Last night I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (oh, sweet sweet Netflix auto-streaming to Xbox, how I love thee). It was pretty brutal – not quite as brutal as the book, which spent pages exquisitely describing sexual torture – but pretty brutal. Michael Nyqvist was great, Noomi Rapace was a revelation; Niels Oplev proves himself to be a solid, talented director. An excellent movie, but not for the faint of heart or those who dislike subtitles (it’s Swedish).
I learned something, too: the Swedish title of both the movie and Steig Larsson’s novel isn’t the same as the English title. Originally, it was Män som Hatar Kvinnor: “Men who Hate Women.”
It is an apt title. The girl’s dragon tattoo really has nothing to do with anything. She’s a girl, and she has a dragon tattoo, but that’s about the end of it. This is a story about men who hate women, about men who do terrible, terrible things to women. It’s scary. And it’s especially scary because The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t even try to explain why these men hate women. They just do. I can see why they changed the title. There’s something raw and disturbingly frank about a title like that. Men who hate women. Bam. It’s kind of off-putting, actually. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” isn’t topically specific, but it is much more intriguing and mysterious, and less unsettling.
The kind of victimization you see in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is designed to disturb, much more so than the schlocky “torture porn” that’s all the rage with the younglings these days. And as usual, you would never, never see something like this in a mainstream video game. My god, can you imagine the outrage?
But the movie’s not what this is about.
I don’t think many men in the games industry hate women. How could there be, when they spend so much time making games where your whole job is to rescue or avenge them? At least, I don’t think the proportion is any higher in the games industry than it is in anything else. If we’re talking about Girl with the Dragon Tattoo men who hate women – kidnapping, rape, torture, that kind of thing – that’s a fraction of a fraction of the population; it would surprise me if there were an unusually large percentage of men who make or play games that hate women.
What wouldn’t surprise me is if there were a larger percentage of ones who are afraid of women, or uncomfortable around them. Gaming is an escapist activity, more so than any other form of entertainment. Escaping social situations with which one is inept is just as escapist as using games to get away from any aspect of reality. And of course while there are plenty of dudes out there who maintain perfectly healthy relationships with women, romantically and otherwise, “gamers” are still often presented as male, sexually unappealing, and bumbling when it comes to matters of femininity. And in some cases – probably more cases than in the mainstream – they actually are. Remember, people choose escapist entertainment to get away from their current existence. The less happy they are with it, the more likely they are to try and escape. The stereotype of the basement dwelling, never-kissed-a-girl troglodyte has some veracity, however little.
Whether or not this is an accurate stereotype is irrelevant. The fact is that despite our advances in tolerance and equality throughout the world, there remains an unbelievable amount of entrenched, endemic intolerance that frankly we might never erase entirely. Or maybe “disrespect” is a better word than “intolerance.” Otherwise, explain what city-dwelling women like games journalist Leigh Alexander go through with the hubba-hubba and catcalls. That behavior is disrespectful, pure and simple; it suggests that men who act that way don’t value women enough to adhere to social norms. Explain why it’s okay to shout “nice ass baby” to a woman on the street when no one would ever do it to a man. Hell, explain “rape fantasies” while you’re at it. They’re about deriving gratification from hurting someone else, usually a woman. What’s up with that? Män som hatar kvinnor.
Then, today – and also from Leigh – I learn that Activision (shocking!) appears to have a policy against green-lighting games with female protagonists. They cite stuff like Bayonetta and WET as proof that such games don’t sell, ignoring femme-tagonist successes like Metroid and Tomb Raider, and obviously ignoring that both Bayonetta and WET were mediocre games. By their logic, Dante’s Inferno should have sold like crazy because there are boobs in it – boobs you get to admire, but don’t need to play the character they’re attached to.
And there’s an interesting point: the admiration of boobs. Within the experience, disrespect for women in the form of objectification manifests itself constantly in games. Some say it’s because developers are pandering to the audience they know they have: young straight males who like to look at hot women. Others say that developers are not good with women in the real world and are therefore exercising their fantasies by giving us characters like Bayonetta. Still others say it’s because games as a whole are juvenile, and objectification of women is also juvenile. But I still don’t think that developers hatar kvinnor just because they have no problem objectifying them. Still, objectification is disrespectful, a diminishment of one sex for the gratification of the other… but a form of disrespect so imbued that it’s almost more incomprehensible to picture a world without it.
Take a Picture, It’ll Last Longer
I get asked about this. Not as often as I get asked about violence in videogames, but I do get asked a fair amount – “do you think games are sexist?” Or some variant. Do they objectify women? Do they victimize women? Do they portray women only as sexual objects? In a word, yeah, they do. Not all of them, of course, but more than a share. Chief among these complaints is the objectification thing, because it’s most obvious.
And even the innocent are guilty. The most liberal, equality-minded men in the world are still human beings. Speaking personally, I would never, never fail to offer a woman the exact same salary and responsibilities as a man. I can’t even fathom a situation in which a woman is less qualified or capable than a man (even peeing standing up), or less worthy of the same recompense. But I prefer Samus in the Zero Suit to Samus in her yellow armor. Now, that latter may be simply because absurdly huge shoulder spheres and day-glo costume colors bother me, but the point’s the point (this article doesn’t really have one, BTW, so if you’re looking for a point please go away). Does this make me a pig? I hope not. I’d hate to think that getting the Not A Pig trophy means I can’t appreciate the Zero Suit. But it’s objectifying: it doesn’t leave much to the imagination and I see that it must be pretty uncomfortable to wear, like high heels, though I think it’s probably practical when she’s always popping into that armor. It would be a big pain if she had to change out of jeans and a sweater every time she needed to suit up to fight some Metroids, though I was relieved to see that the upcoming Other M suggests that Samus’s closet does in fact contain more than just the Zero Suit and her power armor. Neither would be really appropriate at a casual gathering, or in the workplace. Of course, I’ve always had a little crush on Samus Aran, so maybe she’s not the best example.
I remember during a Christmas visit my brother Marcus and I had installed Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and were playing happily away. His wife came in to see what we were up to at the exact moment what’s-her-name, Slutrella or something like that, put in an appearance. “Oh, that’s nice,” said G.G. Which is probably the kindest thing a woman could say about Slutrella’s outfit and demeanor. Unlike the Zero Suit, there’s simply no practical reason for her to dress that way – it offers no protection, it looks uncomfortable as hell, it rains where she lives, and she works with guys who almost certainly behave like Leigh Alexander’s wolf-whistlers. I wanted to spring to gaming’s defense, but in that instance I really had no leg to stand on. If G had come in at any other moment I might have been able to sway her, but as it was I simply felt childish and ashamed. This was the game’s fault, mind, not G.G.’s – she does not make people feel childish or ashamed. She just calls ’em like she sees ’em.
I faced a different sort of dilemma when considering the way women dressed in Final Fantasy XIII. Obviously, this series has long been a staple for character designers to put in really weird anime-inspired outfits, even back when the polygons were blocky. And though this may be my first FF game since the first, I’m hardly unaware of the franchise, and even know the basics of some of the main characters from each installment.
I believe in an earlier post somewhere I said that I wouldn’t let my daughter dress the way the female leads do in Final Fantasy XIII. That’s assuming that my (hypothetical) daughter is of an age where what I tell her she can and cannot do has any impact on her decisions, though in anime protagonist ages usually fall into that category. Anyway, the girls in the game dress… revealingly. Not as bad as Slutrella, but still. They were designed by a man, animated (mostly) by men, had their concept art and poses done (I assume) by men, and they are not ungenerous with the assets they show off. The dudes cover up a lot more, even the dude I spent half the game mistaking for a chick.
Let’s take a look at Lightning, FFXIII’s central character. She’s by far the least of the offenders, but I like her, because she’s tough and doesn’t take any crap and her bitchy, tormented attitude sits well with me. And since I like her I use her as my party leader all the time, and so I think of her as the face (and body) of FFXIII. She’s also the only one of the three lead girls I find particularly attractive, if imaginary pink-haired anime girls can qualify:
My first reaction when I got a look at Lightning was “that’s really a lot of buckles to buckle every morning.” I am not the first to have commented upon the abundance of buckles in Final Fantasy games, but there you have it. My second reaction was that her outfit might look nice in a video game, but probably couldn’t be carried off in real life. My third reaction was that her skirt was awfully short for someone who spends a lot of time flipping around and running on walls and stuff. Turns out, though, she wears these kind of spandex shorts things underneath so her modesty, such as it is, remains protected.
As I played along through the game I spent a lot of time thinking about how Lightning dressed, and how it just didn’t seem like a great thing to be wearing when you’re trying to save the world. Eventually I thought to myself, “Steerpike, if you were a girl, and you had a body like that, you might dress that way too. After all, if you look that good in a buckle outfit, wouldn’t you want to show off?”
That logic held for a while – Lightning’s just self-assured and doesn’t mind showing off the fact that she’s in great shape. But then I realized that first off, Lightning is not self-assured (not a subject for this post, but I’ll get there one day). And I started thinking about the specifics of saving the world, and how it involved fighting a lot of things with claws and/or guns, and even some things that could dissolve you. Within two hours of setting off on her world-saving, Lightning’s legs would be so covered with burns, bruises, scratches and holes that they’d resemble a head cheese. Her white coat would be scorched and shredded and stained with her blood. So much for kicking ass and looking hot while doing it. She’s not even wearing knee pads, for crying out loud. I don’t care if they’re unflattering, if I’m going to save the world I’m bringing some freakin’ knee pads.
But enough of this. The important issue here isn’t one of objectification. It exists, for better or worse, and it’s not going anywhere, despite the fact that we might wish it would. A girlfriend once asked me why guys never get sick of staring at breasts or legs or necks or collarbones. The answer is: geometry. Staring is rude, but sometimes it’s hard to look away from really good geometry. That’s not a defense of the objectification of women as objects in games, just a feeble explanation of it.
A Veritable Pinata of Damsels and Distress
As I said, I get asked a fair amount about the objectification of women in games. But that question is maybe a bit off. The more important issue isn’t objectification. Let’s talk instead about a question I’m almost never asked: “do videogames allow women characters to reach their potential?” No, no they do not. After all, how many games are about rescuing women? Or pummeling the guys who hurt them?
From a certain perspective, this is okay. After all, rescuing a woman or beating up some dude who hurt or killed her is sort of glamorizing the battle against victimization. The problem lies in the fact that in order to argue against victimization, you need to have victimization in the first place. There is an implicit suggestion there that women are helpless – or, more specifically, that they require male help. Män still don’t hattar kvinnor based on this, but it’s interesting that we still see so much of it in video games.
The Girl from Double Dragon was probably wise not to mace that asshole and run for it when they came to kidnap her – after all, Willy’s in the back with an assault rifle. Dude’d smoke her like a Christmas ham. Sometimes it’s safer to go quietly and hope for the best, which in the case of Double Dragon would be identical twin brothers coming to the rescue, then one beating the other to death so he could “have” her. So the Double Dragon girl is kind of between a rock and a hard place.
What about Princess Peach, though? Has it honestly never occurred to her that a rape whistle and a few Tae-Bo classes might make Bowser leave her alone for good? Bowser is a turtle. He’s a turtle. How tough can he be? If Peach delivered one good kick to wherever turtles keep their gonads, she might be able to relax and get some pipe laid with Mario rather than getting kidnapped every other Tuesday.
Then there’s Braid, a game that turns those rescue scenarios on their ear. In this case we’ve got a woman who isn’t looking to be rescued – a woman who left, because her relationship wasn’t working. That protagonist Tim has embarked on his metaphysical journey to “rescue” her, based on his own revelation that he was a crappy boyfriend, illuminates the blinders of ignorance in which anachronistic chivalry is often couched. Tim struggles to rescue a princess who doesn’t want to be rescued, and at the end we discover that Tim himself is the very “monster” he’s been trying to rescue the princess from.
A lot of people obviously didn’t understand Braid. The plot requires an IQ above double digits to fully appreciate, and the game is really hard. Creator Jon Blow has said he meant Braid as an indictment of many things he considers stalled within the games industry right now, and while I’m not sure that damsel-rescuing is one of them, it certainly seems likely. In many ways this hearkens back to Activision’s apparent “no girl protagonists” position: the stalwart indie developer struggles mightily to move games beyond the lunkheaded me-Tarzan-you-Jane juvenilism, while the monster company that actually has the resources to produce many more innovative games stalwartly refuses to even consider it. Le sigh.
So do so many games involve rescuing or avenging women because developers hate them? No, I don’t think so. First, that plot device has been around for a long time and it’s got its start in literature that far pre-dates the video game. More important, though, is that it’s an easy concept to communicate, and one that’s likely to raise the hackles of most societally normal people, male or female. When what’s-his-name sucker punches The Girl in the opening of Double Dragon, it’s still somewhat shocking to this day. Earlier still, it was simple enough to put a pink bow on a yellow block and call it a “girl,” then have it carried off by a large grouping of green blocks that vaguely resembled a dragon. With videogames it’s important to remember that technology plays a role in storytelling, so back in the day designers had to make do with simple storylines they could tell with a minimum of technical fuss. Of course, the fact that we’re miles past that technologically now means that it’s probably time for designers to begin experimenting with more subtle and sophisticated narrative tools, which to a small degree they are doing. Activision refusing to allow female protagonists in its games, alas, is something of a backward blunder. Perhaps Activision hatars kvinnor, or at least what it believes kvinnor do to its bottom line.
I’m really tired of complaining about Activision – the company’s like a comic book villain by this point – but there’s something deeply troubling about the implication that games starring women do not (at least, in the eyes of one publisher) sell great numbers. In a world where much of the industry is clamoring for more innovation in theme, narrative, style, gameplay, mechanics and so forth, that something so simple and obvious as gender equality be ignored is upsetting. Of course it happens all the time in all media, but that doesn’t make it okay to be happening in mine.
Respective Venusian and Martian Return Addresses
For the hat trick, Leigh Alexander wrote a fascinating piece at Kotaku about how she plays differently when she’s playing as a female character. Using the PSP remake of Persona 3 as her basis – a JRPG in which the only available protag was a dude until this remake – Leigh commented thoughtfully on how she found herself making different decisions in the same situations, because of an almost innate or instinctive sense of how to behave as a woman versus a man. Such behavior might be part of the cultural tableaux, almost biological at this point. Look what Leigh has to say about it:
The formation of relationships is directly correlated to a gain in power, so interacting with your classmates in the game’s hip high school setting becomes less about making friends and “being yourself” as it is about telling people what they most wanted to hear in order to gain their confidence.
I liked that subtly sinister way of behaving in the game when I played as a male. But it makes the social interactions of Persona 3 Portable inherently more complicated when I’m a female playing as a female. Swap the gender and suddenly my ideas of who I’d like my character to be – aloof, clever and a little dark, as my Persona 3 male character was – collide with my own knee-jerk reflex to conform to the sort of social expectations women are often told they should fulfill in order to be likeable.
Persona is an especially rich field for study. The third installment of the popular Japanese import includes some pretty stirring (and difficult to watch, if you’re sensitive) reflections on teen suicide and what it means to truly sacrifice for friendship and things you believe in. That Alexander – a huge admirer of the game – would find herself experiencing it so differently simply because she was a woman playing as a woman is really interesting. Unfortunately the Kotaku readership isn’t exactly the most nuanced in the world and she’s taken some unfair flak for an article that I at least found to be both enlightening and courageous.
Leigh has always made a point to not include her gender in her video game journalism. When she talks about it, it’s hesitantly; she’s stated right out that she’s not interested in being The Woman Who Games, she’s just a gamer and her gender has little bearing. I respect that position, though since she’s one of only a few female game journalists out there, and I often find it frustrating when I’m looking for a woman’s perspective on this or that. Since she’s one of the journalists I admire most I’d much prefer her feminine perspective than that of many others. And being a dude, I am uniquely unqualified to produce a female opinion myself.
With companies such as Bioware and Quantic Dream clumsily exploring sexual relationships in titles like Dragon Age and Heavy Rain, we are seeing some expansion in that area. But a lot of it – even Bioware’s and Quantic’s stuff – smacks a little bit of män som hatar kvinnor. Heavy Rain was brimming with undertones of violence against women, and those women who were not victimized through the course of the game were typically presented as either ineffectual punching bags for their husbands or as prostitutes. Bioware, try as it might, can’t seem to treat women with much respect in its games, from slutty Morrigan and Miranda Lawson to God-crazy Leliana. I know that Bioware really thinks its knocking itself out of the park in terms of showing off adult relationships in games, but to me their stuff usually comes off as trite and sleazy.
If you look at roleplaying as a punnet square, you’ve basically got four options: male players as male or female avatars, and female players as male or female avatars. Most of the games I can think of in which I’ve played a female, gender doesn’t enter into the equation that much: I tend to play a dude when the option is presented in RPGs, and in games like Mirror’s Edge the protagonist’s gender is well-presented but relegated to second place by the gameplay. Next time I start a new RPG I’ll try to play a woman and actually behave differently than I normally do, to see if I can experience in reverse what Leigh Alexander described in her Kotaku article.
I like games. I like the idea that games can be serious, important, meaningful. Nine times out of ten, as far as I’m concerned, relationships are what allow games to be those things. In order to fully realize what the medium is capable of it’s important to develop the most three-dimensional characters possible, male and female. And while I have only a moderate understanding of the history and theory of women’s issues, women’s studies, I think there’s a need for them, particularly in a medium like gaming. It’s one initially dominated by men, viewed as socially clumsy, and still often puerile – that means boyish; even our scholar-speak is sexist – despite attempts both misguided and genuine to see it improve.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about men who hate women. It’s neither as violent as some movies that victimize women, nor as cruel; the reason the film and novel are so brutal is that these men who hate women are so bluntly portrayed, without apologies. They are men who hate women, and moreover, they act out their hatred in terrible ways. It doesn’t shirk or shrink from presenting this, it makes no excuses, but neither does it revel in it.
It’s possible to see demeaning attitudes, objectification, and even victimization in everything if you look too hard. There’s such a thing as missing the forest for the trees. For every woman in gaming that’s presented as nothing but rescue fodder or eye candy, some developer somewhere is trying (although probably without success, if owned by Activision) to create a female character whose sexiness comes as much from the beauty of her strength and intelligence as it does from her body. For those who are quick to condemn gamers as nothing more than män som hatar kvinnor, they are doing a disservice to the medium as well as those who create and consume it. Sure, there’s plenty of distance left to go, but as a fan of the Zero Suit I think it’s important that we stop and take stock along the way, so as not to wander too far down a self-abnegating path of overcorrectness.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
How good were the original Star Wars movies? Princess Leia was a great character, and never seemed to me to be objectified (well, at least until Return of the Jedi – but even then, she was objectified by one of the film’s antagonists – so the sub-text there was that it was something bad guys did).
She was strong, confident, and witty, and I would have thought, a paragon of a heroine. Yes, she was trapped by Vader at the start, but I always felt that Vader got more than he bargained for, and that Leia would have held her own regardless of being rescued.
In fact, despite the prospect of being captured, she didn’t get Artoo to find help. She diligently programmed Artoo to find Obi Wan, and to get the droid to the Rebels so that they could destroy the Death Star – again, a selfless, heroic goal displaying her core strength.
My favourite sci-fi author, Iain M Banks, often has female protagonists, and his vision of the future (amongst the Culture) is very liberal and equal. In his books, some of the best Special Circumstances agents are female – not because they flaunt their sexuality to bring men to their knees, but because they have usually care enough about events to act, and courageously so.
This is a long one… I’ll take notes:
-Hate it when my partner takes a minute to look at a game screen when I’m playing, and it just happens to be the overly sexualized female “love” interest doing something silly like the PoP game you were describing. I too feel childish at those times.
-“even the dude I spent half the game mistaking for a chick.” Hah hah! Ahh, FF games…
-“identical twin brothers coming to the rescue, then one beating the other to death so he could ‘have’ her.” I haven’t played this game since I was a kid and never really knew what the hell was happening at the end.. now that you sort of explain it to my adult self it was kind of mind blowing. How many times did I play through that ending?
-“from slutty Morrigan and Miranda Lawson to God-crazy Leliana.” And there is the game I was thinking about when writing my first comment..
-“Next time I start a new RPG I’ll try to play a woman and actually behave differently than I normally do…” As a “straight dude” I can say this can be a rich and rewarding experience (maybe in Fallout.. : )
Great read Matt. Really enjoyed it!
I totally get you on the Dragon Age stuff. I enjoyed the game a lot, but the main two females were advertised as being modeled after super-models. I think that in itself is pretty telling about how the game developers felt about the role of those characters.
I would also add that for me, the best female lead in a major video game thus far was in “Beyond Good and Evil.” Too bad the game didn’t sell more.
Sorry for long response, but really enjoyed the article.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I did read all three books in the series. Stieg Larsson is a pretty solid writer, shame that he passed on so early in life. Has anybody kept track of the embarrassing battle being waged between his various heirs currently? I swear, throw in a tidy sum of money and people just go bonkers to get “some of that swag”
I’m about 30 minutes from finishing the novel (actually listening to it via Audible). It was so compelling, made me wish for rush-hour traffic just so I could sit in my car and listen longer. 🙂
I’m planning on watching the film this weekend. Right now it’s still playing at an art theater in town…I might just sneak out and see it up on the big screen tonight.
Great column, Matt. Really fantastic stuff.
It’s pretty clear that video games, like most things that (rightly or wrongly) are trageted at adolescent males (comic books, fantasy novels, etc.) tend to depict women in an over-sexualized way. The majority of women in these media are knock-outs, with killer bodies who wear incredibly revealing, yet highly impractical, outfits.
I think there is some progress trying to be made by some folks, but I don’t ever see it going away, and the progress is pretty limited.
It would be nice to see more female characters in video games that weren’t objectifed so much, but still were able to maintain their identity as a woman. While my memory is a bit foggy, I always thought that “Alex” from Half-Life 2 was a pretty good example. Sure, she’s attractive and wears tight pants (I think), but I never got the sense that she was some sort of sex object. She was smart, compotent, and had a kick-ass robot.
I think there are a couple of other examples (such as, say, Wynne from “Dragon Age: Origins”, the dwarf/thief from “Awakenings” and I would even say the blue alien girl and Ashley (The Pink Ranger) from the first “Mass Effect” game aren’t horrible examples of decent female characters either) of female characters in video games who are women, but not sex objects, but they appear to continue to be the exception and not the norm.
The princess was my favorite character in Mario Brothers 2. She could pretty much fly over all of the stuff that would have forced me to learn a bit of timing with the other characters. She’s also fully clothed. I’m having trouble thinking of any other games that defy the usual stereotypes though.
Ajax is right, Alyx Vance from Half Life 2 is a very good female character. She also has some depth – not as much as I’d like, but more than most. I think the tight jeans are more a factor of how hard it is to realistically model flappy clothes than her showing off. Though she needs knee pads. What is it with trying to save the world without proper knee and elbow protection?
I haven’t gotten through the entire article yet. Some good points, but the first couple of paragraphs really don’t work. Yes, we’ve all noticed sexism in the gamer community, but you’ve really got no data points to make any reasonable conclusion about why. How is the gamer community different (or similar?) to the sports community for instance? Do you even have anything to indicate that sexism and misogyny is more prevalent in the gamer community than elsewhere? Gamers hating women because they’re afraid of them IRL seems to me too easy a prejudice to hold. Surely a lot of this hate has deeper roots than some guy getting turned down for the dance x years ago?
If you don’t have any data, sometimes it’s better not to try to come up with a “story” you can hang everything on. Some things can just be facts without having to know why.
I don’t think this is irrelevant. If it is irrelevant, then shut up already and don’t perpetuate some stupid stereotype that tells us nothing about the issue, except that people are also prejudiced against gamers.
With all due respect ix, shouldn’t you finish the article first, before complaining about what it does and doesn’t have?
Ix, I wasn’t trying to present a scholarly thesis, but a reflection on the issues of female portrayal in a medium. I made a point to say that there’s objectification and unequal treatment in many media, entertainment, and life itself. I’m sure we can all agree that there is a “gamer stereotype” out there. There’s also a “frat boy” stereotype, a “US Marine” stereotype, and many others. The very point I was trying to make was that hatred of women is not implicit in the gamer stereotype.
That said, I feel gaming is an escapist entertainment. And I think some people like the idea of escaping into a game – where they’re much more likely to “get the girl.” Men who are awkward around women are a dime a dozen; they don’t hate them. At most these men come to resent the fact that they can’t seem to say the right thing when confronted by a woman… they don’t come to hate the gender.
What I thought I made clear in the article but didn’t state explicitly was a more simple concept: I love Samus in the Zero Suit (who wouldn’t?) but much more than the Zero Suit, I’d like to know who she is.
One thing that just struck me…
I know there are arguments on both sides of the fence as to the impact of violence in video games. Some think that video game violence desensitizes people to violence and, thus, makes people who play these games more likely to commit violence in real life. Or some similar theory. Others, like most folks here, however, believe that is hooey and that there is a substantial difference between video game violence and real violence and well adjusted folks know the difference very well and that playing violent video games will not, in fact, make you more violent.
Would the same logic not apply to sexism in video games? Wouldn’t most people know the difference between video game characters and real people? Just because I see some woman clad in ridiculously scanty clothes in a video game shouldn’t mean that my view of real life women is impacted. I know the difference. Same thing goes for comic books. I know the difference.
I don’t think this particularly well articulated, but I don’t have too much more time. I have to get up at 4 am to catch a flight. If I had gone to bed by 4 am last week, I would have considered that “early.” Oh dear…
Isn’t (or wasn’t?) Samus being a cipher in the first kinda the point of why she worked as a character? Though now I think I about it, I offered the reveal as a strong female lead because it forced an instant reevaluation of the gameplay. You correctly called me on forgetting how sexualized it was.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t even try to explain why these men hate women.”
They hate them because everyone has to be a target for the solipsistically split pair of leads. It glorifies a world where all men hate women, rather than their hating. Is that different?
I’d happily galumphed along until that realization: I’m reading the sexualized power fantasy of an bitter, paranoid, aging Swedish man. The idea of damaging a book–any book–spikes panic and horror but I opened my hands and let it fall to the floor.
It’s still there, though that’s because of my atrocious housekeeping.
Straw Dogs and Barry Malzberg are favorites so sex, violence, sexualized violence, and soul crushing bleakness, not inherently a problem. I’m a member of MOA (Misanthropes of America, ten thousand chapters with one member each!)
“if I’m going to save the world I’m bringing some freakin’ knee pads.”
Too many jokes. Must think about Robert’s Rules of Order until the cortex unjams.
Responding to Ajax19: I think the difference in video game violence and video games using imagery of women as an exploitative element is that the target audience: generally young men, already have a tendency of treating women poorly. Where as most gamers aren’t going on mass killing sprees in real life like we see in so many video games, plenty of (male) gamers view women as objects. The situation may be slowly getting better, be we still have a long ways to go before any real gender equality exists in our culture. Representing women as nothing more then sex symbols meant to be possessed or enjoyed by the player only helps reinforce the idea in too many gamers’ minds.
Which is not to say that women can’t be sexy or have the right/ability to express themselves sexually. But empowering womens’ sexuality and exploiting it are two different things. You wouldn’t want to play a game that reinforces racial stereotypes such as the various mods put out by white supremest groups of FPS style games, but it’s ok to play a game where women are treated no better then objects.
I don’t think most guys understand what women go through. It’s easy to say it’s just a game, but it actually effects real people. It’s not going to make respectful guys turn into pigs, but it sure helps reinforce the pigish guys mentality and social acceptance.
First of all Steerpike, let me tell you how much I admire you for posting this review. You have given this some thought (which you always do) and you have stuck your neck out.
Now I will cut it off.
Steerpike said……………about the movie………
>> It was pretty brutal – not quite as brutal as the book,>>
As my father who had a great feeling for the Englisn language would say…………..”Bullshit.”
I know a lot of women who have read the book and seen the movie. Everyone single woman I know had much more trouble seeing the images than reading about. I know no one who wants to see the next film.
The descriptions in book were BAD ENOUGH. But the images in the movie were very difficult for all these women to handle.
I am the only one who thought that showing these scenes had a value.
I thought it was of value to show this since
this violence is something that continues to happen to women.
And I thought what she did to the guy who was in charge of her life was something men should see so they could see what it was like to be powerless and sexually abused.
Well, the second movie is now here. And I have read the second book. I may try to see the next movie this weekend.
Kay
I only skimmed your review, Steerpike (I promise I’ll dissect it when I’ve got a bit more time.), but I read 2 of the 3 books and will soon read the 3rd. The movies will come later.
Salander is a woman who has been horribly mistreated by society, and by men. I’m nonviolent in theory, and not a man basher as a matter of course. And I’ve met my share of women who should be drummed out of the human race. Any revenge, payback, comfort or closure Salander gets through her actions is fine with me – although I don’t see her as a comfort/closure sort of person. Nothing will cure the damage, but sometimes revenge can bring its own peace.
Steerpike is an excellent human being, and a far above average man. He could give lessons in both. As always, his writing is a joy (subject sometimes excluded) to read. No hyperbole, but what I know.
There’s a lot in this article, probably the least important being The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, (a mediocre trilogy that seems to have spawned an even more mediocre series of movies, esp. if the first one is any indication) but what jumps out at me is Steerpike’s assertion that relationships within games are what make for a quality experience. I’d say this is a pretty astute point.
Relationships are about gaining and giving power. I think we tend to concentrate on gaining power when we are younger and only later discover that giving power to another can be even more potent. Everyone seems to agree that game developers aim their product at young men, age whatever to age whatever.
Since I can speak from experience I will.
Subtle balancing of power in a healthy relationship isn’t something a lot of young men understand, much less desire. That comes later when surface qualities become less important. So do devs create the iconic sexpot female because they think that is what young male gamers want or are young male gamers taught by games (among other things) that that is want real men are supposed to want? And I’m not saying ALL young male gamers are this way. This site alone is a pretty good argument against that. Still I see staggering disrespect by men against women everyday. Racism is often hidden these days but open sexism still seems acceptable.
To Scout: yup, but it’s been a bee in my bonnet and I finally had a chance to let it out and sting other people. My scalp is nothing but welts.
Racism is deeply baked into video games and rarely examined. One could be charitable and claim the eight races in a game are Freudian (or whatever) psyche splits but in reality mostly they’re racial & ethnic cliches used as differentiators for game mechanics.
I’ve been replaying MOO2, and what is the name of the race (use of that word is problematic) with all the starting economic bonuses? Gnolam. What is their graphic? A squat humanoid with a big nose and an outstretched hand.
Ouch.
Switching gears a bit, I own two twenty-year old self-produced albums with their singers drawn as elfin. I’ve been in writers’ groups where women kept showing up with Mary Sue stories about same. Fan art often mines this vein. World of Warcraft cannily appropriated the imagery.
As a dumb boy I don’t dare guess why it sticks but hope a smart gamer girl explains.
A vividly described bonnet beeing however. Nothing more fun than Finkbug on a critical rampage.
Well, as usual Steerpike, an exceptional article. If I had to choose one injustice that irks me the most in my life it is inequality of the sexes. I consider myself an avid feminist (please, before you flame the hell out of me, understand what this word means- and yes, men can be feminists) because I see inequality happening every day, everywhere around me, all the time. Often, the women who are victims of sexism don’t notice or don’t care; this is alright, I still carry on for them (even if they do not know or care- their grandkids might some day).
Sexism in gaming is particularly disappointing to me since it is my preferred medium to sink time and thought into. I don’t know how we can fix this problem. Most times I feel helpless. I think we need to attract more women into game development- writing, art, modelling (perhaps we’ll get a female protagonist with B-cup breasts one day), any and all aspects of the creation of games. More women! There are rarities, like your Jades and your April Ryans, and to a lesser extent your Samus Arans, but so many more like Bayonetta: librarian glasses, tight leather suit which is completely impractical for the task at hand, and huge knockers.
I also like that you bring up the “princess” from Braid; bloody brilliant ending. I love when Tim discovers he is “the monster,” and his princess isn’t in need of rescue, she’s in need of flight: from him. It’s true that you might need an IQ of 3 digits to understand all the complexities of this game. I love how it was toted as a “puzzle platformer.” I would put Braid in the genre of “emotional brain/heart puzzler.” I recently saw Braid on a “most overrated games” list on PC World. Frak you, PC World. Give back the oxygen you stole.
Another thing your article has done for me, when you mentioned Bioware specifically, is bring to the fore of my mind what has personally been probably the most forward-thinking game I’ve played in terms of viewing women, and do you know what it was? Mass Effect. Wait, before you laugh, excuse me while I do– ahahahaha, ahem– no no, it has nothing to do with the writing in Mass Effect. It’s all me: it has everything to do with the fact that I’m one of the four people who dared defy the box cover art and played the game as a goddamn woman. That’s right, Commander Shepard, a woman! Oh, and that’s Ms. Shepard, to you. She doesn’t have time for a fucking man (R.I.P. Lt. Alenko), but if she did her name would still be Rachael Shepard (yes, that’s named for Sean Young in Blade Runner). She’s got wits, veracity, tenacity, aplomb- have I missed any brilliant qualities that a woman needs to save the galaxy? No? I’ll carry on then. Commander Shepard is also African-Canadian (that’s right, she’s from Medicine Hat, AB). Oh, and did I mention that she shaved her head? Ellen Ripley style. Sorry, boys, Cmdr. Shepard has no time to appease your senses, she’s got a bloody job to do, and hair just gets in the way. Yes, she fashions herself a half-Ripley, half-Deckard type woman. Strong, but thoughtful. Decisive, yet calm. Passionate, though clear-minded. She takes swift action when it’s called for. She’s an excellent listener. She’s a rational human being and a skeptic, but that doesn’t mean she dismisses her crew’s beliefs as puerile (*cough* Ashley *cough*). She’ll take you out for a drink, but she’s buying her own. Last but not least, she makes the tough decisions and isn’t afraid to call out the “old boys club” when they’re being idiots.
It actually makes complete, total sense to me why I think Mass Effect is so great and beat it 7 times while the (critical) world at large remains unimpressed: I just love my version of the protagonist so much that it’s actually enhanced my experience tenfold.
Well then…..as you can see, I’m not into escapism at all!
“Oh, and did I mention that she shaved her head? Ellen Ripley style. ”
Color me unimpressed if symbolically removing a cultural element of femininity is part of creating a strong female character. That’s thin broth. ZOMG! She’s wearing pants!
Max “xtal” Boone: Just wanted to chime in saying that yes, I’m a guy who’s ok being labeled a feminist, and I too played Mass Effect with a female Shepard. Well, one out of two plays anyway : )
Kay, it’s interesting how people react differently to different things. Film is visual while prose is… imaginary, I guess. For me, the pages and pages of description were worse than those (definitely brutal) scenes of violence.
Like you, I thought showing the scenes had value. I didn’t feel there was anything sensationalistic about TGWTDT; those scenes were part of establishing Salander as a character – much like Spike commented on.
Race in games is almost never discussed. Sexism is a much more common topic. And the two together is even pricklier. In general we rarely see minority protagonists. But to me it’s all about the characters, who they are, and how I interact with them. I keep going back to Samus because she’s been a cipher for so long, and because the revelation that she’s a woman at all took an entire game to unfold. I see less point in games whose characters are nothing more than 2D cutouts to tape over yourself as you play.
That said, I’m not sure I would have chosen Team Ninja to further flesh out Samus’s backstory. That’s a little like having Maxim magazine publish a thoughtful series Shakespeare’s romances.
Wait, so if a woman shaves her head she’s removing a cultural part of her femininity? But I can do it and that’s okay?
1. Women in the army and such shave their heads like men do: it’s practicality.
2. I don’t subscribe to cultural rules being the default way to live life. The same way I have no obligation to respect someone’s irrational belief in invisible pink unicorns because it may offend them.
So yes, that statement was me saying that the character I created was not afraid to shed her “cultural background” in exchange for being adept at her job.
I started writing a comment for this yesterday but thought I’d stew on it a bit because I’m slow like that.
The biggest issue is that as gaming has grown and become more diverse the ‘palette’ of representation hasn’t. We’re still seeing the same tired cliches over and over again so there’s no wonder Max relished the chance to shake up Mass Effect. I haven’t played it due to the usual distinct lack of time but if I do, can I use your character Max? 😉
I’m not sure whether this representation problem lies with the developers (designers, writers, artists etc.) or the publishers forcing their hand to use the same tried and tested formula for characters so they don’t ‘alienate’ their intended audiences. When I showed my younger (male) cousin Beyond Good and Evil he wasn’t pleased to be playing Jade, which really startled me. He said something along the lines of ‘I don’t want to play as a woman’. He’s young and immature so his perspective should hardly be taken that seriously but it makes me wonder if there genuinely are ‘grown ups’ out there that behave in the same way if they’re presented with a character that doesn’t fit their ethnicity/gender/sexuality.
Anyway, why should we expect games to change? As much as people don’t like lumping gaming and movies together they’re both visual media and that’s primarily the defining point of this article: the way that women are visually depicted. Movies have just as many square jawed man muscle protags and curvy minxtresses today as games do and considering they’re apparently a more developed form of art/entertainment I wouldn’t feel too bad about our own popular equivalents having similar stereotypical tendencies. I think Valve have pushed the envelope the most in this regard though, with two playable characters of colour in L4D2, one of which is female. Alyx has always been a great understated and natural character and ‘Chell’ in Portal was a nice surprise. I think Alyx and Chell are both women of colour as well. I’m just waiting for TF2 to have a few women in it. The Demo being Scottish always raises a smile; Scots are massively underrepresented in games. One eyed Scots especially.
I’ve only ever played a few games with hyper sexualised female characters in, Dark Messiah and Vampire: Bloodlines being the main two. The former of which had the worst femme fatale I’ve ever witnessed (Matt you know who I mean). Whenever I encounter something questionably puerile or embarrassing I make a point of showing my girlfriend. It’s a sort of a cathartic defense mechanism. I remember showing her the boob physics wobble on the character creation screen of Vampire: Bloodlines and we were furrowing in unison as I spun the character model around – I’m waiting for the day men get gratuitous cock physics.
And what about the God of War sex scenes? I’m not a fan of the games and know that God of War is one giant male power fantasy but, well, they’re horrific.
Oh yeah and thanks Matt, interesting read!
Kaythomas: “I know a lot of women who have read the book and seen the movie. Everyone single woman I know had much more trouble seeing the images than reading about. I know no one who wants to see the next film. ”
I am a woman. I’ve seen Män som hatar kvinnor, and I wanted and did see the next film also. I wasn’t particularly disturbed by depictions of sexual violence in the film. So perhaps we’re not all oh-so-delicate as you seem to suggest?
Excellent article, Steerpike. When I was young in the 80’s, girls in my part of the world weren’t supposed to be enjoying computer games. It was something my sister and me had to do in secret to avoid scorn from both girls and boys. We knew no other girls who enjoyed games, and we didn’t even realise back then that most games were made exclusively for boys. We automatically assumed that heroes must be males, a habit that continued when we discovered role-playing games a few years later.
Now, things have changed and plenty of women enjoy gaming openly, but game developers seem to be slow in grasping the fact. I loved Dragon Age, but the points you raised bothered me nevertheless, and seeing Morrigan in that silly outfit was silly and stupid; it immediately sent the message that this game is not designed for me. Same with Bayonetta and the rest. Why would I want to buy the game where the obvious attraction (and often the only reason to buy the thing at all) is the prominent display of a big pair of boobs in an uncomfortable-looking outfit? Sex and sexuality in games is fine, cheap and unrealistic objectification just for the sake of male teenage thrills is not.
Excellent article, Matt, insightful and thought-provoking. Keep looking out for the females. I can see that you are a committed feminist (which means you support gender equality for you guys who are using the term in a patronizing and superior way). Maybe we should change the term to ‘equalist’ and why do we even need a word for something that should be intuitive? You are indeed an excellent human being. Love your columns.
I got so caught up in the feminist issue that I forgot the point I really wanted to make which is total agreement that if this movie were to be developed as a video game, the critics would be screaming; but the book and the movie are readily available in all media outlets.
I am a woman who has been gaming for years. I always play as a woman when given the choice, but it doesn’t bother me to play as a man.
It bothers me more that woman characters, playable or not, are all portrayed as youthful and beautiful. I want to play as a fat chick. Or an old lady. Fat chicks and old ladies can still kick ass. Just ask my children. I would posit that fat and/or old ladies are actually better than most at ass-kicking due to the power of bulk and/or a lifetime of experience. Only in real life, though, sigh, not in video games. Probably because the men who design them are afraid of us!
Jen, go back to the gallery and check Nana Bluepencil’s bio. She post menopause rocked City of Heroes.