Stereotypes in Video games.

This week has got me thinking about all the cliché, over-used and also negative stereotypes in video games. Just like in film, video games also have a tendency to over emphasis these images/views that most commonly deal with race and gender. Having a look at some games that I have played and heard about will show example for both groups in both racial and sexualised terms. For instance, we can take a look at the role of Women in Grand Theft Auto. They are most commonly sexualised through the Prostitute character. Any male character is able to approach the Prostitute, take her to a secluded area and also decide whether or not they want to pay her. In other games, whether it is fantasy genre or arcade, female characters are usually sexualised in the way they appear and look. Most characters have an exotic appearance, like characters Nina or Christie in Tekken- Or Princess Peach in the Mario series, who is usually the damsel in distress.

In relation to race, a friend told me about this game called Ethnic Cleansing (2002), a disturbing game where neo Nazi or white supremacist characters are on a quest to kill ethnic minorities e.g. Black, Jewish and Latino people. Although this is a far more hard hitting example of racism, other games support ideas of this through burden of representation. This can also be seen in Tekken as characters clearly illustrate stereotypical views of their racial groups. For instance, the character Eddy is African/Brazilian and fights by means of break dancing and capoeira and characters Law and Lei appear and act like Bruce Lee. These examples illustrate how stereotypes in video games reinforce negative images on specific gender groups and also racial minorities. They also reinforce typical images of these groups, due to common images shown in society. Reasoning for the use of stereotypes is due to the fact that sex sells. This targets the male population of gamers and just adds value to any game being played. Just like in film too, the constant use of racial stereotypes are just based on the fact of burden of representation. These representations will continue to be used, even in good or bad view. I guess for me, they don’t really bother me because you see these kind of images everywhere these days.