3Gs : Girls, Gender and Game

I called it the 3Gs. Not because it is short, but it is also the most interesting discourses that emerged within new media platforms. Gender is a relatively new notion that arise within the discourse of gaming culture and it is interesting for us to see how the discourse of gender is interacting with the gaming culture as a whole.

I see gender in gaming culture in two distinctive ways : Either as a role model for the female or an eye candy for the male. The famous game 'Lara Croft' has stirred up furious debates within the scholars, whether the fictional character of Lara Croft can be seen as a feminist icon or merely an eye candy. The point being made here is that, when the discourse of gender intertwined with the gaming culture, contestation over whether gender has become a commodity to sell to the masses comes into the spot light.

In many games, the female characters are highly sexualized, and their body features become one of the selling point of the game. For instance, Lara Croft's body become such a hot topic that every guys on the street will talk about when the game first came out. Croft's body represent the perfect body that a female can have, and she is smart, tough and can be as strong as a man whenever she wants or have to. She is the role model to the female gamers; but on the flip side, she can also be the eye candy for the male gamers, where her highly sexualized body are perpetuating the sexist stereotype of female.

In gaming culture, the female characters are being stereotype and portrayed as a hyper-sexualized object of desire ,and they often appears to be a supportive characters or a member in the group to provide 'motherly' touch to the members in the game, such as having 'healing ability that takes away our pain', or 'power of love to overcome obstacles'. But Lara Croft is different. She is crossing the traditional boundary of gender. She is seen as a threat to the masculine system due to her Fatal Femme quality. According to Helen Kennedy (2002), she referred Lara Croft as both the hero (active) and the heroine (to be look at). Lara Croft can be tough as a man, but her body is still subjected to the male gaze.

Lara Croft is one of the iconic female gaming figure that influence the gaming culture. Before that, there are no female gaming icons that are as versatile as Croft is. She blurred the distinction of being a man or a woman, or she can perform both at the same time. But, on the other hand, Lara Croft as an iconic figure are still subjected to the male gaze and perpetuating the female sexist stereotype.