Female And Male Representation In Videogames

[neoglow]

Possibly a good discussion topic and primarily a chance for me to collect other peoples views for an essay question that I have been given.

I study Communication Design at Portsmouth University, here's the question as it was written...

"Focussing on a selected game, make an analysis of the representation of male or female identity that the narritive presents. Situate this within debates around realism and stereotypes in computer games culture"

Initial thoughts everyone and we're see where it goes!

All replies are much appreciated. M.

[Darwock]

Parappa the Rapper would be a good case study for this.

[chevkoch]

What title did you pick?

To make it more intriguing perhaps you should choose something other than an obvious Tomb Raider or Duke Nukem.

Also what strikes me as interesting might be a look into what stereotypes themselves are derived from in reality and how these come to be in the first place (plus how these are modified by e.g. different regional and cultural influences).

Generally, I think stereotyping protagonists in video games is often done eying the target consumer group's demands (or what devcos/producers assume these might be). Interesting subject.

[electric_warrior]

In RPG's, women are typically weak and the male is always dominant and trying to hit on with the girl. Well, in the RPG's i've played anyhow

[Ian(not Ian)]

If you haven't chosen which game you're going to write about I'd suggest FF7. Blokies and 'wimming aplenty, all with different traits and agendas. And.....You could also write about wasted lives.

[Firsty]

Space Channel 5 tbh

[neoglow]

Thanks everyone so far, it all helps.

The most obvious and 'too-easy' representation to do is the curvy, girl-power kinda gal and the tough but charming guy who saves humanity. Probably the first title that came to mind was Ico (maybe cos I was playing it earlier in the week) but also the scenario it creates,

Quote "A cursed boy, lost in a place of shadows. A young girl, consumed by sorrow and loneliness. Together they must find a way to escape".

The interesting angle of this game see's a scared youny boy struggling to guide Yorda away from the darkness into the light, to save Yorda you must call her or hold her hand to safety, its possible this forced leadership gives the male dominance, however, to continue through the game you need Yorda to open doors and progress, therefore their dominance is equal. Ico takes you to the door, Yorda takes you through it.

Maybe Im looking too deep but Yorda is taller in height than Ico, does this mean she is older?..an older girl guided by a younger boy. Reference's there to parenting etc...?.

M.

[dreamylittledream]

Hmmm if you want to twist the sterotypes how about looking at Jade in Beyond Good and Evil. Not only is she far from the archetypal 'girl in videogame' but

her mysterious power that is only hinted at by the end of the game

is interesting[/quote]

[James Harvey]

Another interesting case study would be Zelda: The Wind Waker, in the way that they cleverly subvert the roles that Princess Zelda and Link usually have to forfill in these games, and then how halfway through the roles revert back to normal. You need to play it really, I don't want to give anything away

The flip side of this would be the Mario games... In the Mario games, or at least all the major ones, the Princess is there to get kidnapped, and that's the ONLY role she plays. I think this is supposed to be a postmodern comment on videogame sexism. At least I hope it is, because if it isn't then it's hideous!

[E. Randy Dupre]

I dunno. I think the Mario/Peach thing has only been a bit of a piss-take in a couple of the recent games - Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi.

Back to FFVII for a minute, there's probably value in looking at Aeris and how (male, heterosexual) players supposedly reacted to her death. I mentioned this on another board recently, but the fact that she's largely devoid of character and more a cipher, a completely blank canvas for the player to paint his own desires onto was probably what led to the blubbing when she's removed from the game and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Compare and contrast to the other characters - the men all have properly fleshed-out backstories and obvious personality types, Tifa fits into a standard gaming stereotype, but Aeris is a total non-person. Arguably, she lacks identity because the best way of getting a player to empathise with a character is to let them fill int he blanks themselves.

[neoglow]

A few of you have said FF7, a friend of mine also said the Final Fantasy series and create a comparison between western and eastern influence, FF7 - like many other games - originate from japan, arguably in many titles such as RPG's the female is shown as the cutesy, casual character without the western influence to give her big boobs. I have also found almost all beat-em-ups have a lesser number of female fighters but each one has the perfect body and the strength to match. If she is going to be a tough character she has to have big boobs!
Its funny, I always view beat-em-ups as american games but am I right in thinking they mainly came - and still come from - japan?

M.

[Flabio]

With this you have to remember its all about target audience. A lot less women play fighters than RPG's, so the female characters are tailored to the audience. Hence the hyper-sexual fighting game ladies compared with the more rounded and 'normal' women in RPG's.

FF6 is a good one to study here, I think Celes and Terra are far more atypical female characters than those you find in most RPG's. Although saying that, most of Squares female characters have some sort of not quite sterotypicalness to them (even Rikku...).

Back to ICO, I always figured Yorda was a few years older than Ico. She's certainly taller, and has a build and gait that suggests adolescence rather than childhood. I reckoned he was around 10 and she was 15 or so.

Another good, and more recent, one to examine might be the relationship between the Prince and Farah in Prince of Persia?

[James Harvey]

I dunno. I think the Mario/Peach thing has only been a bit of a piss-take in a couple of the recent games - Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi.

Yeah, it's only been acknowledged as a piss-take in those two games. But regarding the other games, if you take them in a non-postmodern context it's blatant sexism, and we know that Miyamoto and Nintendo are capable of a lot better than that (look at Ocarina of Time, plenty of strong female roles there). So this is why I figure it has to be some kind of postmodern joke, otherwise there's no real explanation for it.

[saif]

Ocarina of time ALSO had (in the UK at least) one of the "most shockingly sexist advertising campaigns EVER!!!!!!!"

To paraphrase: Will you save the girl or will you be one?

I would have thought it could be interesting to look at the FFX games. The demure Yuna in FFX to.....in FFX-2

[Alf-Life]

<anal mode=on>Whilst thou get the girl? Or play like one? </anal>