Vaired Representations of Video Game Characters

Around last month, I had a brief conversation with professor Padilla about gender representation of video games characters, after class. We discussed about the common unrealistic stereotypes of female and male characters. For example, male characters in first person shooters are depicted as having hyper-masculine traits such as having over-sized muscles. While female characters are depicted having attractive and very skinny bodies. My professor also mentions that there are more playable male characters than female characters. After hearing this I expressed to Mr. Padilla that there are a lot of playable female characters in video games, and there are a lot of Japanese games that have playable female characters. He responded that many of these playable female characters from Japanese games are sexualized. From my experience of playing video games, looking at game play footage, reading about games, and looking at video game screenshots and art, I think that there is a varied representation of female characters and male characters. I believe this because if you look up a lot of information of video games, there are games that depict characters having sexualized traits, and there are games that use realistic character designs. For example, the fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat has female characters that appear over-sexualized, and male characters that look hyper-masculine. The male characters are depicted being shirtless, sleeveless, and they show off their muscular bodies. The female characters of Mortal Kombat are wearing revealing bikinis and outfits. 

(Photo of all of the characters from Mortal Kombat Armageddon. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

One example of a video game depicting realistic character designs is The Last of Us. In this action game, both of the main protagonists, Joel and Sarah are playable characters. And neither of those characters have gender stereotypical design traits. Both characters look like real people that you would see walking past by you. Joel's character design traits does not have the over sized muscular body, and Sarah's character design does not wear any revealing clothes. 

(Photo courtesy of ragreynolds.com)

 

The over generalized representation of male and female characters has created a conversation, questioning if video games causes sexism or not. However in Breitbart's article, "Long-Term Study Finds No Link Between Videogames and Sexism," reports on a research article, by the Journal of Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking. The study's findings conclude, that there is no existing connection between sexism and video games. (Here is the link to the article). I agree with the articles finding because video games are not mind-controlling people to do horrific acts in reality. The findings seem to imply that the news sites could be overreacting to the depictions of video game characters. Consumers needs to be aware that there are playable male and female characters, since the Golden Age of Video Games, such as Ms. Pac-Man; and I can point out many different representations of female and male characters in video games. It is true that many video games depict stereotypes and over-sexualized male and female characters, but there are many games that depict more realistic characters. Should we be worried about the over-sexualized representation of video game characters? No, we shouldn't. This is because these character designs are art, and they are not intended to degrade any gender. If today's society buys into the fear of over-sexualized characters, it could persuade the government to pass censorship laws to video games, that are considered "sexist." In this way Video games can be compared to illegal substances such as heroin, and that is a uneducated comparison. With this in mind, there will still be people believe in this assumption. I would suggest that if you hear some states that one particular video game is sexist, tell him or her to ignore these types of games.