Hello all,
While I personally do not feel like The Last of Us was sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. in any way, I was looking at articles online about TLOU and came across some articles about sexism in the game. It definitely struck my curiosity. After reading the articles, some people claimed that the game was sexist not because it depicted overtly sexualized female characters, but because of reasons like: the freezer-box plot device where the female character's death or suffering is used to evoke emotion towards the male lead (whom loves and is deeply saddened by the loss/pain of the woman/girl he loves) which happens with Sarah. However, I argue this because in many other games the woman's death/suffering is used as a plot device for the male character to seek revenge and gain power and dominance and Sarah's death was not used as some pathetic driving force for Joel to become some power-hungry, testosterone-driven, killing machine. In fact, her death is what made him the internally weak and broken man that he became. The article brought up other things like: "why is Marlene injured when we first see her? Why wasn't Marlene allowed to put up more of a fight against Joel in the end before he gunned her down? Why did Tess have to die, especially the WAY she died in a hail of gunfire?"
I've also been watching Feminist Frequency on YouTube and the narrator, Anita Sarkeesian, was talking about the Damsels in Distress trope in video games. And while I know Ellie is a strong female character throughout most of the game, articles have mentioned that despite all of that, she is still saved by a man in the end of the game. Anita Sarkeesian says, "On the surface, victimized women are framed as the reason for the hero's torment. But if we dig a little deeper into the subtext, I would argue that the true source of the pain come from feelings of weakness or guilt over his failure to perform his socially prescribed patriarchal duty to protect his women and children." "In this way, these failed heroes stories are really about the perceived lost of masculinity and then the quest to regain that masculinity. Primarily by exerting dominance and control through the performance of violence on others." However, Sarah's victimization is different from that of other games in my opinion, again, because Joel doesn't go on any journey to "find" his masculinity and he never depicts insecurity in his masculinity over the lost of Sarah. He isn't violent necessarily because he's trying to control people or be dominant for masculinity-insecurity reasons; he's violent because of the world he lives in in addition to being hardened by the survivor's guilt he feels for not having being able to have saved Sarah. I can see how Joel, at the end of the game in the hospital, uses his "dominance and power" to kill off every Firefly in order to save Ellie. And while some argue that this is done for his own personal agenda - he loves Ellie and can't fathom letting another person he loves die - I don't think he was doing it for some "manly incompetant" reasons; he was doing it because anyone would do it. Anyone would save their loved one (and whether it's selfish or not is irrelevant).
Anita states too that while video game designers aren't intentionally trying to victimize women, they are sending the wrong messages to their audience. She states also that it would be ridiculous to NEVER depict a female character dying in a game or story, and that when women die in a story it isn't always used as an alterior motive to bolster the male lead or to illustrate the female character as a source of torment for the male lead. However, she simply states that it's crucial to carefully depict HOW and WHY the death/torment of the female characters are included in the game so as to not be confused as a source for male empowerment at the expense of women.
I found another article and I will share a portion of it:
"Let's look at The Last of Us. You start the game controlling Joel's teenage daughter Sarah, and since the whole premise of the game involves an older, grim Joel taking care of and teaching another young girl to survive and fight you know it's not going to end well. Sure enough, mere minutes into the game her leg is broke and she dies in your arms after being shot by a soldier determined to hold the quarantine line.
"Twenty years later, Joel and a woman named Tess...stumble across Ellie, an equally likeable and plucky teenage girl like Sarah who may hold the key to stopping the zombie infection. The three of them begin a desperate escape to leave the quarantine zone, beset by zombies and the totalitarian regime, until they finally escape.
"Unfortunately, Tess as been bitten, and has only hours before she turns. yet such is her faith in Joel and his ability to transport Ellie that she offers to commit suicide by cop to buy them time to make their final getaway. She dies in a hail of gunfire.
"It's incredible stuff, brilliant storytelling, but in the end it hits every, single, one of Sarkeesian's notes like a Van Halen guitar solo: Woman in refrigerator? Check. The disposable woman? Check. Mercy killing? Check. Treaing a female as a possession to be protected/obtained? Check. Check. Check.
"The game, take by itself, doesn't feel like a cog in a grand violence-against-women-centric media. it feels like a good story because it definitely is. However, the sheer number of games that use these formnulas over and over and over again paints a much broader and more depressing picture. It just keeps happening because no one knows they're actually doing it.
"Would the game have suffered any if Joel had lost a young son instead of a daughter? Would Tess' death have been less moving if she'd been a father figure rather than a young woman? Would Ellie be worth less as a possible cure if she was a college-aged, but sheltered young man?"
Sorry for the long quote, but I thought it was interesting. Regardless of everything mentioned, I still do not feel like the deaths of major female characters in the game and the saving-of Ellie was a sexist move, because, like Anita said, of the WAY and HOW they died. Tess died heroically and she wasn't a damsel. Ellie was not a damsel in any way and she was perfectly capable of protecting herself - especially with how she handled David all by herself. Marlene was a powerful leader, and her being female was important for her character because she was a friend of Ellie's mother and also like a mother-figure to Ellie. And for Marlene to turn from being a motherish figure to Ellie to being in essence a villain of sorts for wanting to take Ellie's life to save humanity, was important for Marlene's character. I honestly didn't feel any male dominance emanating from Joel throughout the game. He's a strong survivor, but he's also a tender, loving father.
These were just my thoughts about people's opinions on sexism in this game, in which I really did not feel that there was any. Yes, the deaths of women were used as driving forces in the game but these women weren't without control, strength, courage, and leadership to begin with. And in no way did their death or suffering empower a lead male character. And Joel's life was even left in the hands of Ellie at one point - so gender roles in my opinion were equal in this game which made it so special and memorable. So more or less, the sexist things that people have been noticing in the game are certainly stereotypes of sexism in previous games, but because of the way TLOU depicted how they were important to the storyline, revealed, to me at least, that they weren't sexist at all. They might look like it on the surface - because of how other games have done similar things - but the significance of them is totally different than any other game previous.
What do you guys think? Do you feel that TLOU was sexist in any way? How and why? Thanks for reading.
