If you've seen my other blog posts, you're probably aware that I'm a huge fan of Super Metroid, and a big Metroid fan in general.  Recently, someone asked me about how I felt "about the contemporary portrayal of Samus Aran, in that she has essentially become 'Space Barbie'."  Rather than give a straightforward answer, I had to spend the day writing out a long-ass rantpost.  For your consideration, here it is.
 
I'm really not satisfied with her modern portrayal.  I feel like the "Zero Suit" was just an excuse to sexualize a character whose gender, while initially a mystery, did not really matter.  She didn't have love interests or overdone female stereotypes or tropes.  Back in the day, we didn't know the character's story other than what the manual told us (Samus' past would be explored years later in print).  Pretty much all that the NES Metroid instruction booklet revealed was that Samus was a well-known and highly-capable bounty hunter, referring to her as male since her gender was supposed to be a surprise at the end of game, if one was a good enough player to get the better endings and learn the truth.  But gender didn’t matter all that much: she was a strong character who excelled at her job, and just happened to be a woman.

Sure, there were glimpses of her without the suit (or with parts of it removed, at least), but those had a point, at least back when the manual still referred to Samus as "him."  The surprise ending of a girl in the Power Suit must've shown a generation of kids that girls kick ass, too.  And they can do it while keeping their clothes on.

Then Fusion came around (I really don't like that game and I can explain why later if you're interested) and tried to give her some deep backstory by making her weep over some guy called Adam (who conveniently happens to be the talking AI which gives Fusion its boring linear gameplay).  I found this to be really implausible.  By the time Fusion came out, we knew Samus' biography.  Her previously-established backstory (elaborated in the over-the-top One Girl In All The World manga and mentioned in the Super Metroid comics) shows what she endured as a child, and how she had to grow up, orphaned among the Chozo.  We're supposed to believe that she can get over the Space Pirates killing her parents and annihilating her colony, but she still aches for some bloke we've only just found out about in Fusion?  Granted, her life among the Chozo might account for somewhat lacking interpersonal skills, but she clearly has the mental and emotional fortitude to overcome the obstacles placed in her way.  Space Pirate bombing runs won't stop her, and it’s naïve if not downright foolish to believe that some guy could.  She’s stronger than that.

One of the relatively recent additions to the franchise is the “Zero Suit,” Samus’ skintight one-piece jumpsuit which she wears underneath the Power Suit, accompanied by her hairstyle which, while not too silly by itself, we’d only previously seen (or at least a hairdo similar to it) in the ending images of Fusion, in which she’s seen in a casual-but-slutty civilian outfit.  The ponytail-with-bangs look wouldn’t make much sense under the Power Suit’s helmet.  She’d have to make sure the ponytail was tucked in or it’d stick out from behind the helmet.  And what if, in combat, her bangs swung over her face, blocking her sight?  It would be game over for her, pun intended.  The hairstyle seen at the end of Metroid II: Return of Samus is much more plausible: her hair is tied up in a bun, and she lets it down once out of her Power Suit.  (As an aside, when I say “Power Suit,” I don’t necessarily mean the default, non-upgraded yellow suit, but the armour system itself.  If I say “Power Suit” when talking about a moment in the game when Samus is wearing the Gravity Suit, consider the Gravity Suit a modification to/for the Power Suit for the purposes of clarity.)

The Zero Suit is that blue skintight jumpsuit that has since become so popular.  But wasn’t Zero Mission supposed to be a retelling of the first Metroid game?  I guess the dress Samus wore under the armour back in the ‘80s wouldn’t have carried over too well into Zero, and the swimwear outfits from the games’ speedy endings might’ve been a little too much.  Alright, so the Zero Suit makes a little more sense to wear under the Power Suit than a dress or her underwear, and the lack of weaponry is believable.  Maybe I’m being too critical of the tight blue costume.  It’s plausible in Zero Mission and I didn’t really have an issue with it in that particular game, but its inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Brawl was nothing more than chixploitation.

For some reason, the Zero Suit found its way into Brawl.  By nature, the Zero Suit is NOT designed for combat, so fighting in it really doesn’t make sense.  Samus’ Final Smash is so powerful that it causes the Power Suit to literally fall to pieces, stripping her down to her jumpsuit which leaves Zero to the imagination.  (Only, she’s still able to fight in it, and even her stun pistol has offensive abilities.  They couldn’t have given her those abilities in Zero Mission, eh?)

In Brawl, the inclusion of the Zero Suit seems like a way to have a sexualized female character in the roster.  Her weapon has been upgraded with some kind of kinky whip function, which she spins around her lithe and curvaceous body as she dances in one of her taunt animations.  Hell, the very first glimpse we have of Samus in the Subspace Emissary campaign mode is a gratuitous ass shot as she slowly descends from the ceiling.  It’s no surprise that many (if not most) fighting games have overtly sexualized women who are there purely for eye candy, panty shots, and jiggle physics, but I really don’t like that they’ve reduced Samus to one of the whores from Dead or Alive or Rumble Roses (if that franchise is still around).

If you look around online, you’ll find a lot of people have had fun with sexy Zero Suit Samus, taking highly-suggestive screenshots, and I’ll admit I’ve done the same for humour.  They even make a reference to her sex appeal in Brawl.  Just check out Snake’s codec conversation about her.  It’s clear that Zero Suit Samus makes Solid Snake’s snake solid. 

I’m not very familiar with Other M, but I’m not really enthused by the direction in which it took the character.  Why would Samus have some kind of painful flashback while fighting Ridley?  If Other M takes place after Super Metroid, she’s fought Ridley at least 3 times before.  Her flinching in Other M is not believable.  She wouldn’t be frozen in fear due to a childhood memory.  No, she’d be pissed that Ridley decided not to stay dead and send his space-dragon ass back to hell where it came from.  And I really don’t buy the idea of her taking Adam as a father figure.  Samus knew her father when she was a child, and probably had some father figures when the Chozo raised her.  Growing attached to this Adam guy seems unprofessional in a way that does not fit Samus’ character, and also doesn’t make sense since she’d have already grown up by the time she’d met him.  Had she been rescued from the smouldering remains of her colony by the Galactic Federation instead of the Chozo and grew up in a military setting under Adam’s command, then MAYBE her attachment to him would be more plausible.

I think Abbie Heppe’s “review” says more about stereotypical feminists than it does about the game, but she does have a point.  By the time the events of Other M come around, Samus has been kicking ass throughout known space, on her own, for years.  She would not behave like a confused child who needs protection and reassurance.  The character can handle her own, and wouldn’t be the sad little girl Other M makes her out to be.  I can understand that they wanted to introduce more characters to the Metroid universe, but surely they could have done so without defacing the franchise’s best-known character.  Samus is a strong, level-headed woman who doesn’t take any crap.  She kicks ass, and would probably chew bubble gum, too, if she had a way to spit it out while wearing her helmet.

I won’t deny the sex appeal of a kinky pretty-much-naked chick jumping around with a whip, but it just bothers me that this eye candy has to be Samus.  Her gender used to be a message of female empowerment, but now she’ll be remembered as the T&A from Brawl.  I kept a newspaper review of Zero Mission from the Montreal Gazette, written by Katherine Monk.  She wrote that, “[t]he best feature of Metroid’s latest is a female running the show, and she’s no bimbo.”  Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be true anymore (besides for the facts that this was not the best feature of Zero and also a feature of EVERY Metroid).  From the mysterious protagonist of Metroid, to the strong and determined heroine of Super Metroid, to the sex object of Brawl and whiny child of Other M, Samus sure has come a long way only to turn in the wrong direction.  No, I’m not satisfied at all with her contemporary portrayal, the aptly-named Space Barbie.  Who’s this poledancing stripper with daddy issues, and why’s she pretending to be Samus Aran, Galactic Warrior?  I’m hoping that, even if the next Metroid title isn’t a remake of Metroid II, we will still see the Return of Samus soon enough.
 
You man now proceed to make a trollthread of the comments and accuse me of being a white knight fapping to a fictional character in power armour.

If you've seen my other blog posts, you're probably aware that I'm a huge fan of Super Metroid, and a big Metroid fan in general.  Recently, someone asked me about how I felt "about the contemporary portrayal of Samus Aran, in that she has essentially become 'Space Barbie'."  Rather than give a straightforward answer, I had to spend the day writing out a long-ass rantpost.  For your consideration, here it is.
 
I'm really not satisfied with her modern portrayal.  I feel like the "Zero Suit" was just an excuse to sexualize a character whose gender, while initially a mystery, did not really matter.  She didn't have love interests or overdone female stereotypes or tropes.  Back in the day, we didn't know the character's story other than what the manual told us (Samus' past would be explored years later in print).  Pretty much all that the NES Metroid instruction booklet revealed was that Samus was a well-known and highly-capable bounty hunter, referring to her as male since her gender was supposed to be a surprise at the end of game, if one was a good enough player to get the better endings and learn the truth.  But gender didn’t matter all that much: she was a strong character who excelled at her job, and just happened to be a woman.

Sure, there were glimpses of her without the suit (or with parts of it removed, at least), but those had a point, at least back when the manual still referred to Samus as "him."  The surprise ending of a girl in the Power Suit must've shown a generation of kids that girls kick ass, too.  And they can do it while keeping their clothes on.

Then Fusion came around (I really don't like that game and I can explain why later if you're interested) and tried to give her some deep backstory by making her weep over some guy called Adam (who conveniently happens to be the talking AI which gives Fusion its boring linear gameplay).  I found this to be really implausible.  By the time Fusion came out, we knew Samus' biography.  Her previously-established backstory (elaborated in the over-the-top One Girl In All The World manga and mentioned in the Super Metroid comics) shows what she endured as a child, and how she had to grow up, orphaned among the Chozo.  We're supposed to believe that she can get over the Space Pirates killing her parents and annihilating her colony, but she still aches for some bloke we've only just found out about in Fusion?  Granted, her life among the Chozo might account for somewhat lacking interpersonal skills, but she clearly has the mental and emotional fortitude to overcome the obstacles placed in her way.  Space Pirate bombing runs won't stop her, and it’s naïve if not downright foolish to believe that some guy could.  She’s stronger than that.

One of the relatively recent additions to the franchise is the “Zero Suit,” Samus’ skintight one-piece jumpsuit which she wears underneath the Power Suit, accompanied by her hairstyle which, while not too silly by itself, we’d only previously seen (or at least a hairdo similar to it) in the ending images of Fusion, in which she’s seen in a casual-but-slutty civilian outfit.  The ponytail-with-bangs look wouldn’t make much sense under the Power Suit’s helmet.  She’d have to make sure the ponytail was tucked in or it’d stick out from behind the helmet.  And what if, in combat, her bangs swung over her face, blocking her sight?  It would be game over for her, pun intended.  The hairstyle seen at the end of Metroid II: Return of Samus is much more plausible: her hair is tied up in a bun, and she lets it down once out of her Power Suit.  (As an aside, when I say “Power Suit,” I don’t necessarily mean the default, non-upgraded yellow suit, but the armour system itself.  If I say “Power Suit” when talking about a moment in the game when Samus is wearing the Gravity Suit, consider the Gravity Suit a modification to/for the Power Suit for the purposes of clarity.)

The Zero Suit is that blue skintight jumpsuit that has since become so popular.  But wasn’t Zero Mission supposed to be a retelling of the first Metroid game?  I guess the dress Samus wore under the armour back in the ‘80s wouldn’t have carried over too well into Zero, and the swimwear outfits from the games’ speedy endings might’ve been a little too much.  Alright, so the Zero Suit makes a little more sense to wear under the Power Suit than a dress or her underwear, and the lack of weaponry is believable.  Maybe I’m being too critical of the tight blue costume.  It’s plausible in Zero Mission and I didn’t really have an issue with it in that particular game, but its inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Brawl was nothing more than chixploitation.

For some reason, the Zero Suit found its way into Brawl.  By nature, the Zero Suit is NOT designed for combat, so fighting in it really doesn’t make sense.  Samus’ Final Smash is so powerful that it causes the Power Suit to literally fall to pieces, stripping her down to her jumpsuit which leaves Zero to the imagination.  (Only, she’s still able to fight in it, and even her stun pistol has offensive abilities.  They couldn’t have given her those abilities in Zero Mission, eh?)

In Brawl, the inclusion of the Zero Suit seems like a way to have a sexualized female character in the roster.  Her weapon has been upgraded with some kind of kinky whip function, which she spins around her lithe and curvaceous body as she dances in one of her taunt animations.  Hell, the very first glimpse we have of Samus in the Subspace Emissary campaign mode is a gratuitous ass shot as she slowly descends from the ceiling.  It’s no surprise that many (if not most) fighting games have overtly sexualized women who are there purely for eye candy, panty shots, and jiggle physics, but I really don’t like that they’ve reduced Samus to one of the whores from Dead or Alive or Rumble Roses (if that franchise is still around).

If you look around online, you’ll find a lot of people have had fun with sexy Zero Suit Samus, taking highly-suggestive screenshots, and I’ll admit I’ve done the same for humour.  They even make a reference to her sex appeal in Brawl.  Just check out Snake’s codec conversation about her.  It’s clear that Zero Suit Samus makes Solid Snake’s snake solid. 

I’m not very familiar with Other M, but I’m not really enthused by the direction in which it took the character.  Why would Samus have some kind of painful flashback while fighting Ridley?  If Other M takes place after Super Metroid, she’s fought Ridley at least 3 times before.  Her flinching in Other M is not believable.  She wouldn’t be frozen in fear due to a childhood memory.  No, she’d be pissed that Ridley decided not to stay dead and send his space-dragon ass back to hell where it came from.  And I really don’t buy the idea of her taking Adam as a father figure.  Samus knew her father when she was a child, and probably had some father figures when the Chozo raised her.  Growing attached to this Adam guy seems unprofessional in a way that does not fit Samus’ character, and also doesn’t make sense since she’d have already grown up by the time she’d met him.  Had she been rescued from the smouldering remains of her colony by the Galactic Federation instead of the Chozo and grew up in a military setting under Adam’s command, then MAYBE her attachment to him would be more plausible.

I think Abbie Heppe’s “review” says more about stereotypical feminists than it does about the game, but she does have a point.  By the time the events of Other M come around, Samus has been kicking ass throughout known space, on her own, for years.  She would not behave like a confused child who needs protection and reassurance.  The character can handle her own, and wouldn’t be the sad little girl Other M makes her out to be.  I can understand that they wanted to introduce more characters to the Metroid universe, but surely they could have done so without defacing the franchise’s best-known character.  Samus is a strong, level-headed woman who doesn’t take any crap.  She kicks ass, and would probably chew bubble gum, too, if she had a way to spit it out while wearing her helmet.

I won’t deny the sex appeal of a kinky pretty-much-naked chick jumping around with a whip, but it just bothers me that this eye candy has to be Samus.  Her gender used to be a message of female empowerment, but now she’ll be remembered as the T&A from Brawl.  I kept a newspaper review of Zero Mission from the Montreal Gazette, written by Katherine Monk.  She wrote that, “[t]he best feature of Metroid’s latest is a female running the show, and she’s no bimbo.”  Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be true anymore (besides for the facts that this was not the best feature of Zero and also a feature of EVERY Metroid).  From the mysterious protagonist of Metroid, to the strong and determined heroine of Super Metroid, to the sex object of Brawl and whiny child of Other M, Samus sure has come a long way only to turn in the wrong direction.  No, I’m not satisfied at all with her contemporary portrayal, the aptly-named Space Barbie.  Who’s this poledancing stripper with daddy issues, and why’s she pretending to be Samus Aran, Galactic Warrior?  I’m hoping that, even if the next Metroid title isn’t a remake of Metroid II, we will still see the Return of Samus soon enough.
 
You man now proceed to make a trollthread of the comments and accuse me of being a white knight fapping to a fictional character in power armour.

That was too long to read in 7 am. I promise I will check it out when I have some damned coffee.
 
Until then, I'll leave this here:

" That was too long to read in 7 am. I promise I will check it out when I have some damned coffee.

 
Until then, I'll leave this here:

"