Module 6 - Tropes vs Women in Video games

Tropes vs Women in Video Games

I am writing this weeks blogpost about women in video games. A good source of my information will be coming from personal experience in the digital world. Most of these points i am going to bring up, will more than likely seem normal to most of us. I admit it, it did not seem too sexist or misogynistic until the points by Tropes, from feministfrequency on YouTube mentioned it to me. This does not mean she is creating an issue out of nothing, but more-so bringing it to light or our attention. She has an entire YouTube playlist and it would too overwhelming to write about the entire channel. One of our reading/watching assignments this week is Tropes mentioned the Ms. Male Character. How creators or developers of video games, would make a female counter-part of the male identity. Ms. Pacman was used as a good example, as Ms. Pacman was one of the first icons in this Ms. Male identity. How a simple pink bow was used to identify Ms. Pacman was a female. Nothing in of itself of the bow, or the color pink is considered feminine, but because of our society's culture, it fit the stereotype that almost anything wearing a bow or pink would be considered feminine. Another is Damsels in distress, where female characters always need to be saved by a strong male. Not necessarily locked to video games only, but also in movies and books and so on. Without trying to sound like too much of a angry blog post about the female portrayal in video games. I am going to talk about some of the more positive things in recent releases. Horizon Zero dawn, a modernly futuristic retro game. It is about a protagonist who happens to be of the female sex, living in the future where robots have evolved into essentially animals and the protagonist and her clan live in a hunter/gatherer society. Everything from her clothes to her appearance signify that she is a "feminine" protagonist. Another more popular game is also Tomb Raider. Lara croft is in no way "feminine", or at least fall under the gender stereotypes of what is considered feminine. She gets down and dirty and gets into plenty of adventures and fights on her own. She breaks and shatters the female stereotypes of being a damsel in distress and so on. Earlier in society, we created many stereotypes of the female gender, but now that we are aware of it. We are able to effectively play and produce video games that are less offensive to everyone, while still having female protagonists.

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST LINK - 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn4ob_5_ttEaA_vc8F3fjzE62esf9yP61

HORIZON ZERO DAWN - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQDqurZJNk

TOMB RAIDER -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-1Xn0hZsIw