Fifth Post: Video Game Imagery

Speaking as a person who dabbles in the occasional video game, I can speak from some experience. It has been my opinion that video games, being primarily marketed to guys from the early teens and up, sometimes reflect some of the same imagery as music videos. Or at least, their creation stems from the same set of fantasies. However, the rules regarding sex in video games are very strict. The ESRB, the governing body for the video game rating system has, for better or worse, all but enacted a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to showing sex onscreen. Interesting to note, the most infamous violations of this policy, in the highly publicized Grand Theft Auto games, involve no actual onscreen sex, only some deliberately cartoonish moaning and a car bouncing up and down for a few seconds. With graphics advancing rapidly, it has become possible to faithfully recreate actual naked bodies, but this too is exceedingly rare.

As to stereotypical portrayals of women, I would say that the industry as a whole has a long way to go. If there is ever an unattractive woman in a video game, it is as a joke. And every character designer knows that when women are in video games, from martial artist ninjas to special ops commandos, the clothing credo is always "less is more." However, I don't think there's a causal link between violence in a video game and disrespectful attitudes towards women. Just the opposite, in fact. When I see a violent video game that features a female character (often of unlikely proportions) slicing and dicing or shooting her way through a legion of bad guys in little more than lingerie, it only reminds me that the whole thing is fantasy.