WEBVTT 00:00:00.076 --> 00:00:05.687 "Honey dontcha know, I'm more than Pac-Man with a bow" 00:00:24.224 --> 00:00:27.188 In this episode we're going to shift the discussion away from plot devices 00:00:27.188 --> 00:00:33.025 to focus on a pattern in character design and conceptualization which I’ve decided to call the Ms. Male Character. 00:00:33.025 --> 00:00:37.332 As always it’s important to keep in mind that it’s entirely possible to be critical of 00:00:37.332 --> 00:00:41.710 some aspects of a piece of media while still finding other parts valuable or enjoyable. 00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:49.668 Let’s begin our examination of this trope by traveling back in time to 1980 and the creation of one of the most famous characters in the history of gaming. 00:00:49.668 --> 00:00:57.020 Initially called Pakku-man in Japan, the name was later changed to Pac-Man when the game hit arcades in the United States. 00:00:57.020 --> 00:01:04.584 Incidentally Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, has stated in numerous interviews that the game was designed to appeal to women because, 00:01:04.584 --> 00:01:06.963 and I'm not kidding about this, he said, 00:01:06.963 --> 00:01:13.427 "When you think about things women like, you think about fashion, or fortune-telling, or food or dating boyfriends. 00:01:13.427 --> 00:01:19.513 So I decided to theme the game around “eating” — after eating dinner, women like to have dessert." 00:01:19.528 --> 00:01:25.575 Luckily Iwatani’s regressive personal or cultural notions about women are not reflected in the finished game itself. 00:01:25.575 --> 00:01:31.833 Pac-Man went on to became an international sensation and remains one the most recognizable pop culture icons today, 00:01:31.833 --> 00:01:38.589 but probably not because women are genetically predisposed to "like eating desserts” more than humans of other genders. 00:01:38.589 --> 00:01:43.145 "Hi I'm Lily Tomlin. I'm a Pac-Man freak. 00:01:43.145 --> 00:01:46.498 It's alright, I can talk about it now. 00:01:46.498 --> 00:01:48.721 'Course there was a time when I couldn't." 00:01:48.721 --> 00:01:54.931 The next year, a group of MIT students created a mod for the original Pac-Man arcade cabinets called Crazy Otto 00:01:54.931 --> 00:01:58.772 which featured 4 new mazes and a new male hero with little legs. 00:01:58.772 --> 00:02:04.405 The idea was to sell this “enhancement kit” to arcade owners so they could breathe new life into older Pac-Man machines. 00:02:04.405 --> 00:02:10.661 But because of a separate lawsuit settlement with Atari, they decided to try and sell Crazy Otto directly to Midway 00:02:10.661 --> 00:02:13.415 the US manufacturer of Pac-Man cabinets. 00:02:13.415 --> 00:02:20.281 As luck would have it, Midway was anxious for a follow-up to Pac-Man and worked to transform the mod into an official sequel. 00:02:20.296 --> 00:02:24.851 In an effort to continue appealing to female gamers, Crazy Otto was briefly changed to Pac-Woman, 00:02:24.851 --> 00:02:29.476 then to Miss Pac-Man before finally becoming Ms. Pac-Man. 00:02:29.476 --> 00:02:36.263 An 11th hour move designed to avoid potential backlash for the 3rd cutscene which features a child born out of wedlock. 00:02:41.247 --> 00:02:45.696 The game hit arcades in the United States in 1982 and was an immediate smash hit 00:02:45.696 --> 00:02:51.070 becoming the most successful American-made coin-operated arcade cabinet ever produced. 00:02:51.070 --> 00:02:55.289 Like her predecessor, Ms. Pac-Man quickly achieved widespread cultural prominence 00:02:55.289 --> 00:03:00.580 and it wasn’t long before she was turned into a special marshmallow and added to Pac-Man’s cereal. 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:04.801 “Pac-Man cereal's got a new surprise. When you look inside- it's shocking! 00:03:04.801 --> 00:03:08.512 Shocking pink! It's new Ms. Pac-Man marshmallow! 00:03:08.512 --> 00:03:10.678 She's got a shocking pink bow-Oh!” 00:03:10.678 --> 00:03:14.183 Ms. Pac-Man was not only one of the first playable female characters, 00:03:14.183 --> 00:03:19.587 but she also holds the distinction of being the original Ms. Male Character in video games. 00:03:19.587 --> 00:03:21.606 I describe the Ms. Male Character trope as: 00:03:21.606 --> 00:03:25.233 A female version of an already established or default male character. 00:03:25.233 --> 00:03:29.779 Ms. Male Characters are defined primarily by their relationship to their male counterparts 00:03:29.779 --> 00:03:35.137 via their visual properties, their narrative connection or occasionally through promotional materials. 00:03:35.137 --> 00:03:36.845 "Hello!" "Hello!" 00:03:36.845 --> 00:03:40.760 This trope is of course part of a long tradition in visual storytelling. 00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:48.430 The process of creating Ms. Male Characters out of preexisting male heroes has been especially popular in animation and comic books over the past century. 00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:53.933 When the female spin-off is an exact duplicate, she is sometime referred to as a Distaff Counterpart. 00:03:53.933 --> 00:03:57.190 Even though the Ms. Male Character did not originate with video games, 00:03:57.190 --> 00:04:00.580 developers have made generous and frequent use of the trope over the years 00:04:00.580 --> 00:04:04.078 especially in games marketed towards young people and general audiences. 00:04:04.078 --> 00:04:05.404 "It's Mr. Arcade! 00:04:05.404 --> 00:04:06.693 And Ms. Arcade! 00:04:06.693 --> 00:04:08.367 Ms. Arcade? Wow 00:04:08.367 --> 00:04:09.671 Eat those dots, Ms. Pac-Man! 00:04:09.671 --> 00:04:10.702 Into the tunnel! 00:04:10.702 --> 00:04:11.786 That couple's in love! 00:04:11.786 --> 00:04:13.199 Yeah, with Ms. Pac-Man!" 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:16.704 Let’s explore this trope in a little more depth by asking a simple question. 00:04:16.704 --> 00:04:19.625 How do we know what gender a particular character is? 00:04:19.625 --> 00:04:26.170 Other than their names, how do we know that the collection of pixels on the right signal male while those on the left indicate female? 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:34.219 Well, in order to differentiate Ms. Pac-Man from her already world-famous counterpart, her creators added a series of stereotypical design elements. 00:04:34.219 --> 00:04:38.726 With only a few pixels to work with, designers built on top of the original Pac Man template 00:04:38.726 --> 00:04:44.864 adding a red bow, red lipstick, an eye with makeup, long lashes and a mole as beauty mark. 00:04:44.864 --> 00:04:48.414 Even though Ms. Pac-Man is essentially a personified shape, 00:04:48.414 --> 00:04:54.935 in promotional materials she is presented in high-heels with long legs, jewelry and sometimes a feather boa. 00:04:54.935 --> 00:05:00.987 The design elements that were used to transform Pac-Man into Ms. Pac-Man are referred to as feminizing gendered signifiers 00:05:00.987 --> 00:05:05.782 the bow, the makeup, the long eyelashes are all specific stylistic choices; 00:05:05.782 --> 00:05:11.827 they are all part of our culture’s visual vocabulary intended to convey information about gender to the viewer. 00:05:11.827 --> 00:05:18.712 Game designers use these stereotypical attributes as a sort of shorthand to quickly identify a given character as female. 00:05:18.712 --> 00:05:23.385 Childlike hair decorations are by far the most frequented accessory used for this purpose. 00:05:23.385 --> 00:05:28.142 It’s standard practice for creators to, just, put a bow on top of anthropomorphized animals 00:05:28.142 --> 00:05:33.333 or personified objects in order to communicate that a character is not male. 00:05:33.333 --> 00:05:35.909 The Bubble Bobble series stars heroes Bub and Bob 00:05:35.909 --> 00:05:41.207 who are charged with rescuing their female counterparts and respective love interests, Peb and Pab. 00:05:41.207 --> 00:05:46.293 Lala is the feminized version of the male hero Lolo in the Adventures of Lolo series. 00:05:46.293 --> 00:05:50.998 MeeMee’s fills this role as the main protagonist’s girlfriend in the Super Monkey Ball games. 00:05:54.390 --> 00:06:01.105 In Disney’s popular Where’s My Water mobile games, we know that Allie is female because she is the only alligator who wears a bow. 00:06:04.184 --> 00:06:08.857 The Adult Swim game Giant Boulder of Death takes the trope to ridiculous extremes 00:06:08.857 --> 00:06:17.036 by gendering a pink boulder with a giant pink bow before she’s stuffed in the refrigerator to motivate the blue boulder to seek revenge. 00:06:19.664 --> 00:06:24.294 Now the interesting thing is that these gendered signifiers are really quite arbitrary and abstract. 00:06:24.294 --> 00:06:28.910 There’s nothing about a bow in and of itself that is intrinsically or essentially feminine; 00:06:28.910 --> 00:06:31.342 it’s just a piece of colored fabric, after all. 00:06:31.342 --> 00:06:38.331 But our society currently assigns a very specific, socially constructed and strictly enforced meaning to that piece of fabric. 00:06:38.331 --> 00:06:43.695 It’s a symbol that conveys the concept of female (and invokes the idea of girlhood.) 00:06:45.398 --> 00:06:47.902 The indie game Rogue Legacy has an interesting system 00:06:47.902 --> 00:06:52.441 whereby you can be randomly assigned the choice of either male or female heirs to play on each run. 00:06:52.441 --> 00:06:59.572 The characters are essentially identical both mechanically and aesthetically (except for a very minor difference in their breast plate styles). 00:06:59.572 --> 00:07:07.863 So far so good, but all the female heirs also have a strangely conspicuous and completely unnecessary lavender colored bow on top of their armour. 00:07:07.863 --> 00:07:10.916 This is a classic example of put a bow on it! 00:07:16.315 --> 00:07:20.932 The colour-coding of characters is another frequently used visual element to signify gender. 00:07:20.932 --> 00:07:25.311 Typically the dominant color used in the design of the female variant is bright pink 00:07:25.311 --> 00:07:28.857 (although sometimes a purple or pastel palette may be used). 00:07:28.857 --> 00:07:34.816 In the 1985 NES classic Ice Climber, player 1 controls Popo who wears a blue parka. 00:07:34.816 --> 00:07:39.222 If you have a 2nd player they can control Nana who wears a pink parka. 00:07:41.268 --> 00:07:46.759 Amy Rose was designed to be a pink female version of Sonic, especially in her early incarnations. 00:07:48.529 --> 00:07:53.334 CommandgirlVideo is the female version of CommanderVideo in the Bit Trip Runner indie game series. 00:07:53.334 --> 00:07:56.509 Her dominant color is purple, she sports a giant bow on her head, 00:07:56.509 --> 00:08:00.201 and in Runner 2 she is suddenly and conspicuously busty. 00:08:01.695 --> 00:08:09.317 The most commonly used gendered signifiers or feminizing accessories are bows, lipstick, long eyelashes and the color pink, 00:08:09.317 --> 00:08:14.779 but there are a whole host of other design elements that, in combination, serve the same purpose. 00:08:14.779 --> 00:08:21.617 Other signifiers used to differentiate women from men are pigtails, high-heeled shoes, painted nails, pronounced makeup 00:08:21.617 --> 00:08:30.127 (especially blush and eyeshadow), midriff baring outfits, exaggerated breasts with exposed cleavage, and a heart motif in their design or powers. 00:08:30.127 --> 00:08:35.297 Pretty Bomber is the protagonist’s adversary and sometimes love interest in the Bomberman series. 00:08:35.297 --> 00:08:38.886 And just to make absolutely clear there is no confusion about her gender, 00:08:38.886 --> 00:08:44.763 she is decked out in pink, has a giant heart attached to her head and also throws heart shaped bombs. 00:08:47.899 --> 00:08:52.189 Gendered signifiers are not mandatory for the Ms. Male Character trope to be in effect 00:08:52.189 --> 00:09:00.149 but these type of stereotypical attributes do serve to “mark” female characters as decidedly different by virtue of their feminine presentation. 00:09:00.949 --> 00:09:08.345 Now just to be clear, there’s no inherent problem with the color pink, makeup, bows or high heels as design elements on their own. 00:09:08.345 --> 00:09:12.899 And of course people of all genders may choose to wear any of them from time to time in the real world 00:09:12.899 --> 00:09:15.529 and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that either. 00:09:15.529 --> 00:09:23.586 However, when designers choose to use the Ms. Male Character trope and its associated visual stereotypes to specifically distinguish female characters 00:09:23.586 --> 00:09:28.461 from the rest of the cast in a fictional context, it has a few negative consequences. 00:09:28.461 --> 00:09:36.595 One repercussion of constantly relying on feminizing signifiers for character design is that it tends to reinforce a strict binary form of gender expression. 00:09:36.595 --> 00:09:41.803 The gender binary is an entirely artificial and socially constructed division of male and female 00:09:41.803 --> 00:09:45.351 into two distinctly separate and opposing classes of human being. 00:09:45.351 --> 00:09:53.942 The gender binary also erases the continuum of gender presentations and identities that fall outside of the rigid masculine/feminine false dichotomy. 00:09:53.942 --> 00:09:59.452 And within that strict binary women are “marked” while men get to remain largely “unmarked”. 00:10:05.528 --> 00:10:09.349 In the Mario franchise, the Koopalings were originally described as Bowser’s seven children, 00:10:09.349 --> 00:10:12.876 all of them are male except for one named Wendy O Koopa. 00:10:12.876 --> 00:10:20.121 We know she is female because her designers used practically every hyper-feminine frill and accessory available to separate her from her male siblings. 00:10:21.136 --> 00:10:28.462 Wendy’s six brothers, by contrast, are “unmarked” by gendered identifiers which means they get to be presented in a variety of creative ways. 00:10:28.462 --> 00:10:31.498 Ludwig's design communicates intelligence and arrogance, 00:10:31.498 --> 00:10:33.767 while Lemmy's reveals his playfulness 00:10:33.767 --> 00:10:37.381 and Iggy's makes him seem maniacal and a little unbalanced. 00:10:37.381 --> 00:10:42.699 Sadly, Wendy's identity is limited by the fact that she is covered in superficial gendered signifiers. 00:10:42.699 --> 00:10:46.981 One look at her and you know she's female, but not much else. 00:10:50.204 --> 00:10:54.898 As with many Ms Male Characters, her defining characteristic is her gender. 00:10:54.898 --> 00:10:59.975 Wendy also suffers from a parallel condition I like to call “Personality Female Syndrome” 00:10:59.975 --> 00:11:03.940 wherein female characters are reduced to a one dimensional personality type 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:07.659 consisting of nothing more than a collection of shallow stereotypes about women. 00:11:07.659 --> 00:11:11.160 She is vain, spoiled, bratty and quick to anger. 00:11:11.160 --> 00:11:13.330 "I don't care! 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:17.874 I want America for my birthday! 00:11:17.874 --> 00:11:23.188 I want it, I want it, I want it!" 00:11:23.188 --> 00:11:27.100 When female characters are “marked” by obligatory stereotypical identifiers 00:11:27.100 --> 00:11:35.435 it actively limits the range of available options by enforcing a narrow, restrictive and monolithic model for the portrayal of femininity. 00:11:35.435 --> 00:11:42.859 Meanwhile, since male characters are allowed to be unmarked it permits a much wider array of possibilities for their designs. 00:11:42.859 --> 00:11:49.032 I should note that even though pink and purple are strong gendered indicators when combined with other feminizing visual markers 00:11:49.032 --> 00:11:51.702 those colors are not the exclusive domain of women. 00:11:51.702 --> 00:11:56.050 An expanded color-palette is something we do see applied to men on rare occasions 00:11:56.050 --> 00:12:00.748 as with Kirby, Bomberman or Roy Koopa but they are the exception to the rule 00:12:00.748 --> 00:12:05.760 and are typically only found in colorful childlike (and extremely male dominated) worlds. 00:12:10.944 --> 00:12:17.556 But if a bow, lipstick, eyeshadow or heels are placed on an otherwise male-identified character the intention, 00:12:17.556 --> 00:12:22.525 or at least the result, is typically a homophobic or transphobic joke. 00:12:22.525 --> 00:12:24.823 "Heike Kagero! 00:12:25.531 --> 00:12:27.115 Fight!" 00:12:29.654 --> 00:12:36.447 There are a few optional design accessories for men like neckties or baseball caps but they don’t hold the same significance. 00:12:36.447 --> 00:12:46.570 They are not ubiquitous or strictly enforced, and are never really used to “mark” men as “not female” in larger fictional universes dominated by women. 00:12:46.570 --> 00:12:49.622 Maxwell is the hero of the popular Scribblenauts series. 00:12:49.622 --> 00:12:56.230 In the fourth game Scribblenauts Unlimited we are introduced to his twin sister Lily who is basically a feminised copy of Maxwell. 00:12:56.230 --> 00:13:02.233 The two are identical except for a series of gendered signifiers designed to “mark” her as a female. 00:13:02.233 --> 00:13:05.492 In the game we learn that Lily is one of 42 children. 00:13:05.492 --> 00:13:13.272 All 41 of the other siblings are male and all have some trait or interest associated with their name that serves to define their personality. 00:13:13.272 --> 00:13:18.736 There’s Artie the artist, Buzz the astronaut, Glum the emo-rocker and so on and so forth. 00:13:18.736 --> 00:13:22.628 and all are unlockable and playable during the course of the game. 00:13:22.628 --> 00:13:27.173 By contrast, Lily's personality trait is essentially being Maxwell’s twin 00:13:27.173 --> 00:13:32.380 she has no associated interest or hobby other than being the female version of the game's hero. 00:13:32.380 --> 00:13:41.788 In addition to being a Ms. Male Character, Lily is also a particularly pronounced example of another related trope called the Smurfette Principle. 00:13:41.788 --> 00:13:48.859 The term was coined back in 1991 by feminist author Katha Pollitt and is of course named after the only female smurf in Smurfville. 00:13:48.859 --> 00:13:55.233 The Smurfette Principle is the tendency for a piece of media to include only one woman in an ensemble of male characters. 00:13:55.233 --> 00:14:03.949 The trope is a pervasive problem in video games, manifesting as the “token chick” in any given grouping of heroes, villains or non-playable characters. 00:14:03.949 --> 00:14:08.372 An exceptionally stark example of the trope can be found in the original Mega Man series. 00:14:08.372 --> 00:14:14.879 Over the course of 10 games there are 78 bosses or robot masters and exactly one of them is female, 00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:18.423 Splash Woman who appears in the 9th game. 00:14:20.515 --> 00:14:25.411 In the Wii U game The Wonderful 101, six of the seven color-coded playable heroes are men. 00:14:25.411 --> 00:14:29.955 The one exception is, of course, the pink hero, named Wonder-Pink! 00:14:33.618 --> 00:14:38.538 In addition to her Smurfette status, she is also afflicted with “Personality Female Syndrome.” 00:14:38.538 --> 00:14:40.079 "I got in late last night. 00:14:40.079 --> 00:14:44.619 But there was this party! And then the after-party and then the after-after-party. 00:14:44.619 --> 00:14:48.823 I needed a major powder break to freshen up before meeting you guys." 00:14:49.361 --> 00:14:55.265 Wonder-Pink is shallow, vain, materialistic and flies into a rage at the drop of a hat. 00:14:56.227 --> 00:15:01.150 You can find Smurfettes in just about every genre, from dungeon-crawlers 00:15:01.150 --> 00:15:02.601 to racing games, 00:15:02.601 --> 00:15:03.839 from RPGS 00:15:03.839 --> 00:15:05.687 to shooters. 00:15:05.687 --> 00:15:09.827 Pollitt sums up the crux of the Smurfette problem nicely in her NYTimes article; 00:15:09.827 --> 00:15:11.371 "The message is clear. 00:15:11.371 --> 00:15:13.677 Boys are the norm, girls the variation; 00:15:13.677 --> 00:15:16.255 boys are central, girls peripheral; 00:15:16.255 --> 00:15:18.971 boys are individuals, girls types. 00:15:18.971 --> 00:15:22.643 Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. 00:15:22.643 --> 00:15:25.529 Girls exist only in relation to boys.” 00:15:25.529 --> 00:15:29.185 With that in mind let’s come back to Ms. Pac-Man for a moment. 00:15:29.185 --> 00:15:34.611 One of the core consequence of the Ms. Male Character trope is that it helps to define women by their connection to men. 00:15:34.611 --> 00:15:38.167 So despite her tagline “More than Pac-Man with a bow” 00:15:38.167 --> 00:15:40.788 "Honey, dontcha know? 00:15:40.788 --> 00:15:43.912 I'm more than Pac-Man with a bow!" 00:15:43.912 --> 00:15:49.631 Ms. Pac-Man’s visual properties are simply an extension of Pac-Man’s original design; 00:15:49.631 --> 00:15:53.900 she actually kind of is just Pac-Man with a bow. 00:15:53.900 --> 00:15:58.738 Her simple narrative reinforces the fact that she really only exists in relationship to Pac-Man. 00:15:58.738 --> 00:16:02.697 She is both his love interest and also the mother of his child. 00:16:08.358 --> 00:16:11.592 Dixie Kong is the female variant and love interest of Diddy Kong. 00:16:11.592 --> 00:16:19.185 Note the ponytail and hair ringlets, pink shirt, pink hat, earrings, and eyelashes all to distinguish her from her predecessor. 00:16:19.185 --> 00:16:25.433 Essentially Ms. Male Characters are feminized imitations or derivative copies of already established male characters. 00:16:25.433 --> 00:16:30.102 They exist only because of, and in relationship to, their male counterparts. 00:16:30.102 --> 00:16:33.833 Ms. Male Characters typically aren't given their own distinctive identities 00:16:33.833 --> 00:16:37.563 and are prevented from being fully realized characters who exist on their own terms. 00:16:37.563 --> 00:16:41.818 This has the, perhaps unintended, effect of devaluing these characters 00:16:41.818 --> 00:16:47.418 and often relegating them to a subordinate or secondary status inside their respective media franchises, 00:16:47.418 --> 00:16:52.469 even when they are, on rare occasions, given a starring role in a spin-off or sequel. 00:16:52.469 --> 00:16:57.337 One very old and notable example of the Ms. Male Character trope comes to mind. 00:16:57.337 --> 00:17:02.052 As the story goes, God made Adam in his own image and then later took a rib from Adam’s side 00:17:02.052 --> 00:17:05.265 and fashioned a woman out of it to be his wife and companion. 00:17:05.265 --> 00:17:10.170 This Adam and Eve version of the creation myth reinforces a subordinate view of women 00:17:10.170 --> 00:17:15.401 man is cast as the original concept and source code for woman who is derived from his body. 00:17:15.401 --> 00:17:21.909 Essentially Eve is the sequel to Adam, just as Ms. Pac-Man was built from the body of Pac-Man who came before her. 00:17:21.909 --> 00:17:24.577 In a male identified society like ours, 00:17:24.577 --> 00:17:28.210 men are associated and become synonymous with human beings in general. 00:17:28.210 --> 00:17:32.711 In other words, male tends to be seen as the default for the entire species. 00:17:32.711 --> 00:17:38.262 In video games male identification manifests as the tendency for all characters to be male by default 00:17:38.262 --> 00:17:43.624 unless there is some special reason or specific justification for women to be present in the story. 00:17:43.624 --> 00:17:48.147 To help illustrate one of the ways the "male as default” phenomenon operates in gaming worlds 00:17:48.147 --> 00:17:51.722 let’s take a look at the mobile mega-hit Angry Birds. 00:17:51.722 --> 00:17:57.319 When the game was first released in 2009, the five original birds in the flock were identified by their color 00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:00.751 and did not include any specific gendered signifiers. 00:18:00.751 --> 00:18:06.616 Over time, as the game has grown in popularity and the brand has expanded to include numerous spin-offs, 00:18:06.616 --> 00:18:14.037 real world merchandise and a weekly cartoon series, the birds have been given more distinct personalities and actual names. 00:18:14.037 --> 00:18:22.435 Mobile developer Rovio first began gendering birds in February 2011 with the release of their valentine-themed episode for Angry Birds Seasons 00:18:22.435 --> 00:18:28.560 which includes Ms. Male Character versions of the Red Bird, the White Bird and a Female Pig as love interests. 00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:32.455 Note the bows, makeup and long eyelashes. 00:18:32.455 --> 00:18:37.775 There is a larger unintended consequence to “marking” these birds as female with feminizing gender signifiers; 00:18:37.775 --> 00:18:45.409 it reinforces that all the other birds and pigs without these specific visual cues are all male by default, unless otherwise noted. 00:18:46.511 --> 00:18:52.898 The addition of the Pink Bird to the main flock in 2012 further entrenched male as the default setting for the Angry Birds universe. 00:18:53.953 --> 00:18:58.628 I should mention that Rovio later stated that the white bird was also female and named her Matilda. 00:18:58.628 --> 00:19:02.566 This revelation led to a character redesign which has feminized the white bird 00:19:02.566 --> 00:19:07.516 by adding pink accents, rose cheeks and long eyelashes in the Angry Birds cartoon series 00:19:07.516 --> 00:19:11.077 just to make absolutely clear that she is female. 00:19:13.137 --> 00:19:19.481 Over in the Mushroom Kingdom we have Toadette who is both a Ms. Male Character and the only woman among the Mushroom people. 00:19:24.541 --> 00:19:30.751 Her introduction to the Mario-spin off games emphasize the fact that all the other Toads in the entire species are male. 00:19:30.751 --> 00:19:36.752 Both the Smurfette Principle and the Ms. Male Character tropes create scenarios that reinforce a false dichotomy 00:19:36.752 --> 00:19:42.863 wherein male is associated with the norm while female is associated with a deviation from the norm. 00:19:42.863 --> 00:19:48.096 Everything we have discussed in this episode thus far has been related to visual design or narrative connection. 00:19:48.096 --> 00:19:54.202 But there is another way that the Ms. Male Character trope can manifest itself, and that is through marketing and promotional materials. 00:19:54.202 --> 00:19:59.146 A great illustration of this trend can be found in Bioware’s highly regarded Mass Effect series. 00:19:59.146 --> 00:20:04.203 The games offer players a choice between a male or female version of the protagonist Commander Shepard 00:20:04.203 --> 00:20:07.320 each with a range of cosmetic customizable options. 00:20:07.320 --> 00:20:13.300 The female option is well designed and her overall narrative is nearly indistinguishable from her male counterpart’s, 00:20:13.300 --> 00:20:16.320 aside from some of the romance options. 00:20:16.320 --> 00:20:21.408 However, if we take a step back from the game experience itself and look at the marketing campaigns for the trilogy, 00:20:21.408 --> 00:20:25.485 we see that the female variant of Shepard is practically non-existent. 00:20:25.485 --> 00:20:30.076 In mainstream advertising of the franchise, the male commander is used almost exclusively. 00:20:30.076 --> 00:20:34.839 His image is front and center on the box covers for all releases including the special editions. 00:20:34.839 --> 00:20:41.209 He is the one featured in the TV commercials, teasers, trailers, web banners, street posters and print ads 00:20:41.209 --> 00:20:44.137 and his face appears on most of the magazine covers. 00:20:44.137 --> 00:20:48.759 All of this positions the male Commander Shepard as the default protagonist of the series. 00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:50.116 "One man 00:20:50.116 --> 00:20:52.138 one very specific man, 00:20:52.138 --> 00:20:58.510 might be all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat of our brief existence." 00:20:58.881 --> 00:21:01.698 That is how Bioware is selling the Mass Effect experience. 00:21:01.698 --> 00:21:07.019 Nearly everything about the advertising campaign explicitly tells players that Commander Shepard is a man 00:21:07.019 --> 00:21:11.626 and by extension associates the official storyline with the male version of the hero. 00:21:11.626 --> 00:21:17.378 This marketing strategy contributes to the fact that only 18-20% of players choose the female option 00:21:17.378 --> 00:21:22.219 (despite the fact that Jennifer Hale’s voice acting is widely praised as being far superior). 00:21:22.219 --> 00:21:25.362 "You brought me here to confirm what you already know: 00:21:25.362 --> 00:21:28.231 The reapers are here." 00:21:28.231 --> 00:21:32.688 Still, the female version has a dedicated fanbase who frequently refers to her as “FemShep”. 00:21:32.688 --> 00:21:38.985 And although this is meant as an affectionate nickname, it does further highlight her designation as a Ms. Male Character. 00:21:38.985 --> 00:21:41.696 She is the one with the qualifier attached to her name. 00:21:41.696 --> 00:21:46.498 She is “Female Shepard” whereas the male version simply gets to be, “Shepard”. 00:21:48.544 --> 00:21:53.251 During the advertising of Mass Effect 3, Bioware made a little more effort to include female Shepard 00:21:53.251 --> 00:21:59.173 with items like an alternate reversible slip cover for the game box (which features the male version by default) 00:21:59.173 --> 00:22:01.641 as well as a special web only trailer 00:22:01.641 --> 00:22:05.546 but these gestures feel like an afterthought or niche specialty marketing 00:22:05.546 --> 00:22:09.236 and hardly what I would call a substantial or equitable inclusion. 00:22:09.236 --> 00:22:13.677 While Mass Effect’s advertising strategy might not undermine the story or gameplay, 00:22:13.677 --> 00:22:18.873 it is a glaring example of how the Ms. Male Character trope can be perpetuated by marketing departments 00:22:18.873 --> 00:22:26.300 unless careful consideration is given to how gender is represented when advertising games that do offer players a choice. 00:22:26.300 --> 00:22:32.211 Now it’s certainly true that in many cases the games starring the female variant are better gaming experiences overall. 00:22:32.211 --> 00:22:38.315 And taken on their own, each individual example we’ve covered in this episode might seem relatively benign or trivial 00:22:38.315 --> 00:22:44.142 but the reason this series focuses on tropes is because they help us recognize larger, recurring patterns. 00:22:44.142 --> 00:22:50.437 Both the Ms. Male Character and the Smurfette Principle have been normalized in gaming and in mass media more broadly. 00:22:50.437 --> 00:22:56.363 So much so that the two tropes usually pass under the radar and are often reproduced unconsciously 00:22:56.363 --> 00:23:02.157 which is part of what makes the myths they perpetuate about women so powerful and insidious in our culture. 00:23:02.157 --> 00:23:06.748 The truth of the matter is that there’s really no need to define women as derivative copies of men 00:23:06.748 --> 00:23:13.800 or to automatically resort to lazy, stereotypical or limiting gender signifiers when designing video game characters. 00:23:13.800 --> 00:23:21.103 "It was at that moment that Claire realized...she had super powers!" 00:23:21.103 --> 00:23:26.918 Claire is a simple blue cube and one of the more memorable characters from the indie game Thomas Was Alone. 00:23:26.918 --> 00:23:31.918 We know she is female because of her name, her narrative and the pronouns used during gameplay. 00:23:31.918 --> 00:23:37.410 Claire’s gender presentation doesn’t reduce her to her gender or separate her from the rest of the cast. 00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:41.954 "Claire needed to come up with a super hero name as soon as possible." 00:23:44.353 --> 00:23:49.906 Half of the playable characters in TowerFall are women and the game is also notable for it’s color-code inversion, 00:23:49.906 --> 00:23:54.316 The Last of the Order wears blue while the Assassin Prince is decked out in pink. 00:23:55.075 --> 00:23:57.976 Indie games like the Knytt Underground, 00:23:57.976 --> 00:23:59.892 Scary Girl 00:23:59.892 --> 00:24:01.940 Ittle Dew 00:24:01.940 --> 00:24:03.849 and the iOS title Lili 00:24:03.849 --> 00:24:07.068 all have female characters who resist gendered stereotypes. 00:24:07.068 --> 00:24:10.397 Each of these indie games avoids falling back on the Ms Male Character trope 00:24:10.397 --> 00:24:15.546 or relying on narrow superficial visual markers as a stand in for personality. 00:24:15.546 --> 00:24:19.908 The visual aesthetics of these female characters displays a range of gender expression and presentation 00:24:19.908 --> 00:24:23.746 using a variety of hairstyles, color choices and accessories. 00:24:23.746 --> 00:24:29.961 Developers can also choose to give players the opportunity to get to know the personalities, interests and struggles of their characters. 00:24:29.961 --> 00:24:32.921 Even with minimal narrative or limited graphics 00:24:32.921 --> 00:24:38.124 it is entirely possible to make games that feature dynamic women who exist on their own terms. 00:24:39.154 --> 00:24:43.075 "Remember, it all starts with a harmless quarter. 00:24:43.075 --> 00:24:47.578 But it can turn to tragedy just like that. 00:24:55.383 --> 00:24:57.544 Can I play now?"