Are women vending machines?
December 14th, 2009 by panfriedmoogleAs if there aren’t already enough controversies surrounding video games and the violence depicted within them, sexual themes and content have also begun to alert critics and worrisome parents to look even closer at what children and teens are playing. As early as 1982, a video game called Custer’s Revenge was released, marking one of the first dates that a sexual game was available for a console. Games of this nature didn’t attract as much attention in the early 80s because video games weren’t nearly as mainstream and commercialized as they have become in recent years. Although everybody wants to know what’s appropriate for young players (who are mostly male) to view, it is rare to hear the average gamer ask how this ultimately portrays women in our culture.
Some might infer that video games teach young boys how they’re supposed to act with women as well as reinforce these ideals for the older generation of men who are playing the same games as their sons. However, sexual themes in video games are only a mirror of what our culture already demands of us, as it is the people within our culture who are authoring these games. In other words, a culture obsessed with sex is inevitably going to create sexual games, and the consumers are going to inevitably spend the money to play them. In Henry Jenkins’ essay about gendered play spaces, he remarks that “such a culture is as violent as the world depicted in contemporary video games.” The same can be said for the amount of sexuality present in video games today.
Custer’s Revenge is a key starting point. It was a pornographic video game, for the Atari, which depicted General George Custer wearing nothing but cowboy boots, a bandana, a hat….and his erection (Wikipedia). The object of the game was to have sex with the naked Native American woman. There was more controversy over the cultural insensitivity than there was about the naked characters; this could be due in part to the fact that it’s slightly more difficult to be insulted by nude characters when they look like blocks of Legos. It’s likely that the number of sexual video games has increased because of the fact that developers have better technology to work with now. It’s become incredibly easy to render a naked character that looks like a real human being. Essentially, it’s easier to simulate relationships and convey “mature” ideas in present-day as opposed to 1982. If young boys tried playing Custer’s Revenge now, some of them might not even be able to tell that their avatar is naked. Everything hits closer to home when it’s realistic.
Any video game heroine who is a strong protagonist will inevitably be dressed like a “slut.” It’s important to put “slut” in quotations because it’s merely a social construction that society has placed on women to identify them as the promiscuous type, or somebody to watch out for. It’s interesting that game developers always want their female protagonist to look a little slutty, as if a female protagonist who didn’t exhibit any sexuality wouldn’t be as powerful. In fact, it might even make her a little boring. These female protagonists certainly aren’t there to empower young women; if they were, they would be dressed differently. However, game developers are aware that their primary audience consists of males, so it’s profitable to make the female protagonist desirable. The consumers profit from eye candy and the game companies profit from sales. In contrast, a video game with a female protagonist marketed towards females would be relatable instead of desirable. By bringing a female heroine back down to what she’s “supposed to be” to a man, she has ultimately become a commodity.
This “commodity model” (Friedman, 30) enables us to look at our culture and realize that sex has become a thing instead of an act. It obviously has value, and that value can be bought, sold, given, or even stolen (Friedman, 30). Sex becomes a transaction when a woman gives it away or sells it for something in return (Friedman, 30), and it’s not uncommon to see minor female characters in a video game expect something in return if they’re being courted. Throughout history, women have used the fact that they are considered objects to their advantage. For example, charity girls in the 1920s were known for trading sex in return for gifts (Wheeler, 73). These behaviors are still exhibited through the point systems that video games create for their players while they’re trying to start a relationship. One good example of this is the point system in Fable 2. When I was playing this game, the woman I was trying to court was unsatisfied if my house wasn’t adorned with the nicest furniture. It’s good to see women try to negotiate their power with men, but they are still seen as conniving, materialistic gold-diggers in and out of video games.
Although the design approach to courting a female character in a video game is simplistic, it still perpetuates the commodity model of sex. You talk to the character, give them presents, and then they’ll eventually have sex with you or marry you. Because the player wants to have sex with this female character in the game, they go through the motions until they’re rewarded with what they wanted—just like a vending machine (Raymond). In some cases, it feels like sex is the end result to a video game relationship with a non-playable character (NPC) because the player no longer has any incentive to give said romantic interest anymore attention or gifts. In Mass Effect, I spent the entirety of the game building a repertoire with one of the NPC’s until they finally had sex with me at the end. Relationships are presented as “missions” in games like Mass Effect, and the player even unlocks an achievement for completing the romantic sub-plot, which adds more points to their gamer score. These situations resonate with men who treat real relationships “like a game.” The actual simulation is an appealing mechanic for those who already follow the point system in their everyday lives.
Female characters are not only sexualized, but they are often hypersexualized—their eyes look dreamy and their unrealistically large breasts are perky all the time while their waists are almost smaller than their heads. They’re dressed in what is essentially lingerie which only serves to enhance their unrealistic physical traits (Ray, 102). Some massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) only supply female players with a choice of scantily clad clothing for their avatars, which often leads to harassment from male players (Brathwaite, 13). Video games can serve as another sexual outlet for men whether or not women accept it. Even if a male player doesn’t “mean anything” by his actions, he is still more or less pointing out to the female player that she is different from him and worth harassing simply because she has breasts and clothing that a designer provided her with. Moreover, men can also use female avatars to their advantage. Many men play as women and pretend to be women because they know that they are more likely to receive gifts from other male players, as well as receive more opportunities to join parties. By assuming the role of a woman in order to gain power by using their avatar’s sexuality, they are further acknowledging that women are significantly different from men in video games.
In a study that examined hypersexuality in video games, Edward Downs and Stacy Smith took sixty top-selling video games across three of the most popular consoles (Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation 2, and Nintendo Gamecube) and analyzed the characters. 489 characters of an identifiable sex were used, 70 of which were female and 419 of which were male. Not only were female characters less prominent, but they also were significantly more likely to be partially nude, featured with an unrealistic body image, and wearing sexually revealing clothing (Downs, 2).
This might be one small clue as to why so many women dislike playing video games, especially because the video game industry and its consumers are predominantly male. In her book Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market, Sheri Graner Ray cautions developers about the consequences such hypersexualized content can have (Brathwaite, 13). Jenkins sites Super Metroid as an example; players are rewarded with female characters stripping down to their underwear if they beat a certain score. According to him, this “scatological imagery sometimes assumes overtly misogynistic form, directed against women as a civilizing or controlling force, staged towards women’s bodies as a site of physical difference and as objects of desire and taste” (Jenkins, 341). If developers choose to design games and avatars that are hypersexualized and attractive to a particular gender, then they shouldn’t be surprised if the opposite gender wants nothing to do with the game for that exact reason (Brathwaite, 13).
I don’t want people to get the impression that I think that women are the only ones portrayed unrealistically in video games, though. Men are certainly no exception. I can just as easily play a woman in Fable 2 and court a man, and he’ll also expect me to give him gifts in my nice house. Dragon Age follows the same routine. I was playing as a female character, and I kept giving gifts to Alistair so that he would finally have sex with me. Alistair is a bit of a prude though, and it took him quite some time to warm up to me. I was getting so frustrated with him that I found myself saying aloud, “God! Won’t you just have sex with me in my tent already?! I just want to unlock this stupid achievement and get my ten points!” Now that I have unlocked the achievement, I too am guilty of no longer paying any attention to him. I believe that video games ultimately set unrealistic expectations for both sexes.
However, while male characters are also portrayed unrealistically, they are not hypersexualized. Instead, they are usually youthful with hulking shoulders and strong, muscular arms. They are portrayed how most men see themselves, or want to see themselves—strong, young, and apt. However, no male character within a video game walks around with an erection, and none of his key features (that a woman would find attractive) are over exemplified. In contrast, women are portrayed how men want them to be: attractive, fertile, and always ready to have sex (Ray, 104). If men were portrayed in the same way that women are, it would probably lead to childish accusations against the game developers about how they’re “gay” for focusing on male features so much. Most men would not want to play a video game where the male characters are hypersexualized, as they would rather focus on the hypersexualization of women. Of course women can be attractive, but to hypersexualize them makes them even more unrealistic, and makes many women feel like they can’t live up to the video games that their boyfriends are playing. Who can compete with Tifa from Final Fantasy VII?
It’s difficult to agree on any exceptions to the stereotypical female protagonist or game character. Even the seemingly harmless characters still manage to communicate negativity. My first thought was Princess Peach, and although she might not be hypersexualized, she is portrayed as a “dumb blonde,” a princess, and a damsel in distress; the typical goal of most Mario games is to “save the princess.” Zelda isn’t hypersexualized either, but she too is a princess who’s in distress and needs to be saved. Granted, Zelda has always been more proactive than Peach, but Link still saves her every time.
Many developers project that within several more years sex within video games won’t be nearly as sensational as it is now, and that it will in fact be so normalized that the content will be comparable to movies (Brathwaite, 59). The only problem with this statement is the fact that people can’t actually interact with movies whereas video games literally are an interactive medium. When people are both mentally and physically participating in something, they are more likely to remember what they saw and what they were doing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s arguable that video games are better at communicating ideologies and stereotypes without the player even being aware of it because they are so immersed in their virtual world. The real world and the virtual world are almost cohesive simply because people in our society are authoring these games. As such, people need to start taking into account that video games are cultural objects that have a lot to say about our culture. Sex and violence in video games shouldn’t only be approached with this singular view that media teaches us how to act when it is we ourselves who are creating these media.
Sources:
Braithwaite, Brenda. Sex in Video Games. Massachusetts: Charles River Media, 2007. Print.
“Custer’s Revenge.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2009. Web.
Downs, Edward and Stacy Smith. “Keeping Abreast of Hypersexuality: A Video Game Character Content Analysis.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Communication Association, Sheraton New York, New York City, NY. <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p14888_index.html>.
Friedman, Jaclyn, and Jessica Valenti. Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape. California: Seal, 2008. Print.
Jenkins, Henry. Complete Freedom of Movement: Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces. The Game Design Reader.
“On Modeling Relationships in Video Games.” Feministing.com. 03 Sept. 2009. Web.
Raymond, Alex. “Women Aren’t Vending Machines: How Video Games Perpetuate the Commodity Model of Sex.” Game Critics, 26 Aug. 2009. Web.
Ray, Sheri Graner. Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market. Massachusetts: Charles River Media, 2004. Print.
Wheeler, Robert A., Thomas L. Hartshorne and Mark T. Tebeau. The Social Fabric, Volume II: American Life from the Civil War to the Present. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
