Bloomberg's Women In Video Games Article Is Silly And Out Of Touch
Just because you're uncomfortable with a strong, sexually powerful woman like Bayonetta doesn't mean she's not a great protagonist.
Over at Bloomberg, Tae Kim has penned a think-piece that has managed to rile up people on all sides of the political and cultural spectrum. Sometimes that means you’re on to something. Sometimes it means you’ve wildly missed the mark.
This is one of those times.
As my colleague Paul Tassi notes, the article feels about a decade too late, and Kim’s arguments feel beyond dated—especially for someone who describes themselves as a “gaming enthusiast.”
Writes Kim:
After Microsoft Corp. hosted a party five years ago with scantily clad female dancers on platforms, head of Xbox Phil Spencer was forced to apologize. More recently, League of Legends maker Riot Games Inc. has been sued for gender discrimination, while Ubisoft Entertainment and Activision Blizzard Inc. have let go several executives amid allegations of widespread sexual harassment.
Yet amid these painful episodes, there are also signs of progress. In particular, Sony Group Corp.’s 2017 blockbuster release, Horizon Zero Dawn, shows that there is a huge market for games that don’t denigrate women.
Zero Dawn’s main protagonist is a female character who doesn’t look like a supermodel. Set in a post-apocalyptic time far in the future, the character, named Aloy, battles robotic dinosaurs and aims to stop a rogue artificial intelligence system from destroying life on Earth.
Yes, apparently the answer to sexist actions at gaming companies is to create female protagonists who don’t look like supermodels. Later on in the piece, Kim argues that to do that, game publishers need to hire more women. If that feels a bit like circular reasoning to you, you’re not alone. It’s also a bit laughable. Is Aloy really the catalyst for change the video game industry needs?
Just Aloy? Not the myriad other powerful female protagonists in video games these days? What is this, a Sony advertorial?
Bayonetta is one of the strongest, most sexually empowered women in all of video games—a badass witch whose sexuality is very much a part of her arsenal (which also includes high-heel pistols and a bunch of super powers).1
Yes, Bayonetta’s magical hair doubles as her skin-tight bodysuit and is used as part of her weaponry, which means you get little glimpses of skin throughout the game. But Bayonetta is a witchy angel-killing dominatrix, not some damsel in distress. Rather than being degraded by it, Bayonetta owns her sexuality and is empowered by it. And so are players—both male and female—who get to walk in her deadly shoes.
For the best sex-positive defense of Bayonetta please read this article by Maddy Myers. She makes a lot of great points, but her point about how gaming invites us to inhabit a character—not merely watch them—is crucial to understanding Bayonetta and her sexualization.
Ultimately, I just don’t care what straight men think of Bayonetta. If she’s not your kink, that’s fine. Not everybody likes to be stepped on. But to dismiss her entire game as a product of “male gaze” seems like an unkind oversimplification as to who might be doing the “gazing”—let alone the identifying—and perhaps evidence that gaming desperately needs a new phrase to describe the complex interlocking of factors that occur when players identify with a character. We don’t just get invited to watch Bayonetta, we also inhabit her. When I play, Bayonetta is me, and the camera’s glances are just the “sub gaze”—the male submissive’s gaze. Bayonetta holds all the cards.
Meanwhile, Lara Croft was one of the first action heroes in video games period, and certainly one of the first we knew was a woman (unlike the heavily armored Samus Aran of Metroid fame). Yes, she was a bit top-heavy, but her newer iteration—while still very attractive—is more proportional and mostly covered up. And even if she is hot, well so are most video game men—impossibly muscled, chiseled and manly.
Again, this is often less about just what we see and more about our power fantasies. I think it’s fun to play as a ridiculous badass, whether that’s a man or a woman. It’s fun to be an action-hero like B.J. Blazkowicz, and it’s fun to play as a hot chick, too. Video games let us explore fantasies we can never experience in real life in myriad different ways.
The video game industry has its problems, but perhaps instead of simply admonishing all games as sexist and demeaning toward women, and using just one example of a female protagonist who breaks the mold, we could try shining a light on all the actual progress that’s been made and all the really excellent female characters in games.
There are countless examples, from FemShep in Mass Effect to Senua in Hellblade or Selene in this year’s awesome rogue-lite Returnal.
And they’re not always “badass” either. Lots of indie titles, like Celeste or Spiritfarer or What Remains Of Edith Finch (just to name a few) have female leads who aren’t tough-as-nails heroes. I mean, Celeste is pretty badass but not in a Lara Croft way—and that game, like most of these, are overwhelmingly adored by gamers. Even male gamers!
Kim’s piece doesn’t feel like something written by a “video game enthusiast.” It feels like a drive-by pot-shot from someone who’s only ever observed video games from afar, and who feels “uncomfortable” playing some of the industry’s best titles in front of family.
Is there room for improvement? Sure. Do we also risk overcorrecting at times? Absolutely. But I feel pretty good about where we’re at these days, with plenty of games—from Assassin’s Creed to Elden Ring to Destiny 2—allowing you to play as whomever you please.
Video games have come a long way, no doubt. Now we just need to be vigilant about the real problems facing the industry—like the emerging “play-to-earn” NFT craze and the massive, unsustainable budgets these big AAA games are costing to produce.
If you haven’t played the Bayonetta series of action games, please do yourself a favor and give it a shot. It’s up there with Devil May Cry and other classic action titles as some of the finest in the business.
So, it's just games he won't play in front of his family that feature women showing skin? He'd play GTA or Dead Space in front of them? Deathloop has a voiced protag and antag who throw F-bombs around regularly? Sorry, it's petty but yes, this is the kind of article an online writer seems to throw out there when they need some guaranteed views, whether pro or con. "Hmm, maybe Sarkeesian will see this and link it in an approving tweet!" *crosses fingers*