Just Let Our Villains Be Villains

Earlier on this week, I stumbled upon a polarising tweet from Tauriq Moosa on the game that's proved a landmark success for the industry, Fallout 4. The 4th main instalment of the series has garnered high praise, earning an 8.5/10 from us, and 85/100 across all reviewers on Metacritic for the PC version. It's the hot game of the minute in that everyone seems to be loving it, yet, to go back to the tweet at hand, Moosa seems to be less than satisfied with one key part of the game's direction.

Fallout4 PSA: When you play as a female character, be prepared for gendered barks "Hey, little girl!" etc. Disappointing.

— end comment sections (@tauriqmoosa) November 23, 2015

https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/668683370549927937

In the tweet, Moosa supposes that Fallout 4 is “disappointing” for the fact that villain NPCs will shout gendered insults towards the player character, such as the aforementioned “Hey, little girl!”. As I do so often on the internet these days, and more so as time goes on, I rolled my eyes, sighed, and tutted for a good few seconds like an old English biddy.

Mr Moosa is right and wrong; if he were totally and completely wrong, his tweet would not be as frustrating. The fact is the villains do make use of these gendered slurs, but the idea that the appearance of them in the fictional world of Fallout 4 is a negative thing is just opinion. In the real world, sexual harassment and violence is abhorrent, and should never be tolerated under any circumstances. Yet, as this is a work of fiction, I can't agree so readily. In fiction, acts of heroism and villainy can be exaggerated to inspire a stronger reaction from the viewer/reader/player; this relates to fiction having a stronger, better defined dichotomy of good and evil, whereas in reality, people are more neutral. As such, the gendered slurs can add context and characterisation to a fictionalised work, while also creating a stronger message and lesson on them.

These 'gendered insults' are a success in this game. We come into Fallout 4 or Tomb Raider or Fantasy World Dizzy with notions of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” in real life, and this helps to inform our reading of the game and its characters. If we come into Fallout 4 knowing it's morally wrong to shout a word like “bitch” at a woman we don't know on the street, we’ll probably know it’s wrong in a videogame as well. Imagine this; let's say someone less informed is playing the game. Let's say they're 10, and they've gotten ahold of the game from a sibling or a less-than-vigilant parent. They're 10, so they don't know much about gender politics. They're more impressionable. As long as Fallout characterises its characters properly, there's still no problem. If this 10 year old doesn't know why gendered insults might be wrong, they'll quickly make the association through the game. A character is coming towards us, shooting us and looking to cause a quick game over – must be a bad guy, right? The child will know he's a villain based on those actions. If the villain were to use, say, racial slurs in his assault, his actions and words couple together. The villain uses racial slurs. Nobody else does, especially the heroic character, who finds them disgusting. There's a clear message of racial slurs = villainous there.

 

In the same way, in the real version of Fallout 4, the message is that gendered insults = villainous as they're employed by, you know, villains and not the heroic protagonists. This works in the fiction of Fallout and indeed any other game, because we come into the experience knowing it's not okay, and even if we don't, it's coded in such a way to make it clear. Plus, the insults add to the atmosphere of the apocalypse; anarchy will be running wild, and with no social mores to keep them in line, covert sexists and racists are more likely to come out of the woodwork, bringing their language with them. Granted, who uses this language within the text is just as important, but it’s key to creating a miserable, daunting atmosphere.

Now, of course, the issue of catcalling is serious, and its reproduction in digital form will probably hit a bit too close to home for many people. It follows the same vein of thinking that tells us that topics like rape and sexual assault should be handled with tact in media. This is true, but we have to again consider Fallout 4, or even just the franchise itself for a minute. The main character, male or female, is usually armed to the teeth and primed to take out enemies. Any mook that tries to come at you is going to die, no matter what they say. This would be different if your player character possessed no strength, if the sexism was glorified, and the villain never got their comeuppance, but here? Even if there’s no way to verbally retort (which, admittedly, would have been a cool gimmick), shots fired into the face of the villain is as good a rejoinder as any. You wouldn’t tolerate it in the real world; don’t accept to hear it in the digital one. And yes, that creates the question: “why even put people like that in the game to begin with?”. The sad reality is that, for the time being, sexism deeply penetrates culture, and to steal a line from the oft-vaunted Warner Bros. disclaimer, to not include some representation of that in the game would be to pretend those prejudices don’t exist, especially considering the time frame of Fallout.

To take this one step further on villain representation, let's look at professional wrestling for a second, where the divide between good guys and bad guys couldn't be clearer. Actions and events show the audience whether a character is a good guy or a bad guy. “Macho Man” Randy Savage was loud, colourful, did flashy impressive moves, and entered the ring to the patriotic-sounding Pomp and Circumstance – easily a good guy. In contrast, take someone like “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. His character was arrogant, rude, loved to flaunt his money in front of the (majority) working-class fans, stuffed his opponent's mouths with bills as a sort of final insult, and – cannot stress this enough – he had an African-American slave called Virgil. Nobody's looking at DiBiase in the fiction of 1980s wrestling and thinking, “Man, what a stand-up guy!”, except for perhaps neo-Nazis and white supremacists, who, importantly, bring their prejudices in the door with them.

Choices inform characters. The Bethesda writers don't sit around a table eating pizza and jacking off; their scripts are often intelligently and purposefully written. Representation is no accident, and to make some mook villains in the game be leering and perverted towards female player characters is a solid narrative choice. It would definitely be questionable if someone such as Nathan Drake popped off language like that to Elena Fisher, because he's presented as the consummate smiling, charming good guy in a world of scumbag villains. But among the likes of Dimitri Rascalov or Frank Tenpenny, it makes perfect sense, as their bigotry informs their villainy.

Yes, sexual harassment is terrible. Yes, representation matters. But to say that the appearance of it in media is “disappointing” seems extremely limiting, as if we can't even talk about it or dissect it further. As such, complaints of that nature from Moosa seem quite myopic. In short, the idea that this makes for bad media is disheartening. The representation of women in videogames has never been purely positive, but this is the wrong thing to get angry about. Just let villains be villains.