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There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily. All because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.

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Gender & Heroes

Female VS Male Heroes
By Mr. Finnegan - 1:19 AM on Monday, August 01, 2000

Female Heroes

Hey fellow guy gamers: Are you sexually biased? There’s a question that stops men in their tracks. Your gut reaction is to say no, isn’t it? Of course it is. You don’t slap fellow female worker’s behinds at work, or the equivalent at school. You don’t treat your sister or other females you encounter with less respect than anyone else. Maybe you’re a real boy scout, who tosses his jacket in the mud and guides old ladies across the street. "Am I sexually biased?" you incredulously ask to the screen as you are reading this, "this guy is about as friggin’ nuts as my Great-Uncle Jacob, and he married the family dog!"

Well here’s the catch: there’s a vast and distinct difference between the real world and the gaming world. The rules change in a gaming environment. Its hard not to use games like Tomb Raider and Drakkan: Order of the Flame as prime examples of this. I realize that there are many other games, such as anything Duke Nukem related, that blatantly flaunt the female role in them. I have selected TR and Drakkan because the leading ladies are both strong characters in and of themselves, and the focus of the game was not truly upon the sexuality. In other words, the best games to examine in order to get an accurate gauge of how the average gaming market views the female hero. These are ladies that you don’t want to get into a brawl with, because they will rule your pathetic ass.

The leading ladies in these games, Lara Croft and Rynn, are extreme beauties. Both have hourglass figures with rather large…qualities. Don’t tell me that the games weren’t selling sex. They were flaunting it with their tantalizing female leads. Male gamers who wanted to ogle at them readily gobbled up these titles (and for Tomb Raider its many sequels) off the shelves like dirty old men in a porno store free-for-all.

This is where the sexual bias comes in. Despite the acute gaming quality of the title, the games are predominantly purchased for their sexually arousing female heroines. Legions of male gamers with hands down their pants rushed to the store to continue their lustful Lara Croft fixation. Tomb Raider does indeed deserve merit for its unique and fun game play, but the later sequels of the title have all started to slide in terms of quality. Yet they still sell rather well, and can be found in almost any Tom, Dick, and Harry outlet store. Just stop by a Wall-Mart electronics section, and if you can stomach the wretched stench of poor game selection and steep prices take a look. I have no doubt that somewhere on that shelf that any of the myriad of Tomb Raider titles sits there. I bet if Drakkan had made a bazillion spin-offs, it’d be lying there too. It’s surviving on sex appeal.

Dr Kathryn Wright, in the same article as before at www.womengamers.com, agrees:

Traditionally, when females did appear, it was typically in sexist or overtly misogynistic ways: as damsels in distress needing rescue, rewards for successful completion of a game level, victims of violence, and/or sexual objects. Recently, video game companies have started to include more female characters in games, but a good percentage of these female characters continue to be created according to traditional gender stereotypes: the virtuous but passive woman who motivates game action; the evil sexualized woman who must be overthrown by the male protagonist; the objectified female with huge breasts and lips and an impossibly small waist.

The objectification of women in video games is not a new practice. Old school console players can recall the classic Nintendo game Metroid. In it, the faster you beat the game the more clothes the female heroine had on before the credits started rolling by. Today, little has changed. An upcoming Dreamcast game’s objective is to simply take pictures of semi-clad models in a variety of locales. That’s it. In fact, you can even manipulate their positions in any way you want. Any way. It made me feel very odd…like I had been touched in the special no-no spot by a strange man. I haven’t felt like that since one night long ago during a layover in Thailand for the navy…but I digress.

However, male gamers are beginning to tire of the sexual slant most companies provide. Squaregrrl comments in her article located as well at womengamers.com that the male consumer market is beginning to shift its interest toward strong female roles in games:

Some say that gaming is a predominantly male past time; therefore, marketing games that have a male point of view is elementary. But look at the huge success of games like Tomb Raider, Dino Crisis, and Fear Effect!. All boast heroic (albeit physically enhanced) lead females, and they are popular with both male and female gamers alike. Male gamers are not as stupid as game companies take them to be. Male gamers don’t turn away from nor detest a game just because the main character is female...In fact, the male gamers that I talked to said that they were more likely to play a game with a female lead than a similar game with a male lead because they are generally a little bit more thought out and the plot ideas are fresher.

Male gamers? Mature? Unthinkable, yes, but true. The market lies ready and willing from both sides of the lines. As I have stated earlier, both male and female gamers are seeking games that cater not to a particular sex, but to both. We are on the cusp of a sexual revolution in gaming. It has been long overdue. Female gamers should not feel isolated or categorized as a separate and odd entity because they cannot or will not identify with a male lead in a video game. Hopefully, as we gradually separate ourselves from our conceptual bias and learn to appreciate the qualities of both the male and female hero, such a divide can be resolved. That can be easily accomplished if both sides are equally represented in a game.

Comments? Let Mr. Finnegan know what you think!

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