I finally finished the game! Great game, seriously weird ending, but in doing a little research on various theories and explanations I have a somewhat better grasp on things, and the game in general makes a whole lot of sense. On the whole, very different from the first game, but very good. Not sure if I'll play it as often as I've played the first game (a lot), but I'd say it's got some replay value. All in all, worthwhile.
(And worth the wait - as my friends know, I didn't buy it when it first came out, my birthday was May 18th so I decided to wait until then and got it as a birthday present)
Anyway, I don't so much have a theoretical analysis as a bunch of scattered thoughts. Let's begin.
As I expressed months before the game was released I was very hesitant about it, since Elizabeth looked like a damsel in distress on the cover art cirulating the internet shown above. I also saw some gifs that basically showed her getting taken, or begging the protagonist . Er, not cool guys. Then Ken Levine, the creator, admitted he wasn't interested in marketing the game to women, and that the target demographic for the advertising was the typical frat guy. Great. I mean, it made sense, gamer nerds were gonna buy it regardless of how it was marketed and they wanted to draw in some new fans, but stillm just frat guys? Not sorority girls? Or any type of "normal" woman?
Then the trailer came out. By this time I was sold(ish), but again, it showed Elizabeth about to be hanged, and the protagonist rescuing her. While she did nothing. Awesome.
Anyway, seeing Elizabeth largely shown as a helpless woman to be rescued and protected rubbed me the wrong way, despite my friends telling me she was gonna be awesome and useful. Then the game came out and surprise, she was a strong, independent woman and not at all a damsel! Yay!
When I started playing, she immediately struck me as strong willed. There was nothing weak about her. She seemed like the love child of Disney princesses Rapunzel and Belle - in voice, appearance, and character traits. That's not a terrible thing when you realize how strong both those women were.
And since the game only allows you to carry two weapons at a time, and doesn't let you carry any health kits or phials of salts (Infinite's version of Eve hypos), I certainly appreciated her throwing those things at me during combat. But it would have been even cooler if she participated in the fighting as well. That system would have been much better than one that makes the player rely on her for everything. Men in the 50's relied on women for a lot of things, didn't make those women their equals.
Is it just me or does she look like Wonder Woman?
She does revive you when you "die," rather than have the game send you to a Vita Chamber, but women have been healers in games, especially RPGs, for decades. Healer may be a step above "damsel," but it's still not exactly progressive.
It is true that the game isn't one huge escort mission, which is a step up from the last Bioshock games. God I hated escorting that little girl toward the end. Seriously, that sucked, and I'm awful at escort missions. It's good that she (mysteriously) never gets hurt, ever, and doesn't need to be protected.
That said, Elizabeth isn't entirely without flaw from a feminist standpoint. As a character, she's strong, capable, and ambitious. But despite people arguing that Infinite is her story, not Booker's, I can't help be seeing that more often than not, she's an object to be acted upon. She's put in a tower to protect her, and seemingly to protect others from her. She's rescued from that tower. She's taken again and things are done to her. This whole story is about what's done to her. As Anita Sarkeesian said in her first video about damsels in distress (no I haven't seen the second as it was taken down before I could see it, but I'm keeping my eyes open), "it's been said that in the game of patriarchy, women aren't the opposing team, they're the ball." Elizabeth does get tossed back and forth, and from man to man, for various reasons. This doesn't reduce her to a weak, helpless character, but rather strips an otherwise capable woman of her own agency.
Elizabeth is not an annoying, useless, weak dolt that exists solely as an objective, but she does fit the basic definition of "damsel in distress," in that she is captured and needs to await rescue. The fact that she does act with some agency during combat, and the fact that she can pick locks for the player/protagonist does help detract from her objecitification, but I don't think it balances it out completely.
Elizabeth, in some ways - mostly in terms of her characterization - does show us how far women in video games have come. In other ways, she's a lot like women in ealier video games. She's strong, but still needs to be rescued. She's not on the sidelines, but she's not exactly in the middle of the action either. She's a supporting character, not the protagonist. She's a step up from the Little Sisters in the ealier games, but she's not exactly at the top of the staircase. She's great, I'd definitely cosplay as her, but we still have a long way to go.
On a slightly unrelated note, I would like to praise this series featuring female scientists in at least two of their games. You had Dr. Tennenbaum in the first game, and Lutece in this one. For games that took place so long ago, having women of science play prominent roles in the backstory is pretty awesome.
But enough of these white women. It's intersectionality time! It's also spoiler time. I tried to avoid them, but alas, I can't talk about Daisy Fitzroy without giving something away.
I noticed that racism is a prominent theme in the game; we, the modern gamers, are supposed to know that that's wrong. It's there to illustrate that Columbia, while beautiful, has an evil and creepy side. Much like I'm sure Rapture did before it went down the tubes (no pun intended). It's supposed to Columbia, not us, who think that Daisy Fitzroy (still one of the few prominent women of color in mainstream gaming) is evil. We're even supposed to support the radica uprising, although we're only aiding it to get the airship back.
Then why does Daisy become the enemy? Elizabeth has to kill her to keep from killing a child, and the final battle involves fighting off the Vox and destorying their zeppelins in order to protect your ship. If Levine wasn't such a fan of racists, why did he write a black radical to be so violent that she's a vile, child-murdering antagonist who needs to be killed? If the game was really anti-racist, why does the Voxpopuli turn against Booker and Elizabeth so quickly, despite Booker supposedly being a martyr? Well, I remember the stated reasons, I'm more questioning the writing choices than the characers' choices.
The Uncharted franchise is notorious for putting people of color in antagonistic roles.
This may only be slightly problematic if video games in general had plenty of racial equality, people of color were usually present without being enemies, and nerd culture wasn't chock full of white privilege. Sadly, this isn't the case, and the racism in this game's storyline is at best more of the same, following a not-so-great trend in modern video games.
As a feminist, it's great to see women in general placed in prominent roles in video games, even if they're not protagonists. From an intersectionality perspective, however, it's disheartening to see a woman of color in such a negative portrayal of black radicals.
HERE THERE BE DRAGONS AND SPOILERS AND FEMINIST MUSINGS, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
ReplyDeleteI am very pleased that you included your warning at the beginning – as a self-professed fan of the series I had many throughout. But you raise good points and I shall do my best to address them and perhaps start a conversation. First I will just geek out a little bit about the game itself, I loved it, and then I will try to address some issues with you that you brought up and my interpretation of what story the game told.
I will mention some themes brought up in Anita Sarkeesian’s Damsel in Distress Part Two [1], as they are relevant. I understand you have not yet seen it, but some of what she says happens to be quite relevant; I will not lean to greatly on her commentary though.
As an aside and a nod to the game, did you notice that the first two trailers [3][4] that came out were entirely based on scenes that DID NOT HAPPEN IN THE GAME. In the second trailer, Elizabeth’s outfit is non-cannon. My interpretation of this is that those trailers took place in universes not covered in the game. I loved this a little bit too much. The release trailer [5], which showed actual game play, broke this mold by necessity.
HERE THERE BE DRAGONS AND SPOILERS AND FEMINIST MUSINGS, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
ReplyDeleteI recently saw the MovieBob review of Bioshock Infinite [2], and I can’t find fault with his interpretation However, that is not the only story told by this game.
In a way similar to Sucker Punch, we experienced the story of one character through the eyes of another. I feel Bioshock Infinite was Elizabeth’s story told through Booker’s eyes. Hers was a story of a slave – as you mentioned, a woman passed from one man to another – taking her freedom back.
As an aside, I truly enjoyed the scene where she realized that Booker was taking her to New York. Um, fuck you Booker, BAM. Done.
The main way in which Elizabeth broke the mold of the Damsel in Distress trope is that she freed herself from her tormentor, so to speak. The game showed her evolution as she began getting more familiar with her powers and more confident in herself. The way that she led booker at the end of the game was a welcomed reversal from the way Booker had led her throughout the rest of the game. She killed the man who had become her captor.
You are correct when you talk about Elizabeth’s in-combat role. She is the pocket healer/item finder. It is a beta role which is, while higher than many other female supporting characters in video games, is not quite empowering. Or not empowering enough for my inner feminist at the very least.
Another aside: one of the most remarkable parts of Elizabeth’s implementation in game is the attention to detail paid to her non-combat actions. She wanders around; she looks at interesting things on the wall. Her postures change depending on what your character does and what the situation is. She entertains herself with the environment around her. She is one of the most well designed characters I have seen in a long, long time. [6]
Elizabeth is rescued from that tower – ‘rescued’ by a less-than-trustworthy narrator. But she leaves him and goes on her own when he tries to take possession of her again. She only agrees to go with him again reluctantly. She is captured again by Comstock, but in effect comes to engineer her own escape – using Booker as a tool. (Arguably a case could be made that Booker is objectified in this game – used by all of the character around him, passed around to accomplish their goals, and sacrificed in the game’s finale for the greater good.)
Sidenote: I enjoyed watching the slow, gradual affection that Booker developed for Elizabeth. He got a tad paternalistic as the game progressed – appropriate given the reveal in the story’s finale. It felt… realistic. Sincere.
Elizabeth confronts Comstock. She gets closure, though Booker does the actual dirty work. And she ends up taking the reins of her lives and pulling the terrible loop closed. Whether this is empowerment, freedom, suicide, or something else entirely is left up to the player. I am still at a loss as to the end of the game.
The story here is not thing things which were done to Elizabeth; it is what she accomplished despite them.
That’s all for now. I had wanted to talk about intersectionality and the portrayal of Daisy, and the limitations of videogames in general, but I shall leave that for tomorrow. The night is calling.
[1] http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/05/damsel-in-distress-part-2-tropes-vs-women/
[2] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/7124-Shock-Treatment
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvrnUcB8ZJc
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_gEzOZKyE4
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f3XJePYPpo
[6] http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/20/4127972/bioshock-infinite-video-elizabeth
HERE ALSO BE SPOILERS
ReplyDeleteI do like your comparison to Sucker Punch, but it's not exactly the same thing. In Sucker Punch the girls worked together, conspired and strategized, and actively fought to get what they needed to get out. Elizabeth was more passive in this story, and largely depended on Booker to help set her free. She did evolve and become more powerful, but I disagree that she completely flipped the narrative on its head until the very end when she killed Booker, ultimately acrificing her existence as well, much the same way Baby Doll sacrifices herself at the end of the movie.
Two sides of the same coin, perhaps?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYOU KNOW THE DRILL. REALLY, WHY ARE YOU HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THE GAME THROUGH? GO. PLAY IT.
ReplyDeletePerhaps so, yes.
You are correct about Sucker Punch being a much better example of empowerment. My comparison to it though wasn't grounded in the activity or passivity or the supporting characters. I was more drawing a parallel to the bait-and-switch I felt the narrative pulled on me in with "Here's the main character [Booker/Baby Doll].... Lol jk it's actually [Sweat Pea/Elizabeth]."
I feel there were three times where Elizabeth broke the norm of the trope and showed herself to be a strong character with agency. First, when she smashed Booker in the face with a wrench, second when she sent Booker to save herself, and third when she killed Booker.