Being one of the poor writers who hasn't yet been able to score the Dream Job writing about games professionally, I wasn't able to attend E3 this year. Like most hard-core gaming nerds, I drank in as much coverage of the event as I could, as well as info from companies that didn't feel like joining the E3 fray. While there was some good info that came out (I'm counting the days until the XBL update), there was the usual parade of the mediocre and the just plain odd.
Take "Fat Princess," for example... Here's a game where you try to rescue a princess that has been fattened up by her captors to make her harder to move. As soon as I first heard about this game, I started imagining the humorless feminist mobs lighting up their torches and sharpening their pitchforks, so I'm really not surprised that it's already becoming an issue. This isn't to say that I have anything against empowered women (chicks who are comfortable enough with themselves to not freak out when they are referred to as "chicks" are downright sexy), but I do get truly annoyed at the notion that everyone demands to be regarded as a special little snowflake these days and it's now virtually illegal to offend someone. To be clear, this isn't meant to be a screed against feminists. I'm not a macho pig, misogenist, or anything of the sort. I just think that they need to relax a little...
I know it's an old argument, but it still makes 100% sense: if people are offended by this game, they simply shouldn't buy it. Choosing to respectfully avoid something based on your own principles is more noble than shrieking to anyone bored enough to listen about the evils of something other people may like. I, for example, detest country music, but I don't try to get it banned or pulled from store shelves, I just don't buy it and avoid it whenever possible.
One of the tired feminist arguments, the invocation and condemnation of "hetero-normativity," is pretty much BS, at least when you take into consideration the idea that any time you have to represent something, especially visually, the very act of representation excludes individuals and there's nothing you can do about it. Until the world is entirely populated by clones, someone is going to feel left out when they look at a picture, game character, TV star, etc. We all look different, and sorry uggos, there is a general concept of what makes a person attractive, and all of your incessant caterwauling on the Net isn't going to make me believe that a 4'2", 400lb. woman with a mustache should or will get Angelina Jolie's next film role.
And finally, what do you want from us, feminists? If we put hyper-beautiful women with giant breasts that defy gravity in games, we're creating an unrealistic standard of beauty and creating negative body images. If we put a fat girl in a princess outfit and send people in to rescue her, we're creating a negative body image. So what should we do? Put unremarkable "realistic" characters in our games? No deal, and here's why...
My life is mundane enough without letting too much reality creep into my escapes from it. Entertainment is supposed to be a heightened sense of reality, which is what makes it fun. Do you really think I want my games to feature a myopic 144lb. female character with mousy brown hair as she goes about clipping coupons to save 30 cents on milk on her mission to buy groceries? The answer is a big, fat "NO!" I want my game characters to be out of the ordinary. I see "normal" people all the time, and games give me a chance to interact with the unusual, whether they be the tantalizing femme fatale or the occasional fat princess.
...And by the way, do you think I look anything like the guys that appear in most games? I'm in reasonable shape, but nobody wants to see me in a Spandex bodysuit, I can tell you that. The main difference between the sort of people who attack games like "Fat Princess" (without even playing them first, by the way) and me is that I don't feel the need to take everything so bloody seriously.
Just be cool, people... Just be cool.
