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| Some Sunday morning feminism for your coffee | |
| Posted By: Jillybean | Date: 10/5/08 7:49 a.m. |
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InnerRayg's post yesterday reminded me that I had a little post brewing in the back of my mind about the issue of women in games and, particularly, in Bungie games. It started with serendipidity. First off, the Halo MMO concept art that dropped many a jaw around here was actually pretty uplifting. No one in this community, that I could see, was willing to put their hand up and say 'actually, that totally fits in the Bungie universe'. In fact a lot of people were eager to point out that the Spartans all looked the same, male or female. Games are not traditionally female friendly. Prince of Persia Warrior Within springs to mind. Despite the brilliance of Sands of Time which is, as we all know, the greatest game ever made; Warrior Within sinks back into mediocracy. The lack of character developments plays a huge hand in this. First off, the Prince has become a dick, and the only thing we care about is completing the game, not his story - but the women are cardboard cut outs. I'd say they were two dimensional but they are very clearly not. In fact, the only reason they exist in the game at all is because the game breaks the third dimension. However, I am never going to stand up and start bemoaning the games industry for its complete lack of role models. Farah is pretty cool. Lara Croft, I'd debate that with you - but what about Doctor Tenenbaum? Freaky as hell but definitely her own woman. Her failings are nothing to do with her being a woman, and everything to do with the kind of person she is. The sister and mother in Fable more than make up for the wives (who I think are frankly hilarious. 'Ooh I like your gloves' has become a common phrase in this house.) Mass Effect is a bit of an odd one. It partakes of the Battlestar Galactica phenomenom where the military means the characters simply cannot bat an eyelid at the prospect of sex or offending someone - while at the same time the costumes reveal as much as possible. I like it, but I think I'm hardwired that way. Show me Apollo in a tiny towel and I'll forget any coherent thought process. However, I'd like to think about the Halo games and how they fit into equality in general. I'd have to say they do pretty well. We all reacted with scepticism when it came to the Halo MMO stuff. The first thing that sprang to my mind was that Bungie asked its community what it thought about putting a female death cry into the multi-player game. Take a moment to think about that. A female death cry doesn't sound like much. In fact, if everyone looks the same, why bother to gender identify in the first place? What if it causes more problems than it solves? What if it opens girl gamers up to unwanted attention? What if it's misused somehow? What in the hell kind of a game thinks about these issues? I didn't even think about these issues until someone brought it up. Halo itself seems very guilty of playing up to the sexy female ideal - with Cortana. But first off, dudes, she is not real. She is an icon of beauty and strength in a hugely militarised setting. That foxy little minx is in your head for most of the game, unseen but unfortunately not unheard. If you're a casual gamer, a bit like myself, how are you best going to remember who that random person is that keeps interfering like a backseat driver? If she makes a visual impression, that's how. The other female characters in Halo, Miranda, Bumblebee Pilot, the marines - they're not over-sexed, under-dressed harlots speaking breathily down your radio. The marines are practically indistinguishable from their male counterparts. And if you do distinguish - you're told not to. Yes, Miranda fails to shoot Johnson, but I challenge any man to handle that situation better. Bear in mind it's Johnson who fails in the first place. So when I watched the Ensemble trailer, I wasn't really that bothered about the female characters. They looked fine to me. And I think they have a lot to live up to. The Halo games have set a good standard. Find me another mainstream game where the women marines fight alongside you with the exact same AI as the male marines. Find me another game where the women are as casually inserted into the storyline as the men are - you could take any character in Halo and reverse the gender, it wouldn't change the game. That's pretty cool.
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