THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY

In my research, I examined 2 female villains and 2 male villains from the video game series Mortal Combat. The findings were surprising in the way that the descriptors used for each character were so distinct and explicitly sexist, amplifying gender stereotypes in both the male and female characters.  In researching characters, I wanted to be as neutral and unbiased as possible, so I selected the first 2 male characters from Mortal Kombat that appeared in my search results and the 2 first female characters. I did not include any descriptors in my search, simply "Female Mortal Kombat characters." It it because of this unbiased search that I was so surprised by the characters that appeared, because they were so extreme in their stereotypes.

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The first female character I researched was Mileena (First photo above). She was described as having a beautiful body but with the face of a monster. She is described as psychologically unstable and jealous of her sister Kitana. Only Shao Kahn has the will to control her. During my presentation in class, I showed this video which introduces her character.

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 The second female character was Skarlet (Second photo above). She is dressed similarly to Mileena, both wearing high heels and very revealing outfits. Scarlet was created by Shao Kahn and is usually kept chained up in what are called the Flesh Pits until she is needed for her powers. She has no dialogue and very little character interaction, which completely eliminates her sense of identity. Both female characters wear masks to cover their faces, which I did not explore in my presentation because there was no difinite answer as to whether this was because they are meant to be ninjas or because is further characterized them as having no identity. Because Mileena has the face of a monster, this could be a major reason in why she wears a mask, but other than being a ninja, there is no explanation as to why Skarlet has a mask. 

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The male characters in general were also stereotypically represented, however, their qualities were much more powerful and strong, as opposed  to being chained up, or being psychologically unstable. The first male character that I analyzed was named Shao Kahn (third photo above). He controls Mileena, as said previously. He is described as having god-like strength and high intelligence. His build is strong and dominating, which his weaknesses being overconfidence and arrogance, which are stereotypical male characteristics. Being in control of Mileena also gives him a dominating quality and contrastingly gives Mileena the characteristics of being weak and submissive.

The second male character was Shang Tsung (last photo above). Nothing physical about him is disturbing or stereotypical. However, his mental ability is what sets him apart from the others: he is described as mentally sophisticated and extremely intelligent. He also created Mileena for Shao Kahn using dark magic. 

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The distinctions between the two genders portrayed was quite striking and very obvious. The first is that the men dominate the women in both cases, in the way in which Skarlet is kept chained until she is needed, and how the men both created the women - seemingly owning their identity and being the only ones who can control them. The second is the the qualities of sexuality is always associated to the women and strength always associated to the men are always characterized as being strong. Similarly, intelligence was each time associated to the men and jealousy and psychologically unstable was a characteristic of the female characters. I do not want to characterize the male characters' qualities as being better than the female characters, because in both scenarios they are exaggerated and stereotypical. In my colleague's portion the our presentation, she mentioned "bikini gamers": women who choose to use their bodies as a way to attract views to their streaming videos; so perhaps it is not negatively characterizing women, depending on how those people see themselves, after all, in my research, I did find that gamers enjoy choosing characters that they can relate to, or who represent their "ideal" self.

It was announced that Mortal Kombat X would be changing the way in which they design the female characters, making them more realistic. However, as a response to this announcement, the Dead or Alive franchise announces that "big boobs are here to stay in the dead or alive franchise." So, although some games may be making progress with trying to represent the characters in more realistic ways, others feel that their audiences would not appreciate the change. 

                                                           BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Mike Splechta. Big Boobs are here to stay in the Dead or Alive Franchise. In: GameZone. (2015).

http://www.gamezone.com/news/big-boobs-are-here-to-stay-in-the-dead-or-alive-franchise-3413235

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Mileena. Mortal Kombat Wiki. Fandom. (2017). http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Mileena

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Shang Tsung. Mortal Kombat Wiki. Fandom. (2017) http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Shang_Tsung​ 

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Shao Kahn. Mortal Kombat Wiki. Fandom. (2017). http://mortalkombat.wiki.com/wiki/Shao_Kahn

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Skarlet. Mortal Kombat Wiki. Fandom. (2017). http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Skarlet

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