If you've been paying attention to Feminist Frequency, or if you've at least been visiting websites that have any focus at all on video games, you'd know that Anita S. has released a trilogy of videos which can be summed up in two sentences: Damsels in Distress are common in games. And that's bad. Now, am I here to argue against Anita? Nope, I fully acknowledge that the Damsel in Distress is an all too common trope used in video games. Am I here to agree with her and turn this blog into yet another echo chamber for her thesis? Not at all. Although today's blog entry COULD be seen as me agreeing with her, it is just the first of a duo that aims to show that the Damsel in Distress trope is exactly that: a tool for story telling, that can be done wrong, and be done right. Today I explore a video game that shows just how badly this trope can be used: Joe and Mack.
Dinosaurs were HUGE back in the early 90's.
Author's Note: The following is NOT saying that Joe and Mack is a terrible game. It is, in fact, a solid and fun gaming experience.
I think I should start with a short description of what the Damsel in Distress is. Basically: girl gets kidnapped by bad guy, go save her. Why do feminists find it problematic? Well, because it reduces the role of the woman into being little more than a plot device, someTHING to move the story forward instead of someONE.
Let's talk about the game. You play as Joe, while player 2 plays Mack. The village Joe and Mack live on got attacked one night by enemy cavemen, who kidnapped the women of the village, so now Joe and Mack have to travel their caveman world while battling dinosaurs to find the kidnapped women. Every level you fight one dinosaur boss, and when you win, one girl gets rescued. That's it.
Literally, that's the story. The only two named characters are Joe and Mack. The villains don't get a name (though they are identified as Neanderthals), and neither do the women.
The women don't get names. Princess Peach got a name. Marian from Double Dragon got a name. A name is the very bare minimum of identity. The women in Joe and Mack don't have names. They. Have. No. Names.
You can make the argument that this was an arcade game, released in 1991, so it should be given some leeway in terms of story. After all, we can't expect an arcade game, designed to take quarters from unsuspecting kids, to tell the next great epic of the English (or Japanese) language, right? Of course not!
But!
Identity is defined by many things. What we do, what we believe in, what we like, what we dislike, what we've been through, how we act, how we react, these all form our identity. Our names don't make us who we are, but they are, in fact, a stepping stone to help others understand who we are. There are millions of John Smiths in the world, after all.
Before, I had mentioned Princess Peach. She has a title (Princess), which means she has a position (she's the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom). Peach has an identity, something that can underscore how she's an individual. Even if the original Super Mario Bros. didn't show her doing many princess-y things, save from getting kidnapped by a dragon like creature, she STILL had that as her identity. She looked the part, she dressed the part, and she was constantly referred to as the Princess. Princess Peach had an identity. The women of Joe and Mack don't.
I had also mentioned Marian of Double Dragon. She is a woman, and she is specifically Billy Lee's (one of the player characters) girlfriend. She had an identity AND a connection to the player characters. The girls of Joe and Mack don't.
These girls have no identity. We are never told what they do. We don't know what they like. We don't know what kind of girls they are. We don't even know their names. These girls are all just nameless pretty faces for the player to rescue. They are not people, but objects.
And yes, this was an arcade game from 1991, so of course it'd be light on story. Thing is, Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985, six years previously, and at least THAT game gave their damsel a name! You know how this can be fixed? With one little line of dialogue: "(Girl's name here): Gee, thanks for saving me, Joe and Mack!" There. One little line of dialogue, said at the end of every level when one of the girls get rescued from the bad guys.
Why is this important? Because one of the biggest arguments against the Damsel in Distress is that it reduces the women to mere plot devices, a thing instead of a person. The women in Joe and Mack have no identity. Never mind if they have any autonomy or agency, never mind if they have any depth, any emotional connection to the player OR the player character, they don't even have NAMES. The weapons you use against the enemy dinosaurs and cavemen have more depth than the girls, because they at LEAST have NAMES!
A measurement of how much impact a female character has in the story is thus: if you can replace her with any object and the story doesn't change at ALL, you have failed at making a female character. Now, many arguments can be made in regards to how the Damsel in Distress is used on genres that are, by necessity, light on story, such as the platformer. As Youtube user Thunderf00t has argued, the Damsel in Distress is one of mankind's oldest and basest story tropes, quick to identify and easy to tell, with clear cut good guys and bad guys, that resonates NOT with our inner machismo but to our inner morality, because the story of the hero who risks life and limb to save the woman in trouble is a demonstration of one of humanity's greatest and most venerated virtues: self sacrifice.
THAT is the reason why the Damsel in Distress tends to be so oft used in video games, as well as TV, film, literature, etc. It is therefore no surprise that Joe and Mack, as well as several other video games, would use this trope as their base story line.
But one must be careful how they use it. Tropes, after all, are a tool for story telling. And like any tool, they can be used right or used wrong. Joe and Mack used the trope wrong because the game completely forgot that a Damsel in Distress can't be just some unnamed girl that exists only to be rescued by the hero. The Damsel deserves an identity, something, ANYTHING that shows she's a person outside of her situation.
Now, if it's possible to use the trope wrong, how can a video game use the trope RIGHT? Next entry, we will be exploring a game that uses the Damsel in Distress trope so well, it may well be considered the definitive Reconstruction of the trope in video games!
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