"What makes a great female character?"

[pretzelcoatl]

So one of my friends linked me to this, and I figured at the very least it would make a good discussion in this community. (More of their videos are here in case you're interested.)



Thoughts?

Comments

[lesbido]

"Great" is a pretty subjective term. I like how the video explores what makes a "good" female character, because that at least addresses all the issues that separate from a less-developed, stereotypical female character, and it points out issues that video game developers maybe unable or unwilling to touch on in game.

[codeman38]

I wish they'd caption or transcribe their videos-- I've seen this video linked around on several blogs that I read, but the dude talks too fast for me to process, especially with the digital distortion that's been applied. -_-;;

[calixti]

I can't understand it either, and of course, there's never transcriptions available. But that's okay, it's not like people with sensory issues would want to be part of the discussion anyway, amirite?! -_-

[codeman38]

Wow, someone at Sociological Images actually bothered to transcribe it.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/03/11/creating-complex-female-characters-in-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-464383

I guess there really is some good left in the world...

[coendou]

I feel like a lot of this is so obvious (a three-dimensional character neither fully accepts nor fully rejects society's norms - just like every other human!) that it's sad someone has to point it out, but obviously they do.

I got a bit annoyed at the beginning when they were talking about "good characters where gender doesn't matter" - but isn't it odd that all of the examples are male? Is it possible to have a good female character (in any medium, actually) where the audience would not perceive her gender to matter? I doubt it. But I think the video got better after that.

[pretzelcoatl]

Yeah, I agree with this too. The thing that bugs me about Samus being used as a progressive character a lot of times is the fact that some people are still like "OH MY GOD SHE'S A WOMAN!" like it's something that should be really shocking (to say nothing about the fact that her armor gets stripped away based on your time/completion rate...). I think she's awesome, but I get a little wary of men talking about how she's the quintessential female game character.

IDK IDK

[coendou]

Yeah, I think that Samus is probably the ultimate example of "if it's a great character, the gender doesn't matter... until they drop the bombshell of it being female, then suddenly that's the only thing that matters!" It's one of those things where authorial intent doesn't matter nearly as much as how it's received by the audience... although I question authorial intent there since they clearly considered it a "shocking reveal."

[muttonchoppe]

The Metroid Prime series are my favorite games with Samus, since they're completely open about her being omgagirl and they just move on. Of course, then that whole Zero Suit nonsense started, and things went downhill.

[riotlounge]

It breezes over the notion that a man is not really going to understand or be able to write the societal pressures for a woman a lot of times, and that's why we need more female developers and storytellers in an already swamped game industry full of men.

I also don't like how it is set up to be fairly binary gendered.

It's an okay video but I find it funny that it's constantly a male avatar going to discuss concepts that female authors and experts in the field/subject have written about but still written and produced by a dude.

[pretzelcoatl]

I didn't think about the first point, but I did think about the last two and I agree. (At least one of the writers/collaboraters is a woman, but I was still bracing myself.)

[riotlounge]

Yeah, it's a troubling concept - can a dude write about a woman, I think they can. But I think it takes a lot more to step out of the box that he occupies to give realistic pressures to a female character in order to make a good female character believable. Which might contribute to why there aren't as many.

Yeah, there's a female collaborator, just an amusing choice of narrator. It feels very "This dude is telling me how to write believable good female character." I also hate the idea of "true" or "pure" female characters.

[pretzelcoatl]

Yeah, and even some of the ones which people point to aren't perfect. I love Jade from Beyond Good & Evil, but she's still pretty bland and cliche in many regards (although in a weird way I wonder if this isn't a bad thing per se since she's a lot like other MALE characters who can be the same way).

They did a better one on Sexual Identity that I might post on my journal, although it pretty much just deals with Persona 4's handling on the topic.

[suitablyemoname]

In these discussions, I'm always a little disappointed that so few people know about No One Lives Forever.

NOLF, a broad parody of 1960/70s James Bond, centres around Cate Archer, a British secret service agent. She kicks butt because it's her job. There's no husband to rescue, no father to avenge, no children to protect, nothing of that sort. She is quite femme and feminine, but the game isn't a long string of cleavage shots, and her femininity is played quite subdued (when compared to other female characters in video games): she never needs to be rescued, she never breaks down in tears, her sex life is treated as an entirely private matter, she develops healthy relationships with the other people in her life (no ~*twoo wub at first sight*~ or anything like that), and, fundamentally, she's very much aware of her own intelligence and capabilities.

The games do have some flaws, as does Cate herself. (I say the game isn't full of cleavage and ass shots, and it isn't. The promo material, however...) It is, however, a good example of a

[suitablyemoname]

Worth noting: both games got near-perfect metascores in their day. These are good games. They never sold very well despite critical and public acclaim, and they've sort of been forgotten.

[mongoose_bite]

I remember trying to play NOLF back in the day! You're right, it really does get forgotten. I didn't get very far though; it really was a bit beyond what my heap of junk computer could handle at the time, like so many games I attempted at college.