There may come a day when videogames will grow up. Today is not that day.
A new batch of screenshots has been released for the heavily anticipated PS3 exclusive Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and they show a marked difference in the physical appearance of the game’s chief heroine, Elena Fisher.
It seems she’s been fully altered from a realistically pretty brunette into a Hollywood bombshell. I can’t help but wonder why, after all this time, they would see fit to change her physical appearance. A spokesman for Sony is playing innocent by offering the excuse, "They just liked her better blonde." I’m not convinced.
This stinks of PR honky interference.
After all this time, Naughty Dog just suddenly decides to change their original vision for the character into the idealized female? That’s one explanation. Another explanation is that the game is nearing completion and their public relations firm is trying to figure out how to market the game.
My reenactment of what that scene probably looked like:
"What on earth is this? This is a woman? I think not. Look at her! Her cheek bones don’t protrude at all! Her face is slightly oblong! Her shoulders are kind of squared! There’s no sexy strand of loose hair to fall across her face! Her lips…my god her lips are completely unacceptable. Rubbish all!"
When I see this type of thing it reminds me of the early days of movies. The days when no actress could star in a studio film unless there were at least 25 million men in their target audience who wanted to "give her the time," to use the parlance of their generation.
Likewise, if you take a look at the early days of animation you’ll see a similar trend. Every woman who found her way into a cartoon was either an exaggerated bombshell, or and equally exaggerated old hag. Taking that a step further and you’ll find that every less than attractive female character is evil.
We gaming enthusiasts like to brag that our medium has progressed in terms of profitability and user base far faster than any other form of media. It’s times like this, however, that I’m reminded of just how far behind we really are.
"We?" Yes I use the word deliberately. It’s not entirely the fault of the industry, or even the aforementioned PR honkies. The fault lies in us to for providing ammunition for their statistics time and again.
Until we, as gamers, can prove that we are OK with a female character who might not pass for a model, then we prove that we are as immature as the target demographic suggests.
