Mylinkay Asdara said:
This is where most males point out that they too are stereotyped. This is true and yet it is not the same type of stereotyping in most cases. Let me briefly explain what I mean there. Men are, by and large in video games, portrayed as either really masculine, tough, burly, physical, and good in combat or smart, clever, charming, suave, etc. These are positive stereotypes.
But there's a counter. Any male who doesn't fit these stereotypes is marginalized. The main character must be those things, but if a male isn't one of them, they're portrayed negatively. They're the wacky comedy relief, or the camp gay, or both at the same time. Or even the villain. How many older males in video games exist to be nothing but a father/surrogate father to the main character, and are either killed off, or made into the villain of the game?
We complain about females being shallow, one-note, token characters, and are praised, but try to bring up the same complain about males, and no, no, we have to focus on the women.
They are still stereotypes, they can still be harmful and misrepresentative of the group, but they are positive attributes being exaggerated - and they are the type of attributes that are generally viewed as positive by males as well as females. This is like the stereotype that all Asians are good at math or all African Americans are particularly athletic. It isn't okay to generalize to that degree, but it isn't the same thing as negative stereotypes like Asian people are bad drivers or African American people talk through movies. Women, on the other hand, are stereotyped in games in ways that are not considered positive by females as well as males in general, the slant is clearly toward a physical ideal that is perceived to be valued by males (talking about giant breasts and skimpy outfits here).
There's this thing called "benevolent sexism". It's hardly benevolent, if you ask me, but it's praising conformation to sterotypes and punishing deviation. And it gets mostly ignored. Why? Because video games tended to be thought of as 'male-dominated' so people think the only counter is to start using the same standards we judge males on for females, to bring them up to the same level.
What we need isn't more bad-ass action girls, but a game market where strength AND weakness are both valued. But weakness is only ever presented as something to be overcome, the meek character needs to toughen up. We don't need a female Duke Nukem, we need to have fewer Duke Nukems in the world altogether.
