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Is It Sexist to Use Male Characters in Games as a Female Gamer?

Am I sexist when it comes to video games? I don’t think so, but some people may think that. I’ve been a gamer since I was 6 years old. (I’m 21 now). I’ve always played as male characters because most of the games I’ve played had male characters as the lead role. And honestly, I’ve always liked it that way. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for gender equality, I mean come on, I’m a woman. But when it comes to video games, I’d prefer to play as a male character rather than a woman any day. I know what you’re thinking. “How can you say that?” “Women characters are just as good men,” and blah, blah, blah. That’s all good and stuff, but I have my reasons.

Male characters are always portrayed as a powerful figure. They have these wonderful physiques, awesome weapons and turn out to be all-around badasses. For example, Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5. He was the main character in this game. He pretty much took charge of everything. He took all the calls from his team and gave all the orders. When it came to weapons, he handled them like a pro. With every gun he obtained, each shot was done in style. Now his sidekick, Sheva, is another story. She pretty much annoyed me throughout the whole game. When I needed help, she was nowhere to be found. She looked awkward with every gun she held. She also didn’t strike me as a strong female, just a weak partner. I never played as her. When I played two players, I always fought to play as Chris. I don’t know … I just felt that playing as Chris made everything easy and Sheva’s presence was unnecessary.

Even games like Sonic and picking certain characters mattered to me. I’m totally fine with picking characters like Sonic, Shadow and Knuckles. But when it comes to characters like Amy and Rogue, that’s where I drew the line. The male characters also seem to have better attacks than the females. While the males are the heroes in the game, characters like Amy always seem to screw up or become the damsel in distress. They’re just annoying, and they were never characters that I chose unless I needed to.

I’m not bashing all female characters. There are plenty that I like. Ellie in the Last of Us was awesome. She is the definition of badass. Joel and Ellie were a wonderful team; they supported each other well and they both had their uses. Ellie was definitely a girl who didn’t need anyone’s help.

Read more from Anissa Hanley at Black Nerd Problems

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5 Blatant Instances Of Racism in Video Games

Street Fighter

Although most people who grew up playing Street Fighter loved the franchise, it’s hard to overlook the blatant racial overtones of the characters. From Blanka, the savage from Brazil, to Dalsim, the yoga-practicing Indian, to Balrog, the only Black character in the game who’s portrayed as an evil greedy boxer.

Ethnic Cleansing

It’s hard to believe that a game this blatantly racist exists! Developed by Resistance Records, the game lets you play as a Klansman or skinhead in the quest to kill Latinos, Blacks and Jews.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a cyberpunk-themed, action role-playing video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Released in 2011, the game was critically acclaimed, except for one particular character, a Black female depicted as Letitia. As reported by time.com:

“Letitia’s a really bad part of a really good game. When lead character Adam Jensen encounters her in Detroit, she’s picking through the trash. It becomes clear that she’s an informant from Jensen’s police days.

“The purpose of talking to Letitia is to move the player forward and give some hints about Jensen’s backstory. Yet in doing so, you encounter something really ugly. Letitia embodies a strain of racist stereotype that renders black people as less than human, as the worst that society has to offer.”

Scribblenauts

The objective of Scribblenauts, as implied by its catchphrase “Write Anything, Solve Everything,” is to complete puzzles to collect “Starites,” helped by the player’s ability to summon any object (from a database of tens of thousands) by writing its name on the touchscreen.

However, users were able to uncover a particularly unnerving coincidence that when the term “Sambo” was typed, a watermelon appears on the screen and the character of color eats the entire thing and then falls asleep.

Resident Evil 5

The Resident Evil franchise is one of the most popular game franchises of all time, consisting of not just games but a string of movies as well. However, prior to the release of Resident Evil 5, a trailer featured the lead character (who was Caucasian) massacring numerous Black people in an African village, who had been infected with a disease that originated in Africa.

Although the game producers tried to defend their position by saying that other iterations of the game had taken place in other countries, the racial overtones in the trailer were too blatant and did cause serious backlash at the time.