How sexist is the gaming world? Okay, I will admit that I know very little about gaming. I played a lot of Mario Kart when I was younger, and I’m really good at Tetris, but that’s about all I’ve got. However, I’m really interested in this topic, so I did a bit of research on wikipedia about it a bit ago after watching a movie called Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. I’m not exactly sure how I landed on that movie, but somehow, I ended up watching it. I haven’t seen any of the sequels, or the remake, but I generally know what they’re about. Lara Croft, in the movie, is played by Angeline Jolie. She, as well as the rest of the movie, is based off of the main character and plot of the video game Tomb Raider. Because the game debuted in 1996, Lara Croft is one of the first and one of the most famous leading female characters in major video games. Thus, along with the fact that I have little other knowledge to use, I will be looking at her.
According to Forbes, Lara Croft is "both a symbol of female self-empowerment and an object of sexual desire." However, in my opinion, she's less of a symbol of female self-empowerment than she is an object of sexual desire. Also, I just want to look at the wording of that statement for a bit and highlight how hilariously ironic it is. It first calls her an empowering female, but then, it turns around and calls her an object. I'm pretty sure these two things cancel each other out. Her classic pose is one where her body is twisted around so that we can see the perfect structure of her body, a pose which is seemingly impossible to do as an actual person without popping your hips out (not that I've tried). Now, I think that this says a lot about the gaming world’s sexism, especially in 1996. A major female character in a video game, one of the first, is always standing so we can see how great she looks. She also somehow walks sexily (?) in the actual video game. Lara Croft is built to be sexy, and the fact that she is considered a revolutionary, feminist character easily highlights the sexism in the gaming community.
When Tomb Raider came out, a strong majority of the gaming world was male. Because of this, Lara Croft was often played by men; that is to say a man would act as her and control her character. Part of this is good–guys can play as a strong female character, and it’ll possibly help them understand that women can be strong. Also, I feel like the fact that they’re playing as her and not just having their female friend play as her helps show that too? On the other side of that, however, the guys playing her could just look at her the whole time. Plus, as far as I know she’s never actually going out and doing things alone, and all of the people accompanying her are men. So, in my opinion, the latter argument wins, and Lara Croft is sexist.
Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft
A BBC article talks about how dumb Lara is in the 2018 movie, and how little common sense she seems to possess. It mentions how all of her actions are fueled by her father, a man. This tidbit reminds me of the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test has three factors needed to pass: in any given movie (though it can be applied to anything, including video games), there need to be at least one woman. Also, they need to talk to each other. Finally, the thing they talk about can’t be men. Now, this doesn’t seem to be hard to pass, but the Angelina Jolie movies don’t pass (the Alicia Vikander does, but still). Not everything that doesn’t pass the Bechdel test is inherently sexist–Lord of the Rings, Ratatouille, Avatar, the Avengers–none of them pass. However, I think that with this along with all of the other things that make her sexist, Lara Croft’s character is sexist.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180314-why-lara-croft-is-no-feminist-role-model
Hey Ivy!
ReplyDeleteYour post is quite interesting, and it's about a topic that I've definitely thought about before. I think it's good that women are being included in more games as of late, but I'm not the biggest fan of the way they've been added, like you talked about. A lot of games I've seen have tough and strong male characters with full-body armor and lots of weapons. The women are somehow just as powerful, yet only have armor where their underwear would be. Honestly, maybe that's a sign that the female characters are stronger than the male ones...
I think including female characters of this kind give unrealistic expectations to kids playing the games.
- Ellix
Taking it down a different path, I've played many online games where the chats can be extremely toxic and sexist, things that are definitely present and ignored in the gaming community. The whole idea around gaming communities was supposed to be inclusive, and many of the online chats can say otherwise. While I don't really have a good idea on how to solve this critical issue, I can say for certain that the best way to deal with a toxic teammate is to mute them. Great post! - Henry
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic to research about! Females are definitely sexualized in video games, and the people controlling them in the game sometimes only use that character because they are "sexy". They always wear the tightest and shortest clothes that no one could possibly move in. Women in video games should definetely be sexualized less.
ReplyDeleteI agree that female characters are often oversexualized. However, i think that her being sexualized to begin with made sense in the 90's when gaming was just beginning, considering the audience was almost entierly men. (altho, considering 90's graphics weren't much to look at lol.) I think the sex appeal was necessary to get the idea of female protagonists out there, however.
ReplyDeleteHey Ivy,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting post. I've thought about it quite a bit but never examined an actual character like you have. And I agree that sometime when female characters are added to games, the way they are depicted can contradict why they were added in the first place. Good post!
- Amelie
This a great post. I am not a part of the gaming community but this seems like an important issue that needs to be discussed. Even though I am not a part of the gaming community I know that female characters tend to be sexualized more than they should be. I would be interested in hearing more about this subject and what your thoughts on the "solution" might be.
ReplyDelete-Cate
I agree with this post. Although I don't play many games with this problem, it is present and should be brought up in the gaming community. I do believe character should be less sexualized in video games and would be a great way to widen the age group for gaming.
ReplyDeleteI think this is definitely an interesting topic. I don’t really game too much but from what I’ve seen I can definitely attest that a lot of female characters can be sexualized and wear clothes that make absolutely no sense for what they’re supposed to do. I feel like a lot of people choose what characters they like based on how attractive they are.
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