Sexism in video games; what are your thoughts on this?

[CM30]

A Quick Note: Please do not cause this topic to become a flame war, otherwise it will be locked and any offending members warned. This is a highly controversial topic that has caused a lot of arguments on gaming websites, and I want it to be a reasonable debate rather than a ridiculously heated one.

Now that the warning is over, what do you think about this whole debate and everyone's arguments? Some people complain about the whole damsel in distress thing in various video games or the designs of female characters in them, others consider these views overblown and perhaps a bit reaching.

Personally, I'm not sure. I do think there are probably some... questionable attitudes to be found in certain video games (best example being potentially Metroid Other M) and the designs of certain female characters are probably going too far, but I also think that some of the criticism levied at certain Nintendo series and the likes is a bit unfair.

For example, while Mario does resort to the whole 'save Princess Peach' thing a bit often, it might be a tad harsh to assume that it's an entirely unreasonable storyline to use. After all, Bowser is a pretty tough character in general, and the entire rest of the kingdom bar Mario and Luigi is usually kind of useless against him as well. Not to mention all the strong, independantly minded female characters who're in the party in the RPGs (Peach sometimes included).

And Nintendo's arguably one of the best out there as far as being fair to both genders. See Pokemon, Metroid, quite a few later Zelda games (especially Spirit Tracks), F-Zero, Donkey Kong Country...

I also wonder whether much of the current 'trends' in video games are really due to some 'misogynistic' attitude in gaming/game development or whether they're due to how games have tended to become so narrowly defined and focused on a single audience/genre that they're just mimicking attitudes found in your average summer blockbuster movie. Perhaps the problems in gaming mainly stem from there not being enough variety in types of games and that these problems would become less of an issue if there were more games meant to appeal to everyone rather than just a tiny subset of 13-30 year old men.

So what do you think about the arguments about sexism and misogyny in gaming? Is there a problem with the whole industry? Certain developers/publishers? What do you think?

 

[fyrefox]

I don't think the Mario saving Peach thing is sexist. Though I think the Mushroom Kingdom needs new guards because in every single Mario game they fail to protect Princess Peach. Won't they ever learn...

 

[Cobra King]

As for female character designs, I feel that In a select few games, They make the breasts of some main characters excessively large and pronounced, eg. Zero suit Samus, in super smash bros brawl. That can be seen as a sexist stereotype...

 

[Jack.K]

Interesting debate. I'm not a big enough gamer to be able to give an opinion on which developers/publishers are more problematic - but I do think there's a problem, yeah. Female characters in some games are highly sexually objectified to answer to male players' fantasies. Look at the Dead Or Alive Volleyball spinoff, or Tomb Raider for instance. Or Ivy and Taki in Soul Calibur. Fran in FFXII.

It can be argued that some of these have personalities, and are strong characters. But as long as they're also sexy pieces of meat designed because, eh, sex sells, that's not okay.

For another example, take Yuna from the Final Fantasy series. In FFX, I think she was a good character - she had a mission, she was determined and courageous, while at the same time not afraid to rely on other people. She falls in love, but the relationship doesn't define her or change her beliefs and ideals. And surprisingly enough, she didn't have to be clad in tight leather to be interesting.

But then came FFX-2, and she had magically removed half her clothes, and her primary purpose was finding her man, with the help of her two half-naked friends, and against the also half-naked lady antagonist.

 

[Floof5467]

Anyone who thinks this sort of thing is sexist doesn't have their thoughts straight to say the least. Gender stereotyping? Maybe. Sexism isn't portraying attractive girls in entertainment or portraying stereotypes. Of course nowadays it's come to mean that as well, which is absurd. Racism doesn't cover stereotypes, why should sexism? And the funny thing is that it's a whole different ball game as well, some of the stereotypes are going to hold true for gender. There is real physical, big physical differences between men and women, and no matter how much you believe it will never be true that they are the same. Equal if you weigh everything out? Yeah sure, but not the same.

But not talking about that, and not talking about the fact that there is plenty of shirtless guys in gaming as well, princesses were a thing. Obviously Mario isn't based off medieval times, but it does draw inspiration from there as sort of a theme. Even more so, it's become deeply rooted here and in many other places that the men protect the women. It's a fact of culture, it isn't sexism. There is a reason we use the term "the women and children" in reference to innocents.