@make_me_mad said:
How about an actually good video responding to Tropes v. Women? They're not hard to find.
While I don't agree with some of the ways that her argument is phrased and presented, I have to say there are so many good points in this video that I can't help but agree with many of them. I actually have come to really dislike the overall argument that "Damsel in distress trope is inherently and automatically sexist" and instead I prefer to frame the argument about "Female characters more frequently than men in video games, have no agency in the game". Agency - or how much the influence the character has to affect their own fate - I feel is more important than bringing things down to a base (and crude) discussion about if trope Y means game X is sexist.
In some ways, Zelda in particular demonstrates agency considerably in helping Link in the final battles and in Ocarina of Time as the persona Sheik. The problem is of course that in two examples, Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, the moment Zelda shows herself as the "princess" she loses all agency immediately and ceases being a relevant part of the game in both cases (until again, the very end). I think that was a more valid and productive point of discussion (and interesting), then simply trying to list games where male protagonist X rescues female character Y = SEXIST as Anita's video is trying to make out.
The problem I have with Anita's arguments isn't that I feel they are wrong, it's that I feel she isn't putting them in a persuasive or comprehensive way. It's rather like the video that Patrick linked above, which I felt was incredibly bad in a similar way. It's listing off games from a basic google search, without trying to really think about what the overall argument in context is actually about. I mean seriously, his first example is a random game about a Kangaroo. Really? This is rather similar to what I feel Anita did in her first video, which was simply make a list of games, declare them problematic and move on. Without a deeper discussion, she isn't making a persuasive argument or really getting to the heart of the issue with how female characters are represented in games (which again, IMO is a lack of agency).
It becomes too easy to write off the problems with female characters being objects to be rescued or generally lacking agency in video games, because Anita makes the core argument too easy to be ignored. People just write her off and don't address the actual substance of the argument - even though there is plenty to address (which the above video does). It's too easy to distract from it by throwing out piles of red herrings, without considering the wider overall context such as when developers have to battle to just have a woman as the protagonist in the first place today (not in the 1980s). Or when someone from a high profile studio declares that female leads are "Tough to Justify".
It's the context today about how women as protagonists with their own agency (which is, generally speaking what I think of by this) are perceived, how they are treated as characters and how developers have uphill struggles to convince publishers a heroine like Lara Croft (the recent reboot, which was an awesome positive step forward) is worth backing. However, it's not as simple as just having a female character as the lead and that automatically means they are a positive example of agency for a video game character. You only have to look at Metroid: Other M to see how problematic the treatment of female protagonists can be.
This is why I find the video Patrick linked and to a lesser extent the one above somewhat disengenuous. Yeah you can point to a bunch of older games from the bygone era to show that women were protagonists, maybe even frequently. However, when they are relying on female Kangaroos and obscure games that never made it outside of Japan to make this point, it shows how Anita has allowed the discussion to zoom by so the forest is missed to focus on individual trees. Individual trees don't tell you anything, but when you look at the whole forest and see that only a few trees a certain way and everything else is a pine tree that *does* tell you something.
It tells you that you're in a pine forest. That's really the predominant problem today, is that many games don't bother representing women and when they do, they are frequently nothing more than objects to be rescued or lack any of their own agency. It's how Ocarina of Time turns Zelda from a character that many assumed was male before the "big reveal" and then seconds later, all of her agency is suddenly removed once it's obvious Sheik is Princess Zelda. It's why links like the above show that publishers think it's a massive risk to even *have* women as protagonists in the first place. They can certainly be sexualized objects, or there as a part of the plot but as the actual lead of the game? It's widely regarded as being doomed and publishers are adverse to it.
Consider most games that allow for a female protagonist, such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Saints Row and so on. How many of these games are RPGs with customizable options? How many games that are designed with a specific narrative or character in mind actually have a female protagonist today? Once you start thinking about that, put it together with the context cited in the links above (and there are certainly more) and it makes sense. The message here is the problem with sexism in the games industry: You can be an object for a narrative (damsel in distress being an example), an option in games along with other males (usually only a couple of choices in comparison, such as fighting games and others as the video above points out such as with Peach) or just plain not represented at all anyway (many action games, such as Team Fortress 2 which can produce infinite hats, robots and zombie skins, but not female character options).
And when it becomes time for a female character to be the star in their own video game? Publishers today quietly shuffle their feet and state they aren't really interested, because people don't see women as viable protagonists.
The point of videos like the damsel in distress trope discussion is *where* this attitude comes from in the industry. It comes from the ingrained sexism in the games industry that regards women as secondary options, sexual objects or window dressing to sell games at a booth. Arguing that she misses X, Y and Z games is willfully missing the overall context of the point that is being made. That point is how overall the games industry treats female characters and views them in games. As many many more links could easily readily establish, it's obviously not viewed very well whatsoever.
Log in to comment