An Analysis of Bioshock

I love Bioshock! I love it I love it I love it! I think I've played it eight times since finishing it in April, and God help me if it's been more than that because I very well may need help. I love it. Did I mention that? The story, the music, the old fashioned advertisements, the horror elements, the grenade launcher . . .

But not because it's feminist.

It's not anti-feminist either. It's not overtly misogynistic, although Anita Sarkeesian may disagree with me on that. We'll see what she thinks when she launches her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series (which I seriously can't wait for). At least I hope she mentions Bioshock in on of her videos. Still, having played it so many times in so few months, I feel the need to discuss some gender-related themes in the games.

Just a disclaimer: I'm only going to talk about the first game, and finish with my reactions to Bioshock Infinite's promotional materials. I haven't played the second game yet so I don't feel comfortable talking about it.

So there's the fact that the game takes place in 1960 and that inevitably affect the gender dynamic of the game. It can't be too much of a surprise that the hero/playable character is a man, and villains are men. All the villains are men. Pretty much all the tough opponents are men. Women do play a role and it's important to mention what roles they play.

The main moral decision of the game, is whether to harvest or rescue a Little Sister. They carry ADAM, which can be exchanged for plasmids and gene tonics that re-write your genetic code and give you special abilities. You can harvest the little one and get a lot of ADAM, but she'll die in the process - or you can rescue her, giving you less ADAM and turning her back into a normal little girl, and every now and then you're rewarded with special plasmids, extra ADAM, and ammo or health packs. Atlas, your guide through most of the game, tells you they're not little girl anymore, they've been turned into monsters, and you should harvest them because you need all the ADAM you can get to stay alive. Maybe that's true in the higher levels, I always rescue the little ones and I often finish the game on medium with plenty of ADAM to spare. Then again I'm not much for using plasmids for combat.

What's interesting about this is the choice of the game's creator to use little girls. Doctor Tenenbaum, the woman who created the Little Sisters and then came to regret her choice (I'll talk about her later), wonders this out loud in one of her audio diaries. My theory is because they're the most vulnerable and innocent things the creators could possibly use to play on the gamer's sympathy. Would people feel as torn about harvesting or rescuing if it were little boys? Older girls? Adults? Would it be the same if they were children of both genders?

Would the escort mission be the same with a little boy?

Yes, there's an escort mission. And despite my experience I still suck at it. You have to turn yourself into a Big Daddy - a man in a big, SCUBA looking suit who's job is to protect Little Sisters from being harvested as they gather ADAM (you have to kill them to get to the Little Sisters, and Jesus balls those can be hard battles if you're ill equipped) - so a little girl will open these doors for you and you can get to the final boss. But because she's no longer imbued with ADAM she's vulnerable you have to protect her. And I do everything I can - hack the security cameras and bots, set up security mines, use heat seeking grenades, spray the splicers with antipersonnel rounds before the even get close, but eventually we get into a spot where I don't have time to properly set up security and she always dies. But then I have time to set things up before I get a new one. I'd point out the disposability of young girls, but Tenenbaum does mention that to lose even one is a sin. In general I despise escort missions, usually because the character being escorted is a frail female character. So the presence of just that in Bioshock makes me deduct points. Or would if I was keeping score . . . yeah, I'm watching Olympic gymnastics right now.

It's also important to point out the Little Sister - Big Daddy dynamic. She's little, innocent, and even though ADAM makes her indestructible, she'll still cry out creepily adorable things like "scabby on my knee! scabby on my knee!" when hurt. He is big, powerful, armed to the max and can kill anyone to protect the little girl. You can hypnotize him to make him think you're a Little Sister to protect you (the male hero), but I never do that, and it certainly doesn't help when he's mad at me for accidentally shocking him with my static discharge.

The Little Sister - Big Daddy pairing is perhaps the most iconic image of the game. She has such a bond with him. A Little Sister will become upset and weep when her Big Daddy is killed, so much so that it makes me question whether killing a Big Daddy is a moral decision or an act of violent imperialism.

The rest of the female characters are scientists, or victims, or in one case both. It's interesting to see two female scientists in the year 1960, even in what was supposed to be a Utopian society. Dr. Tenenbaum, the only really prominent woman in the game, is a scientist who discovered ADAM, and was manipulated into exploiting little girls in order to manufacture it for the masses. She eventually realized her mistake and became their protector, urging the hero of the game to rescue them. She has a safe house for the children in Olympus Heights. She is a maternal type, trying to do what she feels is right. Unfortunately, she has been forced to use her intelligence for evil more than once in her life, having been an experimental scientist in the Nazi concentration camp when she was young. In the audio diaries, she seems to be the most sane and most human character in the game with her complex inner struggles.

And a total badass at one point. Sort of a mama grizzly when it comes to protecting the Little Sisters.

Then again, Dr. Julie Langford is also fairly sane. And mothering, but with plants instead of people. Her research holds the key to saving the trees in Arcadia when Andrew Ryan poisons the air to kill them, but Andrew Ryan kills her to prevent her from actually developing the antidote. You actually watch her die as her office is turned into a gas chamber. She is a genius woman of science, but she's also a victim, like so many other women in Bioshock. In he audio diaries, she expresses annoyance at the "spliced up morons" around her.

Then there's Jasmine, the stripper. She was paid to produce a fertilized egg for Dr. Tenenbaum, which would be removed once she and Andrew Ryan had sex. She needed the money. But naturally Ryan found out and killed her. You find her corpse on the bed with a knife wound in her stomach.

Another woman is Dianne McClintock, who is attacked during a New Years Eve party, and Dr. Steinman fixes her up. Or at least, he's supposed to make her look pretty . . . I recall being made to believe he screws her up big time. He's deranged and wants to "experiment" with beauty rather than adhere to traditional standards. He wants to be the Picasso of plastic surgery. Before you kick his butt you see his other victims of science, all women of course.

Interestingly, aside from the nameless female enemies you face, the female characters of the game all seem pretty rational. It's the men that are either crazy or have been driven mad with power. It's the men that created most of the underwater city of Rapture, but it's also the men who destroyed it with war. The men are the villains, the bosses, the ones you must kill. They're the evil ones.

So there's sexism against men and women in Bioshock. The women seem to be the mature, rational ones - the mothers of Rapture. But they're almost all victims of the men - stabbed, gassed, butchered in failed plastic surgery experiments, harvested (maybe), or just plain manipulated into doing one thing or another for the benefit of men. The men are powerful, but it's clear they can't handle it. They try to build and create, and end up destroying and creating the horrific dystopian city of Rapture the hero stumbles upon in the beginning of the game.

Now there's a new game coming out, Bioshock Infinite. And this is their promotional poster:

Seriously, 2K games? . . . Seriously? Big strong man protecting a small, worried looking woman? I guess it's not that much better than a Big Daddy and Little Sister. And when you get up close and personal with this woman, you notice something a tad . . . unnecessary:

Seriously?!? Why are her tits so damn big? I highly doubt they'll have any purpose, nor will the low cut corsette, or her tiny physique. I'm sure she'll be a strong character, but the promotional material makes her look like a sexualized damsel in distress. Sure doesn't make me want to play the game.