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Heroic Archetypes And Gender Bias In Video Games

1480 Words6 Pages

Heroic Archetypes and Gender Bias in Visual Media

By Lisa Mulligan

CDG1

Abstract -
Visual media such as video games have developed so much over the last twenty years. Games have become a popular media with all types of people throughout the world. This media affects many different people of all ages, religions, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation and especially gender. Gender bias is a huge issue within the games media. Issues such as stereotypes, objectification, overly sexualised characters mostly female and poor representation of female characters for example ‘damsel in distress’. These issues have been changing over time but are still within the media today. I want to discuss in this essay positive female archetypes within games and be able to compare overused female stereotypes in games to heroic female archetypes that give a fresh outlook to the games media and to female characters.

Heroic Archetypes and Gender Bias in Video Games -
There are still a number of stereotypical female characters that are representing women in games in a old fashioned, overused way. Some examples of these stereotypes are Glados from the Portal game series. "GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating
System) is the central core designed to control, guide, and oversee the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Center. With the ability to shift and move facilities and various chambers, GLaDOS is able to achieve a seamless and almost infinite testing

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