the gaming muse

Running on fumes...: Soul Calibur V: Sexism and Stereotypes

chacusha:

no78:

thegamingmuse:

Soul Calibur has always been a very sexist series.

It seems not a game can go by that doesn’t include sexualized females, breasts that are impossibly large and move in odd ways, and stereotypical depictions of female warriors. Soul Calibur V is no different…

Interesting essay on Pyrrha and interesting rebuttal. I think what the original article misses is that, although Pyrrha’s character is maybe pretty stereotypical, her personality traits do NOT extend to every other female character in the game. In fact, she’s the odd duck out because all the other women in this game are highly capable at their martial art and don’t shy away from battle. THAT SAID:

1. OP has an excellent point in that it’s quite telling they gave this highly reluctant, unconfident personality to Pyrrha and not to her brother Patroklos. It would have defied gender stereotypes if Pyrrha was the one with Hero of Justice complex and her brother was the one who was manipulated by others and hates fighting. But I think having a character so reluctant to fight in a fighting game is actually an idea worth pursuing, not something that must necessarily be an oxymoron.

2. There is also definitely an issue that all the girls in the game are pretty and/or sexy while the guys are allowed to be monstrous, scarred, old, or inhuman-looking. This is a pretty widespread issue not unique to Soulcalibur, but still a very obvious double-standard in the game.

And on the other hand:

1. I think the creepiness of having a male character beat up a female character will always be there in a fighting game, although I suppose it can sound worse if the character has lines like, “Please, no!” or whatnot. But yeah, grunts or shrieks of pain will still be there and still be unnerving if your mind isn’t like, “Oh, this is just a fighting game.”

2. The whole point of Pyrrha’s arc is that she becomes strong enough to resist the power of Soul Edge, completely through her own willpower. She’s not portrayed as universally weak. I don’t agree with the statement “She is never simply a human being, with weaknesses and faults.” I think she came off as pretty darn human. She is a character who is emotionally very weak, I suppose, but this doesn’t make her a Weak Female Character in the sense of flat, stereotypical, pointless, not a driving force in the story, etc.

3. “Even the older female characters that have been with the series for a while haven’t aged – as if they’ve found the Fountain of Youth.” To be fair, most of the younger guys seem to have found that same Fountain of Youth. Mitsurugi and Siegfried look a little older/more grizzled, but Maxi, Raphael, and Kilik look about the same, and the new characters (Patroklos, Z.W.E.I., and Xiba) all seem in their teens or early 20s. Still, until there’s a female Edge Master-like character with pure white hair who is still muscular and fit and a veteran fighter, I don’t think it can be claimed that this game treats its female characters in the same way it treats its male characters.

Anyway, Soulcalibur meta is love. The fact that someone took the time to write an essay dedicated to Pyrrha and someone else wrote up a summary of the role the female characters have played in the series makes me super happy.

Well, first off, thanks for reading, and secondly, thanks for not being a total ass about what I wrote.  That seems to have been the trend thus far.

As I said in the essay, I’ve only been able to play parts of SCV, so I haven’t seen Pyrrha’s story, only read what I could of it online.  Perhaps it was unfair of me to say she was never simply human since I don’t have full knowledge of her story.  

I may attempt to play through her story sometime and make a part 2 to this, if I have the stomach for it… sadly, most SC fans haven’t been as logical and thoughtful as you have in their replies to my work.  :/

Posted 3 months ago — 48 notes