Far Cry 3 and The Rape of Jason Brody

[Samurai Rabbit]

Hello my fellow escapists. I've recently added a video to my YouTube channel discussing the topic covered in the thread title. Of course I am not allowed to link to my own channel nor am I allowed to indicate you towards my profile page where a link to said video can be found. (cough cough)

Anyway I digress. I have pasted most of my notes below into a semi-articulate manner:

I spoke with a friend of mine who had just beaten the game and I asked him what he thought about the first case, as far as I can remember anyway, of male rape in a video game. He gave me a funny look until I explained the scene in question and then he was rather shocked to find out that he hadn?t actually thought about it in this way. Strange isn?t it?

I?ll give you the details: in one of the games story missions, a mission that must be completed in order to advance the plot and thus complete the game, the protagonist Jason Brody is given a ?magic potion? by Citra, the leader of the Rakyat Tribe. Upon consuming the potion Brody experiences hallucinations and after a trip-like gameplay segment Brody awakes during a non -consensual sex act with Citra.

I was shocked to find out that this had not been mentioned in any review or in any article that I have read about Far Cry 3. Especially when one considers the uproar over the Tomb Raider trailer where one of Lara Croft?s captors touches her hip inappropriately, before being disarmed by Miss Croft and having his brains blown out. Cause and effect Lara Croft style there, don?t mess with that lady!

Imagine this ladies and gentlemen, imagine if the gender roles in the Far Cry 3 scenario had been reversed. Imagine if it was Liza who was the player character out to rescue her friends and in return for a male tribal leader?s assistance in completing her quest she had to visit his private chambers, drink a hallucinogenic cocktail and the wake up from these hallucinations during a non-consensual sex act. Pretty creepy that isn?t it? There?s not enough bleach in the world to clean the grime off of that story line.

How far do you think this plot point would have got? It wouldn?t have even made it in to the first draft of a script never mind in to the finished product. They would probably have the writer sectioned for God?s sake.

So why does this scene appear to have gone unnoticed? Well there may be a couple of reasons for this:

1) Playing to a male fantasy

Some males may find the allure of the exotic and attractive Citra so powerful that they are willing to be dominated by her in such a way. She is an attractive and powerful woman after all. Maybe some men are so easily distracted by the naked flesh of an attractive woman that they are not even aware that they are in fact being taken advantage of. Or because her beauty they are subconsciously willing to be taken advantage of. I would like to think that most guys out there wouldn?t be that thick, but I?m going to leave that one open for debate.

2) Balance

I may be over thinking this somewhat here, but maybe this scenario of Brody and the player being dominated by Citra is the ?ying? to the ?yang? of the powertrip kill crazy rampage that the rest of the game is. Now don?t kid yourself, the first time you took down a pirate camp by executing each pirate without being spotted felt pretty damn good right? Maybe this is Citra?s way of showing you that you are not the all-conquering force that you believe you are and that she has complete power over you. This would also tie in to the ?bad? ending as it were, and that Brody and the player are happy to submit to Citra.

So what do you think? Why has this act gone unnoticed by many players and the gaming media? What do you think of the scene itself?

 

[JayElleBee]

Well I'm glad someone else caught this. When I first saw the scene I just sort of sat there like, 'Excuse me? What the hell just happened to me?' I thought I, as the player, would have the option to make Jason stay faithful to Liza or to choose Citra. Instead, I found myself being forced to witness the tail end of a rape scene being presented in a way that made it obvious I was supposed to enjoy what I was watching.

Unsurprisingly, I was pissed beyond belief.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

It's really disturbing (possibly intentionally so, given the overall narrative) that she started while he was unconscious, but I think given the character, it's quite clear that he was okay with it.

 

[nexus]

It isn't the only "suggested rape" in the game. One of the characters is kept underground in some filthy cellar, chained to a bed. Presumably being raped every single day by his captor. No one talked about that either, I mean.. nothing, I didn't see any mention of it on the Garme jurnalizm! grapevine..

Lara Croft wasn't raped, and we've only seen the trailer. She was groped and "grabbed at", but the entire internet was in an uproar, and I was embarrassed just having to be present in the same universe. Why Lara uproar/controversy and no mention of this? Because unwarranted militant feminism.

As far Brody getting date-raped. If you had played a Jill Brody, I can tell you right now we wouldn't be discussing whether or not Jill "seemed to enjoy it anyway", otherwise you would get banned. That's right, you are not allowed to mirror a female character like this at all, because it's not allowed.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

I doubt it's any deeper philosophy than "she's attractive" imo. If she wasn't conventionally attractive the shitstorm would've been huge. Yes, it would've been different if the protagonist was female, regardless if the male rapist is attractive or not. This does, of course, raise a lot of unfortunate implications about us as a society, but eeehh.

 

[Screamarie]

Okay, now before someone jumps down my throat here, I am in NO WAY saying that male rape is somehow okay. It is not, rape is rape no matter the victim or the attacker...now that you're all done ignoring my disclaimer I'll continue.

I have never gotten a chance to play this game, so I decided to check for video of the scene in question. After a bit of searching I found a youtube video of what I'm going to guess is the scene your talking about...unless there's two cases where Brody goes through a ritual and finds Citra atop him.

Spoiler: Here is the video in question though the scene itself isn't until the end

Anyways, after watching the video....I'm not sure he was raped. WAIT! put down the pitch forks and torches! I'm not saying he WASN'T just that I noticed that Citra was still wearing her skirt...thing...which could very well have a crotch and Brody is still wearing pants. While she was grinding atop him and he did caress her breats, that doesn't necessarily mean they were having sex. Brody gets up and gives a speech and he doesn't have to button up his pants and Citra herself never seemed to do such a thing either so either his pants were never removed or he was standing there with his pants around his ankles and his dick hanging out. It looked to me that she was just grinding atop him...maybe giving him a painful boner...but not forcing him to have sex.

Now, was it right for her to be grinding atop him while unconscious? Of course not. That's applying stimulation to genitals without consent and is molestation and is very, very wrong.

But if he isn't actually being raped, that could be why this went unnoticed.

Beyond that...well to be totally honest I don't believe the gaming industry has a very good view of it's MALE customers/characters just like it's female customers/characters. "Give them some boobs, they'll be happy," is often what I see in games. So I wouldn't be surprised if the creators never even thought "This is kinda molestationy/rapey...", instead it was probably more like "Oh she is SO hot, I'd love to see her grinding on top of me....so our players will too!"

Not to mention there's the general belief that a man CAN'T be raped by a woman, which is so totally untrue that I believe anyone who even ponders if it might be true sets us back about a thousand years.

 

[Erttheking]

I was a little more focused on how freaked out out no one was getting riled up over the sex slave Keith sub plot (enjoyed sticking that fucking knife in Buck's throat a little too much" That scene was just kinda disturbing. "I like my meat raw"...Jesus. I never thought about it because it stopped being creepy and started being funny when she only took her top off and since Jason got up and ran out after, I assume he was still wearing his clothes. All I can see going on is a little humping. Still I see your point and now that I think about it a little it is kinda messed up. Even if she was only dry humping him, she still could've gotten him to orgasm, that scene takes awhile, which constitutes as rape.

More than a few people said in the Tomb Raider controversy that if the gender roles had been reversed, no one would've cared. And guess what? THEY WERE RIGHT!

This is why I don't get people who praise Far Cry 3's story. I mean I like Far Cry 3 (any game that plays a kick ass song while I set fire to a field of drugs is awesome in my book) but the thing is, none of the characters really stood out to me (except maybe Vaas and those CIA agents) Apart from that the story is just kinda flat. Fun game, fun world, fun events, flat story...in fact the story is the only real problem I have with it.

 

[Samurai Rabbit]

Some good stuff here.

@ JayElleBee yes, I'm glad someone else noticed too. As I mentioned, it seemed odd that the players I spoke to were oblivious to it. Strange indeed.

@ Odgical Sorry, I wanted some new content for my channel and this was one of the few things that piqued my interest. Incidentally it's one of the few experiences I take from the game that really struck a chord with me (apart from the gameplay) and that really made me question it's inclusion in the first place. It seems completely unnecessary and the way its dressed up later on as a romance between the two characters just seems forced and strange.

@ Tragedy's Rebellion Yeah, what this says about the creators and what they think of their audience is a little bit ickyto say the least.

@ Nexus Yes Keith was more implied (heavily so, but implied nonetheless.) But again it is strange that neither of these things were mentioned AT ALL in he gaming media. It wasn't even blown out of proportion by Fox!

@ Screamarie Great to get a female perspective on this topic. That certainly is a possibility, but I think most of those things could be due to animation limitations and character models etc. But I do believe that your second point is a key one and one that makes me despair for the human race. "Wow she is so hot. DEM BOOBS!" and then everything morally bankrupt about the situation evaporates.

It is sad how the story goes from intriguing to pathetic very, very quickly. It had a great start but couldn't live up to it's own beginnings. Good game though! (For the most part.)

 

[Samurai Rabbit]

I was a little more focused on how freaked out out no one was getting riled up over the sex slave Keith sub plot (enjoyed sticking that fucking knife in Buck's throat a little too much" That scene was just kinda disturbing. "I like my meat raw"...Jesus. I never thought about it because it stopped being creepy and started being funny when she only took her top off and since Jason got up and ran out after, I assume he was still wearing his clothes. All I can see going on is a little humping. Still I see your point.

I wouldn't have been surprised if either of these things went unnoticed/unreported in an indie game for instance, but seeing as it was a big budget game from a major developer (with a substantial advertising campaign) it amazes me that these two things haven't even been commented on either positively or negatively in the media.

 

[BrotherRool]

I've heard a few people circle around the topic with some dark mutterings, and it's completely deserved. That it hasn't burst into an outrage shows that the media generally can cause things to get a little hysterical, in the same way there was a ME sex scene controversy despite games like God of War having much more gratuitous things a while back. Someone notes something, reports on it, people form opinions according to the reports, someone gets aggressive the opinions get more radical, all the fuss leads to more media reporting the subject, drawing more people in etc. Lots of the people don't play the game in question or don't know about it, and because it's being reported you have to have an opinion on it, which creates stances that might overwise have passed over the bridge.

It's a dice roll that amplifies itself. It could have been Far Cry 3, instead it was Tomb Raider.

And the other thing is male rape is a lot less understood and familiar, so its sort of less recognisable. As people have said, if she'd been ugly it would probably have triggered people off. It's a bad business but thats the way the world is

 

[Erttheking]

I was a little more focused on how freaked out out no one was getting riled up over the sex slave Keith sub plot (enjoyed sticking that fucking knife in Buck's throat a little too much" That scene was just kinda disturbing. "I like my meat raw"...Jesus. I never thought about it because it stopped being creepy and started being funny when she only took her top off and since Jason got up and ran out after, I assume he was still wearing his clothes. All I can see going on is a little humping. Still I see your point.

I wouldn't have been surprised if either of these things went unnoticed/unreported in an indie game for instance, but seeing as it was a big budget game from a major developer (with a substantial advertising campaign) it amazes me that these two things haven't even been commented on either positively or negatively in the media.

Like I said before, it turns out the people who said that people wouldn't care if the gender roles were reversed in Tomb Raider were right. I mean I'm all for feminism, but sometimes it goes a little too far.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

It isn't the only "suggested rape" in the game. One of the characters is kept underground in some filthy cellar, chained to a bed. Presumably being raped every single day by his captor. No one talked about that either, I mean.. nothing, I didn't see any mention of it on the Garme jurnalizm! grapevine..

That part of the game really creeped me out. I mean...it was in there for basically no reason. You're on a mission to rescue this one friend, and it's like every five minutes the game just kind of hits pause and goes "oh, also, he is being raped." Probably an effort to heighten the stakes or something, but it's both really creepy and really out-of-place.

As far Brody getting date-raped. If you had played a Jill Brody, I can tell you right now we wouldn't be discussing whether or not Jill "seemed to enjoy it anyway", otherwise you would get banned. That's right, you are not allowed to mirror a female character like this at all, because it's not allowed.

I agree that there's a double-standard, and that's pretty bad, but I do think the game's overall narrative context, it seems like something Jason legitimately wanted to do, and even if interpreted as rape, that just figures into the overall story.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the game's narrative is, in essence, about having to survive in the jungle and fight pirates and stuff driving Jason completely nuts. As a consequence of this, he drifts away from his friends and toward the local warrior culture. (this sounded kind of racist to me before I played the game, but in-game it's framed more in terms of this island being such a dangerous place that people who adapt to surviving there just kind of have to go crazy).

So on the one hand, cheating on his girlfriend with the local tribal leader does seem to be something Jason would legitimately have done anyway as a logical consequence of his character progression.

And on the other...well, yes, Citra's actions here are at the very least incredibly sketchy. It kind of seems like she's trying to Stockholm him so he doesn't leave the island with his friends.

It's also worth noting that in the event that Jason does in the end agree to remain with Citra...

Spoiler

She has sex with him one more time in order to get pregnant, then ritualistically murders him.

Given that little twist, now that I think on it more, I wonder if the scene was intended to superficially seem like random fanservice, then be creepier when you think about it, in order to essentially do to the player what Citra is doing to Jason (psychologically, that is).

Given the other rape subplot, it's possible that I'm giving this game's writing way the hell too much credit, but I do find that the elements of the story related to the core theme are far better-written than the assorted subplots, so maybe not.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Just throwing this out here; the first male rape in a video game that I can think of is Beckett from FEAR 2. Alma raped him (and got pregnant with his child!) while he was chained to a chair, while be was busy fighting the final boss in their mindscape, although it did occasionally flash back to Alma grunting and grinding on top of him.

Nobody mentioned that, either.

 

[Screamarie]

After having read a few more posts and learning of and watching videos of the rescue of Keith, I was thinking about this subject a little more and I was wondering...does anyone think this representation is good, as in it might be good for the public?

We as a people are often taught and influenced by the media around us and, seeing as this is one of the very few (if not the first, I haven't played every game ever), representations of a man getting abused in a game and it IS getting discussions going...even if they may be small.

I mean one of the ways we learn what's right and wrong is seeing representations of it's affects in movies, songs, books, and now games. We see what doing something wrong causes, so we ourselves are hopefully less likely to do it because we don't want to be the source of such pain.

Does anyone think (whether the Farcry developers intended it or not) that this could be a catalyst for noticing and discussing an atrocity like male rape that goes fairly unnoticed by both women and men?

After all, just reading the youtube comments, many people didn't realize what happened to Keith...only because you hardly EVER see it spoken of or mentioned ANYWHERE.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

Just throwing this out here; the first male rape in a video game that I can think of is Beckett from FEAR 2. Alma raped him (and got pregnant with his child!) while he was chained to a chair, while be was busy fighting the final boss in their mindscape, although it did occasionally flash back to Alma grunting and grinding on top of him.

Nobody mentioned that, either.

For what it's worth, that's the only thing I know about that series, so apparently somebody's talking about it.

just reading the youtube comments, many people didn't realize what happened to Keith...

Seriously? I was kind of disturbed about how in-your-face the game was being about it. I mean, it never explictly says it's happening, but...

 

[Smooth Operator]

They were humping with their clothes on and no party was objecting in fact they both seemed into it, I understand if you weren't but from the character perspective this doesn't seem like rape to me, but if you want to imagine it that way there is always the possibility.

 

[Screamarie]

Just throwing this out here; the first male rape in a video game that I can think of is Beckett from FEAR 2. Alma raped him (and got pregnant with his child!) while he was chained to a chair, while be was busy fighting the final boss in their mindscape, although it did occasionally flash back to Alma grunting and grinding on top of him.

Nobody mentioned that, either.

For what it's worth, that's the only thing I know about that series, so apparently somebody's talking about it.

just reading the youtube comments, many people didn't realize what happened to Keith...

Seriously? I was kind of disturbed about how in-your-face the game was being about it. I mean, it never explictly says it's happening, but...

True, but some people need things spelled out for them...but at the same time like I said, it's not something people see very often outside of say...prison movies. But I read a comment there that said that it had never occured to him to think that Keith had been raped, he thought he was just upset by everything that had gone on...

And I can't really say I'm surprised because for a lot of people it never would come to mind. If it was a girl YEAH the captor wouldn't have even had to say anything, it would have just been thought "girl trapped in a guys basement, chained to a bed?...yeah she was raped." But no one ever thinks of that when it comes to men cause the macho image still prevails, that a man can take care of himself and can never be compromised unless he's physically weak (or gay, but generally the stereotype is gay=phsyically weak) and that's simply not true. Hell it doesn't even have to come down to strength, roofies go in men's drinks too.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm gonna have to go with the simple guy fantasy of having sex with a hot woman disguised as a tribal ritual. I think that's as far as the mindset behind it goes.

I also have a feeling it was used to depict Brody's "coming of age" or "becoming a MAN", celebrated by him asserting his new found masculinity, sorta speak. Whether at all properly done is another issue.

I will agree that had the genders been reversed there would've been a giant shit storm. Women are still mostly seen as the subversive and the ones taken advantage of, and men as the dominant and the ones taking advantage of.

 

[Samurai Rabbit]

They were humping with their clothes on and no party was objecting in fact they both seemed into it, I understand if you weren't but from the character perspective this doesn't seem like rape to me, but if you want to imagine it that way there is always the possibility.

I see your point, but you could say that Jason didn't object because she started having sex with him why he was under the influence of a hallucinogen. It would be interesting if the gender roles were reversed however wouldn't it? What do you think the reaction to that scene would have been if it was a female PC waking up to a male NPC "humping with their clothes on and no party objecting"?