Do me a favor—take out a
piece of paper, grab a pen (or pencil, if that’s your thing), and write down
five female video game characters (and the lovely Lara doesn’t count).
.
.
.
.
.
You done? OK, great. Let’s take a look at who you might have written down—here
are my five.
Princess Peach—the damsel in distress from the Mario games
series.
Zelda—the iconic female from the Legend of Zelda franchise.
Samus Aran—the protagonist of the Metroid series.
Lightning—the heroine from Final Fantasy XIII.
Chun-Li—the most well known female fighter
from the Street Fighter series.
Most, if not all of these
characters are iconic to most gamers of the past 15 years. But would you
consider any of them to be a good role model for any of those gamers who are women?
I suppose we need to define what a “good role model” is before we continue.
Since I’m not a female gamer, the best I can do (beyond asking several of my
female friends who like to play video games) is look at the male role models I
could identify with and go from there.
If I had a son, I’d
consider any of the following characters a good role model for him:
Nathan Drake—protagonist of the Uncharted series.
Master Chief—protagonist of the Halo series.
Several male Final Fantasy characters from VII on.
I’ve got a lot more
choices, (I listed the ones you’ve most likely heard of), so I’ll just break
down a few characteristics a lot of them share.
1) They
aren’t afraid of, well, anything.
While each and every one
of those characters get into a heap of trouble and face down insurmountable
odds (and believe me, they always do), they all make it out of that trouble and
save the day. Every. Single. Time. And during their trials and tribulations, how
much fear do they show? Not a whole lot. They have their doubts, sure—who doesn’t
have those? But they really aren’t afraid of anything, and that’s pretty
incredible.
2) They
are usually trying to save someone or something…
…and that someone isn’t
just themselves. They’re saving a race, a galaxy, a civilization, a way of
thinking, whatever—the point is, they are purposefully throwing themselves in
danger for a greater good. They recognize that greater good is more important
than they are, and they are willing to die for it. That’s what makes Shepard
from Mass Effect so damn compelling—he’s willing to (and has) die to save what
he believes in.*
3) They’re
a little sardonic—kind of like an anti-hero.
This doesn’t apply to
everyone in the list above (nor is it a characteristic that everyone looks for
in a role model, I’d imagine), but I’m a huge fan of the “doesn’t play by the
rules” characters in video games, like Nathan Drake, Stocke from Radiant
Historia, etc. etc. The guys that deep down, care, but on the surface, are
ambivalent, sometimes reckless, and unconventional. I hate Superman—he’s such a
perfectionist, flawless boy scout. Give me Batman (Christian Bale preferred) or
Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr., please) every time.
These aren’t the only
traits I look for in a good role model, but they’re some of the most important.
Now before I continue,
I’d just like to say that I believe gaming had made great strides in
introducing and developing good female role models. Honestly, I can only think
of one good role model that came out of the 8-bit generation of gaming, and
after that, there was a bit of a dry spell until characters like Lara Croft and
Sheik (yes, Sheik, not Zelda) showed up. Our industry has done a lot to
incorporate more and more women into games in leading roles, and that’s a step
in the right direction.
So let’s take a look at how
many women in our list have the characteristics I outlined above.
Princess Peach is the original
“damsel in distress” for video games—she a princess who gets into trouble in
one way or another (usually captured by some giant dinosaur, but sometimes a
big ape as well) and can’t get herself out of it. Whenever she gets kidnapped, some dashing charming debonair average
plumber comes to her rescue, defeats the bad guys with his charm strength
wit ability to jump on things, and saves her from the evil villain. And everyone
rejoices. Overall, she’s an OK character, and some depth has been added to her
personality in the late 90s/early 2000s since the release of Smash Brothers
Melee and additional spin-offs from the main Mario franchise, but overall,
she’s not really a good role model in my book—she doesn’t have any of the
characteristics defined above—at least, not in her earlier iterations.
Zelda gets us a little
bit closer to good role model status, as per her performance in the Ocarina of
Time, but before that, she spent a decade or so getting saved by Link in a
similar way that Peach did. While she didn’t start off as a strong female character,
I think Zelda is a great example of how video games have progressed to include
additional good role models.
Samus Aran is the
earliest good female role model I can think of—she took down an alien race that
threatened to take over the galaxy, did it again, and has done so many times
since. One of the best parts about Metroid was the big reveal at the end—the
whole time, you had no idea that the character you controlled was a woman! The
reveal ended up blowing peoples’ minds, as so many just assumed she was a man.
This was an incredible move, and I believe it’s the first move that put a
strong female lead in video games on the map. She’s the earliest character I
can think of that made women gamers proud, and continues to do so today.
Lighting is more of the
same—a fighter, a woman who takes her destiny in her own hands and tries to
accomplish what she believes in. And boy does she just kick ass! She’s strong,
beautiful, intelligent, and nearly fearless (with that fear primarily portrayed
in her doubts. She’s a good role model for female gamers in my book, and it’s a
shame there isn’t a critical mass of characters like her (and Samus).
Chun-Li, the last of this list, is an
iconic female video game character—she’s been in movies, in cartoons, and in
several different iterations of the Street Fighter franchise, including a strange puzzle game. She can, much like Lightning and Samus, kick a ton of ass. My
problem with her as a role model for women is that she’s a
bit…disproportionate. Her personality traits lend her to being a great role
model, as she’s got incredible mental fortitude, doesn’t take crap from
anybody, and is fighting for something she believes in. But I think she’s part
of a trend that perpetuates negative stereotypes in video games (and other
media)—unrealistic physical attributes that few women will ever be able to
aspire to. She’s a female character created for men, not women, and that’s
fine—she serves her purpose, but it’s a purpose that detracts from women role
models in a medium that desperately needs them.**
Personally, I believe
that there is a dearth in female role models in our industry, and that’s a problem. In fact, I
think it’s one of the leading causes of horrible, horrible
stories. What was there
before Samus Aran? It was a bunch of random guys running around saving
princesses, random circular shapes eating pellets in a maze, and games about
defending the universe from flying saucers. Before Samus, we were saving
Princess Zelda from…Qberts I guess…or saving Princess Peach from giant apes who
wanted to fornica…
Huh. Gaming was kinda
weird in the 80s, wasn’t it?
Anyway, that’s not the
point—the point is our industry needs more iconic female characters that serve
as good role models for female gamers. We don’t have very many nowadays—sure,
we’ve got some Final Fantasy protagonists, a couple of random Nintendo
characters, and a ton of disproportionate women fighters, but beyond that,
we’re missing a critical mass of iconic women. Introducing more good female
role models into our industry will have (at least) two effects on the video
gaming population:
1)
Female
gamers will have more characters to identify with and will be drawn to play
more games. This will, in the long run, increase the self-esteem of female
gamers and increase the total amount of women (and thus people) playing video
games.
2)
Male
gamers will be exposed to more and more empowered women in leading and support
roles, which will, in the long run, hopefully cause them to respect women more
(both real and imaginary).
Lara Croft, who was
intentionally left off the above list, falls into two separate camps.
Initially, I believe she was a character created for men and women—the
disproportionate attributes that some men love to see and the empowered persona
that women can positively identify with. I’d say she was close to a Chun-Li in the
early and late 90s. As the 2000s passed and Lara was rebranded, she lost some
of her size, so to speak, and began to branch out into different types of
gameplay, including a highly praised cooperative adventure. I think this was a good direction for her to
head—catering more toward the empowered persona instead of the larger than life
characteristics she had in the 90s.
Flash forward to today. The
powers that be, for whatever reason, have decided she needs another rebranding,
and came to the conclusion that a reboot was the most efficient way to do so.
Reboots happen all the time—Devil May Cry is currently going through one as we
speak (which seems fine, as that series was getting a bit stale, though Dante’s
new look is…interesting, to say the least). The concept of a reboot isn’t the
problem with Lara Croft’s new game—the problem is the direction that reboot is
headed.
I think the game play mechanics
in this new Lara Croft will be excellent—this is an open, uncharted design
space that no one has really delved into on such a scale before. But the
presentation and marketing are steps in the wrong direction. I’m not opposed to
this game, nor am I opposed to having a game about this type of survival—we’ve
had survival and survival horror games before. I’m opposed to choosing a woman
for it, and choosing how deep they are willing to go to make you “empathize”
with Lara’s plight. The depth that they are taking her trials and tribulations
to is not the type of role our industry should have for a woman—not yet, at
least. I think we need to hit a critical mass of good female role models before
we start putting our good ones into disempowered scenarios—that type of action
detracts from their ability to function as someone to look up to. I think an
origins story for Lara Croft is great, but not one where she’s exposed to all
the things Crystal Dynamics have planned for her.
The
real point is this—for every Lighting that exists, we have a Zack, a Cloud, a
Vaan, and a Tidus. For every Samus, we have a Marcus, a Master Chief, and a Dom.
For every Lara, a Nathan Drake, a Guybrush, and an Ezio. We need to shine a
positive light on the female characters in our industry, not a negative one. There’s an
abundance of good male role models, but a dearth of good female ones—and that’s
a fact that needs to change.
Crystal
Dynamics has the potential to do great work with reestablishing one of gaming’s
oldest, most iconic (from the outside in) female characters. They are headed in
the wrong direction now, and I hope that they can realign themselves upon the
game’s release.
*I recognize that there
is a female Shepard option available, and I’m glad that there was, since gaming
could use a few more good female role models.
**Ever notice how the
main offenders of unrealistic female character models are in fighting games?
Maybe it’s just Soul Caliber…and Bloody Roar...and Dead or Alive…yea, maybe
it’s just most of the fighting genre.
