Ok, this is something that people get worked up about, so please at least stick with me to the end of the paragraph.  The latest “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” episode came out: “All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games“.  As always, Anita Sarkeesian disabled the comments on her video, and I don’t blame her.  When I saw a headline covering this, without even realizing it was from her, I knew some of the arguments that would be made about this in the comments.  Now, I’d like to point out that it is possible to be intellectually honest and disagree with her.  There are valid criticisms that can be made in a civil and polite way.  I am not going to be getting into any of that, though.  What I am getting at isn’t actually about her.  Nor do I want to get into the argument of fantastical bodies, though I will present this to answer that point:

If male characters were presented for women the way female characters are presented for men.

No, instead of any of that, what I am interested in is the reaction that people can have to the topic.

Representation

When the topic of representation of women in video games come up, it’s usually one person saying that the usual representation of women in games is exploitative, and another saying that it’s what sells to video game players.  At least that’s the civil portion of it.  Usually that goes away quickly, though.  Often someone will be make an argument that to have video game makers not present the great majority of female characters as conventionally sexually attractive, that amounts to censorship.  In extreme cases, it doesn’t even matter why something was changed, the fact that some aspect of sexuality was changed makes it censorship.

Recall the Overwatch Tracer pose controversy.  This was a case of the game makers themselves saying “yeah, this doesn’t fit, so we’re going to change it to fit the characterization better.”  That seems reasonable, right?  Well, because it came from someone else originally noticing that Tracer’s pose was more sexual than playful, and there didn’t fit the character, that means this change was a violation of the original creative vision.

So many of these arguments throw out terms like this: creative vision, censorship, authentic, etc.  These are usually thrown around like the commenters are defending the content creators against a culture or point of view that wants to compromise the work they want to do.  This, clearly, presumes that these commenters know what the creators want to make.

Intellectual Dishonesty

Here’s where we see the a core dishonesty.  The Tracer pose issue shows how even if the creator thinks that this is the correct way to do it, if this undercurrent feels that this is being taken away from them, they lash out.  This particular issue didn’t boil over too much, but the sentiment was there.  There can’t be respect for the creator if at the same time you view the creator as compromised by some other force, because YOU want to compromise their vision to adhere to your vision as well.

Now, this isn’t talking about technical issues, but rather thematic and characterization issues.  Technical things can always have points that objectively could have been done better, even in great works.  In the movie “The Big Short”, there were several audio clips that were mixed TERRIBLY.  If they had been shored up, it would have been a plus for the movie.  If you have some preference for how a character should be treated, though, then to serve YOUR tastes would be to compromise the vision of the artist.

This isn’t to say don’t criticize, though.  It’s only to say that we all need to be honest about what these criticisms mean.  “I think your vision would be better if it was changed to suit my tastes more”.  This doesn’t make you right or wrong.

For example, I was intrigued at the early theory that Link in Breath of the Wild would be a girl.  I think that would have been a nice change of pace, and there are some other people who would certainly be interested in playing that.  It was later stated that Link would be male, and to me that’s a moment where I shrug and say “so be it”.  I wasn’t entirely happy with the reasoning.

The Triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female. If we made Link a female we thought that would mess with the balance of the Triforce. That’s why we decided not to do it.

Why am I bringing this up?  I want to point out that I can disagree with this reasoning but accept that it’s their decision to make.  We should also accept that it’s Blizzards decision for what to do with their characters.  If I am unhappy about it to the point where I think it’s a travesty, I won’t buy it.  If it sells anyway, then they had a better sense of the general culture than I did.

Censorship?  Really?

Back to the idea of body representation, I want to say something.  Even when I was a kid, I wondered why there were so many different stock body types of men to present in games.  Take a look at the range in Super Punch-Out! with big guys like Bald Bull, old like Hoy Quarlow, fat like Bear Hugger, or slender/effeminate like Keike Kagero .  Women, though, are all pretty much the same stock character.  So, I understand Anita Sarkeesian’s point.

Punch Out was never exactly a bastion of cultural sensitivity, but it does have good variety in the opponents.

So, I would like to see more variety in the female characters too, but I am not calling for censorship in any way.  With that in mind, I present a question that should be considered for those who value intellectual honesty:

Where do you draw the line between advocating something and calling for censoring something else?  Where do you draw the line when you label an effort one or the other?

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry.  Behind the Line is written to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it.  From “What’s taking this game so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else, if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com