This document discusses the changing portrayals of women in video games and comic books over time. It provides examples of recent video games like Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, and Alien: Isolation that feature strong, competent female protagonists rather than the stereotypical "damsel in distress" roles of the past. However, it also acknowledges that some games and comics still objectify or sexualize women. Overall, the document argues that while progress has been made, there is still work to be done to achieve balanced and non-objectifying portrayals of women across both mediums.

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Zeke Williams
Liz Medendorp
FALL 2014 ENGL 1410.010
12/19/14
The Changing Portrayals of Women in Video Games and Comic Books
Many changes have occurred to the portrayal of different kinds of people over the course
of time. Whether it is in movies, television, comics, video games, or really anything, a certain
stigma has been created on how people are portrayed. This paper focuses on the portrayal of
women in video games and comic books, and how that portrayal has changed over time. This is
important because of the amount of people that these two mediums reach. Regardless of the age
rating on games, many impressionable kids are playing video games and reading comic books;
“Many researchers have posited that video games have a large impact on players and the larger
culture,” says Christopher E. Near in his article, “Selling Gender: Associations of Box Art
Representations of Female Characters With Sales for Teen-and Mature-rated Video Games.”
There seems to be a certain trend in the way that both of these mediums are heading.
With the recent releases of games like Mass Effect, in which you can either play as a male or
female protagonist, and The Walking Dead Telltale games, with a protagonist that is not only
female, but also a child that somehow perseveres in a world with constant ethical dilemmas
based around a bitter apocalypse, or Alien: Isolation, which stars Amanda Ripley, who struggles
with trying to survive on a ship that has been infested with the most deadly kind of enemy. All of
these games have common themes in that they star lead female characters that go against the
clichéd damsel-in-distress that was the norm for female characters in video games not so long
ago. Instead, these games show their female protagonists in a way that makes them seem

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competent and powerful, far different from the characters from twenty or thirty years ago if not
even those from a mere decade ago.
The inclusion of a competent female character in a dominant position is defined by
Jeroen and Jansz as the “Lara Phenomenon” in their article, “The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful
Female Characters in Video Games.” This is the definition through which this paper will decide
if a game represents women in an objectifying way or if they are more empowering, and
everything in between, as saying that all video games are either objectifying or not is a false
dichotomy. In their article, Jeroen and Jansz researched several games from the years 2000-2003
in order to find the distribution of characters, whether they were male or female, black or white,
dominant or submissive, among a few other attributes. They found that in those specific games
there was an equal distribution of gender for the leading characters. They also concluded that
“[their] results seem to indicate that the number of female characters in recent games is far larger
than it was in earlier games.” (Jeroen and Jansz, 146) Although they noted that their results may
have been skewed by the video games that were chosen for the study.
The fact that there are an equal number of female leading characters to male lead
characters is a huge difference from how it was before. Now that game developers have noticed
that roughly fifty percent of their fan base is made up of women, (Stuart) they have made great
efforts to make games accordingly. This is shown through Jeroen and Jansz’s work as well in
that there are far more women in video games, lead position or not.
Several games have been released recently that have had very strong female lead
characters. For example. Clementine from the Walking Dead Telltale series, who in the second
season of the games is the protagonist, is a strong and competent character that is put into a
dominant position. Although she is only nine years old, she makes most of the major decisions in

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the game, including drastic ethical dilemmas that could end or save a man’s life. In the moments
of the game that she is alone, she also demonstrates considerable strength, perhaps the best
example is when she is bitten by a dog. She is sent away by the people she asks for help to their
shed for fear that she has been bitten by a zombie, in which she is attacked by a zombie and has
to kill it on her own. She sneaks out of the locked shed to look for a way to stitch up her arm, and
after she finds a needle and thread she stitches up her arm by herself with no way to ease the
pain. This is an example of the empowering way the creators of this game have chosen to show
Clementine.
Another good example of a video game that shows a very empowering image of a female
protagonist is Alien: Isolation. In the game, the Alien attacks Ripley not because she is a girl, but
instead because she is human, and in turn, Ripley is not terrified because she is a woman, she is
terrified because she is human. [SPOILER ALERT] The creators of the game showed this on
several occasions, one of which happened when a male character was so frightened of the Alien
that he sacrificed Ripley in order to destroy it. Ripley then had to face the Alien on her own, in a
very confined space with no way to escape, showing how she was stronger than the man that she
was imprisoned by.
Although Amanda is shown in her underwear, the game is in a first person point of view,
so nothing could actually be seen. The depiction of Amanda in her underwear was much more a
part of the story than any attempt to try to sexualize her. By showing her in her underwear, the
creators of the game were showing their commitment to the original story of the first Alien movie
in which Ellen Ripley is shown in her underwear. It is a part of the process of being
cryogenically frozen in this universe. If Ripley had had a son in the original story, he would have
been depicted in the same way.

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One last example of a female protagonist is in Mass Effect, with the main character of
Shepard, who can either be played as a woman or a man. Commander Shepard is essentially in
charge of the fate of the galaxy, and the developers placed it into the hands of the players of the
game to choose who they wanted to do that, a female or a male Shepard. Shepard is a military
commander of the Normandy, a world class ship that, in its element, is more powerful than a
destroyer.
Mass Effect also has an entire race of people, the Asari, which is entirely made up of
female people. The Asari are one of the most powerful races in the galaxy, as they are the most
intellectually advanced and the fact that they live for millennia does not hurt either. This game is
a very empowering source of female characters. Although it must also be noted that the creators
of the game used the Asaris’ very long lifespan as a way to have an excuse to depict women in
an objectifying way. To clarify, the Asari live their lives in different stages and for a few
centuries of their life during one of these stages they will either become dancers in clubs or
mercenaries as a way of rebelling, experimenting, and exploring.
All of the games mentioned are fairly recent, and their portrayal of competent women in
dominant positions is a good representation of the direction that games are heading in for the
future. As is mentioned by Alicia Summers and Monica K. Miller in the article, “From Damsels
in Distress to Sexy Superheroes: How the Portrayal of Sexism in Video Game Magazines Has
Changed in the Last Twenty Years,” “In early games, females were put on a pedestal, considered
pure and innocent and needed the hero (a male, of course) to rescue them. In more modern
games, this is rarely the case. The females are often the heroes of the game.
However there are exceptions to this theory, with games like Grand Theft Auto or older
games like Mario, where women are either portrayed as objects to be saved by men or as objects

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to be ogled by men. Although there are prime examples of why the portrayal of women in video
games has been getting better in more recent years, the gaming industry seems to be taking one
step forward and two steps back with games like Grand Theft Auto V. It seems that the level of
which a game is empowering or objectifying is defined by the games that gamers decide to play.
The trend in comic books is a lot less discernible. According to Walt Hickey in his article
“Comic Books Are Still Made by Men, For Men and About Men,” DC comics and Marvel have
noticed that there is a wide difference in the numbers of men and women in their comics. He also
states that about one in four characters in comic books are female, but DC and Marvel have been
trying to remedy this with Batgirl’s new outfit and a new female version of Thor.
The article “Supergirls Gone Wild,” by Charlie Anders, explains exactly how some
female characters have been objectified and sexualized as the authors’ way of creating a “twisted
plot twist.” (Anders, 1) The article gives a detailed list of some of the girls, their aliases, and how
their careers in comics ended through these twists. An example of which is Stephanie Brown,
aka Girl Wonder and one of Batman’s sidekicks; “Stephanie’s 71-day tenure as the Girl Wonder
started off well. Drawn in a fun, Powerpuff Girls style, she trained hard, and even saved her
mentor from a serial killer. But then, in a series of unfortunate events, Batman canned her, she
accidentally set off a Gotham City gang war, and finally fell into the hands of a skull-faced
villain called Black Mask, who tortured her to death with a power drill.” Other examples listed
by the article include rape, impregnation due to rape or magic, breast tumors, addiction to heroin,
among other such things.
Another article, “Planet Women: The Image of Women in Planet Comics,” by Karl G.
Larew, explains how the amount of women in comic books grew during World War II. This is
important, because it gives an accurate way to compare the amount of women in comic books

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from around the days that they were just starting to get popular to the amount of women in comic
books today. In the article, Larew shows through graphs that the amount of female characters in
comic books in 1945 was .3, as compared to the one in four mentioned by Mark Hickey.
A good majority of sources revealed that there is a negative trend in the way that women
are displayed in comics, and recently, with comics like the Grimm Fairy Tale’s version of Alice
in Wonderland that is essentially a more adult version of the classic tale, “adult” meaning that
Alice is older and therefore allowed to be shown in lingerie or practically naked at all times, not
to mention the disturbing levels of gore, it is unsurprising that many believe the portrayal of
women in comic books is getting worse. Although part of the story includes Alice taking charge
of her destiny and becoming strong enough to defeat the Jabberwocky, the objectifying depiction
of Alice still overpowers any empowerment that can be derived from the series. Alice is often
shown not only in questionable attire, but also quite often in very suggesting positions. This is
almost the exact opposite of the Telltale Games Walking Dead series, because in that, they give
adult qualities to a young girl who is growing up in the apocalypse, trying to survive. But she is
never depicted in a sexual way, whereas Alice, who was originally very young as well, has been
given adult qualities for the purpose that the authors can exploit the female body. However, some
creators of comics have decided to create strong and competent women who are not sexualized
or objectified. One such example might be Lady Mechanika by Joe Benitez.
Although the portrayal of Lady Mechanika is questionable, there is no arguing that she is
a strong and competent character, similar to the empowered video game characters like Lara
Croft, female Shepard of Mass Effect, and Amanda Ripley. Joe Benitez usually only takes the
opportunities to show Lady Mechanika in a more sexualized way on the alternative covers to his
books, but not in the actual story itself. The most sexualized way that he has ever shown

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Mechanika was once when she was changing from dress clothes into her fighting clothes, he
shows her in her underwear, but it is far less revealing than today’s underwear as the story is set
in the late 1800’s. Similar to the new Batgirl outfit, Lady Mechanika’s outfit that she uses for
fighting is leather instead of spandex and is much more practical for a fighting environment. And
even on these alternate covers, his depiction pales in comparison to that of the Grimm Fairy
Tale’s version of Alice in Wonderland.
In the third issue of Lady Mechanika, the clichéd theme of the damsel in distress is hinted
at when Mechanika is attacked by a jaguar at the Cirque de Romani. Her associate, Mr. Lewis,
believes her to be in danger and rushes to save her, although he himself is caught by others in the
Cirque de Romani family and becomes the “damsel in distress” while Mechanika reasons with
the Romani around her, and saves herself from the dangerous situation. This is far different from
the way that comic books used to be, like in the very first issue of Superman, when Lois Lane is
kidnapped by criminals and Superman then has to save her. Although, as far as the difference in
time goes for comic books, these two are almost polar opposites, as the first issue of Superman
was one of the first comics ever made and the third issue of Lady Mechanika was released much
more recently.
Unlike Joe Benitez with his character of Lady Mechanica who he usually only shows in
sexual ways on the alternate covers of his books, Alice is shown in a very objectified way
throughout the story as well as the covers of the book and the alternate covers. One of which
shows Alice with very pronounced breasts that are soaked in blood along with the majority of her
dress. Another good example of one of the alternate covers is one that shows Alice in full skiing
attire, except that her pants are pulled down to reveal her underwear and quite a lot of skin. This
is a good example of how the creators are using sexy female characters for the purpose of

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creating explicit images; skiing has absolutely nothing to do with the story of Alice in
Wonderland, so why then are the artists depicting her in a skiing outfit that leaves very little to
the imagination? Instead of showing Alice in a way that explains her departure from sanity or in
a way that further explains that the current book is taking the story, the artists displayed Alice
either with little clothes on or in a pin-up fashion.
The way that female characters are depicted in comic books as a whole is defined by
which comics are more popular, those that are more popular are going to have more of an impact
on the way that comics are seen than those that are less popular. A good example of this is the
new Thor comics and the comics in which Batgirl has received a new costume. Batgirl and the
new lady Thor are particularly popular right now, and so more people will be exposed to these
comics and their attempts to make more empowered female comic characters than those who will
see the Grimm Fairy Tale’s version of Alice in Wonderland since that is not a very popular
comic. However, this is a double edged sword, because a lot of people are likely to read the
original comics from back when feminism and racism were not very large issues. Those comics
will probably reach the most people, but now people are more aware of issues of racism and
feminism than they were back when those comics were originally written.
This is very similar to how it works with video games. It is also important to note that the
game, Alien Isolation, is a horror game and is not one of the most popular games out there. The
genre of horror is not very popular when compared to violent action shooters like Grand Theft
Auto, a game played by millions of people that is probably the leading example of games that
objectify women. This is why it is important to note the imbalance between empowering games
that not many people play, and objectifying games that a great deal of people play.

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It can be seen that there are particular trends in the directions that both video games and
comic books are starting to go, and that they are trending toward a more balanced, less
objectifying direction. Although there are significant outliers in both mediums, the creators have
realized this issue and are in the process of trying to fix it. This is far different than before, when
the industries were just starting out. The “damsel in distress” theme was just a default one to rely
on, but now the story writers have taken it upon themselves to create a better class of story by not
relying on the default themes and making new ones. Also, the effort that creators and developers
are making to change the way that the mediums are seen in is a great indicator of the effort that is
going into making games more for both sexes, and with the thought that the games and comic
books that they are producing are having a large effect on the audience, whoever that may be.

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Works Cited
Anders, Charlie. "Supergirls Gone Wild." Ebsco Host 32.4 (2007): n. pag. Print.
Hickey, Walt. "Comic Books Are Still Made By Men, For Men And About Men."
FiveThirtyEightLife. N.p., 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.
<http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-in-comic-books/>.
Jansz, Jeroen, and Raynel G. Martis. “The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female Characters In
Video Games.” Sex Roles 56.3/4 (2007): 141-148. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7
Nov. 2014
Larew, Karl G. "Planet women: The image of women in Planet Comics, 1940-1953." Ebsco Host
59.3 (1997): 590-612. Print.
Near, Christopher E. "Selling Gender: Associations of Box Art Representation of Female
Characters With Sales for Teen- and Mature-rated Video Games." Ebsco Host 68.3/4
(2012): 252-69. Print.
Stuart, Keith. "UK gamers: more women play games than men, report finds." The Guardian.
N.p., 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/17/women-video-games-iab>.
Summers, Alicia, and Monica K. Miller. "From Damsels in Distress to Sexy Superheroes How
the portrayal of sexism in video game magazines has changed in the last twenty years."
Taylor & Francis 14.6 (2014): 1028-40. Print.

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