Okay, I just wanted to throw this out there after seeing a reply to one of Nintendo's tweets. The tweet is written as follows:
"Who is your favorite Nintendo underdog? Are you a Captain Toad fan? Or do you like Little Mac's rags-to-riches tale?" to which someone replied "My favorite "nintendo underdog are all the women who have to deal with the poisonous sexism of gaming culture @NintendoAmerica"
...Are you kidding me? First of all, how is a Nintendo tweet the correct platform to talk about this issue? Second of all, since when is Nintendo sexist?
Nevermind that they birthed one of the most prevelant and strong woman characters in the industry, Samus Aran (who, by the way, wasn't even revealed to be a woman until the end of the original game).
Nevermind that they support other strong female leads like Bayonetta, who can literally tear apart heaven and hell.
Nevermind that most Nintendo games have options to play as female characters.
Nevermind that recently, they've drifted away from their "damsel in distress" storyline in games like Super Mario 3D World and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker by having female characters like Peach, Rosalina and Toadette as heroines in their respective games.
And this doesn't even apply to just Nintendo either. I'm super tired of hearing that all women are just sexualized and victimized in gaming culture and there aren't any role models. Take, for example, Lara Croft, who is also a strong, independent character in the Tomb Raider franchise. In fact, they've even made her more relatable and endearing as a character in the reboot. I guess you could make the argument that she's still somewhat sexualized, but it's not like women don't look like that ever. She's not any more sexualized than Nathan Drake (at least now).
Another example is Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. Does she have to be a female? No. Does it define her as a character? No, not really. She just is. And she isn't victimized in any way. In fact, she's gone out of her way to save a male character in Chris Redfield.
Yes, there are cases of blatant sexism in gaming culture. Just like any culture. It's wrong, but it is so inaccurate to say that all developers are sexist and hate women. So many developers are just too scared or lazy to go out on a limb and create minority characters because it's much easier and safe to make a young, white guy as that's what the public has come to expect. This does need to change, but completely disregarding the people that do incorporate women into the gaming media in a positive way is just downright disrespectful, in my opinion.
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