Week 7: Videogames

Video games are a great source of fun because they include simulations, character relationships, and role-playing scenarios. One game that I played as a young girl was Tomb Raider, with Laura Croft, the only female videogame I know of. This video game uses Lara Croft as the main character and shows how females are equal to males. The video game industry has used male figures as the prominent characters for many years. When studying gender differences in video games it is important to consider stereotypes because of how society demotes one gender over another.

Because the Lara Croft's world is artificially constructed to require her particular skill set, the ability to combine traditionally female agility with traditionally masculine firepower, any claim that Tomb Raider depicts a role model for the real world is wishful thinking. Lara Croft excels at the kind of actions performed by her gender has absolutely no bearing on the jumping and shooting portions of the game. Her identity as a woman however, both as a symbol of strength and as an object of desire, are central to the fiction that defines the Tomb Raider series for its fans. While the male player is enticed by the prospect of controlling an idealized, attractive female body, the game's fiction requires the player to share Lara's motivations and act out the steps she takes to reach her goals. While the Tomb Raider series is designed to appeal to men who wish to possess Lara, the game itself persuades players to take on Lara's own values and goals, and is therefore said that this is a useful tool for combating sexism. Which I personally don’t believe or agree that it does combat sexism in any sense; it’s more of a prime example being sexist.

In listening to the presentations in class students found that today's videogames are developed almost exclusively by men. I think this can be a large reason as to why there are so many more obvious gender-biased views of women than men. As demonstrated through academic articles I read for my research project about videogames, the use of female characters is limited in video games and shows how racial the industry can be swayed one way or another.