A Girl Walks into a Game Store...

If there is anything that's really great about writing a gaming blog, it's the research. Earlier today, I decided to do some research on Dr. Mario, and determined that Mario is the worst doctor ever.

"You kept shoving pills down his throat! He only had a headache!" - VGCats

In fact, once I'm done writting this, I'll probably do more "research" on Portal 2. Look at me still blogging when there's science to do...

Believe it or not, there are more to games than just playing them. There's the industry itself; the geeky subculture; the fanbase ("Alistair looked deeply into Sten's eyes and whispered..."); and game creation. Oh, and marketing. That's important, too.

With all that in mind, I decided to conduct a very unscientific experiment.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to my professors who taught me everything I needed to know about performing a psychology experiment. Please forgive me. I'll do better next time! I'll form hypotheses and everything!

The experiment was very simple. I would walk into a game store, and ask the clerk if she or he could recommend a game for me. Then, I would explain just what kind of game I was looking for: "I'm looking for a game that has a strong female lead who's not, like, oversexualized."

Needless to say, hilarity ensued.

I feel the need to state that I live in a small city, with a population of about 30,000. There are very few locally owned businesses, most of which are restaurants. Almost everything here belongs to a chain or some sort of franchise. In short, there are no independent game stores here, making my options for pseudo-research rather limited.

This town is kind of a downer.

I came up with a quick list of games that met my criterea, which was harder than I expected:

1. Dragon Age
2. Portal/Portal 2
3. Mirror's Edge
4. Metroid

Those were the games I thought I would be recommended to me. They're by no means the only games that have heroines that are more than a pair of boobs on a stick-figure, but I was expecting these because they're not exactly obsucre. Like, say, Radiant Historia.

The first place I stopped was Target, which, to be fair, isn't solely a game store. The one in my area has a pretty decent selection of games, but they only stock new or relatively new releases. It's like the Top 40 Radio Station, but with Mario.

After hearing the clerk discuss games with another customer, I got up my nerve and stepped up to him. After double-checking to make sure he was a gamer, I asked my question.
I have never seen such a look of sheer puzzlement cross anyone's face before. He wrinkled his forehead, furrowed his brows, pursed his lips. Granted, he had probably never been asked about female leads in games before, and likely won't be asked again. He asked me which system it was for, presumably to help him figure out a good answer to the question.

When I told him "any", there were a few more seconds of awkward silence before he finally spoke again. That was obviously not the answer he was hoping to hear.

I sort of feel for this guy, actually. I used to work in a bookstore, and occassionally people would ask for things like "the book with the blue cover". Well, if you don't know the title, author, or genre, we don't either. Please be nice to your local booksellers and ask intelligent questions.

We cruised through the game aisles, and he eventually game up with two suggestion: Final Fantasy XIII-2, because the main character is a girl, and Skyrim, because you can create a female character. I thanked him, explained what I was doing, and then gave him my suggestions.

His reaction? Perhaps not overly pleased, but I wasn't asked to leave the store, either. When I told him my suggestions, he just sort of nodded and said, "Oh, right. Those games. Yeah, I think we have Metroid around somewhere."

Maybe going to Target wasn't fair, but I wanted to stop at a couple places like it. Not everyone goes into game stores, but plenty of people shop at Target. Large stores like this are the "mainstream" of gaming, if you will. What's kept in stock there is a reflection of the most popular games. You're not going to find Ace Attorney there, but you will find everything that the cool kids are playing.

"Let's get out the Bro-box and play some Bro-lo!"-Gorbi and Ginger, the two most non-bro people I know.

A few days later, I marched boldly onward to a GameStop. I was a bit more hopeful about this one. If Target is the Top 40 radio station of video games, GameStop is the radio station that plays just about everything. It's sort of fun to pick through the cheap games and obscure titles that you've never heard of. (Check out Darkened Skye!)

There was one guy working, and I browsed for a minute or two while he helped another customer. I finally approached and asked my question, and I have to say, this guys' reaction was my favorite so far.

"I'm looking for a game with a strong female lead, who's not, like, oversexualized."

He laughed and walked over to the Wii and DS games. After a minute or two of contemplating--while standing right in front of two Metroid games, I might add--he finally said something that I hadn't expected to hear: "Well, there's a few, but I'm trying to think of something that's not little kiddish."
I hadn't even thought about that. I probably should have taken it into consideration, I realized, as I stared at the Tangled and Cooking Mama games. While I'm not about to argue that Cooking Mama is a character that young girls should aspire to be (She cooks! She's a Mama! Sometimes, we even let her out of the house to garden!), I really had to wonder what games young girls really were playing. 

But I digress.


We moved on to the Xbox games after a minute.


GameStop Guy: Final Fantasy...eh...it could really do with a strong female lead.


That reaction really surprised me. I'd assumed that I would get a lot of recommendations for Final Fantasy games, not only because of XIII, but also because they have a giant fanbase. Just because a girl is the lead character doesn't mean that she's a good role model. You know who you are, Cinderella.

Above: armor 

GameStop Guy: Yeah, the problem is that's how a lot of games get marketed.




Me: Yeah, and bikinis will totally protect you from energy swords.




After another minute, I came clean and explained what I was doing, and gave him my (short) list of suggestions. He said that suggesting Portal had never even occurred to him, because all the characters were robots.




Except, you know, the one you play as. But we'll get into that in a later post.


Anyway, I bought a Metroid game (Nintendo, Y U MAKE METROID FIRST PERSON?), thanked him for being a good sport...and it was time to move on to the next store.
For science, of course.


After a very frightening drive, I somehow managed to make it over to another GameStop in one piece. The guy working there was absolutely great. After a couple of minutes nonchalantly browsing shelves, I finally stepped up to the clerk and asked about leading ladies.


After a brief "hmmm", he finally said, "Have you ever played Mass Effect?"


Mass Effect! I had never even thought of Mass Effect. Bad fangirl! Bad!
He continues: "You can have a girl character, and it actually does make a difference which gender you play."  He turned to see what games were behind the desk and listed a few. "Well, I'd say Tomb Raider, but Lara..."


Me: "Yeah, she's somethin' else."

High heel gun shoes are the last thing I would
want to wear when I'm fighting angels.

GameStop Guy: "And there's Bayonetta, but...hey, do you like Final Fantasy games at all?"


I am probably being too harsh on XIII, but dammit, SquareEnix, I want a GAME, not an interactive cut scene.


I really loved this. He didn't take long to answer, and it was easy to tell that he knew what he was talking about. At the mention of Portal, he said that Chel was actually probably the best heroine out right now...too bad you never see her. After that, our conversation quickly spiraled to "Blah blah BioWare blah." 


GameStop Guy #2, never quit you job. 


There was just one last stop that I needed to make before this experiment could be concluded: Best Buy. 


It didn't take me long to find someone to ask, and after a brief pause, he had an answer: Mirror's Edge.


I could have hugged him.


He called another employee over and asked him about games with strong female leads. The second guy responded with Metroid. And that was the moment I realized that I needed to actually go to Best Buy more often.


I was really surprised and delighted. I gave them my short list (now with Mass Effect tacked on at the end), and at the mention of Portal, their reactions were something like, "Oh, why didn't we think of that?"


As any good psychologist (or wannabe researcher) knows, you need to replicate your experiments to ensure that it wasn't just a fluke, and to test your hypotheses using other variables. I'd really like to see what would happen if I had a guy go into game stores and about female characters, or what a woman working at a game store would say. But that's another post.


It's not easy finding a game to fit those two criteria. I love that women are featured as main characters more and more, and I want to see it as a sign that the industry's changing. One study from 1998 found that, of the 33 games used in the study, 41% (13.5 games, if you want to get technical) had no female characters at all.


I can't adequately express how much I love how much this has changed. It's not just that women are present in games now, but also that they're taking an active role--no longer just damsels in distress or femme fatales.


The problem now is what I'm going to title "the Lara Conundrum".  You can make female leads with good characterization, goals, an unwillingness to back down...


But you should also make sure they don't get buried underneath their boobs.


What we have now--for the most part--is a mix of empowerment and objectification. Two things I never thought would go together, and then I started writing this blog.

Objectification: Seeing a person not as a person, but as an object--in such a way that it removes the person's identity.

Sexy, sexy objectification.

While it's usually used in terms of men objectifying women, it can go both ways.

How do we separate the two, or do they go hand-in-hand when it comes to gaming? Is it possible to make a kick-ass female character who still looks good?

I wish I had the answers for this. I wish that when I yell, "I want to be her!" I knew whether it was because that character is strong in her own way--or whether it's because I will never look that good in leather. Hooray for self-objectification! :D

Or maybe it's because I'll never get to ride around on dragons in real life. That's a downer, too.

I hope we're going in the right direction. I hope that we see more Samuses than Ivys, that Lara gets her shit together, and that girl gamers don't feel worse about themselves when they put the controller down.

Before I end, I just want to send a massive THANK YOU to the employees and Target, GameStop, and Best Buy that helped me with this. You guys are awesome, and thanks for not kicking me out of your store.

Up next: Portal 2

Image credits: 

Ivy - http://soulcalibur.neoseeker.com/wiki/Ivy

Bayonetta - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonetta
Link - http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/53472-crushes-fictional-characters-4.html

Work Cited

Dietz, T. L. (1998). An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender    socialization and aggressive behavior. Sex Roles, 38(5-6), 425-442. 

Sexy, sexy APA style. 

Or it would be, if I could get the indent to work.

The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy

A few years ago, I took a wonderful class with a wonderful professor called "The Psychology of Women".  The class, not the professor. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I signed up for it, but it quickly became one of my favorite classes.  It was one of a handful of classes that made me think, "This is something I could do for the rest of my life." But social psychology isn't exactly a great field for someone with only a B.A.

Instead of tests, we had weekly quizzes. We had discussion days once a week, but my favorite project was when we had to violate gender norms for a day. I ended up cross dressing, and it ended up still being one of the most fun days I've ever had in college, partially because I ended up confusing the hell out of the other people in the coffee shop. 

Instead of a final exam, we had to write a research paper. The topic? "Anything we've talked about in class." The length? "As long as it needs to be." You know, the two things that a class never wants to hear in regards to a paper.

Still, it is nice to be allowed that freedom. In most classes, I would much rather see a list: "Here are five topics. Pick one and turn in four pages of drivel." (No, wait, that was just my English classes.) But writing about anything in a subject I was interested in? With no page limit? It must be my birthday! It was a good day to be a geek.

After much hemming and hawing, I had it narrowed down to two subjects. The first: Role models.

When I was a kid, my hero was Eileen Collins, who, among other things, was the first female commander of a NASA mission. I wanted to be just like her when I was a kid. I had big plans to be the first person to step foot on Mars. I even got to meet her, years later, when I was in high school and had since decided the life of an astronaut was not for me. I was too starstruck to say much of anything...I wish I told her how much I looked up to her.

What I wanted to know was who do young girls look up to today, and how does it impact their ideals? It seems today that most of the role models young girls have to follow are Miley Cyruses and Selena Gomezes. Is that how you would pluralize their names?  You know the type: pop stars, whose values lie in fame.  Many TV shows that feature girls as lead characters also feature catty behavior, backstabbing, and girls just being awful to one another. And it's not just TV shows, either.

"College was Plan B. I was still hoping for Plan A, but Edward was just so stubborn about leaving me human..." - Stephanie Meyer, New Moon

Fuck you, Bella Swan.

Listen to this NPR story about the effects of reality TV shows on girls. Girls in the study discussed here who regularly watched reality TV think that it is more normal to gossip and compete with other girls, and are less likely to trust other girls. Also, one in four girls expects to be famous. I really hope this is the scariest thing that you've read today. There's a lot more to the story than what I've just mentioned, so I really recommend you listen to (or read) it to get a better understanding of this study.

Obviously, this is important stuff. Unfortunately, I could find very little research about this topic at the time.  So, I switched it to my second topic. You guessed it: video games.

"Wait, wait, wait--" I hear you cry. "Aren't video games sort of a step-down from role models?"

Okay, role models are really important. But here's something else to consider: in 2010, 46% of game purchasers were female. No doubt this number has risen since then, especially with the popularity of casual games, such as Words with Friends and Angry Birds.

Girl gamers like myself are on the rise! When I was in high school, I would often walk into game stores and see that I was the only girl in the place. When I go to game stores today, I'm not usually the only girl in there. Men still outnumber us, but we're out there, and we're not afraid to frag your ass.

But what do gamers--both women and men--see when female characters are featured in games?

Let's start with some examples, shall we?

Princess Peach. The literal girl in the tower waiting to be rescued. Apparently possesses teleportation abilities, because she's always in another castle. She finally got her own game in 2006, where she got her special powers from her emotions. Also, if you Google "Princess Peach Game" because you can't remember the title, the first few results are dress-up games.

Cooking Mama. That kind of says it all.  And no, this isn't an actual image from the game, but a VG Cats comic about the game. Ah, sexism. Mama can't fix it.

Mia Fey. From the Ace Attorney games, Mia serves as the main character's mentor. She proves to be just as competent or even more so than the other male characters in the game. Mia is a great character, but I can't fail to notice that her boobs are the size of basketballs. Also, she manages to get killed after the first episode in the game. But she comes back. Sort of.

Lara Croft. What kind of feminist gaming blog would this be if we never mentioned her? This tomb raider brought female game heroes to the spotlight. She is easily one of the most recognizable female game characters in history. She's a total bad ass, and...

Oh, right.

"It was a defining moment for me as I watched her strut seductively across my screen and into the sex symbol status that would turn the gaming world on its head. Fast-forward eight years through the evolution of next-gen hardware, multimillion-dollar budgets, and massive acceptance of games in pop culture. Still, Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification." - Zoe Flowers, "Getting the Girl"

We could go through examples of the good, the bad, and the sexy until Cthulhu wakes. It's not difficult to see the problems these characters present. But one nice thing (if there is a nice thing) about these issues is that they're all fairly obvious. Lara Croft? Kicks a ton of ass, but there are two reasons why a lot of gamers like her. But what about the more subtle things? Things that aren't quite in your face as Lara's boobs. 

My God. Sometimes I wish game developers would name their characters something like "Tits McGee". At least then they're being honest with themselves.

There are two last characters that I'd like to introduce you to. 

In the blue corner, weighing in at 90 pounds, we have Yuna. 

And in the red corner, weighing in at 120 pounds (because the skirt adds on a few) we have Lulu.

FIGHT!

I'm know what you're thinking, so I'll clear this up right now. Yes. Square Enix's obsession with belts had gone this far. Her skirt is made out of belts. Her whole skirt. How do you make something like that? How do you even move in that? How do you follow the main hero around for over 100 hours wearing something like that? This skirt confuses and irritates me. But I digress.

Let's start with Yuna. The game is centered around her, after all, even though she doesn't actually reach playable character status until Final Fantasy X-2. While we're on the subject, X-2 happens to be the first Final Fantasy game to feature a woman as a main character. Thanks for that one, Square Enix. And that's not even getting into the Dressphere system. -_-'

Yuna is charged with saving the world, and of the three female leads, as the most important role in the game's story. She's a feminine character: soft spoken, pretty, and supportive of the other characters. In battle, Yuna's relegated to healing the other party members; a background task. When she's used offensively, she summons aeons--magical creatures that you collect like pokémon--to damage enemies for her. She can also whack things with her stick (sorry, staff), but it doesn't do much of anything unless she's grossly overleveled. On the positive side, Yuna's pretty realistic looking. Once you get past the fact that she looks like a strong wind could knock her over.

Lulu's pretty much Yuna's opposite. She tends to be seen as cold-hearted and cynical, but when you get down to it, Lulu's a bitch. She's more competent than Yuna, who needs to be rescued more than once throughout the course of the game. In battle, her magic attacks inflict a ton of damage on enemies. She also can throw stuffed-animal bombs at them, which like her skirt, perplexes me. Her appearance? Yet another pair of giant boobs and a highly accessorized outfit. I honestly believe that her looks are to balance out the un-feminine qualities in her.

Okay, examples are great. And we've all heard that negative portrayals aren't good for us, but they're everywhere: TV, movies, ads...what makes gaming so special? Why are these characters so bad for us, when things like this can be found in every other form of media?

I got one word for you: immersion.

When you watch a TV show, there's always some distance between you and the show. You are a viewer, not a participant. When you play games, you become that character. You control their actions, get involved in the world, and you are the one who makes everything happen. This is even evidenced, in some way, by how we talk about games. When you're talking about how many hookers you killed in Grand Theft Auto, you don't say, "Niko waited until the hookers came out and ran them over, and then Roman called." You say something like, "I made Niko run over all the hookers, and then Roman called." More likely, though, you say something like this: "I ran over all the hookers and then my cousin Roman called. He asked if I wanted to go see beeg American tee-tees." In fact, plenty of games have been criticized for not having a likable enough main character...or a character that players can relate to.

Here's another interesting thing about immersion: the stronger the storyline, the stronger the immersion.

Think about any game you've ever played. When were you most into it? What game stays in your brain, even after you've put down the controller? Most likely, it's one with a good story. Right now I'm playing through Radiant Historia, and it's probably the most epic DS game I've played. It has a great story, and it makes me want to continue playing, because I want to know what happens next.

This even happens with games with skeleton plots, but to a lesser extent. Take the Pokémon games. Sure, collecting the gym badges, raising pokémon, and breeding wailords with skitties is all pretty fun. But one of the best parts of the game, and still my favorite, is defeating Team Rocket. Aside from defeating the Elite Four, everything after that felt like an anti-climax. I dare you to find another game where so many kids all cried out the same thing: "Oh my God, Mom, NOT NOW! I'm fighting Giovanni!"

Mothers will never understand the feeling of defeating Team Rocket for the first time.

Other than making us act like crazy people, what does immersion do for us? It makes games more fun, for a start. But we also are more likely to internalize the messages that our games are sending us. 

Messages like don't steal pokémon, or some 10-year-old punk ass kid will come and crush your organized crime ring.

So what does that immersion do to us? Plenty, it turns out.

In 2008, two researchers studied the impact that games have on body image. Both men and women in the study played games that had a high focus on the characters' bodies--a wrestling game and a volleyball game, respectively. The study revealed that body esteem decreased for both men and women.

Body esteem = the emotional way we feel about our bodies.

There was some decrease in how the participants viewed their sexual attractiveness, though this ended up not being statistically significant. If you paid attention in your stats class and actually understand what that means, good. Explain it to me.

But wait! There's more! With your purchase of lowered body esteem, we'll throw in an increased tolerance of sexual harassment and rape myths, absolutely free! WHATADEAL!

What are rape myths?

Well, I'm glad you asked, Melvin. No, they don't have anything to do with Zeus, the original, "hide your kids, hide your wife".

Rape myths are false beliefs that people hold about rape. Some common ones include:

• Rape is sex.
• A victim of rape should "forget about it".
• Rape is only perpetrated by strangers.
• Rape is a relatively rare crime.
• Women "ask for it" from the way they dress or act.

While we're on the subject, let's clear a few of these up.

1. Rape is not an act of sexual gratification, but rather and act of violence or domination.
2. Nearly one-third of rape victims suffer PTSD as a result of their rape. Rape changes your life. It is not something you can "forget about".
3. About 70% of victims know who their attacker is.
4. One out of every 8 women has been the victim of rape.
5. Most rapes are planned. Rapists target women that appear vulnerable. No one "asks" to be raped. Not ever. The rapist is solely responsible for the rape.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!

I like this study a lot, so let's go through it, shall we? Participants--both women and men--were shown a series of images of either congressmen and women, or sex-typed game characters. After the images, participants read a true story of a female student being sexually harassed by her male professor. Participants responded to the story by indicating how serious they though the incident was, how much empathy they had for the victim, how much blame they placed on the victim, and what would be a good punishment for the professor.

The researchers found that tolerance for sexual harassment was the highest in the group of men that had viewed the sexy game characters, but women who viewed the sex-typed characters displayed the lowest amount of tolerance for harassment. Exposure to violence in video games had a positive correlation to rape-supportive attitudes and endorsement of rape myths.

Most of us are aware of sexism in video games (and if you weren't before, you sure are now!) but we don't realize just how much it can influence our thoughts.

Why am I still doing this, then? Clearly, video games are evil and make us violent, sexist pigs.

The answer is very simple.

Because I love video games. I love to play them, I love to talk about them, I love to write about them....  Knowing all this doesn't make them any less fun for me. Developers are going to keep making them, and we'll keep playing them. But while we're saving the world, keep an eye out for things that shouldn't be there...and the things that should be.

Next up: Dragon Age: Origins

Image credits:
Princess Peach - http://www.mariowiki.com/File:PeachNormalSPP.png
Cooking Mama - http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=252
Mia Fey - http://aceattorney.wikia.com/wiki/Mia_Fey
Lara Croft 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Croft
Lara Croft 2 - http://www.oddee.com/item_96977.aspx
Yuna - http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Yuna
Lulu - http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Lulu

Works Cited

(Barlett C P Harris R J 2008 impact of body emphasizing video games on body image concerns in men and women)Barlett, C. P., & Harris, R. J. (2008). The impact of body emphasizing video games on body image concerns in men and women. Sex Roles, 57, 419-433.

(Dill K E Brown B P Collins M A 2008 An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior)Dill, K. E., Brown, B. P., & Collins, M. A. (2008). An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior. Sex Roles, 38, 425-442.

 (Entertainment Software Association 2010 Essential facts about the computer video game industry)Entertainment Software Association. (2010). Essential facts about the computer video game industry. Retrieved from http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF

Martin (2011) (Martin M 201110 Reality tv turning girls into fame monsters?)Martin, M. (2011, October). Reality tv turning girls into fame monsters? Retrieved from National Public Radio Web site: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/19/141508287/reality-tv-turning-young-girls-into-fame-monsters

Citations done in APA format. Fuck yeah.