movement can be a powerful thing most of
us who play games can appreciate the
importance of a well time jump in a
platformer or a skillful dodge in a
fighting game but sometimes it's the
seemingly ordinary movements that
actually tell us the most about a
character the way they do simple things
like Walker sit down and like anything
else about a character movement can be
used in ways that resist higher gender
stereotypes or in ways that reinforce
them in bungees hugely successful online
shooter destiny players start by
creating their own character a guardian
who will fight to protect the last
remnants of humanity as with character
creation tools in other games this one
lets you choose from different genders
and races in most ways destiny treats
its playable female characters almost
identically to how it treats its male
characters for instance the armor you
acquire when playing as a female
character isn't sexualized but looks
just as practical and stylish as the
gear equipped by male characters however
there is one way in which the male and
female characters are differentiated by
gender and it has to do with their
movement watch how a male guardian sits
down taking a load off after a long hard
day fighting the forces of pure evil
it's simple it suggests confidence when
a female character sits down however
it's a completely different story she
sits like a delicate flower this is
supposed to be a hardened space warrior
and yet she's sitting around like she's
Ariel from The Little Mermaid a
character's animation and movement is
just as much a part of who they are as
their appearance and their clothing and
like any other aspect of a character
game designers use movement to
communicate information about them to
the player this isn't inherently a bad
thing expressive character animations
are just a way for the game to
contribute to our understanding of who a
character is and what defines them how a
character walks jumps even how they sit
down can tell us a lot about them
for instance Ryu Hayabusa is precise and
graceful movement conveys that he is a
highly trained ninja while the way
Nathan Drake scrambles a fumbles in
dangerous situations is meant to suggest
that he's more of a relatable ordinary
guy who just keeps finding himself in
extraordinary circumstances
fewer homes in that by contrast the way
that women moving games isn't just used
to suggest their confidence or their
skill or some other facet of their
personality it's very often used in
conjunction with other aspects of their
design to make them exude sexuality for
the entertainment of the presumed
straight male player what the hell
catwoman from the Arkham series has a
deeply exaggerated hip sway when she
walks in combination with her clothing
and the game's camera angles all of this
is meant to drive the players focus to
her highly sexualized but in Resident
Evil Revelations Jill Valentine somehow
manages to wiggle her whole body while
she runs in Assassin's Creed syndicate
Evie Frye is a character who avoids
falling into many of the sexualizing
traps that some playable female
characters do but she still walks with
an exaggerated hip sway in saints row
the third you can change your
character's gender at any time if you go
to the clinic and swap your gender from
male to female
you also come away with a newly
sexualized walking animation even though
you're literally supposed to be the same
character male heroes are allowed to
simply walk like normal human beings in
ways that are average or strong or
graceful or goofy meanwhile motion
captured animations for female
characters often make them look as if
they're walking down a runway at a
fashion show and stiletto heels
even when the characters are actually in
combat situations watching these
characters in-game movement animations
you think that the director of the
motion capture session directed them to
walk like a model instead of a hardened
space warrior or master thief or
bioterrorism agent or crime boss or
vampire or assassin of course in the
real world people do walk with this way
of the hips when wearing high heels if
we want to get really technical about it
this slight hips Way occurs in order to
maintain balance this in and of itself
is not a problem other than generally
being deeply uncomfortable but it raises
an important question why are these
female characters in combat roles
wearing high heels with all the fighting
running and climbing these women have to
do dressing them in heels is clearly a
decision rooted in sexualized aesthetic
pleasure rather than believability in
fact animating so many female characters
and games to fit into this very gendered
sexualizing walk pattern is an example
of one of the ways the male
gaez manifests and video games the term
male gaze was coined in 1975 by feminist
film critic Laura Mulvey and refers to
the tendency for the visual arts to
assume and be structured around a
presumed masculine viewer or in this
case player the male gaze manifests when
the camera takes on a perspective of the
stereotypical heterosexual man an
indisputable example of this is when the
camera lingers caresses or pans across a
woman's body although it's not always
that obvious in games it can be as
simple as the in-game camera resting so
that a character's butt or breasts or
both are centerline it can be a cutscene
that rests on a woman's but it can be
clothing that they are wearing or the
way they talk or it can be as basic as
the way a female character moves around
the game world the male gaze reinforces
the notion that man looks and the woman
is looked at or as art critic John
Berger explains in the 1972 book ways of
seeing men act and women appear men look
at women women watch themselves being
looked at this determines not only most
relations between men and women but also
the relation of women to themselves to
be clear the male gaze is not a hard and
fast rule it's a theoretical concept
that is meant to help us understand this
sometimes subtle and nuanced ways in
which our culture influences media and
the way that media in turn can shape and
reinforce existing gender dynamics in
our culture the male gaze is also not in
any way limited to men or heterosexual
people almost all of us internalize in
sometimes identify with the male gaze to
some extent eradicating the male gaze is
not as simple as introducing an inverse
female gaze that sexualizes men either
not just because the equal-opportunity
sexual objectification isn't the answer
but also because it isn't actually equal
one reinforces pre-existing oppressive
ideas about women that are real and
damaging to women in their everyday
lives the other doesn't reinforce
anything nor the two interchangeable for
example when the satirical website the
Hawkeye initiative reimagines male
characters and sexualized poses that are
common for female characters it isn't
using the female gaze this is just the
male gaze applied to men when male
characters are depicted as shirtless or
wearing little clothing like the
character sometimes dubbed hot Ryu from
Street Fighter 5 their lack of clothing
demonstrates their power and strength
rather than depicting them as erotic
playthings
reducing them to sexualize body parts
the same is true when it comes to
movement male characters get to move in
ways that emphasize all sorts of
characteristics and personality traits
but there's a whole world of untapped
potential for representations of female
characters who aren't animated in ways
that frame them as sex objects but who
get to be just as stealthy or strong
Swift or imposing clumsy or graceful the
way Elly moves in the last of us
communicates a sense of tension in
danger demonstrating what it's like when
female characters are animated in ways
that emphasize their personality and
emotional state rather than serving to
sexually objectify them the path to
equality and liberation does not line
equally reducing men and women to
objectified parts but by treating people
of all genders and with all types of
bodies as full and complete human beings