Dusk Wrote:I found this videos premise to be completely ridiculous.To save on space, I'm merely quoting this part. I also wanted to respond with the opening line of the video: "This project will examine the tropes, plot devices and patterns most commonly associated with women in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective." Read that a couple times; she's pointing out things that are overused and problematic, which are also things that continue to be used without so much as the people creating the media thinking about what it's doing.
While you can name a few instances where the men might be useless or relegated to generally weaker roles, I can probably name five other instances where the female characters do the same. If you play MMOs where the gender of the characters is forced, the roles women take are generally that of magic or ranged power; they're almost never (which means 'very rarely') ever allowed to be melee characters. You can see this in League of Legends which, while they do have female melee champions, is predominantly split in this same fashion: The majority of ranged champions are female, and the majority of magic/support champions are female. You can also see this in the newly released Path of Exile (which is a good game): The only two female characters are a Witch and a Ranger; the other four classes (all melee) are male. (That's not even to mention the use of the one indigenous character, which is another point entirely.) It drives me up a wall when things like that happen; I like playing melee characters, but I don't always want to be shown something that reinforces the fact that I'm particularly dainty (which those classes are when it comes to survivability).
The difference with there being "men that are plot devices" versus the "women that are plot devices" is quite obvious, especially if you've been looking for it instead of following media blindly. Men generally find themselves as the protagonists of series, be they games or movies or television shows. It's becoming more common in the latter two for women to find their ways to leading roles, but that's when you start paying attention to what kind of stories they're being given. There are not a lot of female-protagonists in the action, thriller, or science fiction areas; female-protagonists still get put into things like romantic comedies more often than anything else (because that's apparently all we're smart enough to watch -- please read that for immense sarcasm). We rarely get anything outside of that area because that's all anyone thinks we're interested in (as a gross generalisation -- people realise women like a lot of other things, but they don't try to satisfy this because they're still stuck in the stereotype and assume it's the only way to make money).
It's not inadequate to not mention the "weak" male characters; they're harder to find, and that's not at all what she's talking about. But here's another thing: What qualities do those 'weak male' characters share? I can guarantee you that a lot of them exhibit something somewhere between incredible intelligence (stereotyped nerd) and/or effeminate characteristics (the "momma's boys"). When it comes to the traditional male character, they're still the "sturdy tree" sorts of people.
Bomber Wrote:I feel that if she was ever going to make a full game herself, she would put too much effort into stressing the female protagonist with all of the traits she wants in her protagonist and, in turn, spend less time on making it a good game.I think the odd thing is that women tend to feel like we still have to provide the characters that men want (or that society has told us that everyone wants), so it sometimes feels like we're not allowed to develop strong characters. Most successful video game series do not have a strong female lead, and the same thing goes for a lot of our television series and movies.
I think once you've realised that it's possible to create a female character that isn't cheap and bland (in terms of characterisation), you spend less time focusing on her meeting 100% of the criteria for a "strong female protagonist" and actually make her human, dynamic and flexible within the environment you've created. After all, those are just a few of the things that give someone strength. It's not about removing all flaws, so perhaps she (or anyone) actually could spend a decent amount of time creating a functional female character.
And this part isn't really directed at any one person, but I can only think of a couple games where I find that I like the female characters (or any of them). Despite her annoying low-cut top/belt dress, I loved Lulu's personality in FFX. I loved Liara and Ashley in Mass Effect, and I adored the female version of Shepard. There are good female characters out there. But for every one good one, there are a dozen flat/boring/pointless ones that do nothing or are used as nothing more than plot devices. I actually still love the most of the women in both Valkyrie Profile games, too.
Some of the characters I do still like make me think, though. While I enjoyed FFX-2 (gameplay), I was bored by how much of it was (outside of side quests) Yuna trying to get back to Tidus; her own strength got lost somewhere with her robes. The Shadow Hearts series had a number of interesting female characters, but they always had some awkward problem that was male-focused. For much of Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Karen was in love with Yuri, which was only until they realised some squicky piece of information that made it wrong. Lucia was hysterical, but she was brain-dead and ditzy (common among female characters that aren't major). Anastasia was cute, but she had that teenage-puppy-love thing going for Yuri. And the same can be seen in the first and third installment, even though the characters aren't terrible; they're just not well-thought-out at all, while the guys are brilliant.
Somewhat related in terms of women in media, here are a few fun tests/projects being thrown about:
Dolls and Houses: More about when two women are left alone and what they talk about. Again, makes you think about what stories women are being given, rather than just their existence on screen.
Hawkeye Initiative: Almost everyone in the science fiction/comic area has seen this, so it's probably not new. Find covers of books/comics that show women, replace them with Hawkeye. If he looks silly, it's probably a bad cover for a woman to be in (and hyper-sexualised).
There are tons of other things related to this. Sadly, it's not even just the female portrayal but also the treatment of the female audience.