Sexism and Stereotypes or What Makes for a "Strong" Character?

The OneeChanbara series is not considered to have "strong female leads". They run around in swimsuits or skin tight outfits with jiggly boobs cutting bloody swathes through massive hordes of zombies. The characters in Night Trap are not considered strong female leads. They’re stereotypical teenage girls who have slumber parties, sing into hair brushes and need to be protected from dangerous people by a team of strong men. The women of Dead or Alive are not considered strong female characters. They fight in unconventional outfits with massive jiggly boobs and spend their spare time on an island participating in Sapphic beach games in skimpy swimsuits with people who are supposed to be bitter enemies.

Why aren’t these characters “strong”? Are they discounted merely because they have big boobs? Or because they can’t fight vampires? Fe people can. The characters in OneeChanbara and DOA certainly seem strong, in the sense that they can kick a lot of ass. So what makes them so different that they aren’t “strong female characters”?

This concept of “strong” is hard to tie down. Obviously the previously mentioned characters aren’t it, but the questions are why and who is? As far as female characters go, sexist representations are generally going to eliminate a character from consideration. If it’s obvious that a character was made merely to be “sexy” and appeal purely to the male demographic, then they are not a strong character. Does that mean that only ugly characters are “strong? Can a female character not be sexy and strong? That can’t be true. It would be better to start by defining “strong character”.

Obviously, “strong” does not mean physical strength. In this case, “strong” means strength of character. Strength of a character is determined by how well put together a character’s personality, physical appearance, attributes, and various aspects are while avoiding stereotypes, degrading representations, shallow personalities and poor development and maintaining a realistically believable character. This still doesn’t sound quite right, the definition still eliminates some characters that may have bad attributes but are still well crafted. Let’s try it bit by bit.

There’s no reason why this can’t be applied to male characters too. Male characters have a lot of the same problems just in a different way. Big beefy one-liner spitting heroes who run in with guns a blazing or stereotypical wise cracking soldiers from Brooklyn, these are also weak characters.

Physical traits, whether good or bad, should not automatically label a character as weak. In real life you would not assume someone is shallow or bad at their job because they’re pretty and you wouldn’t automatically shun someone because they’re ugly. Why should this happen to video game characters? Is Rachel from Ninja Gaiden a bad character because she has big breasts? No. Is Samus Aran a bad character because she’s attractive? No. Is Rachel a bad character because she has big breasts that are flaunted by her unrealistic demon-hunting bondage outfit and the fact that her character is shallow and unoriginal and exists only for eye candy? Yes. Is Samus not as good of a strong character as she used to be because Nintendo is specifically flaunting her attractiveness more and more? A little. Attractiveness or ugliness in a character does not make them weak. Building their personality around the physical traits or designing parts of the game specifically to shine the light on those physical traits does.

Everyone can agree that stereotypes are bad. Negative stereotypes reflect poorly on a race or sex or sexual persuasion or group of people. They also assign traits to a large group of people that is in fact wide and varied. However, most people don’t like the fact that stereotypes exist because they come from real life examples. Yes stereotypes are negative and they are exaggerated versions of the real life counterparts and represent only a select few people, but they still exist. The point is, a character should not be discounted based purely on the fact that they exhibit one or two examples of stereotypical behavior. Not all women like to cook. Does this mean that designers should never make another female character who can cook? Does making a character that flies in the face of all the stereotypes make them a good character? If Duke Nukem was a woman, would that be a strong female lead? No. An Irish character who is a drunk and a dullard and sexually naïve and there is nothing else to his character is a bad character. An Irish character who drinks a lot but is a jerk and a loving father and nurse whose wife died when their city was bombed and has to make his way through a post-apocalyptic setting using his army training to rescue his daughter is a good character.

There are other aspects that shouldn’t automatically discount a character. A character who has some parts that are unoriginal should not be discounted outright. Just because someone has made a character with a mysterious legendary sword before doesn’t mean it can’t be done again while still being different and good. It’s difficult but possible. A character who has unlikable traits should not be discounted outright. It’s quite possible to have a character who is strong but not a good person, one who is just plain flawed or “good at being bad” or a character you “love to hate”.

Essentially, what it all comes down to is that a strong character is not determined by any one thing. To determine a “strong lead” you have to take in all the aspects of a character and characters who have points that would, by themselves, be considered bad can still pull it off. Sexist character traits like muscle-bound meatheads or big breasted bimbos are bad and so are stereotypes like doting housewives and tight-fisted Jews. However, this does not mean that designers should let themselves be limited by what characters they can create. The video game world can’t be entirely populated by small breasted women who act more like men (which I realize it’s sexist to say acting one way is “male” and another way is “female” but I’m just trying to abridge the description) and are good at kicking ass. That itself has become cliché. And cliché characters are themselves weak characters. It’s all about realistically and inoffensively handling these aspects and combining them with original ideas and created well rounded fleshed out characters. Balance, common sense, consideration for the audience, and spending enough time on the development are key to creating strong video game characters.