Masculinity in Video Games

KillerGremlin · 12-19-2011, 03:28 PM

Assuming that video games are on par with books or cinema...and they are with an ever expanding library...

You are going to have some pop trash, and some good stuff. We can accept that there is a "strong man" mytho....as per the Greek stories Prof S mentioned, or movies like Conan the Barbarian, 300, Commando, and Die Hard. But maybe people just like watching stuff blown up. I get the homoerotic nature of the strong man mytho...but I'm not empathizing or envying these guys. I don't want to look like a beefcake.

If anything, the emergence of these "strong men" in video games is a retort to all the guys in skinny jeans. Big beefcake guys are on the decline these days, with a curving upward group of metro-sexual males.

This issue is much more complicated than that badly written article, and video games as a medium deserve some love. I enjoy the occasional manly man movie where shit is being blown up and they are cranking out the cheesy as fuck one liners. If you can't appreciate what Gears of War is....polished testosterone and blowing shit up...then how can you appreciate something like No One Lives Forever or Metroid Prime?

Typhoid · 12-19-2011, 04:51 PM

Wait, it's not like male leads in games in the past weren't war-mongering muscle-having gun-toting women-fucking machines.

It's just that when games first started coming out that the graphics were dirt-poor, so you couldn't have definition. Everyone was a block regardless of how beefy they were supposed to be. So when going back, you have to rely on the glorious box art to portray your characters, and let the imagination turn the blocks into those muslce-laden destruction-Gods who love to fight.

I present to you Sean's first annual nothing's-really-changed awards.

However, like I said, it's not like certain companies haven't made their leads more feminine as the years have gone on. Even just starting at FF7, you have Cloud, a cocky masculine male lead in the army. Then a slender egotistical college kid. Then you have a monkey-boy with a tail. Then whatever the fuck Tidus was. Then you have Vaan and Penelo - but considering the main character of the story is technically Asch, it's already a girl. Then you get Lightning, which has seemingly come full-circle where they just removed Clouds dick and gave him tits.

I'm not saying that's a problem, or bugs me. I was just bringing it up.

Teuthida · 12-20-2011, 02:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Typhoid

However, like I said, it's not like certain companies haven't made their leads more feminine as the years have gone on. Even just starting at FF7, you have Cloud, a cocky masculine male lead in the army. Then a slender egotistical college kid. Then you have a monkey-boy with a tail. Then whatever the fuck Tidus was. Then you have Vaan and Penelo - but considering the main character of the story is technically Asch, it's already a girl. Then you get Lightning, which has seemingly come full-circle where they just removed Clouds dick and gave him tits.

Yup, it's the exact opposite in Japan. I've seen articles about how there are no longer any strong male leads in most of their recent entertainment.

Probably very different for video games where you need a lot of approval for the final design of a character (I'm guessing) but in terms of comics, at least for me, big muscly guys are just more fun to draw.

And I prefer my video game characters to be cute, colorful and barely humanoid. The only game of this generation I've played is Portal 2. I would say that's a strong female character.

The body types just seem to make sense for the type of game they're in. Going by the character roundup Earl did at NOTR, the only thing these male characters are guilty of is being boring. Looks like could swap in most of them for any of the games. Sev is basically Drake with a beard and baggier pants. And what is Cole MacGrath's deal? Other than the scar, he's a normal dude. If I had to guess based on the picture...he's a forest ranger? Scar's from a raccoon but he tells everyone it was a bear.

Professor S · 01-08-2012, 06:06 PM

FYI - I have engaged the bitch in debate. Fun!