Why is What Makes a "Strong" Female Protagonist SO Complicated?

Aye, Bechdel isn't perfect but it's the only real foundation we have for this stuff. Stuff needs to come along to trump its old style, since it isn't perfect.

Saying that, yes, good characters are good. We need more and need to rely on less setereotypes.

And i'll post this again, because I feel a lot of what you guys have brought up is discussed by Heir, and rather well addressed too:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020420/Misogyny-Racism-and-Homophobia-Where

 

Guys, I googled "strong female protaganist" and this was like, in the 1st page of results:





AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

 

why the **** do you post these threads in the spam zone?

 

Oh well of course if challenging those conventions isn't well-done then I won't be happy about that, but if it is, that's an additional layer of depth that the author or writer has elected to tackle. It's something new and unique and, potentially, revolutionary. But one can occupy either end of the spectrum: by embracing the feminine, like in my Knights of the Old Republic 2 example (though it's not as overt as that), or by reclaiming some traits not usually given to women (Katniss in The Hunger Games). The marriage of this is, actually, central to modern feminism (not using the term fourth wave just yet). Second wave feminism was very much about extolling the value of the feminine, and in more radical forms, why it was "better" than the male; third-wave feminism focused on breaking down those gender distinctions altogether. I believe that the two can co-exist and should co-exist -- we can have characters who are traditional women and are strong, who are non-traditional woman and are strong, or who are a little bit of both. Again, the tumblr quote I posted above...

I'm sure you're not intending this but this statement is absolutely part of the problem. You're assuming that the main character is male and that the actress would be redoing all of the lines. Again, I'm sure this is unintentional, but it speaks a lot about the male normative with protagonists, particularly in video games.

You're right, gender really isn't a thing in Mass Effect at all -- I do think that there's a lot to talk about with gender in Mass Effect, good and bad, but a woman being this amazing military leader isn't really notable within the game's setting -- but it is in ours, so it's important. We cannot remove Mass Effect from the context and reality that the player lives in. Female Shepard is not the military leader that 21st century America is accustomed to, so my experiences with and my society's notions of gender are undeniably going to influence my experience and feelings about the Mass Effect universe. This is true for all science fiction and fantasy -- even if the character being female or black or anything isn't necessarily important within the scope/context of the work, it's important to the audience, and that can't be understated.

You're right and I meant to leave that open in my post -- Shepard is whatever the player chooses to define him or her as. If the player chooses to make their Shepard feminine within their head, that's awesome and part of their experience with the game, even if it isn't expressed at all through the game's mechanics! People invent entire backstories and characters for their Shepard, whether just through headcanon or fanworks (fanart or fanfiction etc.) and the freedom to do so is what makes Mass Effect -- and any book, movie, game, or what have you -- so compelling.

The fact that they are side characters is part of the issue. I find Ubisoft pretty uninteresting so I don't know much about the characters you've listed, but what I have read about them names them as extremely guilty of fridging their female characters.

 

Tunnel vision for games you play/10

 

You know, one of the most beloved female characters in gaming is Jade from beyond Good and Evil: basically a boy with boobs.

That says a lot to me. It doesn't say we can write strong female characters, it says we can write men and give them boobs and label them a "tomboy" and be warded for it. I don't find that knowing the gender or writing well for women at all. I would honestly call that more sexist. Just make the women more like men

I think some of the strongest female characters are often cited as the worst, but I'm a white male- I really have no dog in this race. I can't say I've known any females to say games made made them feel excluded, but I can't say what characters should or have the potential to make women feel included.

 

Great seminar. Thanks for linking.

Highly suggest the others here watch it as well.

 

I'm not sure if demand for equality in media representation should be considered whining...

You say that but there's been, what, two female characters that got some character development were Farah and Elika? I remember one being a scantly clad swordswoman and another woman who is the enemy? The games have always been the story of the Prince though, so the other characters haven't been that great, honestly. Acceptable for their roles, but only Farah and Elika seemed, fair enough, well rounded
Assassin's Creed as I mentioned in another thread still relies on stereotypes of women, housewives, prostitutes, barmaids, stuff like that.
Clara was terrible. Not a terrible female character, just a terrible character.

The problem with Unity is that it appears like a backward step for Ubi. They've had good female characters, but now say that they've been excluded because its too much work? Their original intention was to include playable women, yet the 'budget' apparently excluded that possibility. It all sounds as if they don't care about it anymore, and people are speaking out against this change.

I never saw her as a guy or girl, she was just a reporter looking to get the scoop on the injustices and lies profligated by the Alpha Section. Whilst also trying to keep her home and orphanage family safe from any more attacks.
What made her seem like a male character to you?

 

She just does a lot of things that are often seem as masculine. The way she conducts herself, her vocabulary, I think there was a scene of her burping that made me think it but I could be misremembering. It's just always how advertised as a tomboy she is and that's... not a female character. That's a character with the exterior of a female doing and behaving the same way a masculine character would. If that's all it takes, we should just throw boobs on characters like Jak or Link and call it a day, ya know?

 

[QUOTE="Misty, post: 4190754, member: 6"
I'm sure you're not intending this but this statement is absolutely part of the problem. You're assuming that the main character is male and that the actress would be redoing all of the lines. Again, I'm sure this is unintentional, but it speaks a lot about the male normative with protagonists, particularly in video games.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, it was intentional. I originally had a a little bracket saying (or actor) but I removed it because I realized how unlikely that would be. A game written with a woman first has next to no chance of being treated interchangeable with a man. I'm talking about the present context, but in the future that'll probably be different... but not in the near future.
Honestly it says less about the homogenized standard of male characters than it, as far as I'm concerned, shows that more care would be taken in creating a female star. This along with the current standard where you can take a guy and copy and paste it over to a gal and even if there's romantic plots going on whatever because it's lesbians and that's hot, but doing the reverse runs into the ew gross that's gay problem.

Also, gonna agree with @DigitalAtlas on the tomboy thing. It's way easy to do that and get free praise. And hell, I'm definitely victim of it, a lot of my favourite female characters growing up were tomboys because they were the characetrs that were allowed to DO things outside the context of comedy (har look a princess in a DRESS beat the bad guy!? What's up with that?)
I've got more nuanced taste now, but it's still an underlying theme, and it really shouldn't be. Though I've started to recognize some nice different varieties. I really like how Aerith is portrayed in Crisis Core FF7, for example, and I enjoyed the sisters in Frozen as well
but yeah, the tomboy thing is an easy way out, and what's more NOT taking that route can often lead to people calling you sexist.

If we're talking about shortcomings in writing female character sin general now though, one of my biggest pet peeves, especially in children's cartoons, is the unwillingness to give female characters flaws. It makes them really boring, and sends really weird messages to both young boys and girls

 

aw c'mon tale, bella showed so much strength being entirely dependent on edward for four whole books

 

Lady from Devil May Cry is one of the best female characters in games, and she's a tomboy. For good reasons, too.

 

[minute long fart noises]

characters don't need to be complex to be strong or compelling

 

When I realized this wasn't a muscle girl thread, I died.

 

We're remembering very different characters. I remember when she almost gives up on rescuing her orphans when they've been taken, or when she loses Pey'J, and she gets emotional for a time. I saw her as slightly more woman than anything since she cared so much.

The tomboy excuse seems a bit shallow since it was never addressed at all in the game, hell she was never even acknowledged as a woman unless it was Pey'J who called her 'little lady' as a little joke since she in turn called him 'old fart' plenty, endearing affection sort of banter. Saying she was advertised as a tomboy seems misleading since the only evidence of that she was her baggy trousers, everything else was fairly feminine, such as the lipstick and tank top. Also, tomboys aren't easy to put in categories since it's such a vague concept. Technically, a tomboy is any girl doing or being interested in a male perceived activity. Jade would be considered one, but so would Princess Zelda since she dresses up as Sheik/Tera, or Bayonetta because she can fight and uses guns, but there not ever considered tomboys.

Also, you're remembering her tits a lot and not much else.

 

uh
how exactly do these go in hand with you seeing her as womanly, again?