Blog Post #7
Kerry McGlynn
Blog Post #7
As we learned from our class readings and in class presentation sexuality in games is a very misrepresented ideal in most all video games today. We see it again and again with both sexes misrepresented. First, I will talk about the males being misrepresented as I can relate to this more even though if you hadn’t met me you might assume I was able to vie for the female side better because of my first name. In Ryan Perez article he explained, “Games are, first and foremost, a visual medium. With that said, visuals can and usually do dictate the methods in which designers convey underlying themes. The context of a male’s character has become almost entirely dependent on their physical aesthetics and, likewise, tends to dictate the more important aspects of their being. Games with an abundance of action typically feature implausibly bulky and beefy characters.” This gives us a misguided representation on how we should look according to their near impossible, in some ways, physique. Not all characters in video games that are males are portrayed like this but this is often the case in many action video games. An example of this would be a game like Mortal Combat or many of the different series of war games. Women are often misrepresented in many video games as well. They are given the same misguided representations about what a woman’s body “should” look like. They are often in perfect physical condition. They also in many ways always seem to get save by a male protagonist and do not often get a role of the protagonist in video games. Even though in the story they may be the protagonists they game developers seem to rewrite the story in some way to keep them out of that role. Also the clothes that they seem to be in time in and time out is ridiculous in most cases. No matter the situation whether the character is in a role in which it would need protective gear that would cover their bodies, for example a war game, they seem to be dressed with the least amount of clothing possible to show their bodies. I really didn’t notice this until I really took a second look in the class presentation on how prominent this really is. Now that it was brought to my attention it really shows how absurd it really is. Also a game that I am familiar with that represents women absolutely terrible in which I never fully noticed is Grand Theft Auto. In this game women are often dressed with barely any clothes on and with good physical attributes, which is easy to notice, but I never really notice how much they were degraded. There are aspects in the game were you can enter strip clubs and even hints at prostitution throughout the game. Also a part of the game which is absolutely terrible is the fact that some ways to get money for the character you are playing in the game is to beat up prostitutes and steal their money. This aspect of the game is absolutely brutal and I don’t even know how they get away with it. In conclusion I think both sexes are very well misrepresented but women characters definitely on the worse end of things. They not only get misrepresentation but also degradation.
