About GTA V:

Are Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider sexist for not having (optional) male main characters? Should the main characters in all games be equally represented, there can't be games where the main character(s) are only of one gender? For what it's worth, I enjoyed playing both Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider games, with the female lead character. I am also perplexed by the claims that many game publishers turned down "Remember Me" due to the female lead character, considering the aforementioned Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider.

I haven't played GTA V so I am unsure how well a female main character would fit to it. Maybe it would, but in real life the crime world (mafia, street gangs etc.) seem to be lead by men. I'm sure someone will come up with a list of known female crimelords and warlords, but I still feel it is a manly world.

I recall in Far Cry 2 you could choose from many different merc protagonists, and there were different races represented (asian, black etc.). But they were indeed all male. Realistic, but sexist? I don't recall if there were any female (enemy) mercs in the game, black African women shooting at you with their Kalashnikovs. Maybe it should have, just to be fully politically correct and equal to genders. IIRC, the only women I saw in that game were refugees who were trying to flee the country with their husband/family.

Well, almost. I faintly recall the evil boss in the first Tomb Raider was also female (yeah, I played it all they way to the end, go figure). But that is just demeaning to men, as if men can't be the evil brains behind it all, but merely henchmen! Why no henchwomen?

I wonder if that was true, or was it only devs whining. Capcom didn't seem to have a problem with female protagonist, and the game flopped.

I don't think the reason for the game being unsuccesful had anything to do with the female lead, rather with the game quality, and gamers didn't fall for it.

Just as FYI, I recall some comment on a 1st person cutscene where the protagonist kisses her boyfriend being the turn down factor. Plausible...
To me ridiculous if true, even inspite of it not being a super success, there are a lot of elements of that game that interest me, and I'll probably buy it eventually.

Believe it or not, there's actually more to women than being the targets of men's desire. Showing women mostly in this light assumes that video games are made only for men and sends a message that women should always try to be attractive and desirable. Also, the issue is not that these characters exist, the issue is that they are so ubiquitous.

Pretty far. A more accurate summary would be: "Men are, in general, not objectified in video games, but idealised, which is a different problem. Women, meanwhile, get both objectified and idealised."


Also, speaking of Remember Me: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists

That's a pretty sad thing and it seems to be right... I don't know if I can blame publishers for pushing male protagonists, if games with female protagonists are not successful... Apart from Lara Croft, but maybe tomb raider was successful exactly because Lara was never really displayed as having any intimacy with any other character, so the players could fantasise about Lara all they wanted.

I don't think it could be changed with pushing more female leads into games, because well... that would mean a lot of money lost, and publishers won't fall for that.

That's a bad thing for me, because I'd like to see more female protagonists... But not at expense of someone else's hard earned money.

The idea that many guys don't want to play as a female character kissing boys because that "feels gay" is out of this world for me. And I don't know if it's more sexist or homophobic.

I did'nt say GTA was sexist and Mirrors Edge and Tomb Raider are not sexist, well The first Tomb Raiders kinda was. But it is lame and bad that so few games have female main characters, that is a problem. Until there are at least more female main characters than you can count on one hand in recent games you can't just switch the argument and say "hey, this game does not have any male main characters. It's sexist".

A funny thing about just Rockstar is that they have no female main characters that you can play as in any of their many games. But, again, their games are often a satirical view of our world even if it was back in 1890 or when GTA takes place so the sexism that occur in the games are'nt anything different than the sexism in the real world.

Far Cry 2 is the same thing basically, at least I think so. There are few female mercenaries in the world, of course they exist and it would have been cool if they would have added a badass one that no doubt would have grown up in a tougher enviroment than her male counterparts. Now that I think about it there actually was at least two female mercs, only you could'nt pick any of them and they were'nt so cool or involved in many missions. Don't know their names.

That is just blatant dishonesty.

Believe it or not, I adressed that point later in my post. As I said, you solely focus on the men's desire part, which you seem to despise, and willingly ignore the rest.
The character is drawn to fit a sort of idealized image for men, so let's only focus on her outfit and her cleavage and forget that the character is also a brave, powerful mage or an insidious perfid and terrifying zerg queen!
Why unidimensionalizing this sort of character and men in general?

Then, you're assuming that these particuliar fictional portrayal of women are nefast for actual women in general and are overrepresented. And I partly agree with you. The hypersexy heroine is really common in video games.
But that's just completely ignoring the existence of the new Lara croft, Faith in Mirror's Edge, Peach, Cate Archer, Jodie in Beyond Two Souls, Lauren and Madison in Heavy rain, Ellen in Monkey Island, new female designs in LoL etc. And the creation of this type of character will continue to expand in the future, that's a certainty since there is a high demand for it, and that this will be the way of thinking of more and more artists.

Concerning the influence of video games on women... Breasts varying from modest to oversized and cleavage armors with heels? Really?
There are things more anchored in the reality and more threatening: feminine magazines, the fashion industry, the cosmetic ads, the popstars etc. THESE send a message that women should always try to be attractive and desirable. Not some videogames characters who belong to the domain of fantasy and fiction.

All in all, you are just saying, well, men, just stop to be attracted to idealised portrayal of women in this videogame, and stop creating these, I find that offensive. Just think like me. Well, no. I find that way of thinking authoritarian and offensive.
Hypersexy and non realistic characters just have to continue to exist, as long as this is the vision of the creator of the game. Same thing for the realistic characters, as long as this is the vision of the creator of the game.

You say women in ladies' magazines, commercials and movies look all sexy and fit. But what about men? Do Hollywood actors who aren't ripped even exist?

I mean even freaking Leonard in Big Bang Theory, who is supposed to be a nerd has ABS. Or Glen in Walking Dead and they are supposed to be on brink of starvation all the time.

Of course I feel a little off when watching them with my gf, because I will probably never have muscles that good like those hollywood actors, but I am not so insecure to eat 3l of chocolate ice cream and cry about cruel world.

People are beautiful in films and magazines and I just accept it.

This is simply wrong. I think it is perfectly natural for men to be attracted to women. This doesn't mean that women have to be portrayed mostly as the objects of men's desire.

Like I said, the issue is not about the existence of these characters, it's about how ubiquitous they are. A few counterexamples are not going to change that.


This is like saying, "Why worry about the malnourished children next door when there are starving children elsewhere?"

This is not even close to what I'm saying. I'm advocating a more realistic depiction of female characters, better written characters, and more variety in characters, including female ones.

I love you man. I wanted to say something similar but I was afraid that the way I would have put it people would have misinterpreted my stance as some macho men-are-master race bullshit.

You know, the problem with (some) feminists is that they love to ignore scientific facts, they just deem things which have been proven through all kinds of research by geneticists, evolutionists and anthropologists (and once again I'm quoting Sarkeesian here) "artificially created sociological constructs". The problem is a far more fundamental one than it appears at first. We are not unable to find agreements satisfactory to "both sexes" because of some simple matters of taste and interpretation, it's not just about the video games and skimpy outfits, the thing is that the other camp does agree with barely any of our views on the world. And the perfectly sane facts you presented in your post would be ignored or considered propaganda of the patriarchy.

Oh man, don't get me started on the misuse of misogyny. It's driving me nuts. I hate how a plot which implies that a woman is the most important thing in a male hero's life is, by some twisted logic, turned into hatred towards women.

You kidding? It was some very well thought-out and well written text. I think people with that kind of thinking are still missing in the whole public debate which is happening through blog posts and YouTube commentaries.

I didn't say that this was THE undisputable law either. I was just saying that this was what a (not overthought, obviously) theory I thought relevant.

If beauty standards change... well the persons who have the prefered traits of the period will be found more attractive.

You actually claim that *all* beauty standards are completely social constructs? That with enough brainwash applied you can fully dominate people's sexual preferences? Now THAT'S bullshit. Note that beauty standards are both defined and mainly followed by the elite, there is little documentation on the beauty standards of the average person of any period in human history as they never had quite as much influence on literature and other media and even artists with a humble background were usually tasked by the elite. In fact large scale studies conducted over the last years often perfectly demonstrate that the average person's preferences have little to do with the beauty standards presented by the media. As far as I can tell they also suggest that the majority's beauty standards don't change quite as much or as fast as the artificial ones created by the elite.

Oh yeah, also this.

I wish they'd concentrate on reviewing games and giving us game news instead of endless articles on this pathetic attempt at tackling modern feminist issues. Constant pandering. They obviously dream of being "proper" and "grown up" writers in the real and respectable world of journalism, rather than the pretendy kiddy world of games that tends to get a patronising pat on the head and sat at the wee kiddy table at parties and given jelly while the adult writers or journalists go off elsewhere for wine and conversation. If they wanted to write about social justice, they should get a job with a newspaper instead.

It really is beyond tired now. It's like they are trying to prove something to someone. Like a really overwrought "some of my best friends are..." example.

Of course RPS and Eurogamer seem to be notoriously bad in the gaming journalist circles for their practices and bad behaviour towards others, but they get away with it because they're one of the few big paying gigs these days. Especially as paper magazines look ever more anemic in sales. So few dare speak out in fear of damaging their prospects of being hired.

In turn, if I opened the FT newspaper and found it was page after page of news and reviews of movies or toys I would not be pleased. There's a place for them.