The game that noone got to play
In 1999, game developer Rare were working on original title Dinosaur Planet, intended for the Nintendo 64, starring a 16 year old character, Krystal, as one of two playable protagonists. From the trailer released for the title, the audience can see that she was designed as a strong, capable and heroic protagonist. But as the project neared completion, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto joked that it should be the the next instalment in Star Fox. It was rewritten and redesigned, and released as Star Fox adventures in 2002 for the Game cube.
In this game, Krystal has been transformed into a damsel in distress, trapped in a crystal prison, waiting to be rescued by the new hero Fox Mcloud. In game action that was originally designed for Krystal was transformed for the new male protagonist, and insultingly he even uses what was originally her weapon to fight with in the game. Krystal has also been transformed visually, clearly intended as an object of desire in skimpy clothing, and hilariously, as Fox Mcloud casts his eyes upon her, cheesy sax music makes her sexualisation explicit. She is now a passive object of desire.
History of the Damsel in Distress
Derived from the french demoiselle en détresse. The trope is a plot device in which the female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by a male character, providing the core incentive or motivation for the protagonist's quest.
In gaming, this is usually achieved by kidnap, but can also be achieved by petrification or demon possession, etc. The damsel in often a love interest or close family member.
The trope can be traced back to ancient greek mythology in the story of Perseus, which includes him rescuing Princess Andromeda from a sea monster for whom she has been chained to the rocks as a sacrifice. He then brings her to Greece to marry her. The damsel in distress has been a common feature throughout time, and featured heavily in stories in the middle ages. Many romance stories used the damsel as the raison d'etre for the male protagonist, who by rescuing the damsel could display his own strength and chivalry. The film industry was an early adopter of the trope, using it as a sensational plot device which ended up being an easy sell to the audience. Examples of early films that use the trope include Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life, where a woman has been strapped to the train tracks by a moustached villain, awaiting rescue. Around this time, the motif of a giant monkey carrying away a screaming woman gained popularity in media of all forms, including Tarzan and the Apes (1918), The Gorilla Mystery (1930) and even US military recruitment posters.
In 1933 two things happened that set the stage for the trope to become the foundational element of many modern games. Paramount Pictures released Popeye the Sailor, an animated series, which featured Olive Oil as a damsel in distress who relied on Popeye to rescue her. The same year King Kong was released, featuring the giant monkey motif and the screaming, helpless girl who remains in his clutches. In 1981, Nintendo entrusts Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new arcade game for the US market. They originally conceived a Popeye game, but couldn't secure the rights to production, and so instead they created the platform game heavily influenced by King Kong entitled Donkey Kong, featuring a damsel, who has to be rescued from the clutches of Donkey Kong by the jump man, who was later developed into Mario.
Miyamoto had also been involved in creating an earlier arcade game called Sheriff (1979) in which a beauty must be rescued from bandits, and is rewarded with a kiss.
A few years later Miyamoto recycled the characters from Donkey Kong into the world famous franchise Super Mario Bros, and the lady evolved into Princess Peach, who can be seen as the quintessential damsel in distress.
Princess Peach features in all 14 of the core game series, and she is kidnapped in 13 of them. In the 14th game, she is really only playable by accident, after Nintendo in America reskinned and redesigned another game called Dream Factory - Heart Pounding Panic (rough translation) and needed to add additional playable characters. She has never been playable again the core series, although she is a playable character in the Mario spin off games such as Mario Kart. These fall outside the core series however, which belittles this fact.
The subject/object dichotomy. The subject acts, the object is acted upon. Games make men the subject of narratives, whilst the women are relegated to the objects. They are the prizes to be won, the goal to be achieved, and they are seen as possessions.
Women can be seen as the central object in a competition between men. It is said that in the game of patriarchy, women aren't the opposing team, they are the ball.
Nintendo obviously didn't invent the damsel in distress trope, but the popularity of their games set the standard for the whole industry.
Another example of a popular damsel in distress is Zelda from the Legend of Zelda action adventure series. There are 12 games in the series in different Nintendo formats. Zelda is never the star in her own game, instead she is the damsel whose rescue becomes the purpose of the protagonist's journey. Like Princess Peach, she is often kidnapped, but has also been turned to stone, possessed etc in the series. Unlike Peach, she is not entirely defined by her role, and sometimes plays a slightly more active part, for instance providing hints and powers and helping to facilitate the hero's quest.
At times she escapes her damsel identity by becoming Sheik in Ocarina of Time and Tetra in Windwaker, however, in both games as soon as her true identity is revealed she is captured or relegated to her role as damsel. However in Windwaker she does assist Link in fighting at the end of the game.
A Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time original advert reinforces the idea being a woman is a synonym for being weak. In games, damsels are stripped of their powers and left incapacitated. It is the disempowerment of the female character for the empowerment of the male character. When male protagonists are captured they use their skills to engineer their escape and are able to gain back their own freedom.
Tropes stop women from being their own heroes.
More examples of incapacitated women:
1983 - Dragon's Lair and Princess Daphne
1994 - Donkey Kong and then Mario vs Donkey Kong and the lady
1987 - Double Dragon and Marian.
All these games developed into series in which the female was always the damsel in distress.
Women in these and many other games were seen as weak, ineffective and incapable.
Games don't exist in a vacuum, and they are an influential part of our larger social and cultural eco system. The female as the weaker sex is a deeply engrained, socially constructed myth.
Not all games are sexist or without value, but when games using this trope are created and played as often as they are or have been in the past, they help to normalise patronising and paternalistic attitudes.
Feminist Frequency. 2013. Damsels in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes Vs Women in Video Games. [Online]. [Accessed 20th October 2013]. Available from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q
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