Women in Classical Video Games by Jane Draycott;Kate Cook;

Author:Jane Draycott;Kate Cook; [Cook, Edited by Jane Draycott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350241947
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2022-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 9.2 Screenshot from God of War III. Image courtesy of Olivia Ciaccia.

Nevertheless, such suggestions are widely optimistic. The Pandora’s Box narrative has already asserted that Aphrodite’s behaviour is a corrupted version of her (women’s) sexuality, rather than a healthy expression. Indeed, her sexual appetite justifies her extramarital affairs, suggesting that women who enjoy sex are immoral and adulterous.83 Sexual empowerment is not identified by performative displays of (real or imagined) sexual pleasure; instead, it is an individual’s agentic enjoyment of their sexuality, for their own sake, whilst also maintaining the various other aspects of their personhood. In contrast to how GoW3 develops Pandora’s mythic character beyond her traditional role as the bringer of the world’s evils, Aphrodite is stripped of the fullness of her history and character.84 Rather than an opportunity to express her selfhood and agency, Aphrodite’s dialogue and behaviour serve only to reinforce a one-dimensional function. The representation of Aphrodite’s pleasure, or that of her voyeuristic lovers, is hollow, for their visually amorous response to the scene off-camera and Aphrodite’s concluding crescendo of moaning remains firmly within the ‘male gaze’.85 The description of Aphrodite’s body on the Fandom page articulates this gaze, describing her as normatively attractive, with ‘perfectly sized and formed breasts (most likely to sexually appeal to mortals)’. The page also explains that being sexually experienced makes her difficult to please, except, of course, for alpha males like Kratos.86 Furthermore, such displays of supposed pleasure cannot be taken at face value, as shown through the mechanics of controversial video games that require players to enforce sexual pleasure on non-consenting women NPCs.87 The choice to depict Aphrodite in this way is therefore clearly not intended to celebrate women’s sexual agency. The inclusion of the minigame demonstrates that now that Pandora’s Box is open in the game-world, characters such as Kratos are free to take advantage of the consequences of corruption. This also extends into the real world, conveying the message to players that women like Aphrodite, who represent women’s already corrupted sexuality, should expect to be sexually used.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.