I don’t know about you, but when it
comes to America, everything seems as though it has to be bigger, better,
faster, etc. Whether its food, cars, clothes, or even bodies, America has a
sense of pride in making things larger than life and as excessive as possible.
This is no different when it comes to video games, cartoons, or movies. There
is always a main character that is the hero and he is big, strong, fast, and
brave. He defeats all of his enemies and saves the day for society. But where
are the females in these storylines? Usually, the females are pictured as sex
symbols or helpless characters that need to rely on the male “hero” to make
their way throughout the story. For some reason, this is always a part of the
story, and the only question that I can ask is, how realistic is this
stereotype? I know plenty of strong
women that have never had to rely on a man or be a sex symbol to live their
lives to the fullest. In this final blog, I will discuss women in video games
and how they are over sexualized and exploited in many cases.
In
my personal experience, I have observed countless times in which females were “sexed”
up or made helpless/ditsy in both video games and movies. For example, one of
the biggest box office earners ever, Spiderman, has a character named Mary Jane which can fit into either of these roles. Mary Jane is the love interest of
Peter Parker (Spiderman) and many times throughout the movie they force Mary
Jane to rely on Spiderman to be saved, or make her seem as though she is a sex
object/a goal for Peter to win her over. Another example of over
sexualization is displayed throughout the video game Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider’s
main character is Lara Croft, is a British archaeologist and an adventurer.
She is one of the most influential female video game characters that have ever
been created, and of course, like we discussed in class, she was made to look
like an unrealistic sex object. She couldn’t just be a normal female doing extraordinary things, but instead they had
to create her as a busty female with unrealistic proportions who was wearing
very little clothing, even though she was going on all kinds of adventures. It
made no sense for her to be dressed/proportioned like that, however, sex sells.
In an article by The Orion, titled VideoGames Oversexualize Powerful Women, they discuss how women in video games
are exploited and over sexualized. The article talks about how almost all women
in video games have extremely large breasts, but not a proper bra, or one at
all and also bring up the fact of how the women in these games wear
significantly less clothing than makes sense to be fighting and battling as
they do in the game. The article summarizes that video games give women this unrealistic
stereotype that is offensive to many women across the world.
Personally,
I do not think that it is morally right for women to be displayed as they are
in almost all video games, however, sex does sell in most cases, and that is
why these video game creators portray women in this way. It may be offensive,
but they believe that it makes the game more appealing for the average male
that is playing these games. I do, however, believe that this problem is slowly
changing and that in the near future, women will be seen as more realistic in
video games.
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