Characteristics of Popular Female VideoGame Characters, Part 2

            Last week, I started the topic of female characteristics that are often exaggerated in video games. We looked at a study that randomly picked games for the Nintendo 64 and Playstation, and sorted characters out based on the clothes they wore. It was concluded that the majority of female characters wore clothing that brought attention to their bodies, and that was it. This week, I will look into a smaller experiment, completed by Kelly Phillips (a Yahoo! columnist) in 2009.

Back of Need For Speed: Underground

            In Phillips’ experiment, she picked out three Nintendo Game-cube games at random from a stack of around forty. The ones picked were Mario Superstar Baseball, Need for Speed Underground and The Urbz: Sims in the city. After examining the front and back covers, it was clear how females were portrayed. In Need for Speed Underground, there was only a car on the front. On the back there was an average height woman wearing a white tank top and low rider pants. She had an above average sized chest, a somewhat small waist and tattoos on her upper left arm. It gives the impression that people driving the cars in the game were doing it to get the women (like a trophy at the end of a race). Even though she was not overly provocative, players of the game may assume that women love those who compete in street racing, so they tend to dress with more skin showing.

Daisy in Mario Superstar Baseball

            In Mario Superstar Baseball, the front cover only shows male characters (Bowser, Mario, Luigi, Wario, Donkey Kong) and an unidentifiable gendered dinosaur (Yoshi). All the characters are shown in a small column on the right of the back cover. This column includes the characters on the front plus two females, four other male characters and an “unidentifiable gender dinosaur” (Princess Peach, Daisy, Waluigi, Diddy Kong, Bowser Junior, and Birdo) [NOTE: This is where I disagree with Phillips, for she thinks that Birdo’s gender is unidentifiable. She wears a bow in her hair, she’s pink, and she winks and blows kisses a lot. To me, that says “female dinosaur”]. In total there were eight characters of male gender (two of which were nonhuman), two female characters (they both are wearing blue earrings), and “two” dinosaurs of unidentifiable gender. The female characters are only displayed as often as the dinosaurs, yet in the modern world dinosaurs are extinct and females make up half of the population. It can seem ironic that both of the female characters are wearing jewelry, as if they were going somewhere nice. However, they were only going to be playing baseball. This makes the players think that girls should always wear jewelry no matter what the occasion. They both have long hair, which is nicely put in a ponytail or a combed to their shoulders. This suggests women should always have their hair looking nice. These portrayals of characters hint at and teach gender stereotypes. Male superiority is shown by the abundance of male characters compared to female.

Some characters in The Urbz: Sims in the City

            In The Urbz: Sims in the City, there is an equal depiction of two males and two females on the front cover. On the back cover there seems to be a decent amount of females in four frames describing the game. This game has equal representation of both genders. There is a slight issue with the way females are clothed and their body structures. One of the females on the front has an above-average chest with a small waist, large hips and long thin legs. She is wearing a bare, midriff leather jacket, purple belly shirt and jeans that go down past her hipbones. The other female on the front had a very low cut purple jacket where cleavage is visible, and skinny legs with very tight sweatpants. This demonstrates that some games have become conscious that women should be shown equally. Yet, within these games, stereotypes about women's bodies are evident. Women should have a large chest, small waist and medium to large hips. They should be skinny and have a long neck and long legs. Though these games have made progress to show more women, they still show them stereotypically and do not take into account all women have different structures. This can teach male players to expect women to have "perfect" bodies, and female players of what they should look like.

            The Entertainment Software Association estimates that "fully half of all Americans age 6 or older play video games". This means that the majority of all Americans who are six years of age or older have been learning from video games. They learn that males, being more prevalent in the games, are superior to females. They are taught that women should look and dress certain ways. Also, women are seen as submissive and/or as sex icons and hardly ever the heroes. Even when women are shown as main characters or heroes, they are dressed in provocative ways. In 1992, Eugene Provenzo Jr. suggested, "Like television, video games are a type of medium providing information that both entertains and educates." It seems he is indeed correct.

            It is obvious that video games play a major role in the lives of children, young adults and even some older people. Anyone can learn so much from these games. Yet, are the games teaching correct and moral concepts? This new industry has impacted the lives of people all across America. Have we, as Americans, really gotten past inequality among genders? The video game industry suggests otherwise, through stereotyping and male superiority, that we still make assumptions based on gender. So, next time you pick up that controller, you ask yourself, "What am I really learning here?"