Gender Inequality in the Walking Dead
Formerly Shitbirds and Babykillers: Inequality of Gender Dynamics
On the anteceding of A New Frontier, it had the opportunity to fix several negative trends in regards to the character rosters. In this case, it would be that of the gender dynamics and how some character types tend to be written.
Men over women: Women are often either intelligent bitches with ruthless streaks or sweet soft-spoken ladies who are doomed to be made traitors or die.
Girl over boys: Boys are almost universally dumb, hyperactive, or assholes, when they aren’t being neglected and nonexistent that is.
And Heaven help you in you’re the odd teenager or, to a far lesser extent, elder of any gender, in which case all bets tend to be off in regards to how you will be portrayed and/or treated.
What are your takes on these trends and how do you think the future installments with influence them?
Comments
What?
I though I was pretty clear: how you feel about the way characters of a certain gender and age are handled, with any particular examples in mind, and what you want to see in the future with those trends in mind.
Is that really the problem/a problem?
I'm pretty sure the characters suck because TTG can't write for shit any more.
I suppose you have a point and it may indeed just be a case where the writing issues just so happen to coincide with these trends.
Still, it's an issue I've been wanting to address for a while. Even if laziness and an unstable internet connection keeps me for going in depth for a while.
I noticed this in tftbl with Yvette but they keep making female characters betray male characters and people get all mad and call the female characters bitches. Like idk I'm just frustrated thst Eleanor betrays you then does nothing and disappeared.
This probably doesn't make sense but I'm sleepy
Eleanor was supposed to do a lot more but her not doing any of it is just Telltale being shitty again.
It's more likely to be the writing style more so than any given stereotype. Males aren't represented as universally dumb, hyperactive, or assholes, and are far from being neglected and nonexistent. Examples of this are all over Telltale's many creations with Males largely taking the main focus with lots of development and tend to be multifaceted. Clementine is the only female sole lead, and even then the need to pair her with someone is taking precedence over her story arc the very moment she's shown to have reached puberty.
In TellTale's other works ( Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones, Guardians, ect ), it's shown that no one really fits into a single category. Character development issues are largely to blame for the lack of attachments and depth in the characters of the cabin group and ANF.
That's why I specified boys.
And yes, that is dumb.
Naw, it's fine. Took me forever to actually make a discussion this today.
Also, I don't know anything about this Yvette and her series, but thank's for the relevant example anyway!
I saw the title and immediately knew who made the thread.
I don't feel like gender-based trends really existed in Season One, but everything after that cranked up the negative aspects of (not just) characters tenfold and future entries have kept those depictions the same.
That is a very good point. After all, Season One had Katjaa, Carley, Lilly, Brenda, and Christa, even if Irene, Beatrice, Linda, Molly, and Joyce aren't the most noteworthy characters.
Luke was an exception of course.
Ethan from GoT was extremely well done, and fits that dynamic. It's a pity he only lived for one episode, but he's a great example that boys can and have been done well without being total badasses. I know it can be frustrating that there aren't a lot of teenagers in video games with any amount of depth, but it puts limitations as to what the writers have to work with when there are teens and children involved. They have to be mindful not to overly sexualize them or involve them in too much violence or face the backlash.
I really dunno what to say...like others have pointed out...Ethan was pretty smart...course that did him no good. I just do not see it as big an issue as you make out.
Its a game. It sounds like you need new problems.
Luke was an exception because he was technically a 27 year old man.
Ava ?
She is a great trustable person
True.
It might help if the title made sense.
There does seem to be more hate for female characters....based on this forum anyway. No one knows how the other %99 percent feels. One could argue its justified though. Is there really a reason to hate Luke, Alvin, Carlos, etc? Whereas Eleanor screwed us over, Bonnie screwed us over TWICE, Jane was a snake all along, Lilly killed one of our friends. Maybe its the writers who hate women and not the fanbase. lol Kenny, Ben, and Mike take a lot of s**t from fans though.
TrIgGerEd InComInG
I suppose. It's just a few recurring overtones of the games that I was starting to notice and was hoping ANF would take the opportunity to change with Kate and Gabe in particular.
Yeah, she is definitely an exception. Another reason to be grateful for her.
Well, I focused on women and boys in particular because the men roster tends to be pretty balanced in part because there are more of them. Kenny is the source of different problem on top of playing a part in these trends, Ben is included under boys(hence the title), and I honestly don't know what to say about Mike since he was one of the more balanced characters in general.
You're right that it definitely feels like there may just be a recurring issue with women in particular, as Carley, Katjaa, and Kate are the only noteworthy exceptions to the rule.
What? This is about recurring issues I've noticed and wanted to talk about for a little while now. I just may not have gotten my point across all that effectively.
You can't tell me you don't see one of these trends after examining the character list, can you?
Nice to hear! And you're right about that those issues with including youths, since ANF!Clementine, Sarah, and Gabe all raised concerns in regards to how they were portrayed and/or treated.
It's actually the hate children in general get that bothers me. Ben, Gabe, Duck, and Sarah are generally perceived negatively but Clementine can do no wrong. That bothers me. ppl who like Mariana are usually seen comparing her to Clementine sooo..
It's the zombie apocalypse. Men are generally speaking going to be more able to fight off a walker. So you are going to be able to find a more general spread of personality types among the male survivors.
The women who survive, again generally speaking, are going to be those who are smart enough to get protection from those more physically capable (which is most often going to be the male survivors.) They will by force of circumstance have to become more manipulative.
Old folk, again it's going to be rare to find an older person, of either gender, who is going to be physically capable of fending off a walker attack.
Teenagers are a somewhat mixed bag and I find it hard to explain why we don't have a wider field of them, other than of course we have limited time to spend with a cast so priorities must be made.
Yeah, that really does irk me as well. I suppose there's comfort to be taken in the fact that Becca and eventually Gabe actually deserved some of it, but still.
This is meant to be a discussion about how they tend to be portrayed just as much as how they are treated. Namely, that women and boys and especially teenagers tend to get the short end of the stick writing wise.
People like good people.
Gabe and Ben were just harmful in general to the group. Sarah was just helpless, which actually made me feel sorry for her.
ooohhh I forgot about Becca and AJ and all the "AJ must die" people. I'm all for him being safe somewhere that ISN'T with Clem, but you have to admit ppl wanting a baby to die is disturbing.
Yet in the scenario was are talking about here, a zombie apocalypse, they are going to be linked in how characters are going to be portrayed.
The type of people I mention are those more likely to survive. The greater the amount of survivors, the broader selection of personality types you are going to see represented.
Step outside the apocalypse scenario and I would agree with you, there does seem to be a personality and treatment issue. Yet here we are in the Walking Dead in an apocalypse and I think we are seeing a fair representation of the type of people who would survive.
It's an interesting discussion. Thanks for posting it.
Really? Mariana was indeed smart, but in no way I could compare her to Clem. Mariana looked emotionally stable, while Clem is the opposite. Upbringing does make a difference. I think it was well portrayed in this case. Gabe in the other hand... well, a boy reaching puberty, wanting to become a man like his father didn't help, since David is an asshole. Duck was dumb but cute in a way, he was still a child after all. Ben was a teen without confindence, but didn't hate him for that. Sara had serious mental problems, it can get on peoples nerves in bad situations. The only one I had troubles with was Arvo, even if you don't steal from him he ambush you saying you stole from him then he shoot Clem. Even if I felt pity at some point when Kenny hit him, I really didn't like his character.
You're right, and that's how they portrayed Clem.
Quite manipulative with Javier and Gabe.
It was heavily implied that Duck was autistic. He wasn't just "dumb". At least that my read.
Really? I didn't know about Duck. I thought he was just a child who didn't really grasp the situation.
Proof?
You're welcome!
I suppose I'm just a little sick of seeing the same types of characters repeatedly with relatively minute variation and really want to see newer personalities, race, gender, etc. be represented a little more. The fact that our most recent installment is called A NEW Frontier kinda aroused that expectation and, with some minor exceptions, ended up falling into a couple of safe places again.
Try to ignore this as I'm having computer issues at the moment and just need to post all this somewhere before I do anything with it.
Kate is a very well-written character.
I agree, but we don't really get further chances to take it in, you know?
I like most of the female cast this time around and feel they've been underutilized and/or mistreated.
Kate's determinant death feels a mite stupid to me.
"Gabentine" should've stayed a joke or at least a "maybe one day" sort of spiel. It's starting to hold both characters back.
Ava is one of the best supporting characters we've had.
I hope Clementine is wrong about Eleanor and maybe vice versa.
Come to think of it, this sexist shit is pretty stupid at this point in the game. You're either getting with Kate or you're not. Eleanor shouldn't be anymore demeaned and sidelined than she already has been
There were problems I had with how the women were presented in A New Frontier, mainly with Kate and Eleanor.
I felt that besides Clementine, a 13 year-old, no other female character were either likable, memorable, or relateable. Kate instigates a conflict between Javier and David, all while doing a 180 on her stance with Richmond. Eleanor purely exists to tease an alternate girlfriend choice for the player to have, and then suddenly stirs up trouble for Javier by betraying him regardless of whether Conrad is alive or not. Mariana is basically a Clementine expy who dies in the first episode and makes no impact on the player themselves due to lack of emotional investment opportunities. Joan is yet another generic and black-and-white villain with no redeemable qualities.
The only positive one I've seen is Ava, and if saved, is bitter towards Javier as to disallow any positive connections before her final moments where she's killed off in the most abrupt and comical fashion I've seen in the series. Ava is portrayed to have more depth in her character than any other, which isn't saying much considering how minimal character development was in A New Frontier, and had added a much needed lighter shade of grey in a black-and-white environment that is Richmond. But in her final episode, it's Tripp who gets to have a positive connection with Javier and a more dignified end to his role, whereas Ava is basically thrown to the trash.
So, long story short, I just want to have more engaging female characters with bigger and more meaningful roles in future episodes . Clementine shouldn't have to be the only likable female character to care about.