The Rise of the Female Protagonist in Video Games
I love playing games and the older I get the less time I have to play them so I tend to stick to games with a story-focused narrative as opposed to arena games like Fortnite or PUBG. Besides appealing to my adventurous side, my wife, who is not a gamer, actually enjoys watching and experiencing the story as I play- this tends to create a more harmonious household. She recently brought up an observation, noting that it seemed that a lot of the games I’ve recently played have great women as protagonists. I’ve noticed it, too, so I decided to take a deeper look.
If 2017 could talk, it would have a lot to say about the rise of female protagonists, especially in the video game industry. I don’t want to get too optimistic, but it seems that the days of the hyper-sexualized female characters in video games may be behind us.
In the past, the few female protagonists appearing in games were built specifically with the male gaze in mind. In order to be relatable to a male player (and the assumption seemed to be that there were only male players), their characters were either neutered or sexualized.
As neutered characters, they were portrayed weaker than the males (if playable at all), making them less threatening. Players choosing a female character had to avoid enemies and head-on battles as your character would get killed more easily. One wonders if their presence was an afterthought meant to tick off a “diversity” box. Of course, there were exceptions such as Samus in Metroid or Jade in the excellent Beyond Good and Evil.
When the female protagonist was strong, she would be sexualized. One of the most well-known female leading protagonists in AAA games has been Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, whose top-heavy figure was quite clearly designed to appeal to a heterosexual male player. In many of the earlier games, she wore no protective clothing in combat and hostile environments, lest it obscure her sex appeal.
With the help of social media, Gamergate put the issue of sexism into the limelight and Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games laid bare for all to see the common stereotypes that women were subject to in video games.
Things feel like they’ve started to change ever since the advent of Gamergate; there’s been an obvious public facing effort from the industry to be more inclusive in stories and characters, but I’d argue that the shift wasn’t just because of Gamergate. The demographics of gamers had already started shifting before and AAA games aren’t made overnight (Horizon Zero Dawn started development in 2011 and the Tomb Raider reboot was announced in 2010).
One of the best examples from 2017 is Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. There is little distinction between playing her or a male character. As Aloy, you are the main hero of the game and the whole world is available to you. You play as the mighty warrior who defeats everything and anyone in this expansive world. Aloy is not a weak sex symbol who needs to avoid danger. She is skilled in defeating giant animal robots inhabiting this world, and is equally matched to any male enemies.
Aloy isn’t the only example from 2017. There’s also Chloe Frazer from Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. In this latest iteration of the series, Chloe has replaced Nathan Drake and shows us that treasure hunting isn’t only a man’s vocation by having equal skills in navigating the environment, fighting off enemies, and solving puzzles.
Another great example is Senua from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Senua’s Sacrifice is a game that didn’t just give us a realistic portrayal of how it feels to be a person struggling with psychosis, it also gave us a traditional “save the princess” game where the princess is actually a man.
Even Lara Croft, the over-sexualized protagonist from the past, has evolved. The changes made to her character in Tomb Raider [2013] clearly emphasizes her skill set -not her figure.
Though this may appear to be a phenomenon, there’s still a long way to go. The number of female protagonists in AAA games has only grown from 7% to 9% according to a study by Feminist Frequency and presented at E3 in June 2017. With at least 42% of the gamer audience being women it stands to reason that an equal number of game heroes should represent that audience.
Diversity in games isn’t just nice to have- it’s a necessity. It not only means essential representation for a significant number of female gamers, it also provides a better understanding for men in terms of shifting the perspective of a women’s role and capabilities in games. The prevalence of sexism against female gamers is astounding, with 63% of female gamers reporting harassment. One wonders if the men involved in Gamergate had been exposed to strong and diverse characters from an early age, would they have acted so poorly. Hell, there may have not even been the necessity for it in the first place.
Diversity isn’t merely represented by gender. We also have a long way to go to represent race, age, religion, sexual orientation, ability, and beyond. At the very least, the representation of protagonists should match the makeup of the audience. As far ago as 2015, Nielsen reported that LGBT and ethnicities felt very much under-represented in video games.
I’ll end this with this inspiring Ted Talk from Christopher Bell in which he addresses why it’s so hard to find female superhero merchandise. I believe video games are way ahead of Marvel in terms of female representation but there’s more work to be done.
