Final Project: Female Representation in Video Games

Women and Media Final Project- Female Protagonists in Video Games from Mark J. Marban on Vimeo. (Password is "womenmedia")

For my final project, I wanted to give a couple examples of good female representation in video games. Much like in movies and television, the representation of women in video games has its high points and low points. While there are excellent examples of female protagonists in video games like The Last of Us and Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, there are games like Lollipop Chainsaw and Bayonetta that try to poke fun at poor female representation by poorly representing their female protagonists; needless to say, the irony is hit or miss and it does more harm than it intends.

Ellie hunts to survive and to protect her protector, Joel in The Last of Us. Source: joystickchik.com

Video games have come under great scrutiny for lack of race and gender representation, maybe moreso than movies and television shows, because "...video games (unlike television or magazines) offer an active role for players to become and control their video game characters. This allows players to become more immersed, or become a part of, the virtual world" (Barlett/Harris 1). This level of immersion offers players a deeper connection to the characters they control in video games. When these on-screen characters are hard to relate to, whether it is because of race or gender, that deep connection is no longer present and makes the players uninterested in the video games they are playing.

Season 2 of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead puts players in the shoes of Clemntine as she traverses the zombie apocalypse. Source:geek.cheezburger.com

Many of the female protagonists in video games often have bodies that are unrealistic. This just another example of the media that sets a high standard for the perfect body. Studies done by Iowa State University and Kansas State University with a group of female gamers show that many in the group felt ashamed of their own bodies after playing video games that emphasized the female body. "As leading characters, women hold a position they never held before. It seems that the representation of men has been less subject to change, although some of the male characters have recently held non-dominant positions. Gender stereotypes are particularly robust with respect to physical features. Men are still represented as hypermuscular characters and women as hypersexualized characters. In other words, quite a few women became leaders in the games, but they continue to be presented in a sexualized way" (Jansz/Martis 147).

Subtlety is not Lollipop Chainsaw's biggest strong suit #zombiekillingstripperpole Source:giphy.com

It is important to introduce more female-enriching games for women when they are younger. One study from Michigan State University suggests that women do not have as much time to play video games as they get older due to probably being subjected to do more responsible work when they grew up. So if these women are seemingly playing less video games as they get older, is it really their responsibilities that keep them from playing or could it actually be the content that they are being given in video games?

With my project, I hope to reach hardcore gamers and people (women particularly) that are interested in getting into video games but do no want to wade through all the bad ones to find the few good ones. Though I only talk about three examples in my video, the best thing to take away from this is that there are great games out there that take women seriously and portray them in ways that many female gamers have been wanted for a long time.

Bibliography

1.) Barlett, C.P.,Harris, R.J. "The Impact of Body Emphasizing Video Games on Body Image Concerns in Men and Women." Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. 2008.

2.) Jansz, Jeroen, Martis, Raynel G. "The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female Characters in Video Games." Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. 2007.

3.) Winn, Jillian, Heeter, Carrie. "Gaming, Gender, and Time: Who Makes Time to Play?."Springer Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. 2009.