There’s a post over on GameCritics.com that irks me quite a bit. The author of the article is basically calling out another author on GameCritics for accusing game developers of not respecting feminist views, equality, and gender roles. The author posts an interesting question, which is – “Are Game Developers Ethically Responsible for Gender Roles in Games?”
I’ll go out on a limb here, and say yes. We’re all ethically responsible for gender roles in our thoughts, words, actions, creations. TV shows are responsible for gender roles. Music is responsible for gender roles. Every time a rap artist speaks about “smacking his bitch around”, he’s responsible for gender roles. One fantastic part about being in the entertainment industry is the fact that you will hypothetically touch so many people. You WILL leave an impression on them, just like an artist, just like a movie producer. In a game, people assume the roles of your characters and complete objectives within that mindset to strive to complete the game in an environment you’ve created. The ideals you portray, the racism, the misogyny, the homophobia, the sexism – that does all come across even if it’s completely involuntary.
A common school of thought is “I’m just playing the game, I don’t pay attention to that stuff, I don’t even notice the women are mostly naked, I don’t even notice that the men are always more powerful, and games don’t have that effect on me”. Well let me break it to you – that’s involuntary and subconscious injection of morales on you without you even REALIZING it. You’re so used to playing games that portray women in these roles, that you don’t even notice it anymore. This is why organizations like GLAAD strictly deal with defamation in the entertainment industry. Because the people who are playing it and immersing themselves in it are so ingrained with these ideals that they don’t realize it’s happening.
Yes, I feel that game developers are ethically responsible for the content in their games and what sort of ideals it may teach players. Yes, I feel that those who PLAY games are ethically responsible to speak out or talk with their money and not buy games that sit wrong with them morally. Yes, I feel that game companies are mostly oblivious to a lot of these inequalities. Yes, I know that many of my readers will state that I’m overreacting. No, I don’t blame Random Quest Designer 001 on the team – but I do think this industry has a long way to go before we achieve a respectable level of equality and portrayal of women and minorities in games.
Games are, of course, artistic reflections of our cultural ideologies, and it’s worthwhile to consider how our culture is reflected for better or worse in the arts. But when Alex starts suggesting that games ought to portray women this way or that, that having an insectoid queen bearing lots of children is patriarchal, that there should be more ugly females, that there should be more homosexual and transgendered characters, it’s going too far. Artists in any medium have no ethical obligation to create works that are accurate representations of reality.
Does anyone think that the objectifying of women in games is done as an artistic statement? I sure don’t see it that way. This goes back to the “are games art” discussion. Unfortunately, when the norm becomes scantily clad women on box art and in games, I think it’s just that. A norm, and not an artistic statement.
What do you all think?
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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If the final quote omitted the word ‘ethical’, I’d be forced to agree with it on a technicality. Disregarding ethics and morality (and philosophical arguments surrounding mimesis), the artist has no obligation to do anything more than tickle his fans and do what needs to be done to put food on the table. However, avoiding ethical and moral considerations that go beyond trite good/bad choices is a major part of why games remain the ‘artistic’ equivalent of a Michael Bay movie.
Ethically? Yes, you’re obligated, just as you’re ethically obligated to educate yourself on political matters and vote accordingly, to clean up after yourself, and to not whine when someone calls you on propagating paternalistic fantasies.
I’m curious then, what your stance is on the plethora of action games that cast the lead “bad-ass” protagonist as a female. It almost seems cliché now to design an action/shooter with a fit, attitude-copping, battle-skilled woman as the vehicle for the player. Is this entrenching more bad gender roles, or is it a positive move in your opinion?
For example, most of these games I’m thinking of counter your comment that the “men are always more powerful”, as the player in said female’s shoes is regularly decimating ranks of male enemies.
May I ask why a bad-ass ass-kicking female is cliche, but we don’t even think twice about all the bad-ass ass-kicking males? Is that not a double standard?
The day we see just as many women protagonists as men will be a day I’m happy. But even more so, I’d love the freedom to choose the gender of the character I play.
You’ve put together a well thought out, well delivered and interesting point. And I have to cede to you that yes in many parts of the entertainment industry women are played out to be stereotypical.
But I feel your point is somewhat blunted by your original question, as to whether the game developers are responsible for this attitude, in short they are, but is that their intent? Probably not, most story tellers use stereotypes of many flavours to convey their narrative, whether their needs are to define good & evil, right or wrong, male or female, hetero or homo sexual.
To this ends such stereotyping works, and for the most part is not offensive in intent nor can it be construed as offensive when the vast majority of the audience views it; you will of course always find a fringe element whom will pick fault, but such is the nature of the human species.
If a game developer sets out to have a heroine, e.g. Lara Croft, is he going to make her the fantastic sex bomb, the eye candy for the male heterosexual and female homo sexual segments of the audience, or is she going to be made dowdy and grey?
So, the point of responsibility is to my mind somewhat moot, in the vast majority of cases I feel that if you have a “bad-add ass-kicking female” then you have just that, it’s not necessarily cliché. It may just be what is required to advance the narrative.
I myself am a case in point, I’m a man, a very many man, I roam around the forest looking for fights… *cough* sorry, I’m not sure what came over me just there… I’m a man, and I play World of Warcraft, Eve-Online & other offline games.
In both the New Eden & Azeroth Universes women are portrayed for the most part with equality. Indeed some of the strongest characters and bosses in WoW are female, they are not cliché they are driving the narrative. And I take this a step further; I have several characters, male and female. Do I dress my female mage in a bikini, pink sun glasses & have a pet poodle? No, she’s wearing epic PVP and raid gear, which was a valid choice for me, given to be by the game developers.
Did I have the option to make her wear skimpy clothes? Yes. Do I have the option to make my female nightelf druid dance silkily? Yes I do. But, does that impart a moral disrespect for females in general? No. It’s simply a dance in a computer game, with a narrative story to progress.
So really, to come full circle, I’m asking you, do you need to re-evaluate your fury at the OP at GameCritics, do you need to add a caveat or two of your generic tarnishing of ‘involuntary and subconscious injection of morals’ and think that not only is that a normal part of storytelling, but it modus operandi for human interpretation of the world around us.
And from myself, I’d add “Don’t let a moral objection overwhelm the story and let every story tell it’s tale, even if it’s one you can pick fault with”.
Xel out
Without dismissing the artistry of game development, games are first and foremost a commercial product and for that reason any argument about artistic freedom and its license to be as ethically irresponsible as it wants is misplaced.
The data are there, women (and people of color) are culturally excluded from playing games, developing games and developing the technology that make them happen.
The inane arguments that dismiss these facts and joke them away are exactly the reasons why gender discussions have to exist, and why there are a slew of feminist bloggers and tweeters (e.g. bitchphd, womenwhotech) who call out the morons and crimes.