Gender Roles Amongst the Sea of VGs- Week 4

Video game representation of the male or female character is a compilation of stereotypes, misconceptions, sexism, and inappropriate portrayal of gender roles to the youth of today BUT...it sells! Starting with Gonzalo Frasca's article "Playing with Fire: Trouble in Super Macho World?" I enjoyed the perspective of how degrading the game Super Princess Peach really is to the female game player. She is blonde, wears a pink dress, and is emotionally unstable. It truly is great to see a female in the protagonist position but what Nintendo did was steal her thunder by applying female stereotypes as her defense mechanism. Ahh annoying! Gloom, joy, and rage are the so-called awesome powers that Princess Peach is left to fight the multitude of enemies. It's as if she has menopausal powers! Why would Nintendo take a females emotions and manipulate them into such a negative representation of women? Well, you can see it in one of two lights. First, the age range that is participating in the playing of the game are too young to catch the fact that there is a hint of sexism and just don't understand the concepts before them and secondly, those emotions are basic human traits that both males and females have experienced making the use of Peach's powers easier to understand and why each one of those emotions would be important to the game play. Though Frasca seemed determined to classify Super Princess Peach as a bad influence for kids in understanding gender roles the game does do the honor of removing the atypical "damsel in distress" from the dungeon of Bowser and his minions into the forefront of enemy lines. She is demonstrative of the fact that females can be a strong, butt kicking force in a male dominated activity.



The article "Perils of the Princess: Gender and Genre in Video Games" by Sharon R. Sherman was an interesting read. It stated clearly some reasons WHY girls and boys played video games and specifically what genres were more appealing to them. As a girl I can semi understand why other females would be hesitant to play a game where the characters of choice were primarily male or creature. Take Mario Kart for example. You have the option to play as Princess Peach who, for the most part, shares the same skills as all the rest of the players. Some may disagree that her driving skills suck and NO it's not because she is a female! :-) Regardless, she is placed on an even playing field with the rest of the competitors. You have the gender option. Now lets take a war game like Halo. You are a man who is talk to by his commander as a man and every step of the way you are surrounded by men..which doesn't sound half bad...but as a serious female gamer I'm sure a heroine would be preferred rather that having identity issues while playing a male. I personally don't have the problem with being a guy in a game. Its just a game after all. BUT when I did do a trial version for World of Warcraft I found myself swaying to the female character selection. Playing a fantasy game where I am in control of the destiny of my character it seemed more appropriate that I selected a female, though she was very undead, for reasons only being that I'm a female. Having the game options that were more realistic or that were comparable to real life scenarios may have influenced my decision to partake the WoW adventure as a character I could relate to on a more personal level. A comment also stated in Sherman's article that I found interesting, not verbatim, is the fact that girls are just not interested in saving the princess or any other helpless woman in that matter. They are out to show everyone their abilities and skills at playing the game. I remember being a little girl playing my older cousin Jack at Knock Out. All I wanted to do was beat him bad enough to where I could have my name on the list of high scores. That's it. I didn't care about the violence associated with the game, I didn't even care that my player was a guy, all I wanted was the proud moment of saying, "I beat a boy at a video game." True story. All-in-all the expectations of playing a VG is the same for both sexes; they want action and the ability to do more with their characters! People want to be able to incorporate abilities that we as humans can do as well as the ones created by the imagination. They want an avatar that can do whatever the player commands, which sounds pretty domineering and almost God-like, but they become our virtual pets and the expectations of their capabilities and endless limitations are foreshadowing who we are as people and what we wish could be a reality.



Furthermore, below I have attached video clips of top ten lists of the hottest male and female video game characters, from a personal perspective of the persons who posted on youtube.com. After viewing both, what conclusions have you come to about what are admirable qualities men have of women and what women have of men whether it be in the realm of fantasy or reality?