Woman Warriors in Film and Games
Recently, feminist pop-culture
analyst Anita Sarkeesian drew both an avalanche of animosity and a tsunami of
support when she announced plans for a
documentary about female video game characters. Speaking as a guy and a
gamer, it got me thinking that game companies could—and should—do a lot more to
court female players, not only out of a lofty concern for gender equality but
also for the down-to-earth reason that it would broaden their own market. You
won’t catch me saying this often, but I think Hollywood
Rise of the Woman Warrior
Male heroes have been slaying
monsters for as long as humans have been telling stories, but we may be
experiencing a historic shift in that pattern. A quick rundown of the history
of women warriors shows not only an increase in frequency, but also a change in
attitude. Here are a few of the high (and low) points:
Amazons.
Contrary to contemporary depictions, the ancient Greeks considered tales of
women warriors to represent a shocking threat that needed to be subdued and
dominated by strong men.
Wonder Woman.
Fast forwarding to the 20th century, Wonder Woman gave her sisters
of Themyscira a PR makeover, but not right away. The original comic book was
little more than a BDSM fantasy. Fortunately, the character evolved over the
years, most memorably with Linda Carter’s portrayal of a hero who secretly
defended the status quo (patriarchal as it was).
Sigourney Weaver. James
Cameron’s 1986 masterpiece Aliens not only inspired a host of less-than-awesome
franchises but also established the tough-but-vulnerable Weaver as the First
Lady of Science Fiction.
Warrior Princesses to Vampire Slayers.
The 1990s opened a floodgate of action-grrrls, starting with the neuvo-Amazon
Xena, then the unrealistically buxom Lara Croft, and, of course, Buffy Summers,
created by Joss Whedon to flip all the horror movie clichés upside down.
Some say these depictions are
anti-feminist because they show women abandoning their femininity or
objectifying themselves, but you’ve got to admit that the modern plethora of
femme fatales are widely loved by both genders (and has sure enhanced cosplay
options).
Today, science fiction and fantasy
is more popular than ever with both men and women. This year alone, several
box-office blockbusters feature female action heroes, most notably the fearless
archers Merida of Brave and Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games. Even classic
stories are being retold with stronger roles for women, such as Snow White and
the Huntsman, which begins to reverse the usual gender roles so that the female
protagonist does most of the heavy lifting (or, in this case, heavy
sword-swinging). Oh, and let’s not forget Charlize Theron’s role as the queen:
she might be evil, but nobody would dare to question her ability or authority.
We have come a long way, but there’s
plenty more room for improvement. For all the successful super hero movies, we
still lack an iconic female cape-jockey who can keep up with the boys in her
ability to sell tickets (if not to inflict gratuitous collateral damage during
fights).
Still, Hollywood
Game Publishers Take Note
Video game publishers have not
been as successful at appealing to women for a variety of reasons. Women
represent half the potential market, so it would benefit them to explore more
about what these customers might want. Doing this would be good for us, too,
because it might lead to new types of games and new ways of gaming.
Not all gamer guys want big guns
and big boobs, either; some of us want to share games with the women in our
lives. It’s easy to get my wife to go see a big Hollywood
blockbuster because she knows that even if the hero isn’t female, there will
still be plenty of other elements to appeal to her. It’s much harder to
convince her to co-op the latest zombie-slaughtering XBox release, because
experience has shown that games don’t carry the same promise.
