Bouncing Pixelated Breasts: Sexism in Video Games
by Kelly
Video games are fun. Sometimes, the more violent the better. I personally prefer MMORPGS (massively multi-player role-playing games) over FPS (first person shooter), which means while I understand my boyfriend’s penchant for video games, I still gripe about the evils of Xbox with my friends. It’s been a few years since my obsession with video games came to an end (college took precedence), but over this winter break I picked up my old copy of World of Warcraft and decided to give it another go. Yes, my dirty little secret is that I’m a nerdy 12-year old boy inside.
Just because I dig gaming doesn’t mean I don’t wonder what these games are doing to our society. Do I think the violence in video games directly correlates to gang warfare and in-school shootings? Not really. However, I admit that all forms of entertainment & media do desensitize us to a certain degree. While the violence may not make your child violent, he may be more likely to be a bystander in violent situations, or confuse the severity of crimes with being “cool” or “okay.”
Since this is a feminist website, I’d like to look at a similarly problematic theme of video games: the depiction of women. Again, part of me thinks…okay so all the women are buxom and Barbie-like (even the badass ones), but they are pixelated. Does it really matter? Actually it does. I want to point out a few extreme examples that have made me think twice about our pixelated counterparts:
Did you know that…
1. One way for your character to regain health on Grand Theft Auto IV is to have sex with a prostitute? You go down a dark alley and find a woman wearing next to nothing and you get into a car with her. Then the game shows a charming graphic of her fucking your (male) character so hard the car shakes. Then, if you drive away before she’s done, the prostitute is thrown forcefully out of the car. (Added bonus: most of my male buddies then shoot the hooker to death & get their money back, thus turning a business transaction into rape and murder)
Ivy in Soul Calibur...Her outfit has gotten skimpier in recent versions.
2. In fighting games like Soul Calibur (one of my faves, I admit), the men are usually fully clothed but the women wear cleavage-baring, skin-tight outfits. This goes for most games, actually.
3. There are games like “The Guy Game” which features pictures of naked women and “…it combines boozing, nudity, and revelry. There’s no question that it’s a party game. It sets itself apart from other party games in that you don’t have to pretend that it’s a drinking game or fathom special party rules to make it work. Admit it: you’ve tried to turn everything from Super Monkey Ball to Eye Toy into alcohol-driven party games. The Guy Game doesn’t pretend to be anything else; its style is a blend of Girls Gone Wild, the long-standing drinking game A**hole, and, well…You Don’t Know Jack. For four players.” Personal sidenote: I still don’t understand some men’s ability to watch pornography/strippers/other titillating subject matter in a roomful of their peers. Just sayin’
Oh and if the entire game concept wasn’t bad enough, the company was sued for portraying nude pictures of a minor:
“The plaintiff, whose name was not revealed in the Austin, Texas, lawsuit, says she was 17 when she consented to a revealing appearance before Topheavy’s cameras as part of spring-break revelry at South Padre Island, Texas.
She says in the suit she was promoted as one of more than 60 “actual Spring Break Hotties” who posed for game developers at South Padre Island, Texas’ top beach destination for college-age fun-seekers.Under state law, attorney Jim McClendon said, the girl could not legally consent to her appearance because she was a minor. She seeks monetary damages and a stop to game sales.
“We’re just trying to nip it where it is now,” McClendon said. “We don’t want anything else distributed with her image on it.”
…The lawsuit says the girl appears topless in the game as a reward for successful answers to trivia questions. Her breasts are exposed in a manner that is “sexually suggestive, lewd and lascivious,” the petition said.Her voice also is heard on the game, and her photo and real first name — which was not listed in the suit — appear on the game’s Web site, her lawsuit said.”
Before anyone says, “but she chose to pose nude”, I will say this: she was underage and there is a distinction between a minor and an adult for a reason. She made a bad judgment call and it sounds like a nightmare to wake up one morning and find out that your name and nude images are plastered all over a video game. Another reason I didn’t go on Spring break…
4. There’s a video game called “Fat Princess” that I actually linked to in August. The game is capture-the flag “with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess in a dungeon and stuffing her full of cake, thereby increasing her girth and making her harder for your enemies to haul back to home base.” Feminists have spoken out against this game and the main response by the jerks who support it say: “Well, a woman created this game”. Newsflash: Women can be sexist assholes too.
5. Popular FPS game Counter Strike allows (and even encourages) players to upload their favorite porn image. When they make a kill or when the game ends (I’m not too sure on the details) the image is “sprayed” onto the screen for all the players to enjoy. Believe me, when my boyfriend was showing me how to play, it definitely made me feel uncomfortable. I can’t help but think this practice alienates any female players. Also, watching your boyfriend’s best friend stop fighting and shoot at a woman’s naked ass on the screen for 30 seconds? Awkward and infuriating.
(I asked my boyfriend why the fascination with putting up porn images and his response, “Come on I was 16.” More of that ‘boys will be boys’ bullshit, eh?)
So what should be done? Boycott certain video games? Write angry letters to the companies? Personally, I’m not really sure. I do know that parents should exercise caution when purchasing for their children and teenagers. Do a little research before buying these games. Yet, one of main demographics for these video games is males in their twenties, who can just buy the damn things themselves. I’ve decided to judge a guy by his video game tastes. Give me a nerd who plays World of Warcraft 24/7 over a frat boy jerk-off who owns “The Guy Game” any day.
- Dollface
Note: There are far more examples than I have mentioned here. After looking up “sexism in video games” I found this site that backs up my claims about Grand Theft Auto (although I believe she discusses an earlier version) and brings up other pathetic and disturbing instances of sexism in video games. Check out her article for more information.
Augh… I hear you. I’ve been playing games since I was a wee-tot (remember, Sonic is my hero), but I’ve really struggled to find my niche in terms of the gaming world. Too often it seems like my money is less important to game companies because I have a vagina.
And it’s like, you can’t explain these reasons to gamer boiz as it is. If you try and explain why Ivy’s hypersexualization (and totally unrealistic body) are offensive and oppressive to women, guys respond with it’s just as bad for muscular male characters (except, as you mentioned, they are almost always clothed and *always* have agency, autonomy, and heroic status). Then, a game like Fat Princess comes around and feminists criticize it because, once again, women are stripped of their agency and turned into passive objects. The best gamer boiz come up with? What are you feminists complaining about? We thought you *wanted* more realistic looking women? >.< Way to miss the point!
I’ve always very strongly identified as a Nintendo gamer because I feel in terms of game producers they are the most female-friendly and I want to support that (but by NO MEANS could you describe them as feminist, and I really don’t think they are all that interested in addressing a larger female gaming audience). I simply *cannot* play games like GTA because they are too offensive and would just make my feminist brain explode. And I mean, people always argue… hey it’s just a game! Ligthen up! But that’s exactly the response feminists get all the time on any issue. And that’s the problem: it’s these small things, these cultural nuances, that provide the foundation for the much larger problems in our society in terms of sexism, racism, and other oppressive institutions.
Personally, I think the solution lies beyond writing letters and boycotting games (though microactivism never hurts). I for one was raised in a home where video games were available to me, despite the fact I was a girl–and these games were not "Fashion Designer" or "Cooking Academy" or anything like that. I played Sonic and Kirby and Mario and Zelda. So, I was socialized to see that games could be played and enjoyed by women (though the dearth of strong female characters in those games is definitely a sore point). A lot of women I meet didn’t have that same experience. They talk about watching their brothers play, but that’s usually the limit. Socialization plays an important role I think, which contributes to market research that shows guys are more likely to play games than girls (which causes too many people to assume that girls just inherently don’t like video games).
The question then is how do we change socialization, I guess. That’s a huge freaking act of macroactivism that’ll take decades or even centuries to really grow. I think barriers like this require the courage of strong feminists willing to infiltrate the barriers of the gaming industries. Feminist, progressive women need to be in development of gameplay, storylines, and character profiling. Gah, this is such a tough problem. It gets to the root of everything that feminism is about, which is basically asking how can we make feminism succeed? I’m sure you have some Marxist viewpoint on all this too, dollface! Let it shine! :D
PS Do you think my rambling is a result of my not posting enough on my own blog? ;)
Ivy was always my favorite character to play in Soul Calibur. I was bummed to see her in her new outfit that almost exposes everything =[
(Maybe I miss out on these games but…) it surprises me there aren’t more video games with female, main characters. Research may show that guys are more likely to play videos games than girls, but there is still a HUGE group of girl gamers. Maybe if companies developed games with strong female main characters, they could attract more players.
Kind of unrelated: I’m quite the fan of the Final Fantasy Series. Actually, anything by Squaresoft/Square Enix it would seem.
I’ve been mulling over issues close to this for awhile and I am undecided about how far sexism needs to be controlled in a fictional realm. See on one hand, I don’t want to oppress women and on the other hand it is titillating to see girls in certain garb. Further down the titillation, would I object to more realistic depictions of females? Certainly not. I am not aware of buying a game for its portrayal of women, but I have borrowed some. Have some sexy girls, and have some sexy guys too. Women, make your voices heard so you get the kind of sexy guys you would like to see in a video game. I’m sorry I just don’t think from your perspective and I wouldn’t pick based on the same criteria, so female opinions are very important.
I don’t see the issue with Grant Theft Auto IV in the same light as you have mentioned. I see the crime and I think in reality that is despicable. I think what is really bothersome is that you can’t play as a woman with the same sort of service from men prostitutes. After all, in GTA, you are a gangster Hollywood-style, you can do things you shouldn’t, but the implication that the player is male works for me but fails for girls.
My issue with sexism extends only to include facts like women are not objects. And women have a similar scope of desires and needs as men (and not required to be desire for desire either). So I would like to see women who can totally get any dude in bed to be seen as the safe top shelf female-stud as I would feel like if I could get any lady in bed.
And just like women are kind enough to get past the fact that most guys would sleep with them under very simple conditions, we guys should return the favor and take the time to know the person underneath all these bodies we would have sex with and appreciate or fail to appreciate our female counterparts based on their behavior.
I don’t think the answer is in consciousness raising of gamers. I think the answer is behavioral and the games are a result. The fact that the Guy Game exists is by far not as telling as the fact that there isn’t a Girl Game that you would play. That’s my two cents.
[...] someone could spend time raping pixelated women. It truly boggles the mind. I wrote a post about sexism in video games a month ago, but this game takes the cake in terms of sexual violence against women in popular [...]
your ridiculous. YOU are not being forced to buy the game. So if someone wants to make money selling it then let them and get off there nuts and leave them alone. Hater.
I agree with your point of view and I will be back to read your blog in the future so please keep up the quality writing!
I honestly believe that the entire claim of sexism in video games is bunk and a non issue. Part of the problem is that there is no clarity regarding what sexism actually is. Dolly complains that she has trouble explaining to her male friends why hypersexualization is bad, offensive, and oppressive to women. I’ll confess, I’ve never gotten this either, and after asking women AND men to explain to me, point by point, why such a thing is bad, those who don’t fall back into juvenile rhetoric about my sex life and automatically quit the conversation, fail to present even one objective reason why such is bad.
So far as hypersexualization being offensive, well OK, I’ll grant you that, not on any particular merit, but because offense is a state of mind, and anything can be offensive to anyone, and what is sacred to one person or group can be athenma to another. But then that’s really the only thing you can say about it.
So far as it being bad, how is it bad? This sounds like the hyper conservative Jack Thompson school of thought, which believes that the mere existence of a video game causes people who would never have so much as jaywalked prior to become stone cold criminals. I’m sorry, but how does playing and enjoying a game that has a pretty girl, woman, or any other stripe of female in it make me sexist? How does the designer putting a female with a body they liked into a game make them sexist? Are you saying that men have no control over themselves whatsoever in the presence of female images, that there are images so provacative that they need to be blocked and censored, even if the women are already wearing clothes? Do we need to start making laws about women in video games having to have a certain percentage or kind of clothing in video games? Maybe shawls and hoods or something nice and fashionable like in those nice Middle Eastern countries?
So far as it being oppressive, this is where most gamers who dismiss sexism in video games roll their eyes and leave you to your sandbox. For argument’s sake, let’s say I make a game and fill it with nothing but the most physically perfect, hyper sexualized women ever made. I then proceed to sell this game in game stores and outlets across the world. Question: how are you oppressed by this? How does this game restrict your freedom to do anything? When I go to sell this game, what vendor in the free world will refuse to sell it to you because you’re female? When you go to play it, who will try to prevent you from playing it because you’re female? Furthermore, if you don’t like it, is this game preventing you from making your own attempt at came creation, something more to your liking? Is it preventing you from playing another person’s game that is more in line with your viewpoint?
Seeing how I’ve never heard an actual answer to the above paragraph anywhere I have asked it, I will say that the answer to the whole thing is negative, and get to my point. When sexism is mentioned, most reasonable people (of which there are very few) define it as that which actively demeans and oppresses one because of their sex. That is to say, if something is sexist toward sex N, and you are sex N, there’s no way you won’t be affected by it, and there’s no way that said thing could be taken as it is as anything other than demeaning and oppressive, and disrespectful of the existence of sex N and all members of sex N. When women and feminist men say it with regards to gaming (and most things really, but for this topic, we’ll keep it limited to gaming), 99% of the time they mean something that has personally offended them, but isn’t actually doing harm or preventing anyone from doing anything. Sarah or Sophitia or Cammy or whoever in a game is bad, not because there’s a problem with their play mechanics, or they’re inherently evil in game, or even inconsistent with the story universe. They’re “too pretty,” and as such, sexist. That’s what it really boils down to the majority of the time: “that girl is prettier than I’ll ever be, this game is evil and oppressive and all that other stuff, wahhh!”
Now occassionally you do get your games such as your RapeLay’s and such, that are so far out there that there is no modesty defense. There really isn’t any justification for the prostitution scenes in GTA IV. Honestly though, I don’t feel there needs to be one. If we were talking about literature, the free speech people would be up in arms over the kinds of censorship that is being considered, and has already been done regarding video games. Free speech doesn’t mean nice speech, or sensible speech, or even speech that has any reasonable purpose whatsoever. Every once in a while, a game like RapeLay or Night Trap will come out, and when they do, the fans vote with their dollars, and they fall under the radar. This doesn’t mean that the industry is overrun with sexism. Indeed, I believe just the opposite: anyone can play a game or make a game if they have the ability to do so, and the fact that it’s the same main stable of about a hundred or so titles that gets called up as sexist (Tomb Raider, Night Trap, GTA, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur) out of the thousands and thousands and thousands that have been made says how bad the problem really is in perspective. You can play puzzlers and platformers and card games and racing games and many FPS’s all day, and never have the issue arise in any way, shape, or form. If you do, well there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a better go yourself. This is why I (and what fem reasonable male gamers are left) are largely unsympathetic to your cries of sexism in video games: your definition of sexism isn’t something that violates the belief that women are people, it’s something that violates the belief that women are above being offended in any way, shape, or form, and that isn’t how art works.
Correction to previous statement and pointing out inaccuracy in main article:
This is why I (and what fem reasonable male gamers are left)
Should be
This is why I (and what few reasonable male gamers are left)
Also, This statement in the main article is incorrect:
Popular FPS game Counter Strike allows (and even encourages) players to upload their favorite porn image.
How would Counter Strike _encourage_ players to upload _porn_ images? For one, how would the game even determine what image is and is not pornographic? The game and game designers, and people on a particular server, are two different things. People on any given server or servers enjoying porn is not the same as Valve or the CS mod designers “encouraging” porn.
You whores need to stop complaining. Besides, you act like you’ve never dressed provocatively.
Go Jimmy! See ladies, as this fellow proves, things could be much worst. Now to go back to my titty search, that this article hijacked…
[...] I outlined in my last post on the subject, sexism is rampant in many video games. Now there is yet another instance of sexualized violence in [...]