Hello low hanging fruit how are you? But then again it is the game that has been occupying most of my limited free time. I personally find it an awesome game. It's a good game to cover for this because really it is one of the most evenhanded portrayals that I've seen. Especailly with the customization features for appearance. Granted a true even handed portrayal, in my mind, would enable the use of all articles of clothing and all haircuts on all characters. Like Animal Crossing New Leaf. Granted to get to the opposite gender's (problematic in itself. More than two genders exist!) haircuts you have to cycle through all of the ones coded for the gender that you have picked at the beginning - but boys can at least wear dresses out of the box.
Yes yes, I know that means dresses would have to be modeled for a lack of breasts as well as with them. And many people still find it bad and wrong and deviant. It very much reinforces the idea that masculine coding good, feminine coding bad. Which is really the topic I want to get into here (Because what is this train of thought without a good side trip through the Bahamas?)
As mentioned in my last post, one of the games I grew up playing was Super Metroid on the SNES. Now I was never terribly GOOD at it but I enjoyed it a lot. Frankly it is also the first case I can remember in a mainstream game of a female character being a BAMF (I am not translating that for those who don't know the acronym.) Even then though, analyzing it through today's lens... She really was very masculinely coded. Heck, in the original Metroid, her gender served as a sort of "Gotcha!" reveal for beating the game under specific conditions. Interestingly though, her gender was actually changed from male to female midway through development.
The fact remains though that for almost every game in the series, she acts in a manner that is traditionally masculinely coded. And there's nothing wrong with that, in itself, really. It is the fact that femininity is coded with weakness. I very rarely see a case where a character is coded more.. femininely and is still a complete BAMF. To complicate this matter, if a male character is coded more femininely, they are viewed as a complete and total wuss. The problem is less the coding, more the perception OF the coding. Masculine good, feminine bad.
Even in reality, this is true - As a woman, it is more acceptable for me to participate in traditionally masculinely coded fields like computer programming and games, (Fake geek girl BS aside. That is a WHOLE can of worms involving sexist blistertwits who feel that any encroaching femininity into their Boys Club is BAD AND MUST BE MADE TO DIE. To say nothing of all the rape threats that are casually thrown about. ) than for someone who identifies as male to participate in traditionally feminine persuits such as sewing. And again, that's not even getting into alternate genders, like genderqueerness, trans*, agender, intergender... The list goes on.
and frankly when people want to call someone a wimp, they resort to words for female anatomy. That alone is a pretty shocking indictment.
Alright, wrenching this train back onto the tracks because it was aiming for the Bahamas and ended up somewhere in the north pole... or off of a cliff. In many ways I feel games are doing better. And again, Pokemon is one of the more progressive. At the very least, characters do not suffer a strength penalty for being female (like in many old crpg (computer Role Playing Games)).
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