Mario Brothers/Donkey Kong’s Princess Peach
Ever since a plucky, squat plumber named Mario saved the helpless princess from the clutches of a crazed ape in Donkey Kong back in 1981, heterosexuality – and to a large extent, lame female characters – have been the rule in the world of video games.
Despite recent successes in marketing games to “non-traditional demographics,” the multi-billion dollar industry still caters largely to a young male audience with androcentric power fantasies straight out of a women’s studies instructor’s worst nightmares.
If you’ve played many modern games, you’ll know that female characters tend to come in one of two bland varieties: well-endowed amazons in stilettos and helpless, hyper feminine princesses who need to be rescued by the hero. There are exceptions to the rule (Samus from the Metroid series, Faith from Mirror’s Edge, Nariko from Heavenly Sword), but it’s a pretty shallow pool.
Metroid’s Samus Aran
Artwork credit: Transfuse at Deviant Art
Nariko from Heavenly Sword (left) and Faith from Mirror’s Edge
Unfortunately, the pickings become even slimmer when searching for good lesbian characters.
“It would be great to think that there will be more gay/lesbian gaming content in games at some stage soon, but there’s just little happening with that from the developers,” lamented LesbianGamers.com co-founder Tracy Whitelaw in a recent email interview.
“They think about mass market and numbers and ultimately that means that they go for the mainstream approach,” she explained. “There are certainly a few characters appearing here and there that at least gives hope for the future, but gaming seems to be one of the last bastions of entertainment that is desperately trying to hold onto the heterosexual norm as long as it can.”
So what’s a girl to do? Give up playing games until developers pull their character archetypes out of the 1950s? No way – Whitelaw and her partner Angela Simpson instead saw the value in building a community for queer women who game.
“We think it’s absolutely fundamental to provide a safe, lesbian-oriented space for gay girl gamers,” Whitelaw stated. “We realized before starting LesbianGamers.com that there simply were no lesbian gaming sites around and that’s a real shame as lesbians deserve to have a place to create a community with other lesbian gamers.”
A fanart “tryste” between game characters Samus and Zelda
Artwork credit: Amanda of LesbianGamers.com
Offering everything from serious analysis of female representation in the game world to fantasy features depicting game characters in dramatic Sapphic trysts, Lesbiangamers.com is like a safe lesbian haven in a sea of testosterone. A thriving community of queer and queer-friendly gamers exists on the site, a fact that the LG ladies attribute to their all-inclusive approach.
“The entire thought behind the site was really that sometimes we want different types of information about games than other gaming sites can offer,” she elaborated. “We might want to know more about the females in the games, if there is any lesbian content in them and whether certain homophobic content is likely to be offensive. These are all issues we cover regularly.”
Still, Whitelaw admits that it can be frustrating holding out the welcome banner in a sometimes-hostile environment, not to mention working in a field that is so traditionally dominated by men.
“We don’t find it ‘difficult’ as such to work in a field that is male-dominated, but we do find it a little depressing at times,” said Whitelaw. “The idea that gamers are still young straight males is very strong, but that’s because they DO make up a large percentage of the game buying public. What affects us more is that when advertisers do try and target female gamers, it is ultimately through stereotypically gendered games or dance/music games.”
She continued: “Nintendo [has] probably been the most successful with advertising games and consoles to a variety of markets regardless of age, race, sex so far, but there’s a long way to go.”
On the tricky subject of actual lesbian content in games, we have only the spotty history of those few-and-far-between cases to go on.
Hannah and Rain from Fear Effect 2
Fear Effect 2’s tantalizing girl-on-girl kiss inspired many a young baby dyke in 2001, last year’s Fable II allowed gamers to construct a female character and marry a woman, and 2005’s Jade Empire allowed female players to engage in an optional lesbian plotline.
A scene from Jade Empire
Still, lesbians are so rare in video games that it makes mainstream TV look like Dinah Shore Weekend.
The lack of queer women in games makes what little content there is ripe for sensationalized treatment. Take the 2007 Bioware hit Mass Effect, in which a player could potentially play as a female character, who (through optional dialogue) could bed a female shipmate. The media storm that surrounded the one tasteful (and hot!) love scene was truly blown out of proportion.
Whitelaw and Simpson, who covered the whole debacle from beginning to end, certainly had a few opinions on the matter. “Mass Effect was ridiculously handled by the mainstream media, who saw it as an opportunity to vilify gaming,” said Whitelaw. “Nobody was forced to get involved in a lesbian love story; and having the choice to do so should have been applauded rather than made into something sordid.”
Hopefully, the pervasion of grown-up storylines and the slow (baby steps) trend of increasing queer inclusion will mean that lesbians will have a much stronger foothold in the mainstream video game landscape one day. Until then, we’ll just have to go on making inroads for ourselves – by creating content and communities online that serve our own needs.
Queer gamers have made a name for themselves by forming groups in popular Massive Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft and City of Heroes and by creating content using existing games (such as the “Gay Marriage level” built in LittleBigPlanet) that speaks directly to the queer experience.
“In The Sims franchise, people have the option of playing who they want to play,” Whitelaw noted, touching upon one of the longest-running communities of lesbian gamers around Sims players.
There are “skins” available that allow fans to create characters out about every fandom with a strong lesbian following – including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The L Word, Star Trek Voyager and Xena, allowing players to create their own fantasy storylines with famous lesbian characters – or to make up their own entirely.
(Check out AfterEllen contributing writer Sharon Hadrian’s excellent Welcome to the (Lesbian) Dollhouse for a primer.)
The ladies of LG are certainly the most visible force working towards a better virtual world for queer women. “Gaming should be about living in reality while escaping it at the same time – give people more choice and let their minds run wild,” said Whitelaw, when asked what a better tomorrow should look like. “That’s what makes a great game, and choosing your sexual orientation in a game rather than being forced into a heterosexual relationship (should there be this element) should be a thing of the past.”
She also called out the need for a stronger female presence in the industry, not only on development teams, but in terms of better, stronger representation. “We need female characters who are strong and can play the lead roles just as the butch, masculine male characters currently do.”
Video games are still an evolving media form, and their roots as a dorky boy’s hobby still haven’t completely disappeared. But if lesbian gamers can unite and get their voices heard across the world, we’re on the path to a much more appealing variety of choices when we choose to game.
Watch Tracy and Angela discuss and review the latest games each Tuesday in their video blog Gay Girls Who Game, read the latest gaming news on the blog every Friday, and visit LesbianGamers.com.
