Female Accompaniment

So this is becoming a thing.

Female Accompanists - Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, Ellie from The Last of Us and Cortana from Halo 4

The success of recent blockbuster video games Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us has been in no small part due to their secondary protagonists. Critics have universally lauded how the inclusion of Elizabeth and Ellie have enhanced the experience of these games. On the backs of other games following a similar theme, Halo 4 amongst them, this seems to be setting a trend in the industry that we need at least one other character whom we care about above all else in order to enjoy a video game.

This trend, though, brings with it an interesting question - why are all the secondary protagonists women who are younger than the older, male lead protagonist? 

For the last 10 or so years, two words have been the plague of gamers everywhere - Escort Mission. Escort Missions were segments of gameplay where you had to worry about protecting another game character whilst carrying out your own duties, shooting bad guys and finding your way out of virtual messes. They were mediocre at best - increasing difficulty in a linear manner rather than in any depth-adding mechanics. Most of the time they were badly done, and were just  an annoying distraction from the main gameplay of a mission. And they almost always included useless damsels in distress.

It seems that all at once, this particular mechanic has taken a turn for the better. What sets games like Bioshock and The Last of Us apart from the original idea is that the secondary protagonists are now a helping factor. They've been designed such that they have abilities which aid the player. Elizabeth throws you health packs in the middle of battle. Ellie throws bricks to distract thugs from beating you up. To top it all off, they've been written in a much more three dimensional manner such that you give a damn about them now.

Joel teaches Ellie how to shot in The Last of Us

As an analogue for feminism, this superficially signifies a positive trend. We've moved away from escort missions where we protect the helpless damsels in distress, and now the female characters in our games are actively helping us. This is to the point where we wonder how we could win the game without their help, or even play the game without them there. 

But they are still all girls or women who are younger than and ultimately helpless without the male protagonist. This particular fact shouldn't be ignored. Although they are strong characters whom all grow into strong independent females, we, as the player, spend the majority of our gaming experience either protecting, guiding or leading these women through each scenario. 

The sexism here is not conscious. I acknowledge that the developers of these games have put effort into creating strong female characters who do more than just stand to the side. The reason that the male protector stereotype is still played is because this particular literary trope has become a staple in action oriented fiction.

Leon: The Professional was perhaps one of the first works to use this theme. In this (highly recommended) film, Natalie Portman plays a 12 year old girl who witnesses the murder of her parents at the hands of organised criminals. A hitman, Jean Reno reluctantly takes her under his wing as she begs for the means to carry out vengeance. A surrogate father-daughter relationship is developed, and the girl finds her own strength, and grows out of helpelessness. 

Mathilda and Leon from Leon: The Professional

Recent black comedies God Bless America by Bobcat Goldthwait and Super by James Gunn portray the same trope - a gruff older male reluctantly takes a younger female under his wing and they end up participating in various shenanigans. In God Bless America, a young Roxy is trained by a mentally unstable Frank to aid him on his violent crusade across america. Super shows the questionable relationship between the young female amateur superhero Boltine following in the footsteps of the Crimson Avenger.

Frank and Roxy from God Bless America

The point is - it's an idea that we know well, and that therefore writers feel safe writing. The sexism that is coming out of this is as a result of complacency. Many examples of this trope already exist within literature. This has the twofold of effect of making it easier to write, and easier to relate to. It's an image we all know and have had experience with. It's an image that has already been proven to connect to its audience. The sexism is old - we've just gotten used to it.

I will sign off by saying that I think we're moving in the right direction with these sorts of portrayals. They are by no means ethically sound, but they at least portray stronger and more independent women than have been portrayed in the past through all media. That we still rely on old tropes is a mechanic of conservatism in all media.

We still need to keep pushing forward.

Steely Nolan

Zack Snyder's notable directing credits include The 300, Sucker Punch and that stupid owls movie. Perhaps his only saving grace was his daring adaption of Alan Moore's classic The Watchmen. I dreaded what he would do to my beloved Superman franchise. 

Mr. Snyder, you bastard, you've proven me wrong.

As you may well have guessed, I thought that Man Of Steel was a good movie. I won't go so far as to say excellent - it has its fair share of flaws. But given the scope of what he was trying to do and the constraints of a 2.5 hour movie, I think Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan did the best that they could.

The fact that Christopher Nolan's name is so attached to this movie is rather telling of a few things. This is a rare occurance - the studios marketed their executive producer so hard that you can be forgiven for forgetting that Man of Steel is a Zack Snyder film and not a Nolan film. 

Whatever the marketing purposes may be, though, Nolan and Snyder's chemistry worked to the benefit of the film. The Dark Knight, Inception and his other countless films fairly firmly establish Christopher Nolan as one of our generations best storytellers in film. His skill in dancing characters and situations in a believable and profound way is just what the Superman franchise needed - the realistic anchor that made The Dark Knight such an amazing film.

But what Superman will always need in whichever incarnation is a sense of optimism, awe and wonder. This is where Snyder shines. Snyder brings to the table an element of fantasy and optimism to lift the weight of gravity that Nolan is so famed for bringing to his films. And what results is the best possible reboot that the Superman film series could have hoped for.

Kansas Family - Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) and his adpoted Mother (Diane Lane)

The reboot keeps together all the classic elements of the series and adds in some extra spice to keep the movie from being overly predictable. Jonathan and Martha Kent cross over into moral grey areas, trying to keep their adopted son's abilities a secret. Lois Lane has finally thrown off all the anti-feminist shackles of ditziness that plagued her throughout all the past portrayals. And Clark isn't a standup American home-boy. He's a drifter trying to figure out where he came from and what he should do - there's only so much rural American farmers can tell you about being a super-powered alien.

Where Man of Steel shines is in portraying Superman's relationship with humanity. The major theme in the movie is that of trust. And he doesn't trust America to know his secret, just as they don't trust him having hidden among them for 30 odd years. The world doesn't immediately take a shining to him because he puts out a few fires or saves a cat from a tree. The movie does well to grapple with what would happen if an Alien showed up on our doorstep.

Special mention must go to the film's addressing of people's core issue with Superman - that he's invincible. This is very much established that it's not the case. We see what Superman Returns failed to really show us - peril. Superman gets hurt, beaten down, even bleeds fair bit. This is a Superman who is pushed to his limits in a painful way. 

Not quite sure of himself, gearing up for battle

I did mean what I said, however, when I said that the movie was 'the best that they could do'. In order to do this movie and keep in believable and epic, the pace of the movie had to be set to fast forward. Scenes are cut together quickly, large swathes of time and character development left up to our imagination and a few significant plot developments happen off screen. 

All the criticisms I've read about this movie more or less stem from a disappointment in the way the plot and characters are developed. Perhaps I look at Man of Steel through the rose coloured glasses of a fanboy, but the way the movie played out felt as if all those extra scenes were written, and maybe even filmed, but not shown. Such is the constraint of having to contain an origin story within 2.5 hours that a significant chunk of these things need to be abridged, or even left out altogether. 

That having been said, Batman Begins suffered from many of the same detriments. But that movie gave The Dark Knight the ability to cast off the shackles of having to establish origins and focussed on Bruce Wayne's single greatest conflict and delivered to us the best superhero movie to date. I sincerely hope that Man Of Steel's sequels (which are now in production) will do the same.

Footnote: I laughed like a drain when I originally heard that Russel 'telephone-throwing kiwi' Crowe was playing Jor-El, a part previously played by Marlon Brando.

I walked out of the cinema thinking that he was kind of a badass.


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Post-Scriptum - Bugger it. I'm going to do a spoilerific analysis at some point in the near future. Stay Tuned!