Sep 13 2010
The New Samus Isn’t Exactly a Beacon for Feminism
So Wii owners have been waiting for Metroid: Other M for a while now, as it’s something their system is mostly unfamiliar with, an actual video game. It’s an extension of a beloved franchise, and a new look at a classic character, Samus Aran.
Unnnnfortunately, this new look appears to set badass women in video games back a decade or so. Why?
This video above contains spoilers from the game, and it shows Samus confronting Ridley, the monster who killed her parents. And what does she do?
She freezes up, and practically bursts out in tears at the sight of him as her male commanding officer tells her to use her weaponized suit, which she does not, and is quickly captured by Ridley, until she is set free by another man.
Now, you may say that this would be a normal reaction for someone encountering something so terrifying and emotionally scarring in real life, but this isn’t real life, it’s a video game, and I cannot IMAGINE the same scenario repeating itself with a male lead character. And on top of things, at this point Samus has more combat experienced than anyone in the galaxy, and has killed Ridley like five times already. This might have made sense if the game were a prequel, but it most certainly is not, and the badass Samus just looks like a weak little girl here.
Bad move Nintendo, bad move.
More Unreal Posts
You really are a douchebag, Paul. Keep throwing your useless insults at the Wii, even though it’s the best selling system out today. I’m done reading any of your articles. You are a total waste.
The game is a follow up to Super Metroid. The Prime Games are not part of the story here so much.
There’s a difference about being a real character and being a blank slate. Video Game or not, what is the problem with having i don’t know character development, and show characters as more than just bland.
There’s no where written a badass can’t show fear too. Take Ripley from the Alien Movies. Badass, and fearful of the Xenomorphs too. Sorry that some people appricate Humanity showing up in their Videogames and not always Duke Nukem-esque not giving a shit.
man, calm down, it’s his opinion, anyway other M is indeed a prequel if i remember right.
and besides the wii is sort of like the N64 the best games are the ones by nintendo (with the exception of goldeneye and no more heroes)
Right on.
You imagine Solid Snake doing that? Any of the guys from Gears of War? No!
YOU try to keep your cool when you come face to face with your worst enemy who you killed a few times and positive he was deader than dead when Planet Zebes exploded in Super Metroid.
Not only that, but add to the fact that Samus suffers from PSTD (Mentioned in the canonical manga) and Ridley KILLING HER ENTIRE PLANET AND FAMILY RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE. Add to the formula Ridley completely blindsiding her, it’s just asking for her PSTD to kick in and make her freak out.
Badass or not you’re not invulnerable for mental attacks every once in a while.
Learn to analyze and think, Paul.
@ th
Lady gaga and justin bieber are two of the highest selling musicians right now, doesn’t mean they’re good. Same goes for twilight, avatar, halo etc. The list goes on. Popularity doesn’t always mean high quality product, in fact, in most cases the inverse is true.
@juan, it is most definitely NOT a prequel. It is the second to last game in the timeline, just before Fusion.
@Kenichi
I understand the psychological implications of this, and yes, it’s true that such an occurrence could activate mental issues like this in the real world, and subsequently in a game trying to be very realistic in its storytelling.
BUT
As I said, a male character would never be presented this way in a game. Can you imagine if Kratos came across Ares in the first God of War, and had an emotional breakdown because he had a flashback to the time he was sent into a blood rage by the god and murdered his own family? No. This would never happen, and the fact that this scenario is presented when the protagonist happens to be one of gaming’s few strong female leads is most unfortunate.
@th
The Wii is simply a lesser quality console for gamers. It has some good titles (all almost made by Nintendo), but is limited by its decision to choose motion control gimmickry over graphics and subsequently 3rd party game quality.
I am sorry you feel my opinion about the merits of video game console reflects on my character.
I agree with Paul, Samus is a woman not a squeamish little girl, but what do you suspect when you hand her over to Team Ninja?
I think it was in the manual to Super Metroid she was described as being 191cm and 90kg, now that’s a god damn amazon woman who can kick some ass.
And as for her being scared, that wasn’t the problem. It was that she froze and the men didn’t.
As Paul says, name one male protagonist that has done that, and it’s not at all in line with how Samus has been in any other game.
I hope they turn her back to a woman in the next Metroid game.
As always, you are always there to act like a total douche when it comes to the Nintendo side. I KNEW we wouldn’t be getting a review from you on this game since you don’t even bother to get a Wii, but this is just total ignorance.
And this isn’t about opinion. There’s some people who played the game and didn’t like it. Which is cool. But, to isolate a theme of a game from a freaking minutes-long video without playing it?
For those who actually would like to know… you play the game, and you understand why she freaked out on that part. Like many people above have said, there’s a lot of history between her and Ridley and the circumstances in this game leading up to this part completely blindsides Samus to Ridley. I mean, this is the one part of the narrative in this game that makes sense in context.
Dude, this generation, a fair proportion of the best games I played were on the Wii. I could flip the gaming argument back, and say a true gamer would not miss some of the best games of the Wii. I don’t pick a console for all the junk on it, but for the gems. Thank god I didn’t miss the PS2 because I was bitching about all the terrible shovel-ware on it that I would never freaking buy or play.
But anyways, to each his own. Nothing’s probably going to open your mind to this if it hasn’t already so it doesn’t matter. Maybe you just wanted the attention. Sad man, cause I like your reviews.
all sexism aside, this game was crap. the only reason i own a wii is for metroid and zelda. i have to wait 2+ years between games, and this is what we get?
they took everythign awesome about metroid (puzzles, upgrades, exploration, revisiting areas) and got rid of it. this game is pretty linear. you’ll find some wall that can only be destroyed with missles (which you have but can’t use because the boss says no) and once you finally are allowed to use them and try to go back to said wall, you find that all the doors to it are locked. you can only go where the commander wants you to go. the puzzles are lame, if you even want to call them puzzles. most of them can be solved simply by turning into a ball and going down a chute.
i dont care if the game made samus look like a whiny little girl or a cracked up whore, bottom line is the game just wasn’t fun.
hi
this isnt hate mail
but yeah there is a reason
its not like shes being a sissy or anything
its just that anthony had no real connection to ridley
no real experience with him. as for samus well ridley kill her parents and she thought him to be dead. she would understandably be shocked and disorientated to find he was still not dead
also i disagree with your views on the wii but hey to each his own
I love how every time Paul disses the Wii the fanboys come into the comments with “OMG U DOUCHEFAG I’M NEVAR VISITING THIS SITE AGAIN” and yet they’re still around the next time he does it.
Nintendo needs to pick up the pace on game releases. Quite a few of my friends bought a Wii when it came out and loved it. Four years later, they’ve all bought 360′s or PS3′s and their Wii’s get steady playtime about once every four months. This, I suspect, is a main reason why the 360 is about to pass the Wii in YTD sales. That, and teh Haloz.
Notice the cult like defense of the Wii and pure venom spewed at Paul rather than thoughtful and intelligent rebuttals of his critique of the game? Paul didn’t even attack the Wii. Reminds me of the slavish Apple fanboys. Get over yourselves.
Whether the game is sexist or not is debatable and a civilized conversation could be had on that point. After reading the emotional things written above I’m reminded that many people don’t like any form of sexism, racism, etc… pointed out to them. It makes them uncomfortable for reasons they can’t quite articulate. Often these people lash out at those who bring it to their attention.
I applaud Paul for raising this point and looking beyond the surface issues of a game review. It means he takes gaming seriously. And he isn’t the only one who thought this about Samus.
http://g4tv.com/games/wii/61992/metroid-other-m/review/
@Postal
Fully agree. The link you posted actually pointed out the sexism as a whole throughout the game, and that’s coming from someone who played it through and reviewed it.
@Velovan
I agree, I loved my wii when I got it, and don’t really get around to playin it much anymore, because it’s months between good games. And Heck, my Wii is modded and I get every game for free and I still only pick it up every 3 months.
I just don’t really see how Paul pointing out the decline in Samus in the newest installment of a game franchise suddenly turns into a full-on, venom-spitting, all out defense of the Wii. Where did that come from?
Whenever I get the impression that most people who read this site are coherent logical adults, I have my oppinion set-back 3 notches by the people like th and Bigdog above. Makes me wonder if they are 14 years old, or adults with the intelligence of pre-teens.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Wii-fanboys and wii-haters are equally wrong here. But I have to say, just because Samus freezes up and male characters don’t, that doesn’t make her a weak character. I think that makes her better than all of the Master Chiefs and Marcus Fenixes out there.
@ Torint
Saying that a character is more interesting than Master Chief or Fenix isn’t saying a whole lot. I’ve scooped things out of my cat’s litter box that were more interesting than those two.
I agree the moment might have slipped since this reasonably could have happened in another game specifically in the first one. But this is the first time Nintendo ACTUALLY tried to make a cinematic moved game.
I personally consider this a metroid movie, since gameplay-wise was not that great. However this was actually good in the sense that they tried to do something new.
Finally as for the scene, well, I’ll have to be on the side that many “manly” characters rarely show any kind of emotions. I don’t justify the execution but, for best of worse they tried to add depth to Samus, even though they completely ignored the cooler Prime games.
Whether or not Samus is a beacon for Feminism really depends on your point of view. Yes, she froze up and needed help. But it looked to me like she pulled it together and defended herself just fine. It appears that your definition of Feminism involves being completely invulnerable and infallible at all times.
Hell, in MG4 Snake has a moment where he basically gives up. And Raiden has to sacrifice himself to save Snake. But than again, Old Snake goes through the entire game with the knowledge that time is running out and he is on his last legs.
If there was a cut scene where Samus needed a vehicle repaired and a man did it, would you feel she was being discriminated against too?
Oh…be nice to Paul.
I have to say, that while I have not played a Metroid game since the original NES version, I thought that the clip above was pretty cool. I guess I can see Paul’s point that the cut scene does sort of go against our general impression of Samus as she has been portrayed in the series. (While I’ve not played them I follow gaming so I am pretty familiar with the general tropes of the series.) I think one thing to keep in mind regarding the Metroid series, is that in my impressions by and large Samus has been pretty much a cypher for the player in an action setting. Her gender being almost secondary to her focus as an action hero conduit for the player. If my impressions of the series are correct, in most cases the other parts of the series have not been as character focused as this clip appears to be. I like that they’ve given her a bit more character development. So I don’t think that this clip is anti-feminist. It is just character development. Would Samus hesitate to start kicking butt in the other games? No, probably not, but that I think stems more from the fact that as I said she is an extension on the player in most cases and not a character. Clearly this game takes a diferent route, and that route allowed for the developers to craft this personality of the character into the game that hasn’t been present in previous incarnations. I am not bothered by a flawed, but still heroic and capable Samus. I actually like it more.
@Vargery: “If there was a cut scene where Samus needed a vehicle repaired and a man did it, would you feel she was being discriminated against too?”
That depends on how the scene was played. If they showed her being incapable of coping with the situation simply because she’s a woman — especially if she has done it before — then yes, it is a display of sexism. I’d say it’s not so much the situation itself, but the apparent bias on the part of the authors that is shown by the situation.
While she did toughen up eventually and managed to fight Ridley (again), I agree with Paul: there’s no way a male lead — especially one as battle-hardened as she is in that point of her story — would simply stand there mumbling “Ridley… no… no… it can’t be… no…” like a little wimp (something she most DEFINITELY is not), causing a friend/teammate to have to rush to his defense (and end up getting killed in the processes, no less). If Samus was a guy, the reaction would probably have been along these lines:
“Ridley? How can you still be alive, you bastard? No matter — I’m gonna kill you for good this time, fucker! And I’ll keep on killing you ’til you’re good and dead! Eat plasma, bitch!” *fires eleventy billion plasma bolts inside Ridley’s mouth*.
And that would have been an appropriate reaction to the actual, female Samus as well. It could be toned down a little, sure, but not in a way that completely contradicts every other portrayal of her to date.
Cheers,
Cobra.
‘Bad move Nintendo, bad move.’ uh, try Team Ninja.
and ‘It is just character development.’ <- this
after watching the clip, I don't see it. The flashback gives me the sense of it being a childhood fear, not a woman's fear. I saw it at an attempt at development and rising to the occasion.
It becomes even more pathetic until you realise that up until now she’s fought the same villain repeated numbers of time and not once on any of those occasions did she break down.
Up until Other M, Samus was the take sh*t from noone character, and then Sakamoto comes along and ruins the franchise by making her into a womanchild.
@cenaris
The problem with your statement is this…
While it is true that Samus in the past has fought this enemy countless times in a number of games, you need to pause for a moment and think about the structure of the games that we are dealing with. If my understanding of the Metroid series is accurate, up until this point Samus has been a silent protagonist. While she has been a character, she did not truly have a character and instead acted as a cypher through which the player experienced the world. So in the past, when Samus didn’t hesitate to engage in battle it was not Samus charging in full bore. It was the person playing the game. If you honestly think about the Metroid series you have to see that Samus’s gender is kind of an ancillary detail as far as the player’s perception of her personality is concerned, because she didn’t have a personality outside of what was imbued by the player. I remember the first time that I entered the fabled JUSTIN BAILEY code in the original Metroid revealing Samus’s true nature. While I thought it was cool, that under the suit she was a woman, that revelation didn’t alter my perception of the game or of Samus. Woman or not, Samus was my tool to explore an alien world. If Other M is guilty of any offense, (at least as far as this scene is concerned.) it is the fact that they’ve taken us out of Samus’s head and given her a personality of her own.
@cenaris: Sakamoto “came along”? He directed Metroid and Super Metroid, dude. He co-created the franchise with Gunpei Yokoi. The only element that “came along” to Other M is Team Ninja.
really? you’re really writing about feminism? really?
It adds character to her, instead of her just being a silent character that says nothing. It was YOU who ran into the fights fearless and just blowing everything up. You’re putting your personality into Samus. Nintendo gave her, her own personality, and quite frankly, I like how shes not some bad ass emotionless heroine that kills everything. Because that would make her like almost any character on the 360 whos dull and boringly too rock hardened.