Be it the dainty Princess Peach or the iconic Laura Croft, gamers are used to viewing female characters through exaggerated clichés of the way our culture views women. More often than not, women are seen in games for their sexuality, no matter what role they play. The issue is the way women are objectified in the real world, and this is easily transferred into video games.
Even when the female is the playable character, we see signs of this stereotype. And not just in Tomb Raider, other games feature the sexy protagonist: Nariko, Ada Wong, Chun Li… all of these characters are over sexualized. I mean, I understand the idea of the “strong and beautiful”, but it seems that even this doesn’t lift the underlying meaning of their appearances.
Not only do these women symbolize sexuality, but the “damsel in distress” characters represent it as well. For example, Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario does all that work to rescue her, and for what? A kiss at the end. She is the reward for defeating Bowser, saving the world, or whatever you want to call it. To put it simply, Mario did everything to get to Peach – his goal was to get the girl. The princess was the trophy… once again, an object.
