With 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,
Nintendo boldly rewrote the rules governing the design
of one of the most renowned and beloved video game franchises
of all time.
By tossing out rigid, formulaic elements
that had become deeply entrenched in
Zelda games over a period of decades,
the designers created a wonderful new vision
for the series --
one that emphasized exploration, experimentation,
and player freedom.
However, as bold and innovative as Breath of the Wild
was in so many ways,
there was one aspect of it that felt like
a disappointing relic of the past.
At one point,
Link's quest takes him to
Gerudo Town
a desert city which men are forbidden to enter.
Denied access,
his quest seems to be at a standstill.
What's a hero to do?
Link picks up on rumors of a man
sneaking in and out of the town --
though as he follows the lead,
he starts hearing, not of a man, or "voe"
as the Gerudo people say,
but of a woman, or "vai."
Link heads to the rooftop where the woman
is rumored to spend time in the afternoons,
and that's where he encounters Vilia,
the person all these rumors have been about.
Vilia is indeed dressed in traditional female
Gerudo garb.
And when asked about the rumors of "a man"
sneaking in and out of the town,
Vilia professes ignorance --
so we can infer that Vilia identifies as female.
But -- and here's the problem--
the game doesn't actually respect Vilia's gender identity.
In fact, it plays that identity for laughs.
See, in order to get the help you need from Vilia
to sneak into Gerudo Town yourself,
you have to choose interaction options that make Vilia
feel as if you both find her attractive
and have no clue that she's trans.
But the alternate options at ever step of the way
suggest that Link is just playing along
stroking Vilia's ego to get what he wants
and that both Link and the player are in on "the joke"
that Vilia can't actually successfully
pass as a cisgender woman.
"The joke" is driven home after Link purchases
some traditional Gerudo clothes for himself
when a sudden gust of wind
blows Vilia's veil aside to reveal some facial hair.
Hilarious.
To be fair,
Breath of the Wild's emphasis on player freedom
means that the game allows you, as Link,
to purchase and wear a decent assortment
of feminine-coded clothing and jewelry
throughout the game.
And this freedom is definitely welcome.
Some trans players in particular have created
fan art celebrating Link in Gerudo attire.
And some fans play the game with a personal
interpretation, or "headcanon," that Link
is actually trans.
But while it can be empowering and validating
for us as marginalized people to bring
our own personal interpretations to our experience
of a work,
it's still important to note that what the game itself
gives us, and what most players
will experience is a cruel and unnecessary mockery
of trans identities.
In this regard, for all of its fresh
and exhilarating design choices,
Breath of Wild feels positively ancient,
part of a long, long tradition of video games
perpetuating homophopbia and transphobia.
How long a tradition are we talking?
Well, in 1985, a public domain text adventure
called uh, Mad Party Fucker
was released for the Commodore 64.
In that game, you play someone
attending a party whose
goal, as the instruction screen states,
is "to fuck as many women as you can
without getting bufu'ed by fags
(contracting AIDS)."
That's a pretty clear example of mocking
and demonizing gay men by presenting them
as deadly predators.
Now, maybe you think it's not really fair
to consider a text adventure game made by
a couple of guys in Cleveland that very few
people have ever heard of or played
when looking at the history of homophobia
and transphobia in games.
But Mad Party Fucker is far from the only game
with homophobic or transphobic elements
in which the straight male protagonist goal
is to have sex with women.
Let's go back to the glory days
of early graphic adventure games --
a genre that Sierra Online innovated
and then dominated for a long time.
Following the breakout success of games like
the original King's Quest,
Sierra decided to take a 1981 text
adventure game that they had published
called, I kid you not,
Soft Porn Adventure,
and adapt it into a graphic adventure game.
Thus, in 1987, the world
was introduced to Leisure Suit Larry,
a hapless schlub who starred in a whole series of
games chronicling his routinely comical
efforts to pick up women.
The world of the Leisure Suit Larry games
was deliberately, inescapably sleazy
from the very first game on;
but the series' aggressive homophobia
and transphobia may have peaked
with the 6th game, released in 1993.
Well, actually, technically it's the 5th game
in the series,
but it's called Leisure Suit Larry 6.
Anyway, the point is, Larry finds himself
on an all-expenses paid trip to a luxurious spa
where he continues his tireless efforts
to sleep with women.
And if there's one thing that can ruin a straight man's pursuit
of women? We all know
it's interacting with a gay man.
At the spa, Larry meets a character named
again, I kid you not,
Gary Fairy,
a flamboyant gay man who works as a towel attendant.
Gary's aggressive sexual advances are
presented as both humorous and threatening.
And if you show sexual interest in Gary,
it's an instant game-over.
As the narrator comments that Larry's career
as a swinging single has come to an
ignominous end.
[Gary] Oh, sweetie! I thought you'd never ask!
[Larry] Oh no! What have I done?
[wolf whistle]
So there's our requisite homophobia,
but don't worry: this game has it out for
trans women, too.
One of the women that Larry meets at the resort
is named "Chablis," a makeup artist
who asks Larry to meet her for a midnight swim.
As they're about to have sex,
it is suddenly revealed,
via what is supposed to be
a visual gag,
that Chablis is a trans woman:
a revelation that causes Larry to throw up
in horror and disgust,
while the narrator wryly comments,
[NARRATOR] No wonder Chablis knows
what a man likes.
The screen then goes black
and the sound effects suggest that Chablis rapes Larry --
a situation the game plays for laughs
as we then cut to Larry gurgling mouthwash the next morning.
This "joke," crassly makes light of the
serious and very real trauma experienced by male survivors
of rape and sexual assault.
Meanwhile, the entire Chablis storyline,
culminating in the beach encounter,
is one big statement about how trans women
are disgusting and deceitful.
The fact that Chablis is a black woman
makes it significantly worse --
for starters, the game traffics in racist stereotypes.
If you look at Chablis' hair,
you're told that it looks "wild, untamed, tribal"
all words that would be right at home in a racist
1930's adventure story about white people
coming into contact with the "exotic" natives of Africa.
And, it reinforces transphobic rhetoric that racists regularly
employ against cisgender black women.
Certain rightwing political cartoonists
for instance,
often use transphobic imagery in depictions
of Michelle Obama: simultaneously implying
that neither trans women, nor cisgender black women, are "real" women.
This combination of racism and transphobia
which Leisure Suit Larry 6 perpetuates in the character of Chablis
is called transmisogynoir:
that is the particularly dangerous hatred and oppression that black trans women
experience as a result of existing
at the intersection of misogyny, transphobia, and anti-blackness.
Not only do black trans women face
particularly high rates of poverty and homelessness
as a result of housing and employment discrimination,
they are also at a staggeringly high risk
of being assaulted or killed.
When games use fictional black trans women
as the butt of vile transphobic jokes like this
they're contributing to the very same
cultural perceptions that make life so difficult
for so many actual black trans women.
Unfortunately, harmful depictions of
trans women in games didn't fade away with the 1990s.
No, the staggeringly popular Grand Theft Auto
games have ensured that millions of players
continue to spend hundreds of hours
in a universe where trans women, and gay men
are usually nothing more than but dehumanized objects of ridicule.
The franchise's hatred of these groups
is communicated through radio ads,
billboards, business names, and
NPC interactions throughout the series
that are far too numerous to list,
so we'll just hit a few of the highlights.
In GTA San Andreas,
players must complete a mission on behalf of a character
named OG Loc, who recruits the protagonist, CJ,
to help him hunt down and kill a man named Freddy.
It's strongly implied that Loc's motive for wanting Freddy killed
is that the two of them had a consensual sexual relationship
in prison.
Yes, Freddy needs to be eradicated
for no reason other than that he is gay.
"You know Jeffrey's been somebody's bitch for the past 3 weeks, right?"
"I know."
"Man, I gotta go kill some cholo motherfucker!
He was dissing me, man!"
"Jeffrey, you got the wrong idea, man!
That was just a prison thing!"
"You dropped the soap, sugar!"
[shots]
"Thought you were keen, cute buns!"
[shots]
"Get him boys!"
"Man, kill that loudmouth motherfucker!"
"Don't you say a damn thing, CJ!"
[CJ laughs]
"Was you lonely, Loc? Hey, I like a nice mustache myself."
The game's hatred of queer people also manifests
in the fact that the police in San Fiero
the game's fictionalized version of San Francisco,
speak in statements filled with double entendres,
or sometimes, single entendres,
suggesting that they are going to sexually molest CJ,
the game's protagonist.
[COP] I'm gonna kick your ass,
and I'm gonna fuck it.
First I'm gonna beat you up
then I'm gonna beat you off.
With GTA 4 in 2008,
it seems that Rockstar wanted to have its cake and eat it, too.
Appearing as if they understood that hating people
just for being gay was no longer cool or acceptable,
but without actually giving up their mockery of queer people.
In a mission called "Hating the Haters,"
protagonist Nico's flamboyant gay associate
Bernie is assaulted by a homophobic attacker
for being gay and players
must then pursue and take down "the hater."
So this time, you're killing someone
for hating gay people instead of killing someone
for being gay.
However, Bernie is still presented as an
absurd stereotype
who players are obviously intended to laugh at.
Yay. Progress.
Things certainly didn't get any better when Rockstar
released GTA 5 in 2013.
In one area of the city,
players can encounter a group of
transgender sex workers who clearly are meant to be
ridiculous and disgusting to the presumed straight male player.
And as with just about any character in the game,
players have the freedom to assault or even murder these people.
And you may argue that, well,
since the game gives you the freedom to do this anyone,
there's no problem:
these characters aren't being singled out in any way--
and we can take that line of thinking
a step further.
And say, "hey, the GTA games are cultural satire.
They mock everyone. They mock conservatives,
and corporations, and lampoon pretty much
every aspect of our society."
But that defense doesnt actually hold up.
And the reason why has to do with the power dynamics
in our society.
Let me explain by taking our protagonists.
The games I've discussed sometimes poke a little fun at these men.
Larry Laugher in particular is a figure of ridicule and GTA 5
sometimes offers up some mild laughs at the expense
of Trevor and Michael.
But even if we laugh at these men,
theyre still centered in the story.
It's them we identify with and relate to
when we take on the role of the protagonist of these games.
Also, as white men,
Larry, Trevor, and Michael are not members of a
disadvantaged, marginalized group.
So mocking them doesn't reinforce harmful
limiting stereotypes about white men.
It certainly doesn't foster widespread hatred of white men
as a group,
and it doesn't contribute to existing social prejudices or
disadvantages that white men as a group have to face.
Even its depiction of Franklin is a fairly 3 dimensional one --
not one that simply perpetuates racist stereotypes.
However, there's no dimension or depth whatsoever
to these trans women.
They're literally just NPCs on the street who
spout some dialogue that's intended to make their
struggles to be seen and accepted as women
seem ridiculous.
And as we mentioned previously,
trans women, particularly trans women of color,
are already an extremely marginalized group --
at tremendous risk for homelessness,
unemployment, a lack of healthcare,
and being the targets of violence.
So mocking them does reinforce harmful, limiting stereotypes.
It does foster widespread hatred of trans women.
It does contribute to existing social prejudices and disadvantages
that trans women as a group have to face.
People sometimes mischaracterize these issues as
being all about "getting offended" and
respond with comments like,
"if you find it offensive, don't play it!"
Or they may make wisecracks about how the people who point out these issues
are delicate little snowflakes who get easily triggered.
So let's be clear:
these issues really have nothing to do with
individual people being offended.
They have to do with media that helps
maintain harmful cultural biases and systems of oppression.
It doesn't make any difference if I,
individually played Grand Theft Auto 5 or not.
Sure, I can choose not to play it and
not to encounter the harmful stereotypes that
exist in it.
But the game still exists, whether I play it or not.
Hundreds of thousands of other people are playing it.
And the game is telling them that mocking
and hating queer and trans people is normal
and totally acceptable.
When a work of comedy, whether it's
a standup routine or an episode of South Park
or a Grand Theft Auto game or you name it,
mocks these already marginalized populations,
that comedy is punching down.
That is to say, it is reinforcing biases
that already make life considerably
more difficult and dangerous for certain populations.
Of course, comedy also has the power to punch up:
to challenge corrupt, powerful institutions.
Or to push back against racism, misogyny, homophobia,
transphobia, or other systemic issues.
But when games like Leisure Suit Larry or GTA mock gay or trans people,
for being gay or trans,
they validate the prejudices of all the players
who come to those game already hating
gay or trans people.
In GTA 5, transphobes can even relish the opportunity
to live out their hate crime fantasy of
murdering these NPCs for being trans.
So it remains extremely important that games give us
portrayals of queer and trans people
that challenge the notions perpetuated by
all of these games.
Such portrayals remain few and far between,
but we may be starting to see them
with slightly more frequency.
In The Division,
scientist Jessica Kandel makes an offhand comment
about her ex-wife:
[KANDEL] Now I can focus on research.
My wife always says I'm better with
pathogens than with people.
My ex-wife, I mean.
Assassins Creed Syndicate features Ned Wynert,
a trans man living in Victorian London:
[WYNERT] Beautiful train you got here.
Miss McBean was just telling me all about her.
Name's Ned.
"How do you do?"
[WYNERT] I won't take up more of your time.
If you want to learn a thing or two about the finest
transit systems in the world you
can find me at this address.
And in The Last of Us,
the character of Bill, who is nobody's idea of a
gay male stereotype,
is revealed to have had a relationship
with another man.
"What, do you know this guy or something?"
"Frank."
"Who the hell's Frank?"
"He was my partner.
And he was the only idiot that would wear a shirt like that."
True, these are all small supporting characters,
but it's a start.
You know how Disney has never released
Song of the South on video in the west?
Because they recognize that it's just so embarrassingly,
harmfully, cringe-inducingly racist?
If games keep giving us characters like these,
human characters we're supposed to emphathize with,
who aren't needlessly ridiculed or vilified by the games
in which they exist,
soon the worlds of all those other games
that do hate their queer characters
will seem just as outdated.
Relics of a shameful past
that may be better off locked in the vault.`