representing ‘miniorites’: testing agency with female characters in the world of concern.

Cyberbimbo airhead or dominatrix diva? Video games exploit female sexuality in almost every possible way. More often than not females are represented a prostitutes rather than protagonists. However, more recently, as games have been ever-encompassing with other ‘minorities’ such as female representation. This has seen a shift from slutty females as featured extras such as girlfriends, shop attendants and nurses to female characters with the illusion of agency, but more than males. These have emerged in two strands – protagonists such as Lara Croft but also A.I control in games such as Cortana in Halo.

Although representation has increased – whether this is an accurate representation is questionable. These highly sexualized idealized perceptions of females in the power seat are more of a turn on for men, than a truthful portrayl of women:“ The juxtaposition of physical prowess and sexuality continues to produce a great deal of ambivalence amongst feminist and non-feminist commentators”(Kennedy, 2). However, if we look at how men are represented, they too are idealized in their form. Rarely a character is a scrawny accountant or overweight sloth , unless for comical purposes. Perhaps the fantastical nature of videogames allows such extreme depictions of gender whereas in film the audience strives to achieve verisimilitude.

On another note, in regards to an.observer’s post about a recent episode of The Simpsons, I watched this also and it seemed a direct parallel to the lecture! It did make a point of what is often discussed in reverse - perhaps children are the ones who can see a game as play, where adults find RPGs and such like more difficult to distinguish from reality? I also found it interesting how the characters each character created were merely accentuated versions of themselves – for better or worse. The idea of escapism is thus questioned- do people use RPGs to better themselves or to create someone else unrelated from their lives. Perhaps, in such cases, idealism may be a better description than escapism.

Pippa Neels