Rescue Me: The First Tropes vs. Women Video
“To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions.” – Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
The first video of Anita Sarkeesian’s video series, Tropes vs. Women, was released last week. Titled “Damsels in Distress (Part 1)” it got the ball rolling pretty quickly: laying out two fantastically detailed, easily recognizable examples of the Damsel in Distress trope, Princess Peach and Princess Zelda, and showing us a time when a really cool female character, the heroine of a never-published game called Dinosaur Planet, was literally transformed into a distressed damsel for Fox McCloud to rescue in Star Fox Adventures. My colleague Andrew wrote about the video earlier this week, and I’m popping up my head up from my usual editing duties to provide another voice in the discussion.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend watching the video on YouTube.
Focusing on Peach and Zelda was great, because almost every gamer (and a lot of non-gamers) knows the story of those two. They’re kidnapped and they need to be rescued; that’s the game. I don’t think Sarkeesian is ignoring game development when she talks about them (or the other two dozen or so examples she gives), she’s directly talking about how the trope is used as a plot device to give gamers a reason to play. In fact, she says that “[t]he hero’s fight to retrieve his stolen property … provides lazy justification for the actual gameplay.”
The fact that developers utilize tropes like this is absolutely to send messages to players. And, the (wrong) assumption is that all players are men and that those men have a fantasy to rescue weak women. That’s why the big, burly hero exists (though neither Mario or Link are really that type of hero): so men can play a strength power fantasy. That’s why the bearded, older wizard exists: so men can play an intelligence power fantasy. And, that’s why the damsel in distress exists: so men can play a rescue power fantasy. Would Super Mario Bros. be any different if Bowser had stolen Mario’s dog? Honestly, can you say yes?
See, the hard part of this discussion starts at the ground level, and it’s something Sarkeesian doesn’t really touch upon, at least in this video. I think that to really get something from this discussion, you have to accept that we live in a sexist culture and that a sexist culture is a bad thing. Excusing video game companies because “that’s the way games are, and companies want to make money” ignores the reality that video games, as Sarkeesian said, “don’t exist in a vacuum.” Rehashing these story lines over and over again may not be intentionally sexist, but it absolutely contributes to the sexist culture we live in, and that sexist culture actually harms everyone, regardless of gender.
I feel a little lecturey here. My point is that rejecting your privilege is hard, and I think it’s the first step in really getting what Sarkeesian is trying to say. Sure, Nintendo is just retelling the Andromeda myth, but that’s not a good thing. Beyond lazy storytelling, which is easy to dismiss, it’s contributing to a world where little girls have to grow up playing games where women are never the heroes — they are only the trophies — and little boys grow up thinking of women that way. I don’t really like that world. But we can’t work to change it if we don’t think about it, and that’s why this video series is important.
Granted, it’s better out there than it was when Princesses Peach and Zelda first came along. I’m hoping we’ll see some positive examples of female player characters, or at least ways that the trope has been turned on its head, or used in a way that adds depth to a female character instead of stripping her of any value beyond that of a trophy or a prized pet. Supposedly that’s coming up in Part 2. I’m looking forward to it.
I’ll leave you with a quote from the beginning of the video, one that I think is important to remember as the discussion (hopefully) develops: “it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go play some video games.
Just. YES.
The two examples given here, Zelda and Mario, are both from Japanese culture, not American culture. I suggest there is far less sexism/racism/homophobia/etc. than some would like to claim. I’m getting a bit tired of being labled a bigot at every turn by my mere presence in a specific geography or demographic.
I certainly do not condone bigotry in any fashion. There are plenty of opportunities for me to take offense at every little thing (and I often do), but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and they usually deserve it.
Not sure what difference it makes what culture the game developers are from. The fact is that the games are hugely popular in America. So our culture here is clearly not rejecting them based on perceived sexism (or any other reason).
As for being labeled a bigot, I must have missed where that happened. It certainly wasn’t in this article. Rather, all that this article is saying is that our entire culture is, indeed, sexist. No one is pointing a finger at you saying you did it. However, unless and until you recognize the privilege granted to you by this culture (even if you didn’t ask for it), you’re contributing to the problem. Let me be really clear that you may not even have the privileges associated with being male, as I have no idea what gender you are. Maybe you have some other kind of privilege. Maybe you’re straight, or white, or attractive, or wealthy. Maybe you’re none of these things, but if you’re “tired of being called a bigot,” I’m going to guess you belong to at least one privileged group. All I take from this article is that we all have a responsibility to examine the privileges we are granted, and think about how they shape the world around us, and how they impact the life and experiences of those without that privilege.
The phrase that prompted my first response was: “you have to accept that we live in a sexist culture.” The reason I question it is that if you looked objectively at America from the outside and had to summarize our culture based on its people and who is successful, I think sexism would be pretty far down the list.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist at all, or that it should be ignored; it’s simply overstated. When you look at the people around you, do you see hordes of slobbering bigots, waiting to trample on people for one reason or another? That’s not my experience. I see genuinely good people for the most part, who are willing to help other people out, whatever their background. When I see someone who does not match that description they stand out because they are far and away the exception, not the norm.
Sorry for the late response.
The difficulty with sexism (and racism, and homophobia, and pretty much every form of oppression) is that it’s systemic. There are the easy examples: the Ku Klux Klan, the murder of gay teenagers, the “slobbering bigots” you’re referring to. But the actual structure of our society, the invisible gears upon which it turns, is made up of sexist, racist, and heterocentric notions. I’m not talking about individual actions, I’m talking about systems of oppression that are so ingrained in our culture that they’re easy to ignore.
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The problem is that because it’s a system of oppression, and it’s not a clear example of “this man says this woman can’t do something because she’s a woman” it’s really easy to dismiss it, as you’re doing. I absolutely think people are good. I think individuals, for the most part, are decent people who don’t want bad stuff to happen to their fellow human beings. But we live in a society that teaches us certain values from a very young age, and a lot of those values are damaging if you don’t fit the “norm”.
So I don’t think you’re a bigot. I think you benefit from the privileges you have, whatever they may be; not talking about privileges you’ve earned, but privileges you are given just for being born the way you are. I benefit from my own privileges as well.