I am woman, hear me BOOP BEEP BOOP

[trinityvixen]

I don't have any particular dog in this fight over Bayonetta's feminist icon status. I haven't looked at trailers or played demos or the game itself. I've seen a picture of the lead character, which only makes me wonder if the developers managed to bang this game out after Sarah Palin rose to national prominence or if the resemblance between Palin and Bayonetta is purely coincidence. So I haven't got much of any interest in joining the fray over her feminist icon status.

I can, however, respectfully disagree with the following from a pro-Bayonetta statement without weighing in on Bayonetta specifically:

As a woman, I haven't often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to "the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail." Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that's made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.

What the author is implying, if I read this comment right, is that she objects to games that are feature ungendered protagonists--that is, the gender of the protagonist never comes up or is not essential to the story (like in Portal--or where the protagonist could have been male but just happened not to be (Tomb Raider, Metroid even). But I also think she's targeting games like Mass Effect or the RPGs like it that allow you to create a male or female character who more or less works through the same story. That character is never treated differently by the story for being male or female, though his/her romantic interests do vary somewhat. That's just putting boobs on a man, and to this author that's not feminism.

Now, obviously, "putting breasts on a dude" sounds like a very bad thing, and it can be so far as it becomes a reduction female-ness to a bare minimum to make a character tolerable (on top of possibly objectifying that character). This is indeed a Very Bad Thing because a) it assumes a mostly male audience and b) that this mostly male audience is so immature they cannot possibly stand a female avatar unless she is as little like a woman to the point that breasts are the only difference between her and a player. Very insulting that.

But? There is also a lot of power in relegating breasts themselves into that "no big deal" category. If I might stay with the example I know best, in Mass Effect, making Commander Shepard's gender one of many features you can tweak--alongside much more personality-shaping ones like his/her personal history, facial disfigurement, and overall attitude--is a good thing, feminism-wise. Sometimes, Shepard is a dude. (Notably, in all the promotional pictures and videos for the game and the sequel, Shepard is male.) Sometimes, Shepard is a woman. Sometimes s/he is a Biotic; sometimes s/he is a tech. It's just one thing to change to enhance gameplay, to encourage you to play again. It certainly worked on me. I played a female Shepard the first time through, mostly because of the novelty of being able to create a woman player character but also because the male characters? UGLY AS SIN. I did, however, play a male Shepard, if only to see what was different. Know what was? One of my choices of mate and my voice actor. Otherwise? Good old Shepard.

I have always felt that there is a lot to be gained by writing characters first, genders second. Story writers are crippled by their own unknown privilege and prejudice and by the ignorance and low expectations of their audience. Video games, even more so than movies and television, continue to be dominated by male creators--writers, animators, developers, etc.--and it's not easy to jump into the heads of people they are not: women, minorities, non-humans (just to name a few). Which is why I'd rather they focus on creating a character worth learning about and spending time with--someone noble, possibly a bit ruthless, efficient, determined, special--and worry about drawing that character's body second. This is not always an option when a story depends on biological sexual differences, politics of sexuality and gender, etc. But when your story is about a member of the universe's elite space police force, what does having breasts or lacking them have to do with anything? And doesn't relegating that decision to a second-tier priority (if not lower) actually further the true cause of feminism--which is general recognition that women are human and every bit as prone to fits of heroism or villainy as men?

I've no idea what the author at that link means by this other line:
I already know that women can do all the same things men can. This time, I get to see a woman do plenty of things men can't. And I love it.

Does Bayonetta give birth in this game? Does she suckle an infant? Does she get her period? What, exactly, besides those things, can she do that men cannot? (Is it because she's a witch? There are male witches!) This tips me off to wondering what it is that a "girl" can do that a man cannot because this is going to be more indicative of the writer's bias than of the game's contribution to or destruction of feminism...

Comments

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

It may be that she's using female stereotypes as empowering rather than crippling, like Ripley in Aliens, by subverting them and using them to do things that aren't expected. I have to hope this is the case, because it's the only way I can see the comment making any sense.

I find it interesting though that making use of female stereotypes is a good thing in games on female characters, such as motherly protection of offspring, not so much with the obsession over shoes (yes, I'm using stereotypes, I'm not saying they're good ones). Using male stereotypes on female characters without totally overdoing it and turning them into Rambo also works well, both create conflict.

However, if you gender-flip this and use female stereotypes on men, society won't accept it. Action Hero Man who also protects his kids? Maybe, but he'd better be Action Hero Man first and obviously Action Hero Man who's obsessed with shoes, unless they're amazing tech is out of the question. What this tells me is that in modern society Male gender roles, particularly in representational media such as big blockbuster games and movies are far narrower than Female gender roles. I think this comes from the Male steretype having a vastly reduced number of emotions, most of which are directly relatable to conflict, rather than indirectly, which is where story has to be a part of the picture.

While I'm a big fan of equality, I have to wonder what side society's representations are actually falling on these days. Do guys have to be gay and enter a whole new range of primarily feminine stereotypes just to escape the boring masculine ones we've had for far too long? They certainly haven't changed much since Victorian times. It seems female characters are allowed to experience and react with far more range than male ones, while male ones are still most frequently allowed to get away with more independent action and less care for consequences.

Maybe that's what I want, more male characters who care about consequences and don't just jump in without thinking. As much as the new Sherlock Holmes differs from the presentation of the original, I don't think he is that much different and I think males need more of these role models who are capable of both thinking and acting, even if he is emotionally stunted, but all good characters need flaws.

[avram]

I think our society accepts protecting one's kids, or even kids in general, as an acceptable thing for a manly man to do. The shoes, on the other hand, yeah.

Here's a thing: Y'know the word "metrosexual"? A hetero man who's got high standards on matters of appearance and fashion? Out in red-state land, that's commonly interpreted as effeminate. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an admitted metrosexual, and yet any number of right-wing cultural critics use Schwarzenegger as an example of the opposite of what they think a metrosexual is. Because even though Arnie pays attention to his appearance and likes shopping, he's so strongly associated with notions of brutal masculinity that they just can't hold the two images in their heads at the same time.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think our society accepts protecting one's kids, or even kids in general, as an acceptable thing for a manly man to do. The shoes, on the other hand, yeah.

Most of the time, it's important to note, those kids are in peril or are dead and being avenged. We rarely see the protective side of fatherhood from a nurturing or teaching aspect with fathers and children onscreen. Yes, Daddy will come rescue you when the terrorist kidnaps you. What does he do the other 364 days? Does he change diapers? Is he picking you up from soccer practice? Is he cleaning the house? Fathers are allowed to be two things 99 times out 100: leaders and protectors.

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's acceptable, but how often is it depicted? If you don't have kids, but do have emotions, where does that leave you?

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

As sylver_spiders pointed out to me, these depictions do exist, they're all the nice guys who don't get the girl. Alternatively, they're the male friends of girls who get very little character development, because society has little interest in men who can be friends with women as ole models, unless they can derive some entertainment from it, since it's more fun to make fun of someone different to yourself than it is to acknowledge they have more in common with you than not.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It may be that she's using female stereotypes as empowering rather than crippling, like Ripley in Aliens, by subverting them and using them to do things that aren't expected. I have to hope this is the case, because it's the only way I can see the comment making any sense.

Ripley was originally written as male. Fun fact. To James Cameron's credit (he and his Aliens writers), Ripley in Aliens was much more identifiably gendered as female. She has monstrous birth nightmares; she doesn't go out to combat the Aliens directly for most of the movie; and she is very protective of a child. What elevates Ripley above the nurture-provider stereotype is, admittedly, her bad-assery, but it's also the fact that the male lead--Hicks--is easily as protective of life as she (he aids her in finding Newt; he takes care of the marines after their father figure dies; he becomes the damsel in distress when the Alien blood hits him). The fact that they are not yin and yang polar opposites but matched makes their relationship to one another extremely level (and enjoyable: although Hicks is macho and a tad bearish, he listens to Ripley's advice).

The issue of gender-flipping is a fair one, which is why sexism hurts everyone and is worth everyone caring about. Mass Effect had a good example of gendered characteristics being swapped to different sexes--my gunnery chief was a woman, and a hard-assed one; my main biotic was a rather cuddly dude. Didn't make her less sexy, didn't make him less of a man. But that was the future, where I can be a crazy rogue agent and receive no fewer raised eyebrows for being a dude than I did as a woman. Modern life is not so forgiving.

Do guys have to be gay and enter a whole new range of primarily feminine stereotypes just to escape the boring masculine ones we've had for far too long? They certainly haven't changed much since Victorian times. It seems female characters are allowed to experience and react with far more range than male ones, while male ones are still most frequently allowed to get away with more independent action and less care for consequences.

The flip side of this is that even if men return to the same limited pool, they are the ones we see more often. Yes, men are restricted, but women are hardly even seen. And when they are, their roles tend to be limited just as much and as often. You mention Sherlock Holmes which I find interesting because of the recent hubbub about the lady who owns the rights to the character refusing to let another movie go forth if Watson and Holmes are gay for each other. What's fascinating here is that Robert Downey Jr. is one of those actors who will go there with the gay and get away with it. He's just zany and crazy talented to pull it off--to get around preconceived biases against embracing such things without relegating the post to unmanliness. In that case, it would be triumph to have a character be gay and break the barrier going the other way: just as Action Men(TM) can't be effeminate, so neither can effeminate men be Action Men(TM). Let's hope that that changes.