[Week 11] Violence, Censorship, Stereotypes and Inclusivity 25-47

Stereotypes in Video Games

• Male Signifiers

  • boyish cap

  • Jeans

  • facial hair

  • mutton chops

  • strong eyebrows

  • big nose

  • boyish physique

  • short sleeve glove

• Female Signifiers

  • petite princess crown

  • long dress

  • pink dominant color

  • female physique

  • lush lips

  • lush eyelashes

  • long hair

  • petite nose

  • long sleev glove

  • jewelery

Softporn Adventur (1981)

• Publisher: Online systems

• Designer: Chuck Benton

• Genre: Text Adventure

• Adult-oriented text adventure game in which the player is required to obtain certain items to win the affections of the a series of beautiful women

• Game designer Roberta Williams criticized for appearing in sexist game promotion

Leisure Suit Larry in the alnd of the Lounge Lizards (1987)

• Publisher: Sierra On-Line

• Designer: Al Lowe

• Genre: Graphic Adventure

• First in a series of adult-themed games in which the main character spends much of his life attempting to seduce attractive women

Ms. Pac-Man (1982)

• Publisher: Midway

• Designer: Midway

• Genre: Maze

• Conceived due to the high number of women who played Pac-Man, the game was superior in every way and becae the most successful american made arcade game of all time

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1985)

• Publisher: Broderbund

• Designer: Broderbund

• Genre: Educational Stratgey

• The goal is to track Carmen’s villians around the world and ultimately catch Carmen herself. The game spawned several critcally- acclaimed sequeals as well as television shows and books

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

• Publisher: Nintendo

• Designer: Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka

• Genre: Action Adventure

• Although much of the gameplay involves the protagonist, Link, saving Princess Zelda, Zelda occasionally performs a supporting role in battle

Street Fighter II (1992)

• Publisher: Capcom

• Designer: Akira Nishitani, Akira Yasuda

• Genre: Fighting Game

• The first female playable character in fighting game history, who could fight just as same as their male counterparts

Tomb Raider (1996)

• Publisher: Eidos Interactive

• Designer: Toby Gard, Phillip Campbell

• Genre: Action-Adventure

• The female protagonist, Lara Croft was seen either as a positive, visual metaphor of secual empowerment or as objectifying and sexist

Female Characters After Lara Croft

• The Longest Journey (2004): Point and Click adventure protagonist April Ryan is “complicated, multi-layered and brace”

• Portal (2007): Chell praised for not being sexualized or defined by her gender

• Mass Effect (2007): Commander Shepard customizable to be male or female

• Resident Evil (2006): Jill Valentine is on of the two protagonists

• Mirror’s Edge (2007): Faith Connors is one of the “most badass famale characters of all time.”

• Final Fantasy VII (2007): Tifa Lockheart “helped drive a tradition of tough, independent heroines”

Yet Sexist Scenarios Persist

• Harvest Moon 3 GBC (2000): Farming career of girl characters ended as soon as they got married

• Grand Theft Auto series: The protagonists are all male

• The Bachelor: The Video Games 2010: Women Complete mundane tasks like baking a souffle or inflating volleyballs

• Resident Evil (2006): Jill Valentine mode is the game’s easy mode

• Animal Crossing (2001): Personality choices based on Gender

  • Male character can be athletic, lazy, food obsessed, or smug

  • while female characters can be pop stars, “normal” or snooty

• Saints Row: The Third (2012): After rescuing prostitutes, choices are to sell them back to their captor or become their new pimp

Bechdel Test

A test of gender bias that asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man

1. The work has to have at least two women in it

2. who talk to each other

3. about something besides a man

LGBTQ Stereotypes

• Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape up or Slip Out! (1993): Gary, a flamboyant towle boy who attempts to seduce the protagonist is an example of “comical” gender inversion

• Dead Rising 3 (2013): Bisexual Dylan Fuentes, “The Psychopath of Lust” criticized for being a “gross distortion of the gay panic defense”

• Life is Strange (2015): Criticized for failing to portray a healthy representaiton of queer relationships and often succumb to the “bury your gays” trope (BYG)

LGBTQ Character who aren’t stereotypes

• Gone Home 3 (2013): Explores and subverts the themes of queerness and trauma as ti tells the story of how two girls, Sam and Lonni, fall in love

• The Last of Us: Left Behind (2014): An expansion episode including a kiss between Ellie and Riley deemed by critics as a “breakthrough moment” for video games

• Heroes of Dragon Age (2013): Mercenary Krem has been praised as a positive representation of transgender characters in video games

USC Survey

A study conducted in the early 2010s by the UNiversity of Sourthern California found in a survey of 150 games across nine platforms and all ratings:

• African Americans enjoyed a representation rate of 10.74% with a big caveat: They were mostly athletes and gangsters

• Fewer than 3% of the video game characters were recognizably Hispanic and none were playable

• Native Americans and biracial characters did not appear in any of the video games surveyed

Some Positive Steps (Race)

• Assassin’s Creed (2007): Altair Ibn-La’Ahad is one of the few Muslim characters in games who isn’t a stereotype. He is portrayed as a hero whos religion or ehtnicity isn’t a focus of why he is in the game

• Guild Wars 2 (2012): Features a variety of black hairstyles praised as being realisitc, stylish, and respectful

• The OuterWorlds (2019): Praised for having well-rounded character who don’t feel like tokens, including an asexual engineer of Southeastern Asian descent and a confident blakc monster hunter