Gender total war. Deconstructing new models of amazon identity in videogames

Abstract

The image of the female warrior that has been transmitted through video games has its roots directly or indirectly in the stereotype transmitted by Classical Culture, specifically from the characteristics associated with the mythical Amazons. However, although the progress achieved in the search for equality has managed to reverse the original paradigm associated with the female warrior, which categorised her in a negative way for showing interest in spheres traditionally associated with the male context, her representation in certain contexts has still not managed to abandon this negative characterisation, which underestimated the impact of her warrior attitude and reduced her to a simple erotic object through her image and attire. In general, this is a common problem in modern art, but it is particularly evident in the context of video games. Generally, the image of women in video games has evolved a lot since the first examples in the 70s and 80s, although the world of games is very wide and not all games have managed to move away from the more traditional stereotypes that mainly promoted their erotic and sexual character in order to attract a type of player that mainly corresponded to young men. Nowadays, this type of image still exists, although not in a generalised way but restricted to certain specific types of adult games, thanks to the progress in the fight for women's rights and the fact that today there are a large number of female players who demand other types of content. This is what happens with the games we are going to analyse, in this case starring Amazon warrior women, but separated by 35 years of development not only in terms of the world of video games, but also in terms of the consumer market and the ethical and moral values of the societies in which they were born. However, although the treatment has changed with respect to certain aspects, such as the interest in offering more realistic games, in others many traditionalisms have been distorted by the passage of time, as in the case of the Amazon image.