment was great, as was the girl in Heavenly Sword. The key thing about all these characters, aside from Lightning, is that they are not warriors. Many can hold their own in a fight but that is not their main function. If games want to have realistic portrayals of women they need to move away from shooters because, simply put, soldiers are generally not women.

Specifically on Tomb Raider, Lara was always a very sexist character. I find it funny that people would hold up the horribly disproportionate original as an example of a well written female character and say that the new Lara is somehow more sexist. That to me is ridiculous. The entire story of the new Tomb Raider (a young girl finds the power in herself to overcome great adversity) is a great feminist story. Here is a woman who doesn't need a man to help her reach her full potential. She does it on her own and holds her own against an army of highly trained soldiers in the process. Maybe not the most realistic of stories, but the point is that the story is a very feminist story. Yea she was grunting and moaning a lot but who wouldn't be in the situation? I don't think it is any worse than your average horror movie. And unlike in those movies the girl doesn't get butchered because she is a dumb slut, she fights back against her attackers and defeats them. That is a feminist story to me. If she randomly decided to have sex with some dude in the middle of the game then I would say it was sexist. But from what was shown, I think they have portrayed her exactly how I would expect a young woman to behave when put in that situation. People comparing her to Drake forget that Drake is a hardened pirate. He does what he does in the Uncharted games for fun. Lara was forced into this situation. Of course she isn't going to have witty remarks and of course she is going to get more beat up than a man who has done this a hundred times. There are definitely sexist games out there today. Tomb Raider is definitely not one of them, at least from what has been shown so far.

You know what... I want everyone to go fully nude and no one can tell you different... yep... I support nudism... however I don't practice it most times for other peoples sake and for the fact that I would get arrested... oh and I live in Montana and wearing nothing in the middle of the winter is CERTAIN DEATH!

But in the summer, I would totally go nude if I could... women and men should be able to. Just make being nude more normal for a couple generations and BOOM. No one minds people being naked and stuff... that simple.

But it already had a place... on Patrick's article, in the comments.

This is why I like RPGs with customizable characters.

I don't like buff male protagonists either. It just makes me laugh. Buff as in..arms that are wider than my entire body.

Bringing up sexually explicit content just to bring it up happens in every other medium, too. Just like in those other mediums, there are video games that do it and there are video games that don't. You could say that it happens more often than not, and I would totally agree. But I could say the same thing for movies. I'm sure you could name a load of serious movies that had an unnecessary sex scene in them or had women dressed inappropriately for no other reason than to cater to the male audience. The idea that sex sells isn't regulated only to our precious video games. Also, the medium is still relatively new, so as it grows and grows you can expect to see more mature games that don't do this. Even still, there will always be dumb games. Sooty said this better than I am so I direct you to that post.

Maybe it is just because I am young enough to not be considered an older gamer and thus don't have to face the stupid social stigma of being an older gamer, but I don't feel that we have to prove our hobby to everybody else like so many others do. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there will always be dumb video games and more mature ones, just like there will always be dumb and mature movies. There will also always be people that think video games are just for kids, even when some of these people have no problem watching said dumb movies. Nothing we can do about that except to stop caring and enjoy our video games.

If you feel that strongly on these issues then you can always vote with your wallet and not support companies that do it.

Just because "it happens elsewhere too!" does not mean it is appropriate for it to appear in video games, nor does it lesson the problem, nor does it vindicate video game producers. We have a societal problem with how women are portrayed in media, and that it is absolutely right to take those presentations to task when they appear, no matter the medium.

If I were to refrain from buying video games without sexist content, I would essentially be relegated to playing games without human characters. This is not an appropriate situation. This is the same defense that is used by Murdoch and other tabloid rags - if people would only stop buying us, we'd stop being immoral sacks of shit! How about, for once, the producers of content take responsibility for what they create, and try not to make women feel like shit all the goddamn time.

@Raven10 said:

I have mostly been avoiding these conversations and didn't read Patrick's article but I guess I feel that many modern games are doing a much better job at representing women than games 10 or 20 years ago. There have been some excellent female characters in games over the course of the past 10 years. Maybe not as many as men, but let's face it, most soldiers (modern, fantasy, or space variety) are going to be men. Since most strongly character driven games involve one of those three groups of people chances are it makes sense to have a male main character. Most modern nations don't even let women take combat roles in armies and in those that do there are much fewer of them than men.

Now the answer to having more well written female characters may be to have games that aren't about soldiers. Very few of the great female characters I can think of starred in games about combat. Jade from Beyond Good and Evil comes to mind as an excellent example. The women in the Dead Space games I think are generally well written. The women in the Uncharted games are incredibly well written (and are written by a women so it makes sense) and Mass Effect has a mix of well written and poorly written women. Alyx in Half Life 2 is a well written woman, Lightning from FF13 I thought was a great leading lady, Elika from the 2008 Prince of Persia was awesome, the girl from Enslaved whose name escapes me at the moment was great, as was the girl in Heavenly Sword. The key thing about all these characters, aside from Lightning, is that they are not warriors. Many can hold their own in a fight but that is not their main function. If games want to have realistic portrayals of women they need to move away from shooters because, simply put, soldiers are generally not women.

Specifically on Tomb Raider, Lara was always a very sexist character. I find it funny that people would hold up the horribly disproportionate original as an example of a well written female character and say that the new Lara is somehow more sexist. That to me is ridiculous. The entire story of the new Tomb Raider (a young girl finds the power in herself to overcome great adversity) is a great feminist story. Here is a woman who doesn't need a man to help her reach her full potential. She does it on her own and holds her own against an army of highly trained soldiers in the process. Maybe not the most realistic of stories, but the point is that the story is a very feminist story. Yea she was grunting and moaning a lot but who wouldn't be in the situation? I don't think it is any worse than your average horror movie. And unlike in those movies the girl doesn't get butchered because she is a dumb slut, she fights back against her attackers and defeats them. That is a feminist story to me. If she randomly decided to have sex with some dude in the middle of the game then I would say it was sexist. But from what was shown, I think they have portrayed her exactly how I would expect a young woman to behave when put in that situation. People comparing her to Drake forget that Drake is a hardened pirate. He does what he does in the Uncharted games for fun. Lara was forced into this situation. Of course she isn't going to have witty remarks and of course she is going to get more beat up than a man who has done this a hundred times. There are definitely sexist games out there today. Tomb Raider is definitely not one of them, at least from what has been shown so far.

Perhaps you should avoid more of these conversations. Not only did you name several characters and franchises which are routinely sexist (Uncharted is really quite grotesque at times), but your patronising nonsense about "soldiers" is ridiculous. Ironically, you landed on the precise opposite position that you should have - women should be radically more prominently featured in roles in which we are not accustomed to seeing them. We should use creative mediums to address imbalances in society, not re-enforce them, and soldiers "generally not being women" is a result of sexist policies which work to reduce the pay and status of women in the military, and a protectionist attitude towards women as delicate flowers. There are so many problems with this post I don't even know really where to begin trying to address them.

@JasonR86 said:

Jesus Christ this is the topic that just won't die. What's worse is that everything I've read about the topic is pandering as hell including Patrick's childish article.

Johnny Oldschool made a vlog about my opinion on this issue...

http://johnnyoldschool.com/?p=542

@martyarf: I would just like to say that the point of my post was to address the shame and embarrassment that people seem to have only with playing video games. I agree that this is a problem, and like you said, it is a problem with our society as a whole and isn't specific only to video games. I disagree with your second paragraph. How else are we supposed to solve the problem? Writing articles and complaining to the content producers does nothing. If enough people took a stand and did not buy a product due to its portrayal of women then, and only then, would many content producers take notice and change things. The thing is that I don't see that happening with any medium any time soon.

@martyarf: Uncharted is a series created, written, and directed by a woman. I find her characters to be well written in general, both females and males. Which character(s) in Uncharted do you think are poorly written and why?

As for the soldiers comment, I have a two pronged response. First, for games focusing on modern war as many shooters are, it would feel unrealistic to have a woman portray a role she would virtually never partake in in real life. I agree that women should be allowed to take a role in the military in equal positions to men. Unfortunately this isn't the case in the modern world and it would simply be inaccurate to put a woman in that role. For fantasy and sci-fi shooters it makes more sense and in these cases you generally see more women involved. I always find though that women soldiers are just poorly written. They are either, as you said, treated like delicate flowers or are basically men with boobs. I feel like many feminists would prefer the characters to simply be men with boobs, but at that point why not just write a man? And if you are trying to make your female soldier more womanly, what aspects should you focus on? How do you write a woman that is obviously a woman without using basic stereotypes that identify her as a woman? I honestly feel like any time a woman does something womanly in a game people complain that it is sexist. It's like they want writers to write a man and just make him a girl. That's stupid. Women aren't men. If a writer is going to write a woman they are choosing to do so because they need some sort of feminine aspect to the character. The same goes for a male character. There are obviously sexist women in video games, but I don't feel any of the characters I mentioned are in any way poorly written. I dunno. I have problems with obvious sexism in games, but I feel some people take it to extreme levels where they want perfect gender parity in their character portrayals and at that point you might as well just write all men or all women.

I'm so glad you linked this to the forums.

Journey

Edit: On a serious note, you're definitely right about what you say. But as in most cases, one shouldn't judge a whole group based on a few (many in this case) selected few. Look at Rockstar's games (I recall a staff member saying he felt like he was "Hanging out with the grown ups" whn he plays Rockstar products, or something like that), or as I half-jokingly mentioned in my original post, Journey. I think alot of developers are starting to realize that it's time for the industry to grow up, and be used to it's full potential.

Sex and violence sells, it's the sad truth. Human beings are drawn to and fascinated by violence and tragedy, it's always been that way, look at the romans and their Gladiators. So that'll never change, really.

@MODernChris said:

@martyarf: I would just like to say that the point of my post was to address the shame and embarrassment that people seem to have only with playing video games. I agree that this is a problem, and like you said, it is a problem with our society as a whole and isn't specific only to video games. I disagree with your second paragraph. How else are we supposed to solve the problem? Writing articles and complaining to the content producers does nothing. If enough people took a stand and did not buy a product due to its portrayal of women then, and only then, would many content producers take notice and change things. The thing is that I don't see that happening with any medium any time soon.

"Consumer activism" is next to worthless, and places the responsibility on the individual, rather than the corporations which are churning out sexist material. It's just not an acceptable solution (it also doesn't work very effectively historically - see Nestle, BP, DOW Chemical or basically any large multinational for evidence). Additionally, the logic doesn't work out. What good would it do for women to abstain from buying console games which are not marketed towards them in the first place?

@Raven10 said:

@martyarf: Uncharted is a series created, written, and directed by a woman. I find her characters to be well written in general, both females and males. Which character(s) in Uncharted do you think are poorly written and why?

As for the soldiers comment, I have a two pronged response. First, for games focusing on modern war as many shooters are, it would feel unrealistic to have a woman portray a role she would virtually never partake in in real life. I agree that women should be allowed to take a role in the military in equal positions to men. Unfortunately this isn't the case in the modern world and it would simply be inaccurate to put a woman in that role. For fantasy and sci-fi shooters it makes more sense and in these cases you generally see more women involved. I always find though that women soldiers are just poorly written. They are either, as you said, treated like delicate flowers or are basically men with boobs. I feel like many feminists would prefer the characters to simply be men with boobs, but at that point why not just write a man? And if you are trying to make your female soldier more womanly, what aspects should you focus on? How do you write a woman that is obviously a woman without using basic stereotypes that identify her as a woman? I honestly feel like any time a woman does something womanly in a game people complain that it is sexist. It's like they want writers to write a man and just make him a girl. That's stupid. Women aren't men. If a writer is going to write a woman they are choosing to do so because they need some sort of feminine aspect to the character. The same goes for a male character. There are obviously sexist women in video games, but I don't feel any of the characters I mentioned are in any way poorly written. I dunno. I have problems with obvious sexism in games, but I feel some people take it to extreme levels where they want perfect gender parity in their character portrayals and at that point you might as well just write all men or all women.

All of the female characters, to my memory, are needlessly sexualised. There is no reason for this. They are routinely objectified by the male characters, who we are supposed to empathise with (this is a poignant example of male gaze - the view of the camera and our supposed connection to the protaganist assumes that we are male or, at the least, makes us take on a male perspective unnecessarily).

This feels needlessly harsh, but you are out of your depth with your commentary. I don't think you know what feminism is, or what it would presume to want from video games. You don't understand the difference between sex and gender, how the societal representations and expectations of gender shape our perceptions of what is "feminine" (what a ludicrous statement) is, and how nothing we've been discussing has anything to do with "gender parity" in characters. It has to do with awful representations of women in video games, a fact which is routinely denied, excused, deflected or minimized, as evidence by this thread.

@martyarf: All I'm getting from this is that there is no solution, which I kind of implied in the last sentence of my last post. Yes, the companies should take responsibility for this, but they don't, and they don't care to or have a reason to either. They have your money and that is all that matters to them. Taking it up to the companies, protesting against them, and expecting them to not do this stuff is just as worthless as consumer activism. It just doesn't work. There will always be companies that do it and there will always be those that don't. Also, I wasn't only talking about women abstaining. As you can see in this very thread men are offended by the practice, too. Uggh I've typed more on this than I wanted to, especially since we are talking about a single sentence I put at the end of my first post which didn't have that much to do with the main point I was trying to get across. Lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I try to avoid these ridiculous forum discussions (especially about all this booth babe and sexism stuff since the issues are extremely complicated and I don't have anything valuable to say about it), but I wanted to give some input on the embarrassment from video games part.

@MODernChris said:

@martyarf: All I'm getting from this is that there is no solution, which I kind of implied in the last sentence of my last post. Yes, the companies should take responsibility for this, but they don't, and they don't care to or have a reason to either. They have your money and that is all that matters to them. Taking it up to the companies, protesting against them, and expecting them to not do this stuff is just as worthless as consumer activism. It just doesn't work. There will always be companies that do it and there will always be those that don't. Also, I wasn't only talking about women abstaining. As you can see in this very thread men are offended by the practice, too. Uggh I've typed more on this than I wanted to, especially since we are talking about a single sentence I put at the end of my first post which didn't have that much to do with the main point I was trying to get across. Lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I try to avoid these ridiculous forum discussions (especially about all this booth babe and sexism stuff since the issues are extremely complicated and I don't have anything valuable to say about it), but I wanted to give some input on the embarrassment from video games part.

You're an odd person. It took little time for you to admit that consumer activism doesn't work (and yet a couple of sentences later, you try and suggest that Voting With Your Wallet will work). You state that protesting is worthless, with little evidence. Awareness has prompted many changes in video game development. Although the new AC is still a little dicey, they acquiesced and removed the absurd racist scalping charicature. Why? Because people took it up to them. That awful dude who made rape jokes to a fellow competitor in the FGC is now ostracised except by explicit misogynists, and was quickly disowned by advertisers and promoters. Why? You get the point. These changes weren't made by consumer activism, they were made by awareness, by people being informed, and being made aware that many people feel alienated by the games they produce. You are right to say that corporations are only interested in money. But many of them are floated companies, and have a legal responsibility to maintain the price of their stock - and negative press does not accomplish this. There is also little motivation for them to change their business models when clearly, up until this point, making sexist games has brought them money hand over fist.

@MariachiMacabre said:

Agreed. Just because I'm a male doesn't mean I'm an ever-horny manbeast. I would prefer not to be treated as such and subjecting women to that shit in the stupid assumption that I AM said horny manbeast makes it even worse.

Hell, I am an ever-horny manbeast and I still find it offensive. I understand that in every form of media there is space for lewd and exploitative content. But in other forms of media, those are the B-movies and crappy romance novels that you'd grab off a shelf in a CVS. In our industry, we go around parading them like it's the best we've got to show. Take the Far Cry 3 E3 demo for example, which began with a writhing naked woman onscreen for seemingly no reason other than to say "hey guys, TITS! Am I right?!" In fact, I'd go as far as saying that showing that brief snippet before the gameplay actually began was spoiling a small part of the game's story, in which the protagonist becomes the leader of a group of rebels in the jungle, all in service of showing off some nudity.

I do not, however, find any problem with the treatment of females in games like, say, Tomb Raider, which a lot of people have been getting up in arms about. Now granted this game isn't out yet and my opinion on it could very well change, but as it stands I'm glad things are going the way they are with that game. For those who haven't heard all of the nonsense that's been flying about, basically people are pissed because 1) Lara consistently has the crap beaten out of her over the course of the game, especially in the demos that the devs have been showing off to the public, 2) the developers stated that Lara's new design, including her smaller bust, was designed to want players to "want to protect her," and 3) there has been some chatter about a potential rape scene in the game.

To address the first point first, why is it a bad thing to have a female protagonist getting beaten up so badly? Some of the more extreme people out there have been starting shit about this promoting violence against females. I don't know about you guys, but I watch stuff like Die Hard, in which John McClane gets his ass kicked around all day, all the time, and I don't feel the desire to suddenly go out and rape a man afterwards. To address the second point, yes the developers phrased it in a dumb way, but basically what they're saying (to my understanding, anyway) is that they wanted players to look at Lara as less of a sex symbol, and more of a human being. To me, that's forward thinking, not backwards. Just because one member of the company phrased it in a dumb way doesn't mean their intentions are bad. Finally, to address the rape point, again I don't think that's a bad thing. If video games are to be taken seriously as a medium, they need to be able to depict tragedy just as strongly as bravado and action. We have to start somewhere, and as long as Tomb Raider handles it in a respectful and somber way, I'm all for it.

TL,DR: Video games are in a weird state right now, where games like Tomb Raider attempt to depict things as shocking as rape in the (hopefully) respectful and serious light that such topics deserve, while right down the hall at E3 Nintendo has their consoles literally tethered to women. It's fine to have a few games that use sex and shock to sell. Every medium has that. But political correctness is a fine line, and until we learn to straddle that line as an industry just as well (if not better than) other industries, we will rightfully be looked upon as the children of the entertainment medium.

Christ, even the TL,DR was half a paragraph..

@Sooty said:

@JasonR86 said:

Jesus Christ this is the topic that just won't die. What's worse is that everything I've read about the topic is pandering as hell including Patrick's childish article.

Pretty much, it's funny because people only start writing shit about this "issue" now that Klepek brought it up.

Let's not pretend this hasn't been going on for over a decade.

Really who cares? I mean, why care? Most video games are dumb, they are a dumb past time. The games that strive to be mature about this can still exist. People aren't going to stop making dumb games and they are always going to be seen as childish and mundane to some.

This issue is something that has been bothering me forever. The reason I wrote a blog about it is because Patrick and the general bomb crew are acting all one sided and white knighting which sort of annoyed me.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@JasonR86 said:

Jesus Christ this is the topic that just won't die. What's worse is that everything I've read about the topic is pandering as hell including Patrick's childish article.

@martyarf: As someone who has taken multiple gender-issue classes and has fought for equality among women in multiple aspects of my life I can safely say that you have completely defined someone who isn't me. I can think of numerous games where women are needlessly sexualized but I disagree that Uncharted is such a game. The women in that game are all fully dressed, proportionate and capable women who handle themselves as well as the male characters under duress. The camera does at times linger on the female character, but the implication is always that Drake is looking at the female shown. The game is told from the perspective of a man so obviously the camera work will represent his view of the situation. If you look at films for women you often see lingering shots of men for the same reason - the film is told from the perspective of a person who is attracted to a certain character and the camera is using that perspective to tell the story. I also can't remember a single instance of the male characters objectifying a woman in that game. They are always treated as equals in most situations. Drake will go to the rescue and be rescued by both men and women. I honestly think it's silly that you think a game written and directed by a woman is objectifying women. Amy Henning is widely considered one of the most brilliant writers in game history. She's also among the highest ranking female members of the industry. She is certainly the only female director of a AAA game I can think of. Her female and male characters have won numerous awards for their writing and VO.

I will be the first to agree with the fact that women have often been poorly represented in games, but I disagree that any of the women I mentioned are. My points on gender parity were more related to the comments people have been making about Tomb Raider. A lot of people have been complaining that Lara moans and groans too much in the demonstrations or doesn't have any sarcastic quips to say. Basically saying that she isn't acting like an action movie hero. My argument is that she is being portrayed as a young woman who has never been in a combat situation before. The idea that she would act like some of the male soldiers in games is ridiculous. She isn't a soldier. She is just a girl put in a bad situation and asking her to act like Rambo is ridiculous. I think the terrible part of the E3 demo was that Lara was shown being a Rambo like character in the gameplay but not in the story. I think gender parity, or at least relative parity is something many feminists would want in a game. So many early games showed a male hero rescuing a helpless woman. All of the women I mentioned are either the heroes of the game they are in, or are given equal chance to kick ass that the men are.

Something many of the feminists I've spoken to like to say that if you put 10 women and 10 men in a room there are almost always more differences between each of the men and each of the women than there are between the men and women as a whole. The idea of "feminine" is just as silly as the idea of "masculine". Both are a set of stereotypes that apply to only a selection of men and women. My point is not that representing common feminine traits in a female character is the best way to represent the vast variety of personalities among women, but that a writer is going to choose to write a male or female character because of the stereotypical traits associated with them. You don't write a man and then just decide to make him a woman. That's not saying that there aren't women who would behave exactly like the stereotype of a man would in a given situation, but that it wouldn't make sense to put a female character there unless you were trying to make that statement. A woman who behaves like a man is going to get a very different reaction than a man who behaves like a man. Now maybe you want to get that reaction. But if you are you have to be incredibly careful about how you write the character. If you aren't it is very rarely worth the headache that writing such a character can cause. So my point is simply that when writing a game or a movie, or anything for that matter, if you want to play with gender stereotypes you really need to go in with that as a goal and if that isn't your goal then it's a lot easier to just write a character who behaves like how people expect a character to behave.

And last point, that expectation shouldn't be that a woman is a helpless princess. The expectation should be that they are just as capable as the men, that they dress in ways that fit the situation, that they are drawn in correct proportions, and that they aren't making girly comments unless that is the type of character they are (and in that case there should be other women that balance this out). Likewise the expectation shouldn't be for men that they are hulking brutes, that their sole goal is save a helpless woman, that they internalize their emotions, or that they are basically dirty apes.