Mario and Manhood: The Princess

In this final post looking at video games and gender, we’ll examine the portrayal of women in gamer culture.

I gave Princess Peach a hard time in the first post in this series, but the truth is that she has it easier than most other women characters in the gaming world. If men are portrayed unfairly on TV, then women are portrayed especially bad through video games. Like Princess Peach, many female characters are just used as a romantic interest, a plot device, or as eye candy rather than as an interesting or important part of the story. Let’s look at some negative examples of women portrayed in video games.

1. Dead or Alive, specifically the Beach Volleyball version.

2. Duke Nukem “babes” that have to be rescued and are often naked or scantily clad.

3. Most female NPC’s in Grand Theft Auto games.

There are probably many more examples, but that gives you an idea. Women being degraded and objectified has been a problem for probably as long as there have been both women and men in existence. Unfortunately, this trend has made its way into games as well. But what does God say about how women should be viewed and treated?

When God created Eve, he did so to provide for him a helper. People immediately equate this situation with slavery or servitude, but that is not the case. The word for “helper” in the original language is also used in other places when God is called our “helper.” So therefore, being a helper does not imply inferiority. It should also be noted that Eve is the pinnacle of creation, the last thing that came directly from God’s hands before he declared creation to be “very good.”

So if sex and eye candy are the only factors that influence your view of women (you male gamers) then you are missing out. God created women to be more than just sex objects, but to be valued as treasures for every aspect of their being. Unfortunately, some game designers do not seem to understand this concept. There seem to be two ways in which games distort a proper view of women:

Distortion 1. Men and women are not equal and women are simply objects for the men to rescue. Princess Peach is a great example of this. In the early games, what did she even do? We’re given no idea as to what her value was to Mario other than a convenient plot device. This also shows that strong women and men cannot coexist and one has to be saving the other. Luckily, this distortion seems to be getting more rare as male and female characters are given equal importance and depth. One positive example is Mass Effect 1 and 2. Commander Shephard’s recruits are men and women to work together on a team and they all have skills to contribute. They may not all get along, but at least they have equal ground. This is a good picture of how men and women can compliment each other and work together, not to have one rule completely over the other. The women in the subplots are given special significance and depth that many other female characters are not given. However, the women in Mass Effect still tend to be scantily clad, which brings me to…

Distortion 2. Women have to be overly sexual in appearance and/or behavior in order to be interesting (particularly to male gamers). I ask you Bioware, and any other developers guilty of this, is it really necessary to make an alien female character with human female characteristics? Much less to have them dress provocatively? Another example is Halo, who’s beloved Cortana is effectively “naked” as much as a hologram can be naked. If you want to make the A.I. a female, great, but can’t she wear holo-clothes? While Cortana’s image wasn’t quite as gratitous, the point remains that many female characters placed in the spotlight in a video game tend to automatically be sexualized in some way, presumably to appeal to male gamers.

Games tend to depict women unfairly and the messages we receive from entertainment will determine how we treat them in the real world. There’s still a general lack of respect for women in gamer culture and I feel that it is up to the men to not only be discerning about how women are portrayed, but to stand up and protect the dignity and value of women in the real world. Women were created by God as the last and best part of God’s creation and they should be treated as such.

Questions:

1. What other positive or negative examples of women in games can you identify?

2. Who’s the most interesting female character in gaming?

3. Why do big, burly men get lots of thick armor, but the female characters in the same games have less armor and more exposed areas?

That’s it for this look at video games and manhood. Check back soon for a two-week series on Portal and Portal 2. At the end there will be cake.

Mario and Manhood: Select Player

In this second part we’ll talk about the types of guys that are predominant in the media’s portrayal of men and masculinity.

In the last post there was a description of men that turns out to be a pretty tall order for those who take it seriously. The story of Hosea presents a call to love the otherwise undesirable to the glory of God as an example of His love for us. Hosea’s righteousness as a man and as a husband ultimately came from God, but he does provide a good example of a man with integrity and faithfulness.

But what kind of examples do we have today? Unfortunately, positive examples of men seem to be in short supply. In pop culture, particularly on TV, there are two main images of how our culture views men. Here’s how they break down:

The Womanizer

This is the guy who cares about nothing other than taking advantage of women. He moves from one to the next with no sense of honor or commitment, the classic “hit it and quit it.” This type of guy rarely experiences the consequences of his selfish actions. He’s typically young, independently wealthy, smooth, lacking a moral compass, single (although sometimes perhaps not), and occasionally it will be revealed that he’s wounded or insecure in some way. This last point usually serves to explain the character to make it easier for the audience to relate to or accept him. The story will typically try very hard to show that this character actually has a heart of gold, despite spending the majority of their lives in meaningless pursuits.

Other adjectives that can describe this type of character are: sleazy, eternal bachelor, hedonistic, man-whore, the bad boy

Examples include: Charlie Harper (Two and Half Men), Joey Tribbiani (Friends), Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother), any guy from an Axe Body Spray commercial, Dave Lockwood (Ryan Reynold’s character from The Change-Up), we can also throw Duke Nukem in there

The Inept Suburbanite

This is the guy that everyone points and laughs at. This character’s masculinity (or lack thereof) is used for the purpose of comedy, not as a positive example. He is often domesticated and fumbles around avoiding his overbearing wife. His exploits include attempting to participate in a hobby without making the Mrs. too upset, or even allowing her to find out at all. This means that this character often partakes in the arts of lying and cowardice. Through his zany antics he often ends up looking like a complete fool. He’s typically being run over by his wife and kids. Nobody ever really takes this guy seriously.

Other adjectives that can describe this type of character are: henpecked, tame, clumsy, dweeb, idiot, incompetent, bumbling, whipped, emasculated, weak, useless

Examples include: The main male characters from King of Queens, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, and almost  any family sitcom from the 90′s to the early 00′s, also Phil Dunphy from Modern Family, Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson, and Michael Scott (The Office)

So what about gamer culture? The reputation that gamers have is this: twenty and thirty something single guys who still live with their parents, work very little (if at all), and sleep on Star Wars sheets. This by no means describes every gamer, but this stereotype is not uncommon within the nerd population. But if you look at video games, many of the male protagonists more or less fit the same mold: the mighty hero. The interactive nature of video games allows for players to become someone that they’re not. Thus it makes sense that the examples of strong men are all in video games and action movies. The gaming medium produces characters that players want to be rather than characters that we will laugh at or look down on. When it comes to the types of dudes in video games, they’re usually different packaging of the same product. These protagonists can be categorized as follows:

1. The space marine. Examples: Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Commander Shephard (assuming you choose the male version), Duke Nukem, the guy from Doom

2. The non-space marine. Examples: every Call of Duty game or military shooter

3. The plucky everyman in a challenging situation: Mario, Gordon Freeman, Isaac Clarke, Desmond Miles

4. The daring adventurer: Link, Nathan Drake

The male characters in video games that men get to be are the brave, strong heroes who will always kill the bad guy and save the girl. The way men are viewed by pop culture is either as the petty womanizer or an emasculated family man. So where’s the best example of manhood in our culture? Is there one at all?

The Bible’s view of manhood is both unique and challenging. Hosea’s story is a great example of what real man is called to. God places dignity and an important mandate on the shoulders of every man. He doesn’t call men to philander around from one woman to the next, but to pursue a deep and meaningful commitment to one woman. He doesn’t view his created man as a mindless moron capable of only folly, but he endows each man with a purpose and a mission. As you can see from Hosea’s story (and Mario’s), committing to one woman fully and faithfully is a very challenging task, one that can only be taken up through the God-given strength given to a man.

So take Mario’s and Hosea’s example and man up, pursue a life of Godly manhood just as God has gone out of his way to pursue you.

Questions:

What messages (positive or negative) do you see from culture about what a man is?

Who’s your example of true manhood?

What other categories of guys do you see presented by pop culture?

Next time we’ll talk about the ladies and how they fit into gamer culture.