Noticing the Male Gaze in Gaming

Have you ever noticed that the depiction of gender is dependent on the gaming platform?

Growing up with video games has allowed me to see the revolution of various gaming platforms. One noticeable evolution is the gender portrayals in the gaming world. When the Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment systems were on the scene, most of the games depicted hyper-masculine central characters that generally needed to save the world and dominate the female characters. Now with the introduction of gaming systems like the Wii and the Xbox Kinect, whose target audience is the family, games for these systems are less subservient towards the males gaze.

When I was seven, my brother, Blake, received his first ever gaming system for his ninth birthday. It was a Nintendo 64 and it came with the game Duke Nukem. Previous to receiving his gaming system, Blake and I had little contact with video games and so only played them when we were babysat or at a friend’s house. As such, having limited contact with video games, I had no understanding of them and preferred to watch rather than play myself.

Early on, I noticed a running theme in the games I witnessed. The games, for the most part, had a male central character that was the epitome of masculinity. In Duke Nukem, Duke looked remarkably like Arnold Schwarzenegger, at least to my seven year old eyes. It happened to be a pretty good guess. In researching Duke Nukem, I came across a character description and Nukem is a pastiche of Schwarzenegger’s character in Commando, as well as Sylvester Stallone’s in Rambo, Kurt Russell’s in Big Trouble in Little China, and other such over muscled men (Duke Nukem, 2011). The female characters in Duke Nukem tend to be underdressed and oversexed. This theme, which is generally to satisfy the male gaze since the females are seen as objects, runs through most of the strategy and shooting games for Nintendo 64.

I realize now that Duke Nukem was not an appropriate game for young children. Having such a hyper-masculine character sends the wrong message to a young audience. Even his catch phrases were demonstrative of an overtly masculine being. The catch phrases generally include the coarse language and sexual innuendos that are expected of a hyper masculine person.

On the occasions where  a female character was central to the plot line, for example Tomb Raider, she was depicted as having the ideal feminine figure. Lara Croft is the central female character to the Tomb Raider game. She is tall and is overly feminized. By accentuating her feminine figure the male gaze is drawn and she becomes objectified. As such, it does not matter whether she is female because her central role is to please the male gaze. Her objectification is further underscored by the fact that she is being controlled by the gamer, who is typically male.

With gaming systems being marketed towards the family, i.e. the Wii, there is less weight placed on over emphasizing male or female depictions and reinforcing gender stereotypes through character traits. Therefore, we are seeing less hyper sexual characters. In scenarios where the games are directed towards either a younger audience or family audience, the characters are becoming less gender specific and now allow people the opportunity to choose either a male or female character. Take a look at how the Wii is directed towards the family unit in this advertisement. I believe this is a good thing as there will be less influence on children to aspire to the impossible character depictions that are seen in older games.