“The gender system which seems so significant for so many
societies, forbids the sameness of male and female”[1]
In the last decade, there has been an up rise of negative
representations of females in the video game industry, as the years have gone on and technologies being
ably advanced producers have created more of a variety of gaming consoles.
Recently, females are portrayed as sex objects and the video game
industry continues to objectify women. As the years have passed, producers have heavily introduced the use of
female characters in many console games which can have a negative and positive
impact of the minds of the consumers. The portrayal of women in videos games
has often highlighted the subject of both academic studies and controversy as
creators continue on to develop new games which is starting to inflict damage
on young minds. A previous study lead by Dmitri Williams examined questions
regarding the representations in video games and suggested that media under
representation can be an indicator of social inequality. He also mentioned “ in
television it was always a landmark moment when some minority or
disenfranchised group appeared on the screen for the first time”[2]
this links in with females appearing in video games as this was huge step for creators
and users in the gaming industry.
One of the
first negative portrayals of females in video games was the release of the
first gaming console, Attari. It had
produced a game called Custer’s Revenge, where the aim was to rape a Native
American woman. The game was produced in 1982, where misogyny was still common.
However, the game was controversial as there was a limit to the amount of
misogyny presented in other media, such as film and TV, but this video game
showed a violent attack on women.[3]
Although the packaging of the game stated that it was not for young audiences,
it would still be harmful to society as there is a limit to the amount of
regulation and censorship of video games, meaning that it would be possible for
anyone to have access to it.
The portrayal
of women in video games has often been the subject of controversy as the one of
the most famous games in the world started of this issue. Lara Croft`s Tomb Raider
was one of the first games that had a female protagonist and was a big change
for gamers. The reason why it caused controversy was due to the fact that it
had portrayed a negative image due to the unrealistically body types portrayed.
Lara Croft’s breast size was criticised even though game makers had made the
point that this feature was not used for marketing uses. However, by Lara
Crofts breast size being un-realistic this enables game users to feel the
effect of the male gaze[4]
and would carry on seeing women as sex objects. By having women presented in
these stereotypes, male audiences are gratified as they get scopophilic
pleasures from looking at women in sexual roles. As this was the first example of negative
portrayals of females it was also a positive for the gaming industry as this
was the start of where more females would be involved in video games.
Earlier before the release of Tomb Raider females were
available to use in more selectable character video games, an example of this
would be a game where you can chose which character to be like Tekken, Mortal
Kombat, Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, Soul and the King of Fighters series.
These games both give the chance for users to choose whether to be a female or
a male. However, in the games the portrayal of females was totally different
compared to other games where females were portrayed as being sex symbols.
Kitana in the fighting game “Mortal Kombat”[5]
is shown to be wearing tight clothes from chest to bottom and the fact that her
breasts are large this shows to be sexualisation of her particular character.
As the game was created in the post-feminist era, audiences believed that the
sexualisation of women is a way of giving them more power over men so this
objectification was not as negative as it would have been in earlier years.
“The traditional view of women as dedicated “housewives” seems to be all but
extinct, only around one in six women and one is five men (mostly older people)
think women should remain at home while men go out to work”.[6]However,
as the character fights using blades, which are phallic objects, it could be
interpreted that women are only given strength with masculine objects. This has
also seem to found its way onto the television screens and print formats as
females now can use their sexuality without being portrayed negatively, an
example of this is in “Performance VW” which is a car magazine dedicated to
fans of Volkswagen, a female is bending over a car bonnet only wearing a
g-string and her bum is visible but she has her back towards the camera.
Although the female is not fully naked, she is still objectifying herself.
However, as back is towards the camera, male audiences need to find scopophilic
pleasures in other aspects of the image, which leads to fetishisation of other
body parts such as her legs.
As the years have gone on with technology being more
advanced game creators have been able to produce new gaming consoles which
allows them to compete for the gamers. With the Grand Theft Auto Series[7]
becoming increasingly popular amongst gamers across the world it has always
followed its same features and conventions of their portrayal of females in the
game. Ever since Grand Theft Auto 3 was released features such as females being
prostitutes has been the main feature in the games series and continues to
cause a lot of controversy amongst females across the world. Gamers are
rewarded when killing prostitutes with money in game which would have a huge
affect on the younger generation. Although this game is strictly rated 18, it
doesn’t mean the younger generation cannot access this as they have ways of
purchasing this game. As younger audiences are exposed to this violence towards
women they become desensitised to this issue. “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has
control at the same time over the means of mental production”[8]. According
to the Copycat theory, this could lead audiences to imitate the misogyny that
they see in the games. This negative portrayal of females in video games could
cause audiences to be cultivated into treating women negatively in reality.
One of the first positive portrayals of females in video
games was in the game Uncharted[9],
the objective of this game is for the female protagonist is to travel around
the world to uncover various historical mysteries along with her 2 male
companions. Although in this game you can choose to select what character you
can be throughout the game, it still showed a positive portrayal of women. The
rating of the game was 3+ or E standing for everyone which meant that the game
had to have clean content and couldn’t sexualise any of the characters in the
game. However, although the game has positive representation of females, this
could be because the producers “had to” and not because they wanted to
revolutionise the portrayal of women in video games. The Angel/Whore dichotomy[10]
says that they are only two representations of women. In Uncharted, the lead
female has the angel characteristics because she is portrayed as being an
intelligent and ambitious during her conquest throughout the game.
Video games that have a narrative throughout often seem to
single out females or are included within the story line of certain games, an
example of this is in the game “Scarface”, the main protagonist is ironically a
male as it follows the same narrative as the film. Throughout the game, gamers
have the option to pick up and talk to femme fatales which also highlights the
fact of these women being portrayed negatively. The females in the game are
often following the normal code and conventions of femme fetals who are wearing
tight clothes, short dresses and often a slight show of their bodies. Gamers
who play this game on the Playstation have the option to press one button which
enables the character to talk to these females, “why don’t you go and teach
some blind kids”[11].
This is stereotyping females in the game as a female would be a teacher but the
point is continuously reiterating the point. Once again the younger generation
are exposed to this material and will be bound to carry on using these lines
they learnt from the game and be cultivated into believing these negative
stereotypes are true. Portrayal of females in video games has varied throughout
the years as some institutions keep using negative portrayals however some try
to use positive representations.
In some cases females are found to be represented negatively
in games that often has a character who
has to follow a narrative for example Todorov states that “stories often begin
with a equilibrium then often the story faces disruption due to an event and
them is resolved in the end”.[12]
However this seems to have made its way across to stories that continues on and
have no ending, an example of this is through the game called Need for Speed
which is a racing game where gamers start off at the bottom with downgraded car
and often end the game with the best car in the game. Through this story gamers
would come across a so called side kick which was a female, this continues in
the need for speed series. A contemporary example of this is the newest version
“Need for Speed The Run” where the side kick who is a female is shown to be
helping her male companion through the races and navigation of races, “Mila” is
shown to be looking much sexualised and looking like a sex object. This
similarly links into some females in games being portrayed as femme fetales
which seems to be a very common link with negative portrayal however in this game
females have found their way into racing games and are portrayed positively.
In conclusion the portrayal of females in video games has
varied during its first appearance in the 1980`s with Atarri`s controversy game
which has been labelled as the 10th worst game in the world. It
seems that negative portrayals of females has found its way into the video game
screen which are an estimated 217 million people in the world play each day. “Western nations dominate the media around
the world which in return effects on third world culture by imposing on them
western views and therefore destroying narrative culture."[13] This
majorly affects third world countries as they are following what they perceive
in games which are created by institutions from the western side of the world.
As technology has advanced throughout the last decades there
are many examples of where representation of females is either positive or
negative. In my opinion I feel as if the 15 + 18 game genres are all the games
that contain negative portrayals of females and see this in the sense of it
being a game but don’t seem to realise that its reality, as mentioned earlier
regarding the younger generation being exposed to this kind of material which
will definitely have a huge knock on effect on their minds. 44% of gamers are also female which also
plays a physiological game on females as they are many females out there who
enjoy the concept of running over and killing prostitutes through the Grand
Theft Auto series.[14]Portrayal
of females in video games has an interesting view to looking into the future as
institutions, new digital media and game creators would all have a major impact
on what we see in video games in the future regarding the portrayal of females
in video games.
[1]
Representing men , maleness and masculinity in the media – Kenneth MacKinnon
[3]
Schadenfreude
[4]
Male gaze – Laura Mulvey
[5] Mortal Kombat (2011 video game) –
midway studios by Warner bros Interactive label
[6]
Media, gender and identity by David Gauntlet – pg 4
[7]
Grand Theft Auto – Rockstar Productions
[8]
Marxism – Karl Marx
[9]
Uncharted video game - Naughty Dog
[10]
Angel/Whore dichotomy http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/845/Women-Stereotypes-of.html
[11] Scarface: The
World Is Yours is - Radical Entertainment
[12] Todorov
- Tzvetan Todorov's theory of narrative
[13]
Cultural imperialism – Schiller
[14]
Viscerality
