The other day I was reading this article on masculinity in GTA IV and how the traditional male gender roles can be “played out” in this game and how stereotypically portraited both males and females are and I thought like “wtf she’s got to be kidding how can she FAIL to see the irony in everything and that the game is actually critizising the same things it displays” and she ended the article with in fact explaining this irony and went like “trolololololl”… (Marking the territory by Elena Bertozzi, in Social exclution, power and video game play 2012. Don’t want to pay for it? Talk to your local librarian.)

Saints Row the Third is a game that I enjoy, but when I try analyzing it I get confused. Anita Sarkeesian, help me here! Note now that I’m a n00b, I havent played GTA since the original when I was like 11 and I have no knowledge at all of the previous SR games. Buuut anyway I some time called SRtT GTA’s younger more immature brother. It pretty much sums up the game content. And while GTA is obviously ironic and full of sour social commentary, SRtT is not. It’s more of a game making fun of games, sometimes with means certain people find offensive. Me, I react on the sexism.

As soon as we start playing the game we realize this world is full of hookers and strippers and would probably draw the conclusion that the game and the game makers are awfully awfully sexist. But looking closer at the characters there are actually many “strong independent” (uuugh…) ladies among them. One of the main villains is a female with a background, there are the DeWinter sisters who run a powerful porn emipre (but do’t get me started on analyzing that) and we have the smart but paranoid ex-FBI agent Kinzie (who’s interest in extreme sex is played for laughs, but this is the good kind of sexualization imo). And even though offensive female stereotypes may appear, male stereotypes are just as common. Plus, everything is too over the top to be taken seriously anyway, so why bother? The violence for example is not only raw but also glorified, so why doesn’t Miss Magpie have any problem with that?

Sure, the hookers and strippers are there because it’s exactly what you would expect from this kind of game and just like the glorified violence it’s something that people will use to hold against the very existance of the video game media itself. Which I WOULD believe is what the creators intended (this kind of ting seem to be trending in games now, I should write an article about it).

But compare it to the violence again, violence is something general, something anyone could have a great time with and enjoy regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. In the game it’s not targeted towards any certain group of people. The sexism, though, is. And the problem, as usual when it comes to gender roles, is that the male traits are considered positive whilst the female ones are negative. The men are big and strong pimping their flocks of whores, the women are weak and need to be saved by their pimps, or just ornaments for the male gaze even while kicking ass (*cough*penthousepets*cough*). But it’s all in good fun! You said it yourself! Might be so, but the way these women are portraited it’s no difference from any other game with similar content and is not actually over the top at all. Well maybe a little since the fat whores are ridicued for being fat and ugly and worth less on the street. Humor!

Anyway, it’s hard NOT to see this as just… Well… Sexism. How could they have avoided this? Hmm… Including male strippers and whores maybe. But nooo that wuld be too unrealistic. Because hooking and taking their clothes of is what women do when they run out of money right?

I don’t really understand where the developers want to go with this. Many parts of the game is making fun of stereotypes and is (actually) providing characters who are not defined by their gender, which always is very good to see. Other parts just fall into the same old exploitation we’ve seen over and over again, things that would only appeal to juvenile minded men. Like the Penthouse pack DLC, provoding nothing but a set of half naked ladies to call upon when you need them. I mean, maybe they think the’re exploiting the customer? Like, haha look what shit we made you pay for. But some people do fall for it and thus they’re enforcing the same old gender roles we are so tired of. Or are they simply trolling us? Trying to provoce anger from rabid feminazis like me? But if the goal is to be provocative, why focus on the women and not go all the way? Because no straight men would buy it if the men were portraited in the same way as the women?

As I said I like SRtT very much, a lot thanks to the characters and it is a very funny game with accessible (yes, I say that as a good thing) gameplay. But I dislike the fact that the whole game in the end is still packaged for a straight male audience. Maybe male strippers and whores would have been all too free spirited? Perhaps there are things you just don’t try and provoce people with, a giant purple dildo was probably “gay” enough…

To turn my frown upside down after this piece of slight bitterness, I present to you one of the most EPIC moments in Saints Row the Third. Some great game direction right here, turn your bass up! 🙂