I’ve been talking (and thinking) a lot lately about the differences between historical accuracy and the perpetuation of past culture (ie. the treatment of women in LA Noir and Madmen). I do have a genuine interest in creating representations of cultures in the past, and I think we can learn a lot about ourselves from seeing how they operate. But that also leads me to question whether or not there are some things we can ever represent fairly in an entertainment media. A friend of mine studies Native American representation in games, and she struggles with the dilemma of how to fairly represent Native Americans. If you use a feather, you are falling into stereotyped behavior. But if you don’t give any visible marking to the character, then who knows that you’re trying to represent another culture? And further, perhaps you are whitewashing another culture by forcing the “other” to become Westernized.
The more Sam and I talk about this issue, the more I am convinced that there will never be a guideline for someone of one culture representing someone from another culture (whether its geographical, racial, or even through time) fairly and accurately for profit and entertainment. There is no universal standard for handling representation because every culture is different, has a different history, has a different relationship with the representer, and isn’t homogenous within itself.
So, this seems like an impossible situation. And I wonder if it’s what leads developers to make the standard, white male the protagonist over and over, because it’s just easier than dealing with these issues. Sometimes I rage against that stance (especially when the creators of Brink or COD couldn’t have made even 1 woman protagonist, just 1), but atm I have sympathy for the quagmire.
So, since we can have no universal, but we still want representation to happen, I want to look at some video games I think “do it right.” We may not be able to draw big conclusions or emulate exactly what the devs did and have it come out the same way, but I think recognizing fair representations is a positive step. Since I am visibly marked by gender, I will stick with gender representations for now. Also, I will be following up this blog with an in-depth analysis of each of there characters.
5. Carla Valenti of Fahrenheit
4. Carmen San Diego of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
3. Alyx Vance of Half-Life
2. Alma of FEAR
1. April Ryan of The Longest Journey
Anyway, I’d be interested to see what everyone else thinks. I was thinking about three things when I made this 1) do I feel it she a fair representation of women 2) does she add substantially to the game and 3) is her character rounded out (or in Alma’s case, intentionally mysterious).
3 thoughts on “Representations of the Other”
Great post, Alex. LIKE USUAL. 😛
I’m wondering if games have a unique ability to tell a minimalist story and let gamers fill in the blanks. I am not sure if this skips the idea of representation, but I’m thinking specifically of a character like Samus from Metroid. While more recent games have given her a voice and a supporting cast, the first couple games gave very little back story. I mean, until you beat the game you didn’t even find out that underneath the power suit the character you had been playing for hours was a woman.
So it came down to players to figure out who Samus is kind of retroactively. She landed on an alien planet and killed everything by herself–i.e. she is fearless, she keeps calm under pressure, she may be a bit stoic, works well alone, and is obviously trusted by the authorities to take care of business. How many of these qualities directly relate to her being a woman? None, I suppose, but knowing who she is colors our perception of the events of the game.
As we get into more story-driven games, with dialogue, complex narratives, etc. developers need to confront these issues you bring up, Alex. But I’m hoping there’s still room for games to bring up race, sex, and gender in unique game-like ways. Like Metroid, where representation and other issues aren’t laid out simply by the narrative, but actually require some work on the reader’s/gamer’s part. Or emerge naturally from a minimal story.
I agree to a certain extent. Samas is a strange example because she was created to be male. So, she does open the space for some interesting conversation (especially in the 80s), but I didn’t include her in my list because, to me, she represents more of an androgynous character than as a character specifically marked female.
But I think your point goes beyond that, to the idea of making gamers do the work. I do hope there is still room for those types of narratives. I think you see that happening in indie games recently.
I think there’s a neat moment where it wasn’t that she was created to be male, it was that the designers had a hero in a power suit and there was never even a space for it to be a woman until someone was like “hey, what if the character was a woman?” Man as default player character was suddenly pushed against as the norm, even though it wasn’t a complete upheaval. I think that’s the power of Samus’ character. If you trace her evolution in early games after Metroid, there are some interesting narratives built on the player knowledge of her female identity without it based entirely on her looks/dialogue.
If you look at recent crap like Other M, that narrative is really damaged by the handling of her character by the developers, but Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and (I think) the Gamecube Metroid games really have a neat progression of her character that is uniquely female and powerful.