Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself. 

As a trope the Damsel in Distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist's quest.

ABOUT THE VIDEO SERIES
The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective. This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it's more problematic or pernicious aspects.

MORE INFO
For more examples of the Damsel in Distress see our Tumblr for this series:
http://tropesversuswomen.tumblr.com

Visit http://www.feministfrequency.com for more information, videos and a full transcript. English language captions coming soon!

This video series is created by Anita Sarkeesian and the project was funded by 6968 awesome backers on Kickstarter.com

ABOUT COMMENTS
Comments are currently closed (for obvious reasons) however, please feel free to share and embed this video on your own blogs and social media networks to facilitate discussions on the topic.

For more information on Cyber mobs and gendered online harassment, you can watch my TEDxWomen talk on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q

(Princess Peach) Mario! Oh Help!

Welcome to our multi-part video series exploring the roles and representations of women in video games

This project will examine the tropes, plot devices and patterns most commonly associated with women in gaming

from a systemic, big picture perspective.

This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters

but remember, it is both possible, and even necessary

to simultaneously enjoy media, while also being critical of its more problematic and pernicious aspects.

So, without further ado, lets jump right into The Damsel In Distress.

Let's start with the story of a game that no-one ever got to play

Back in 1999, game developer 'Rare' was hard at work on a new original title for the Nintendo 64 called Dinosaur Planet.

The game was to star a 16 year old hero named Krystal as one of two playable protagonists.

She was tasked with travelling through time, fighting prehistoric monsters with her magical staff

and saving the world. She was strong, she was capable and she was heroic.

*"And who might you be, animal girl?"*

*"My name is Krystal"*

Pretty cool right?

Well, it would have been except the game never got released.

As development on the project neared completion, legendary game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto

joked about how he thought it should be the third installment in his Star Fox franchise instead.

Over the next two years, he and Nintendo did just that.

They rewrote and redesigned the game and released it as Star Fox Adventures for the Game Cube in 2002.

In this revamped version, the would-be protagonist Krystal, has been transformed into a Damsel-in-Distress

and spends the vast majority of the game trapped inside a crystal prison

waiting to be rescued by the new hero, Fox McCloud.

The in-game actions sequences that were originally built for Krystal

were converted to feature Fox instead.

Krystal is given a skimpier, more sexualized outfit.

"Wow! She's beautiful!!"

*cheesy saxophone music plays*

"What am I doing?"

And, yes. That is cheesy saxophone music to make sure it crystal clear that she is now an object of desire

even while in suspended animation.

To add insult to injury,

Fox is now using her magical staff to fight his way through the game to save her.

The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure

to the passive victim in someone else's game

illustrates how the Damsel-in-Distress trope disempowers female characters

and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own right.

The term 'damsel in distress' is a translation of the French 'demoiselle en détresse'.

'Demoiselle' simply means 'young lady'

while 'détresse' means, roughly, anxiety or despair caused by a sense of abandonment

helplessness or danger.

As a trope, the Damsel in Distress is a plot device

in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation

from which she cannot escape on her own, and must be rescued by a male character,

usually providing the core incentive or motivation

for the protagonist's quest

In video games, this is most often accomplished via kidnapping

but it can also take the form of petrification or demon possession, for example.

Traditionally, the woman in distress is a family member or a love interest of the hero,

princesses, wives, girlfriends and sisters are all commonly used to fill the role.

Of course the Damsel in Distress predates the invention of video games by several thousand years.

The trope can be traced back to Ancient Greek mythology with the tale of Perseus.

According to the myth, Andromeda is about to be devoured by a sea monster

after being chained naked to a rock as human sacrifice.

Perseus slays the beast, rescues the princess and then claims her as his wife.

In the middle ages, the Damsel in Distress was a common feature

in many medieval songs, legends and fairy tales.

The saving of a defenseless woman was often portrayed as the raison d'être

or reason for existence in romance tales and poems of the era.

involving a knight-errant, the wandering knight

adventuring to prove his chivalry, prowess and virtue.

At the turn of the twentieth century, victimized young women became the cliche of choice

for the nascent American film industry

as it provided an easy and sensational plot device for the silver screen.

A famous early example is the 1913 Keystone Cops' short, *"Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life'*

which features the now iconic scene,

of a woman being tied to the railway tracks by an evil mustache twirling villain.

Around the same time, the motif of a giant monkey, carrying away a screaming woman

began to gain widespread popularity in media of all kinds

notably Tarzan's love interest, Jane,

is captured by a broodish primate

in Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 pulp adventure

*Tarzan and the Apes*

In 1930, Walt Disney used this meme in an early Mickey Mouse cartoon

called *The Gorilla Mystery*.

The imagery was even exploited by the US military in this recruitment poster for World War I

But it was in 1933 that two things happened,

which 50 years later, would set the stage for the Damsel in Distress trope

to become a foundational element in video games as a media.

First, Paramount Pictures introduced their animated series, *Popeye the Sailor* to cinema audiences.

The formula for most shorts would involved Popeye rescuing a kidnapped Olive Oyl.

Second, in March of that year, RKO pictures releases its groundbreaking hit film *King Kong*

in which a giant ape abducts a young woman

and is eventually killed while trying to keep possession of her.

Fast forward to 1981, when a Japanese company named Nintendo

entrusted a young designer named Shigeru Miyamoto

with the task of creating a new arcade game for the American market.

Originally, the project was conceived of as a game starring Popeye the sailor

but when Nintendo wasn't able to secure the rights

Miyamoto created his own characters to fill the void, heavily influenced by the movie *King Kong*.

The game's hero 'Jump Man' was tasked with rescuing a damsel named 'The Lady',

after she is carried off by a giant ape.

In later versions, she is renamed 'Pauline'.

Although Donkey Kong is perhaps the most famous early arcade game to feature the Damsel in Distress

it wasn't the first time Miyamoto employed the trope.

Two years earlier, he had a hand in designing a 1979 arcade game called Sheriff.

In it, a vague female shaped collection of pixels

referred to as 'The Beauty', must be rescued from a pack of bandits.

The hero is then rewarded with a 'smooch of victory' for his bravery in the end.

A few years later, Miyamoto recycled his Donkey Kong character designs

Pauline became the template for a new damsel named Princess Toadstool

and 'Jump Man' became a certain very famous plumber.

Princess Peach is in many ways the quintessential stock character version of the Damsel in Distress.

The ill-fated princess appears in fourteen of the core Super Mario Bros platformer games

and she is kidnapped in thirteen of them.

The North American release of Super Mario Bros 2 in 1988

remains the only game in the core series in which Peach is not kidnapped

and also the only game in which she is a playable character,

though it should be noted it wasn't originally created to be Mario game at all.

The game was originally released in Japan under a completely different title

called *Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panikku*

which, roughly translates to *Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic*

*Japanese voice over*

Nintendo of American thought that the original Japanese release of Super Mario Bros 2 was too difficult

and too similar to the first game

and so they re-skinned and redesigned *Doki Doki Panic*

to star Mario and Luigi instead.

However, the Japanese game already had four playable characters.

So the designers opted to include Toad and the Princess to fill the two remaining slots

building directly on top of the pre-existing character models.

So really, if we're honest, Peach is kinda accidentally playable in this one.

Still, she had the awesome ability to float for short distances

which came in really handy, especially in the ice levels.

Sadly, Peach has never been a playable character again in the main franchise.

Even with newer games that feature four player options,

like the new Super Mario Bros Wii and WiiU

the Princess is still excluded from the action.

She's been replaced with another Toad instead

as to allow Nintendo to force her back into the Damsel role, again and again.

Peach does of course appear in many spin offs,

such as the Mario Party, Mario Sports and Mario Kart series

as well as the Super Smash Bros Nintendo universe cross-over fighting games

however all of these spin offs fall well outside of the core Super Mario series of platformers.

She is the star of only one adventure, and we'll get to that a little later.

One way to think about Damsel characters is via what is called the subject/ object dichotomy.

In the simplest terms, subjects act, and objects are acted upon.

The subject is the protagonist; the one who the story is centered on

and the one doing most of the action.

In video games this is almost always the main playable character

and the one from whose perspective most of the story is seen.

So the Damsel Trope typically makes men the subject of narratives

while relegating women to the role of object.

This is a form of objectification, because as objects damsel'ed women are being acted upon,

most often becoming, or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved.

The brief into sequence accompanying many classic arcade games

tends to reinforce the framing of women as a possession that has been stolen from the protagonist.

The hero's fight to retrieve his stolen 'property' then provides lazy justification for the actual gameplay.

At its heart, the Damsel Trope is not really about women at all.

She simply becomes the central object in a competition between men,

at least in its traditional incarnations.

I've heard it said that, in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team,

they are the ball.

So for example, we can think of the Super Mario franchise as a grand game being played

between Mario and Bowser and Princess Peach's role is essentially that of the ball.

The two men are tossing her back and forth

over the course of the main series,

each trying to keep and take possession of the 'Damsel Ball'.

Even though Nintendo certainly didn't invent the Damsel in Distress,

the popularity of their 'save the princess' formula, essentially set the standard for the industry.

The trope quickly became the go-to motivational hook for developers

as it provided an easy way to tap into adolescent male power fantasies

in order to sell more games to young straight boys and men.

Throughout the 80s and 90s the trope became so prevalent,

that it would be nearly impossible to mention them all.

There were literally hundreds of examples showing up at platformers

side scrolling beat-em-ups,

first person shooters

and role playing games alike.

Let's take a quick moment to clear up some common misconceptions about this trope.

As a plot device the Damsel in Distress is often grouped with other, separate tropes,

including 'The Designated Victim', 'The Heroic Rescue' and 'The Smooch of Victory'.

However, it is important to remember that these associated conventions

are not necessarily a part of the Damsel in Distress trope itself.

So the woman in question may or may not play the victim role for the entire game or series

while our brave hero may or may not be successful in his rescue attempts.

All that is really required to fulfil the Damsel in Distress trope

is for a female character to be reduced to a state of helplessness

from which she requires rescuing by a typically male hero

for the benefit of his story arc.

This brings us to the other famous Nintendo princess.

In 1986, Shigeru Miyamoto doubled down on his Damsel in Distress formula

with the NES release of *The Legend of Zelda*.

This was the first in what would become one of the most beloved action adventure game franchises of all time.

Over the course of more than a dozen games, spanning a quarter century,

all of the incarnations of Princess Zelda have been kidnapped, cursed, possessed, turned to stone,

or otherwise disempowered at some point.

Zelda has never been the star in her own adventure, nor been a true playable character in the core series.

However, it must be said that not all Damsels are created equal

and Zelda is occasionally given a more active or integral role to play than her counter part in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Unlike Peach, Zelda is not completely defined by her role as Ganondorf's perpetual kidnap victim

and in a few later games, she even rides the line between Damsel and Sidekick.

Remember, the Damsel in Distress as plot device is something that happens to a female character

and not necessarily something a character is from start to finish.

Once in a while, she might be given the opportunity to have a slightly more active role

in facilitating the hero's quest, typically by opening doors, giving hints, power-ups

and other helpful items.

I call this variant on the theme, The Helpful Damsel.

Indeed Zelda is at her best when she takes the form of Sheik in Ocarina of Time and Tetra in The Wind Waker.

In Ocarina of Time, Zelda avoids capture for the first three quarters of the game.

Disguised as Sheik, she is a helpful and active participant in the adventure

and she is shown to be more than capable.

However, as soon as she transforms back into her more stereotypically feminine form of Zelda

she is captured within three minutes.

Literally three minutes. I timed it.

Her rescue then becomes central to the end of Link's quest.

Similarly, in the Wind Waker, Tetra is a feisty and impressive young pirate captain

but as soon as she is revealed to be, and transformed into, her more stereotypically feminine form of Princess Zelda

she's told that she is no longer allowed to accompany Link on the adventure

because it is suddenly too dangerous for her.

She is ordered to wait in the castle,

which she does until she is eventually kidnapped, while waiting obediently in the same spot.

It is noteworthy that, in the very last stage of the boss battle,

she does help Link fight Ganondorf, for a few brief minutes, which is a refreshing change.

However the next time Tetra's incarnation appears, in 2007's The Phantom Hourglass

she is kidnapped immediately during the intro.

Later she is turned to stone and then kidnapped for a second time.

It’s disappointing that even with her moments of heroism, Zelda is still damsel’ed

she is removed from the action, pushed aside,

and made helpless at least once in every game she appears in.

This brings us to one of the core reasons why the trope is so problematic and pernicious for women’s representations.

The damsel in distress is not just a synonym for “weak”,

instead it works by ripping away the power from female characters, even helpful or seemingly capable ones.

No matter what we are told about their magical abilities, skills or strengths

they are still ultimately captured or otherwise incapacitated and then must wait for rescue.

Distilled down to its essence, the plot device works by trading the disempowerment of female characters

FOR the empowerment of male characters.

Let’s compare the damsel to the archetypal Hero Myth,

in which the typically male character may occasionally also be harmed,

incapacitated or briefly imprisoned at some point during their journey.

In these situations, the character relies on their intelligence, cunning, and skill to engineer their own escape

— or, you know, just punching a hole in the prison wall works too.

The point is, they're ultimately able to gain back their own freedom.

In fact that process of overcoming the ordeal

is an important step in the protagonist's transformation into an heroic figure.

A damsel'ed women on the other hand, is shown as incapable of escaping the predicament on her own

and then must wait for a savior to come and do it for her.

In this way, the Damsel's ordeal is not her own,

instead it is framed as a trial for the hero to overcome.

Consequently the trope robs women in peril from the opportunity of being the architects of their own escape

and therefore prevents them from becomig archetypal heroes themselves.

Today, many old school Damsel games are being resurrected for modern platform services and mobile devices

as publishers are in a rush to cash in on gaming nostalgia

and capitalise on any recognisable characters from years gone by.

For example, Sega's 1993 platformer, Sonic CD, featuring a Damsel'ed Amy Rose

has been enhanced and made available for download on a wide variety of modern platforms.

Jordan Mechner's famous Karateka and *Prince of Persia* games,

originally released for the Apple II home computer in the 1980s,

have both seen modern HD remakes.

And the 1983 animated laser disk game, *Dragon's Lair*,

with ditsy Princess Daphne, has been ported to just about every system imaginable.

*Please save me! The cage is locked. With a key. The dragon keeps it around his neck.*

*To slay the dragon use the magic sword*

Remember Pauline? Damsel in the classic Donkey Kong arcade?

Well she has also been revived. First in 1994's Donkey Kong for the Game Boy

and later in the Mario versus Donkey Kong series for the Nintendo DS.

Each game features a rehashing of the old excuse plot

with Pauline being whisked away by the giant ape in the opening credits.

The now iconic opening seconds of the 1987 beat-em-up arcade game *Double Dragon*

has Marian being punched in the stomach, thrown over the shoulder of a thug, and carried away.

In several versions, her panties are clearly shown to the player while she is being abducted.

The game has been remade, released, and ported to dozens of systems over the past 25 years

ensuring that Marian will be battered and Damsel'ed for each new generation to enjoy.

Most recently Double Dragon Neon and 2012 reintroduced new gamers to this regressive crap, yet again

this time in full HD.

The pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective or ultimately incapable

has larger ramifications, beyond the characters themselves

and the specific games they inhabit.

We have to remember that these games don't exist in a vacuum.

They are an increasingly important and influential part of our larger social and cultural ecosystem.

The reality is, this trope is being used in a real world context

where backward, sexist attitudes are already rampant.

It is a sad fact that a large percentage of the world's population, still clings to the deeply sexist belief

that women, as a group, need to be sheltered, protected, and taken care of by men.

The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender

is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed, myth which is of course completely false

but the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed

as frail, fragile and vulnerable creatures.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that all games that use the Damsel in Distress as a plot device

are automatically sexist, or have no value.

But it is undeniable that popular culture is a powerful influence in our lives

and the Damsel in Distress trope as a recurring trend, does help to normalise extremely toxic, patronising and paternalistic attitudes about women.

Now I grew up on Nintendo. I've been a fan of the Mario and Zelda franchises for most of my life

and they will always have a special place in my heart, as I'm sure is true for a great number of gamers out there.

But it is still important to recognise and think critically about the more problematic aspects

especially considering many of these franchises are as popular as ever

and the characters have become world wide icons.

The good news is that there is nothing stopping developers from evolving their gender representations

and making more women heroes in their future games.

It would be great to finally see Zelda, Sheik and Tetra as the protagonists of their own games.

And not just mobile DS games, I'm talking full-on console adventures.

OK, so we've established that the Damsel in Distress trope is one of the most widely used gendered cliches in the history video games

and has been core to the popularisation and development of gaming as a medium.

But what about modern games? Has anything changed in the past 10 years?

Well stay tuned for Part Two, where I will be looking at more contemporary examples of the Damsel in Distress trope.

We will look at all the dark and edgy twists and turns and see how the convention has been used and abused, right up until today.

Then we will check out some games where developers have tried to 'flip the script' on the Damsel.

I would like to extend a big thank you to all of my backers on Kickstarter

who have continued to support me and helped make this video series a reality.