I’ve been a Woman Who Exists in the Games Media for a pretty long time now, and female representation in games is something that, y’know, comes up quite often. The latest example involves the futuristic dungeon-crawler Deep Down, which Capcom is set to release on PlayStation 4. Recently, the developersappeared on a live web streamand seemed to suggest that there are no women characters in the game for story reasons. In response, VG247’s Brenna Hillier unleashed ahilarious and white-hot tiradethat beautifully skewers that mentality – do go and read it, it’s highly enjoyable. (Capcom has sinceclarified the commentsstating that there is only one character, not 12, but he is still male, of course.)
Here’s something I’ve noticed: whenever you talk about female protagonists in games, you always hear exactly the same responses. Always. I’m not talking about the absolute meat-heads here; the ones who genuinely think that women aren’t really proper people and don’t welcome their presence online or anywhere. I’m talking about the people who don’t seem to understand why this stuff is even an issue. Why is having female characters such a big deal? Aren’t we living in a post-race, post-feminist world where we don’t need to get so angry about these things?
