Bechdel and Gaming

Recently I've noticed a lot of talk on the intertubes about The Bechdel Test and how this assessment of the female perspective might be applied to video games. For those of you unaware, the original purpose of The Bechdel Test was not to gauge the quality of the movie or the female character, but merely to assess the presence of women in film. The rules are simple. To pass the test, all three of the following conditions must be met;

1. the movie must have two (named) female characters,
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

I don't want to get into it too much, as there are many sites out there that do a much better job at analyzing the whys and wherefores, but suffice it to say, a surprising amount of movies fail this simple test.

So what of games, a media widely created and consumed by men? How can this test be adapted to fit a medium much less static and more dependent on user interaction? Especially when many examples of said medium have no talking at all? By the current rules, Portals 1 and 2 would fail simply because Chell never responds to GlaDOS's conversation/belittlement. Chell is one of the least objectified and exploited female characters in the industry, and her game would fail The Bechdel Test purely because she doesn't open her mouth. Clearly this test is going to have to be updated if it's going to have any real success in evaluating the female perspective.

In my search to find existing articles on this topic, I came across The Maggie Test. To pass the Maggie Test a video game must have:

1. a playable female character
2. which is available to play right away, and not as a special bonus feature

My problem with this test is that it doesn’t meet the goal of the original test, to properly illustrate the female presence. Take Half Life 2, for instance, a game that would pass the original Bechdel Test without any help would in turn fail this one because Alyx Vance is neither playable nor joins the story right away. This test is too limiting as it implies that the only way a character can contribute to the narrative is to be controlled by the player.

Daniel Feit’s test does a better job at actually assessing the participation of female characters. His point is that games tend to be light on the talky and heavy on the action, so to base analysis purely on dialog would be to ignore a significant portion of games as a whole. His answer to this issue is Bechdel 2.0. Heavily based on his musings, and bearing a similar name, I've come up with a variant. To pass the Bechdel 2.1 a game must;

1. have two (named) female characters, one of which must be either a playable character or a character present in the world for at least 50% of the game,
2. who interact with each other in a relevant fashion.

Feit's test requires this interaction to be in the manner that their male counterparts do – if it’s a FPS, the characters shoot each other, if it’s a fighting game female combatants battle one another, if it’s an adventure game they adventure at each other – but I'm going to alter that a bit and just require meaningful interaction. I define 'meaningful' as somehow related to the purpose of the game (fighting in the case of a fighting game, cooking each other if it's a cooking sim, etc.) or related to the advancement of the plot (you can figure out this one yourself). It’s not perfect but it’s a start. I’m also going to place the caveat that it doesn’t count if the game allows the player to create a character of either gender. We’re going for pure authorial intent in regards to gender representation. Also because I’m irritated at Mass Effect for only ever marketing dudeShep.

Now that we have a test, I’m going to try to implement it to the best of my limited ability. If anyone reading this (all two of you) cares to contribute, I’d love to have help creating a more comprehensive list. I also fully intend to write a bit about each game, but first the list. And as an experiment, I’m going to assess if the same games pass the reverse test, the Ledhceb Test if you will; whether it has two male characters that interact with each other. It should be interesting.

And because I love Portal, orange will indicate when a game passes the Bechdel 2.1, blue will indicate a game that succeeds the Ledhceb Test, mauve will indicate double victory, and black has failed everything. Complicated enough? Excellent.

Borderlands: Barely passes, as you can play as a girl and you're being lead around by the Vault Chick, but it does irk me that all the baddies are male.
Dragon Age Origins: All party members kill both male and female adversaries.
Everyday the same Dream: This game has only one female character.
Evil Genius: Your henchmen of either fend off super agents of both.
Half-Life: There are no female characters in this game.
Half-Life 2: Alyx and Gordon both light up male and female zombies.
Half-Life 2: Episode 1: Same as above(need to confirm.)
Half-Life 2: Episode 2: Same as above(need to confirm.)
Mass Effect: Equal amounts of killing from either gendered squadmates of either gendered enemies (ok, so it still passes).
Mass Effect 2:Same as above.
Left 4 Dead: Male and female characters killing male and female zombies.
Left 4 Dead 2:. Same
Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening: A handful of women, but none of them interact.
Portal: The behavior spheres at the end can be argued to be male (if we're allowing GLaDOS to be female), but they only show up at the end and they don't interact with each other.
Portal 2: Chell and GLaDOS collaborate, Wheatley and personality spheres get up close and personal.
Sam and Max 101: This game has only one female character.
Sam and Max 102: This game has two female characters, but they never interact.
Sam and Max 103: And back to only one female character.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Equal killing of and talking to either gender.
Team Fortress 2: This game has only one female character and all she does is yell.
Thief the Dark Project: This game has only one female character.
Thief 2 the Metal Age: It's actually through the interaction between two women that a vast majority of the story is dispensed.
Torchlight: This game has a female playable character and equal killing of either gender.



So clearly I tend to play a good amount of games with a decent female presence. I will be adding to this list as my library of played games expands and I remember game's I forgot I played.

Mass Asside

I just a had a strange realization. In Mass Effect 2 there are two optional recruits, Zaeed and Kasumi. The guy's free, but you have to pay for the girl. What the hell's with that?

Massive Affectation 2

Well, I found out what happened to the Krogan females. Apparently they have their own clans, and I guess they just don't get out much? Still, it'd be nice to meet one. At least now their absence makes a certain amount of sense; given the precious rarity of a fertile Krogan ladies, doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be gallivanting around the galaxy. Sucks for the fruitful female, a life-time of breeding. But not all alien species' civilizations can be rainbows and moonbeams. Would like to know more about the cultural ramifications. And what about the sterile women? What do they do with their time? Questions, questions. Still no word on turian chicks, but I hear they're rather flexible.

I also realized that in addition to the lack of unappealing women in space, there also seems to be a lack of fat people in general (except for the volus, but they're only fat in comparison to everyone else, for all I know the round butterballs on the Citadel are actually the one's spry enough to get off planet). This I will allow to be attributed to this being the future and all species have concurred obesity, or whatever, but it's still weird. Also no old people or children. The kiddies make sense from a game-mechanic standpoint, more models to have to render, and maybe with the advent of space-age cosmetic surgery no one needs to look over 30. Certainly not the asari.

To continue my earlier tirade concerning attractiveness, ME2 is not winning any points from me for Miranda. At least she admits to being genetically engineered to be a knock-out. And they call her out in-game for that “uniform” of hers. Makes me wonder what the actress she was modeled after thinks about her “engineered good looks”. I miss Ashley, even if she did come in pink armor. At least she didn't come across as a stuck-up bitch. Miranda has a personal investment in my well-being, why does she have to be so stand-offish? Still, if anyone deserves an inferiority complex, it's Miranda. She gets better with time, but then so does Stockholm Syndrome.

My personal problems with Miranda aside, she seems more like a caricature than an actual character. Pretty to look at, but totally two dimensional. Granted, I'm not really the one being catered to, but that's no excuse. Ashley was a perfectly likable character, even if I didn't want to do her. I don't even dislike Miranda that much, but she's so uninteresting and so obviously over-sexualized that I immediately feel alienated.

In contrast, I really like Jack, and not just because she insists on calling Miranda “the cheerleader”. She's just as pretty, has a nice body, she walks around practically shirtless, and her attitude's worse than Miranda's. So why doesn't Jack bother me? She's abrasive and taciturn, and yet somehow more likable than certain operatives. Maybe I just really hate Cerberus, but in the end I guess it's because that while her physical features alone are very attractive, she's represented in the most conventionally un-appealing way possible. Her random hap-hazard tattoos, piercings and shaved head detract rather than add to her otherwise comely exterior. Or rather, they should. I guess it's just pandering without seeming to pander. Not much of a difference ultimately, but at least I don't feel put-out in the end.


Oh, and am I the only one who noticed that the female Shepard seems to suffer from Lara-Croft-itis? Her boobs are notably larger in ME2. Cerberus, what have you done?!

The Mass Effects

The current object of my affection for the past month or so has been BioWare's epic sci-fi series, Mass Effect. We'll start the ball rolling with blatant endorsement: I love Mass Effect. I love almost everything about it. I love the universe, I love the NPCs, the dialogue, the battle system. I especially love that fact that the action and dialogue remains unchanged (except those concerning romantic options) regardless of which gender you play, though really this is probably more due to the fact that they would have to re-script every single scene than any idealism surrounding gender roles and attitudes.

However, like all adults who love something, I recognize that it has its faults. My biggest beef: there are no ugly women in space. All the sentient females in Mass Effect (especially the aliens) are all attractive by human conventions. I notice that all males of all species are bound by no such restraints. This may seem like a small thing to nit-pick about, but think about it: no unattractive women in space? Even alien? Even ugly, reptilian or insect like aliens, of which there are many different kinds? None of them are female? You heard me. None. Not one. Well, ok, one. Let us not forget the Rachni queen, subjugated into a breeding machine whose only purpose was to pop out babies. So yeah, one ugly alien female.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with sexualizing characters. Doesn't bother me. I enjoy looking at pretty people as much as anyone. What does bother me is the unequal way it is commonly implemented. For every ten sexualized women in video games, how many male characters receive the same treatment? Three? Four? I don't have an answer. All I want is sexualization to an equal degree for both genders. All I want is that for every attractive, big-breasted, bodysuit-wearing female hottie there to be an equally attractive, athletic, bodysuit-wearing male hottie. If we're going to pander, let it be to everyone.

Mass Effect starts off well in the first game; your first two real companions are two relatively comely humans, a male and female marine. Each wears a skin-tight set of armor that leaves little to the imagination, though the woman is actually wearing heavy armor while the man is in light armor, so arguably his is marginally more revealing – ANYWAY; skin-tight armor: check. Both genders: check. But after that things get unbalanced.

The next two people you pick up are two alien men. One looks like a bipedal-hunchback rhinoceros-sans-horn and sounds about how you would expect an English-speaking rhino would sound. He's nasty, brutish, and AWESOME. But, in regards to my point, decidedly unattractive. Unless you're really into large scaly mammals.

The other alien, a turian, looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a bird of prey, with some kind of bony growth covering his entire face, like it's Halloween year-round. Coupled with pointed teeth and claw-like hands and you have the makings for the next AvP movie.

Now, both of them talk about females in their species, so we know they exist, but we never see them. Only vague references are ever made to an entire half of both species' population. And I haven't even started on the salarians, drell, volus, or batarians, all races confirmed to have females, but none of whom are ever seen. So where are they? They obviously exist. Do they just not let unattractive women into Citadel space?

Moving on, another companion you pick up is an asari. The asari are a race of mono-gendered aliens, all of whom appear as beautiful women of varying shades of blue and purple. I'm really not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, they are the oldest, most powerful, and most respected race in the galaxy. Their representative occupies one of only three spots on the governing council of the Citadel and their warriors are a force to be reckoned with. But on the other hand, is anyone else reminded of the first days of Star Trek, where beautiful and highly seducable green alien women were the norm? Incidentally, the asari companion is one of the options for romance in the game (for both genders; I admit that part is pretty cool). Seducable alien woman, what?

Also on the Citadel can be found a young quarian woman. It's hard to determine whether or not Tali is pretty, as she wears an environmental suit the entire time, but she does have a distinctly shapely and appealing feminine figure, and the features vaguely distinguishable beneath the mask seem attractive enough.

So we have three fetching young women, one fetching young man and two scary alien dudes. Anything seem strange about that? Pretty women: fine. Pretty men: good. Ugly alien dudes: great. Ugly alien women: disturbingly absent. I thought personality was supposed to count for something. Wish list for ME3? Ugly girls need screen time, too.

So the assessment of ME2 will have to wait for another day, as I'm tl;dring myself at this point.