Diversity
in Games has been a hot topic for a long while now and it’s great! The talking,
the drama, the controversies, they all help to push things forwards in the end.
But, while I am an advocate of diversity and change, sometimes companies go
about it a strange way. My rant is not strictly Game related, but as Marvel
Universe is ever adapted into video games, the issue remains valid for both
forms! So what is my beef? Diminishing the value of existing female characters,
by morphing them into male roles, thus supposedly giving them more power – or
rather better sales. Let me explain.
Marvel
would like us to believe, becoming a man, or rather taking a man’s pre-made
identity, is the pinnacle of female achievement, because clearly these females
could not sustain their own identity. Why do I say this? Well, let us look at
what’s going on in the Marvel Universe at the moment. In a recent re-vamp of
the franchise, Thor became a woman. Now, I am not actually well versed in this
story-line and I don’t want to spoil it either, so I will just say that a
certain woman was deemed worthy by the Hammer and takes on the mantle of Thor
(the link will tell you more if you do want a spoiler: http://time.com/3857111/female-thor-identity/).
Ok,
I thought. Mildly irritated that a much loved character is being side lined and
robbed of his birth right, to become Odinson, but fine, I thought to myself.
After all, why not? Have some fun with a character, see what happens. The
Hammer always carried the potential for other carriers, so at least it is not
breaking with the law, as it were. At this point, I never considered the woman
behind the hammer, nor the implications of her sudden rise to fame and
sale-ability. She is, after all, an existing character, it's just that she was
never hero enough to claim the lime light, not until she took Thor's that is.
But, it was not until the case study below that my attention was turned to this
potential problem.
Recently,
news of Wolverine’s new ‘face’ hit my social networks and it was just too much.
SPOILERS AHEAD! Now, this one I cannot fully discuss without spoilers, so I am
afraid you’ll find out who’s who if you continue reading.
There
is a character, a wonderful, strong, independent, interesting female character,
with one of the best origin stories I’ve ever read in Marvel. Her code name is,
or was, X-23, her name Laura Kinney, and she is a female clone of Wolverine.
But alas, her gritty story, her growth over the years and her own achievements
as a character, apparently mean nothing! In order to move to the big league and
really hit the jackpot, she needed to hijack a successful male identity, because you know, her own was just not as sales -worthy, right? And so, I now
hear, X-23 has become Wolverine!
(http://www.geek.com/news/all-new-all-different-marvel-will-have-a-new-hulk-and-a-lady-wolverine-1624539/New Wolverine)
Sure,
the man himself is dead, (don’t get me started on that one) so, one may argue
she’s taking on his mantle, or whatever. Yet I will argue, she is already
his female clone, she is already his friend, or surrogate daughter, and part of
his team, and she could have taken the mantle and honoured her mentor as
herself. I get the whole legacy idea, sure, but I just don’t like it. I like
X-23, I enjoyed her unusual, mature storyline and I wanted to see her develop
her own strength and become her own hero. It is so very sad to see such a
strong female character in the shadow of her male counterpart once more, and
this time under the guise of female power!
Perhaps
some people will say: ‘This is just a good story twist. We need more women in
comics, or why should it matter?’ And who knows, maybe they’re right. But you
know what, we do have women in comics! And guess what, we could make new ones!
We could write awesome storylines for them and make them 21st century icons all on their own!!! We
could stop recycling the old heroes, stop stripping away their identity and
stop telling us that a female character can only be successful as a Man!
I
am usually an advocate of diversity in my beloved geekdom. I hate that there
aren’t enough good, big games that give me the option to play as a female
character. I love when TV, Comics or Games explore different genders,
ethnicities, sexualities etc. But there is the right and the wrong way to do
these things. Both heroines, female Thor and female Wolverine are interesting
ideas, but why do they have to overwrite existing characters? Did they have Clark
Kent take on the mantle of Wonder Woman no, they did not (different
universe, I know, but the point stands)! Undermining existing female identities
by having them take over male heroes, is for me, the wrong way.
Rant
over, for now, till I see more of my favourite characters being stripped of
their power and identity that is!
