222: Straight and Narrow

[Nieroshai]

So how many characters in games even display their sexuality? For all you know, Link could be gay. He never shows any romantic feelings for anyone in any game except Twilight Princess(and that's an entirely different Link), so how do you know he doesn't like men? How about Master Chief? His sexuality is never glanced at, he might have the hots for Johnson. Pun not intended. Does there have to be a gay sex scene for this issue to be considered "resolved" in a game? Does the character have to flamboyantly display his/her sexuality?

Edit: I agree with the post above mine, it sums up details I forgot to mention.

 

[MikeOfThunder]

I'm sorry but this is just a bit ... silly! (Can't think of another word)

I do appreciate that it must suck a little to be a gay-gamer with all the online slang, which i understand. But the reason why we don't have gay protagonists is due to the fact that the majority of gamers are hetrosexual males: A designer must create a character that the majority can relate too...

Main characters being (usually) Either-

*Male, strong, funny, confident and successful.

OR

*Female, strong (Not looking it though...), confident and sexy.

The female protagonist would appeal to the majority for more sexual reasons and the male character for obvious idiol reasons. Now this 'rule' isnt always that precise but its usually something like that. If we made a gay protagonist it would be harder for hetrosexuals to relate too... especially if he is getting it on with another guy! - Saying that though a homosexual woman might actually appeal to the majority.

This is nothing about homophobia! Its just a question of appealing to the audience. - In the end... designers want to make money and the money is with the majority.

 

[LadyZephyr]

Main characters being (usually) Either-
*Male, strong, funny, confident and successful.
OR
*Female, strong (Not looking it though...), confident and sexy.

If male gamers have no qualms playing a straight woman who is attracted to guys, they shouldn't have problems playing a gay man who's attracted to guys. The player character is not an exact representation of the player and isn't meant to be. (Outside certain sandbow games that allow total character customization, I suppose.)

 

[mattcruise]

I'll admit there aren't a lot of Homosexual characters in games, but at the same time there isn't a lot of romance in games either. There is some but that is rarely the point of the game, and I don't want a romance subplot thrown into most of them, and I also don't need to know the characters sexual orientation if romance isn't going to be a factor.

Furthermore if you look at the action genre in general, that is including movies, it dominated by hetero males. Perhaps the demographic is larger for heterosexual males, makes sense to me, and it makes the characters more relatible.

I'm all for more gays in video games, if it makes sense. If the character is just going to be given 'gay traits' or a romance cutscene is shoehorned in, I don't want it. And that last bit goes for heterosexual charaters as well.

 

[mattcruise]

Also the thing with gay culture is it is rarely handled with any degree of subtlety. There are rare occasions where a character in some medium where he happens to be gay, and they don't make a big thing about it. I'm fine with that. But even within the culture itself, and i'm talking real life, its treated like the only thing that defines a gay person is that they are gay. I mean I've been to gay pride, and there is so much shirtless men, thongs, drag queens, buttless chaps, men in their underwear. Its like if I went to a hetro pride parade and saw women dressing like sluts, and men acting like macho douchebags I think the same thing. It doesn't treat the sexuality with any amount of respect, it comes across as attention seeking.

For homosexuality to work in art it has to be treated with respect for both hetrosexuals and homosexuals. The characters that are gay, but the relationships that spawn from that have to be real, have actual emotional depth, and not just flamboyant 'hey look I'm gay' characters.

 

[occamsnailfile]

They can't even work out a way to have hetrosexual sexuality in games without starting a huge controversy. Seems to me that the discrimination flows pretty equally. Especially when most characters aren't given enough personality to really define thier sexuality.

WTF? Are you insane? Heterosexuals are not discriminated against in games. Most particularly heterosexual males. The characters who aren't shown as having an overt sexuality are assumed by pretty much everyone except people who pause to think for a second that they are straight.

Visibility is a problem for gay people in general, as they have to assert that they are gay in order for it to be apparent, generally, and then they get accused of "throwing it in people's faces," by, apparently, asserting their own existence. It doesn't have to be huge, as noted in some games the characters are very subtly indicated.

I wish that Nico in GTAIV had been able to actually date one of the male options on the dating websites. Just one. The straight boys got like five.

All this saying 'gay hurts sales' is like saying 'black hurts sales' when the possibility of making a lead character non-white is introduced. It's crap and we can do better than that as a society. I think the straight-white-males out there can be big enough that not everything has to be all about them, all the time, right?

I didn't say hetrosexuals. I said hetrosexual sexuality. Did you forget the Mass Effect controversy? They completely glossed over the fact that you could have a semi lesbian relationship (the blue alien who has both organs or something but she looks like a girl) but focused on the fact that OMG THEY HAD S E X. So if that is the reaction of a hetrosexual relationship that was done in very good taste what chance is there of having a homosexual scene? Would you be happy with a character who announces "I'm gay" at the beginning of the game and that is it? How about some shoehorned in romance that means nothing because game writers can't write? Maybe you would be happier with a God of War style comic minigame that is just there for silliness?

Not only that what about you the player? Do you need them to tell you every little detail about your character? I remember back when I first started playing games we had to use this thing called imagination. White squares floating on the screen we imagined were grenades. A green rectangle was GI freakin Joe man. SO why do they have to tell you that your character is gay or straight? Is Mario straight because he is always rescuing the princess? Maybe Luigi is his life partner but Mario is in the princess rescuing business. Who is to say one dark night in the foxhole Marcus and Carmine didn't get a little closer than needed to "keep warm" and the only reason they went after his wife was for repopulation. Unless the character comes out with the stereotypical clothes and lisp no one really knows what most characters are. Everyone just assumes they are.

Oh, great, one incident where straight sexuality draws a tiny bit of finger-wagging (versus the specific singling out that the lesbian 'scene' got on national television, rather than being "glossed over" as you try to claim) and clearly discrimination against heterosexual sexuality is equal to that experienced by gays. Good night.

I'd be content with any one of several of those options of representation--so long as it fit the game it was in. Why don't you use your "imagination" to envision a world where not all games are always about straight white males. I mean one of the reasons they have such a big demographic is that all the marketing is to them, all the games are written for them, and everybody else just has to take whatever scraps they can get--including female leads with enormous breasts "for the men" even if the game is supposed to attract female gamers, even though there are huge numbers of women who play now, even though there are a lot of very vocal gays, and even though of course not all gamers are white straight males.

They know they can just ignore everybody else because everybody else is used to having to pick up the leftovers, while the second you move the camera away from the "majority demographic", they set up a hue and cry about how gays should "just use their imagination."

 

[high_castle]

The reason why it should be is that gay men and women play video games, and homosexuality is part of everyday life. I'm guessing your a straight male. Would you like to do nothing else but play as a gay character?

the ideal situation would surely be where a main character turns to their love interest of choice/plot design, be they male or female, and nobody gives a hoot.

I agree with you there. And please don't mistake me. I don't think game designers should be forced or even pressured into creating gay characters. I would hope that gay characters would make it in because it's a part of everyday life and I see no reason for it to be excluded.

 

[Worgen]

while not many gay project leads certainly doesnt help I think a bigger problem is just that if you have a gay char then you have to address sexuality and very few games are willing to do that since in the states really any discussion of sexuality it looked at with suspician and when you combine something that the loud religious crazies dont like they just yell louder about it

 

[Woem]

I would just like to add that Baldur's Gate 2 also already included same-sex relationships.

 

[cobra_ky]

Frankly, I don't care much for a characters orientation in a mario game. I would argue that when the "apparent" orientation of Birdo was hidden from the public in America, they did it because Mario is (or was perceived as) a childrens game . It wasn't so much for the homophobia of the idea, but rather that belief that any talk about sexuality with children is inappropriate. To a large degree, I agree. All that kids need to understand about sexuality is that some children ahve wee-wees, and others don't. Anything else is simply irrelevant in a child's world (my friends and I sure as hell had no idea what a "homosexual" was, nor would we have given a damn if you attempted to explain).

Depends on the child. Some children already have transsexual urges at that point in life, and the sooner parents are aware of it and start talking about it, the better for them.

Now, I know that example was taken from another article. So to come back to this one, I simply want to say that, sure, it would be interesting to have homosexuals in video games as characters, but I don't understand why there needs to be an EFFORT to do so. First of all, in many games (like halo (not ODST) and Resistance), any mentioning of homosexuals would be out of place. Particularly in Resistance, which takes place in hyper-conservative America that's being undersiege by an alien invasion force. In my opinion, there aren't a lot of games on the market where it would be logical to put in a gay character. Other games (Left 4 Dead anyone?) make me wonder why they exclude such an obviously simple integration of the character. It wouldn't have to be forced. You could add a scene with a guy (or girl) morning his/her same sex lover.

Having said that, I'm sick of a lot of the media and entertainment industries shoving down our throats the idea that we MUST HAVE GAYS IN OUR SHOWS!!! I have nothing against having homosexuals in shows, but many of the shows that incorporate them do it as a PR stunt. I remember a BBC special (I think it was called Wormwood). It was supposed to be about aliens taking over children and invading the world. But half of the show was devoted to two "detectives" and their gay relationship. Why the FUCK do I care about two guys making love when the worlds about to end? I wouldn't care even if they were a guy and a girl. It distracted from the main story so much that I stopped watching. I was here to watch aliens, not a romance story.

Other shows do it right. House has a bisexual woman in it. Granted, she is in a heterosexual relationship at the moment, but they made her bisexual because it fit the character so well. It was interesting and entertaining. brilliant I'd say! It wasn't forced at all! It was natural for the show and character. I loved it.

People hear "there should be more gay characters in games" and tend to think of shoehorning them into existing games. No one's suggesting that openly gay characters can and should fit into every game. You're more likely to end up with stereotypes doing that anyway. What we want to see are more characters like Thirteen (the chick from house) in games, where the sexuality fits and is a natural part of the character.

I wish all sources of media would stop discriminating against homosexuals but would also stop trying to force homosexual characters in their mediums of entertainment where they don't naturally seem to fit. Just let developers make the stories they want to make, and don't bash them for either desiring to put in a well thought of gay character nor bash them for excluding them. The fact is, only 5-10% of the population is gay. logic would have it only 5-10% of characters should be gay, at the most. I don't expect nor necessarily want every game to have a gay character. Then again, I'd be very upset if the next installment of Super Smash Bros. took a great deal of time explaining to me that DK and Diddy Kong were actually lovers. I just don't give a damn. I wanna beat the shit outta Mr. Game & Watch!!!

i'd be very surprised if the percentage of gay characters in any form of media was even close to 5-10%.

 

[cobra_ky]

If you have the choice to, go on and play as a carbon copy of you. If not, learn to deal with it like the rest of us have. Racism and homophobia will only die once no one gives a damn.

i don't think that's true. Antisemitism has existed for thousands of years, and i don't think it's because too many Jews still "give a damn."

I also think you're assuming racism and homophobia are conscious attitudes, when most of the time they aren't.

Also the thing with gay culture is it is rarely handled with any degree of subtlety. There are rare occasions where a character in some medium where he happens to be gay, and they don't make a big thing about it. I'm fine with that. But even within the culture itself, and i'm talking real life, its treated like the only thing that defines a gay person is that they are gay. I mean I've been to gay pride, and there is so much shirtless men, thongs, drag queens, buttless chaps, men in their underwear. Its like if I went to a hetro pride parade and saw women dressing like sluts, and men acting like macho douchebags I think the same thing. It doesn't treat the sexuality with any amount of respect, it comes across as attention seeking.

what makes homosexuality different from other minorities is that its completely invisible. when gay "culture" is handled subtly, it often doesn't stand out at all. in some ways i feel the same about pride parades but then again, these people are so used to repressing their sexuality and remaining invisible, that i can't really blame them for being... overexuberant when they have the chance.

For homosexuality to work in art it has to be treated with respect for both hetrosexuals and homosexuals. The characters that are gay, but the relationships that spawn from that have to be real, have actual emotional depth, and not just flamboyant 'hey look I'm gay' characters.

i agree 100%.

 

[MNRA]

Okay. I, like warrenEBB a few posts up, am treading dangreous waters by saying this but...

Arn't gays getting prefferential treatment just 'cause people feel that they've been harassed enough in the past? I mean I like the idea that there was a mission in GTA where you saved the gay guy. But what if the game had included a multiple choice mission where you could also tag up with some homophobes to beat the guy up and finish him off with a brutal shot to the neck? The outrage would've been equvalent of a supernova. And some of the queens I know could deffinately skate down the sidewalk wearing pink tights (or whatever). I know that most gays do not look like that, but there are some, and they do make a splash when they go out. The problem then lies not in the representation, but in tha fact that it's the only representation. And I don't think all games have the time to show every side of the spectrum. So as a games designer I can understan you not taking the gey-friendly way since whatever you do, you'll be missrepresenting someone.

My point though is that as much as I'd love to have some same sex options of both kinds in games (there are cute guys and girls...and I want them all). I don't like the thought me me having to play a nice loving character all the time. Just as games are violent, but everyone knows that they are games, I want games to be homophobic and heterohating at the same time. I want to be able to both play an average Joe who likes to chat up guys in bars as much as I want to be able to wreak bloody havoc in a pride-parade. I don't dislike gays, heck allow me to indulge in my bi-sides, but that does not mean that I don't appreciate the fact that I can play as someone who is not me. Such as a violent gay-hating biker, or a biggot of a grandfather. Okay, those games don't exist but you get my point...maybe?





Also, Bloodlines only had F/F pairings. I remember how pissed I was when I found out I could play a dyke (which I did) but not a gay.

 

[MikeOfThunder]

Main characters being (usually) Either-
*Male, strong, funny, confident and successful.
OR
*Female, strong (Not looking it though...), confident and sexy.

If male gamers have no qualms playing a straight woman who is attracted to guys, they shouldn't have problems playing a gay man who's attracted to guys. The player character is not an exact representation of the player and isn't meant to be. (Outside certain sandbow games that allow total character customization, I suppose.)

Well playing a straight woman is different, due to the sex appeal of the character. A 'kickass' sexy female character will appeal to the majority. Also the player character is barely ever like the real person playing them... otherwise it would be boring: People want a character that they can both relate too, but is also someone they admire and have a certain 'wish-I-was-him' about them.

Take 'Gears of war' Marcus Fenix:

*Strong; confident; powerful; physically imposing; fearless; very masculine; carrys a chainsaw gun.

By making the character gay, he suddenly becomes alot less masculine, even if he is basically the same character! I don't quite know why really, i think its a poor steriotype. (Let me make it clear that i don't think that gay people are any less masculine, its just in games it can seem the case). Also sex sells, sexy men are not going to appeal to a majority hetrosexual gaming population.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

I don't care if you're gay. I wouldn't care if anyone was gay. But you wanna know what? I (as a heterosexual male) would not want to be forced to play a game with a gay protagonist and HAVE to be him. It would be terrible. Game developers are just playing to the largest demographic. Stop whining.

 

[ashiii]

I don't know...an openly gay protagonist?

I think it would be too distracting to players.

Don't get me wrong, I myself am gay, but I just think it'd be a bit silly.

It doesn't matter anyway. Regardless of how manly and girl-crazy a video game character is, there'll always be the fangirls and gay gamers who'll insist the character is gay anyway.

And how many guys just love the idea of their favourite female character being a lesbian?

In a game where you choose your character; fine, make one or two of them gay if you like. I'll probably pick them (provided they aren't really weird =P)

But in your standard action adventure, I don't want to be playing as a flaming homosexual.

I'd much rather rescuing a princess than a prince.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Ok I guess.
But I think the way Lionhead pulled it off was just fine. (well except it wasn't because marriage in Fable means friggin nothin, but still)
I might be a homophobe for this, but I really can't see the reason behind making the gamer control a gay protagonist.

Well, let's try it this way - can you see a reason why NOT to make a protagonist gay? Besides things like whether a game would sell, I mean.

Although sometimes a game's story requires the protagonist to be something specific (you're probably not ever going to play as a woman in a WWII game, for example), most of the time there's no compelling reason it needs to be anything in particular. Could be a guy, a girl, black, white, straight, gay, whatever. Take Dead Rising as an example (simply because I happened to just look at the poster for it above my desk.) All the main character really has to be is someone that could legitimately be a photojournalist, so probably not a kid. Other than that, it's wide open. And yet, it's a white guy. Now, there's nothing wrong with the hero being a white guy in and of itself - after all, why shouldn't it? - the problem is that it's so often a white guy. Variety would be great and variety includes minorities -- including homosexuals.

Actually, I can see a reason behind not making the protagonist gay:
Either it's part of the story, so it is expressed, and THAT is somewhat disturbing.
Or he just says "Yo I'm gay", and that's almost as bad as the first one.
I really couldn't be bothered about sex in games, but if its gay, it would definitely creep me out.

 

[squid5580]

They can't even work out a way to have hetrosexual sexuality in games without starting a huge controversy. Seems to me that the discrimination flows pretty equally. Especially when most characters aren't given enough personality to really define thier sexuality.

WTF? Are you insane? Heterosexuals are not discriminated against in games. Most particularly heterosexual males. The characters who aren't shown as having an overt sexuality are assumed by pretty much everyone except people who pause to think for a second that they are straight.

Visibility is a problem for gay people in general, as they have to assert that they are gay in order for it to be apparent, generally, and then they get accused of "throwing it in people's faces," by, apparently, asserting their own existence. It doesn't have to be huge, as noted in some games the characters are very subtly indicated.

I wish that Nico in GTAIV had been able to actually date one of the male options on the dating websites. Just one. The straight boys got like five.

All this saying 'gay hurts sales' is like saying 'black hurts sales' when the possibility of making a lead character non-white is introduced. It's crap and we can do better than that as a society. I think the straight-white-males out there can be big enough that not everything has to be all about them, all the time, right?

I didn't say hetrosexuals. I said hetrosexual sexuality. Did you forget the Mass Effect controversy? They completely glossed over the fact that you could have a semi lesbian relationship (the blue alien who has both organs or something but she looks like a girl) but focused on the fact that OMG THEY HAD S E X. So if that is the reaction of a hetrosexual relationship that was done in very good taste what chance is there of having a homosexual scene? Would you be happy with a character who announces "I'm gay" at the beginning of the game and that is it? How about some shoehorned in romance that means nothing because game writers can't write? Maybe you would be happier with a God of War style comic minigame that is just there for silliness?

Not only that what about you the player? Do you need them to tell you every little detail about your character? I remember back when I first started playing games we had to use this thing called imagination. White squares floating on the screen we imagined were grenades. A green rectangle was GI freakin Joe man. SO why do they have to tell you that your character is gay or straight? Is Mario straight because he is always rescuing the princess? Maybe Luigi is his life partner but Mario is in the princess rescuing business. Who is to say one dark night in the foxhole Marcus and Carmine didn't get a little closer than needed to "keep warm" and the only reason they went after his wife was for repopulation. Unless the character comes out with the stereotypical clothes and lisp no one really knows what most characters are. Everyone just assumes they are.

Oh, great, one incident where straight sexuality draws a tiny bit of finger-wagging (versus the specific singling out that the lesbian 'scene' got on national television, rather than being "glossed over" as you try to claim) and clearly discrimination against heterosexual sexuality is equal to that experienced by gays. Good night.

I'd be content with any one of several of those options of representation--so long as it fit the game it was in. Why don't you use your "imagination" to envision a world where not all games are always about straight white males. I mean one of the reasons they have such a big demographic is that all the marketing is to them, all the games are written for them, and everybody else just has to take whatever scraps they can get--including female leads with enormous breasts "for the men" even if the game is supposed to attract female gamers, even though there are huge numbers of women who play now, even though there are a lot of very vocal gays, and even though of course not all gamers are white straight males.

They know they can just ignore everybody else because everybody else is used to having to pick up the leftovers, while the second you move the camera away from the "majority demographic", they set up a hue and cry about how gays should "just use their imagination."

Right because only gay people would ever have to use thier imagination. Why the writers hold everyone else's hands here and produce amazing characters every time. The bottom line is we are all getting leftovers here. In a 10 hour game you get what 3 hours of story? 2 hours of which is some ass kicking scenes which do nothing for the character development. So then what you want them to proudly announce they are gay? Maybe go for the whole stereotype that way the gay community can ***** about that. Maybe when there aren't shenanigans like Mass Effect, RE5, Shadow Complex and Scribblenaughts and we can convince them we are mature enough to handle mature topics then the industry might follow.

 

[Eldarion]

Sorry, the sexual orientation of a video game character is NOT IMPORTANT.