Female representation in video games. (In responding to the "Gamer Girls" Blog post.)

WARNING: This blog post might contain inappropriate images! ! !  
Saw the blog post “Gamer girls” had a few thoughts in responding to the YouTube Video that was posted. 

URL to the blog:  ftvms212-328-2012.blogspot.com/2012/01/gamer-girls.html

I have to say that I am agree with the comment on there are girls who play games, there are girls who are competent at playing games but they are not exactly running around naked or wearing less cloths. Game and gender has been one of the popular topics in game studies. In this blog I would like to discuss on the representation of female in video game. 

During the class on games and gender, there are few common questions were raised such as what are the most common representations of women in games? What are the stereotypes about representations of women in games? How many female protagonists are there in games, and what traits are associated with them? And what is the reality, and is it that different?
Things that people came up with which I agree with, that the common representations and features of women in games are generally they have big breasts, super slim bodies, long legs, athletic type of body, and dress less clothes for example super tight tops or super short shorts or even just wearing bikinis. AND ALL OF THEM ARE SUPER PRETTY!!  I’d have to admit, the female has been created almost prefect in videogames, although they are not that realistic in reality. 

 

These images are founded in the game called Dead or Live, which is a fighting game, where you are given a character that you will need to challenge your opponent.  
From these images we could see that the females in this game are mainly represented in a sexualized way. Where you having each female character dressed in less-amount of cloths or we could call them almost naked? Or although they did wearing sensible outfit, but all the “attractive” body parts (for example, breasts, legs and waist) are must be shown by either leaving a big open cut somewhere on the outfit or by having to wear some super tight t-shirt or pants/shorts. Just to show the figure of the body. 

Academic discussion of gender in games is prone to sexism itself, or certainly sexist framing.  According to Gillian Skirrow, “The pleasure of videogame is gender specific… women do not play them.” With this comment we could argue in two ways. First when we say videogame, we need to be specific by which videogame we referred to. Majority of women might not be enjoying playing fighting shooting or killing games. Or, second, because how the female has been represented in videogames are highly sexualized it somehow caused an affect upon the female player’s emotion or get offended because there are no dignity of how female are been presented in the videogame. These are just personal thoughts. 

Flash back to the common questions above with “How many female protagonists are there in games, and what traits are associated with them”? I personally don’t think there are many games out there by having a female protagonist as the main character. I might probably not have a fair say on this because I hardly play any videogames.  However, I did found a game that involves female as the main protagonist. 

    Onechanbara

 
This game is based on a gameplay of two Japanese sisters fighting the war of zombies. 

In the game cover above we can clearly see that the main protagonist of the game is a female. And interestingly enough, the outfit that she is wearing is bikinis, cowboy hat and boots. In here we could argue that sexualized outfit with a particle boots? Because she needs to run and kick a lot therefore she needs some practical boots? And she has to maintain the “sexiness” at the same time.

Another example is the shower scene during the opening trailer of this game, I think it is highly sexualized where you have a camera from the outside of the bathroom door walking slowly towards the tinted shower door and slowly went inside projecting a low angle of the Saki’s (girl showing in the game cover) feet slowly moving upwards just to film the curves of Saki’s body figure. 
Here is the YouTube video of the game trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELx4paC-9EU

 

 

It was also interesting to see that sometimes, there are game companies using a female character to advertising a game. For example, in the previous blog post on game violence, I’ve mentioned the game of Urban Crime. In the app icon of the game is an image of a female character. At first I thought this game would be based around by a female protagonist’s story. But, later on as I played the game, I discover it’s based on a male character.  

In this way, we could argue that female character are not important in terms of the gameplay of the game BUT it is important in terms of attracting more people to play the game?

What it amazes me that, with women as the main protagonist, the female can do as much as the male character does. What I mean by that is, the main female character of the game can fight like a man, shoot, kill like a man. Maybe I haven’t explained myself clear but I meant all genders or sexualities are equal. However, there will always be a big BUT. But why does women are must to be represented in such sexualized way?  Is a male’s pleasure?  Or it is a marketing strategy to attract more people to play?  

Additional content:  Saw this on Facebook the other day.  Any thoughts?