My Concern for Beyond: Two Souls

Great article.

Soon after Heavy Rain came out, Brad had the same things to say about the main female character...especially in the way she was first introduced to the story.

Never got the chance to play Heavy Rain, but I can definitely see the cause for concern. We can only hope the protagonist in Beyond is, well, an actual character and not just fan service.

Just about every time I saw Madison in Heavy Rain she was either tied up, taking her clothes off, or tending to Ethan Mars. Heavy Rain had way too many stereotypical character moments, not just based on gender, for me to like it personally, so I definitely vibe with this article. I doubt Beyond: Two Souls will fare much better in the characterization department, but I don't think they'll write Ellen Page's character the same way they wrote Madison... or at least I hope not, 'cause I'm pretty sure Jodie Holmes is underage, and seeing her striptease at gunpoint would be creepier than all the uncanny valley moments in Heavy Rain combined, just sayin'.

While this is a growing concern in the industry, stereotypes and sexism, one cannot see this and wonder why it happens. Many people, myself included, could write pages upon pages pointing out sexism in videogames, no matter how minor it is presented on the surface. Writers in all industries aren't generally sexist, not most anyway, but writers do create characters based on knowledge and experience. Then the problem stems from writers not knowing any strong women, so they write what they know: a stereotype. While it is not an excuse, I understand simply from experience in not knowing many women. Could women in the studio add their two cents in writing these characters? Could Ellen Page add hers?
I'm not entirely sure how Beyond: Two Souls will be handled, Ellen Page's character could be a vessel for the ghost players actually be controlling for a majority of the story.

I'm still lost on what B:TS is suppose to be. I remember in E3 that it was to delve with the subject matter of the after life, but all the Die-Hard like action is really distracting me from the main idea. I'm predicting that the story will be too action oriented and your good points potentially show that David Cage may inhibit good characters becoming great. In the end im just not interested in this game. Good work i'd like to further add.

I'm surprised you didn't mention that bit where the crazy apartment owner ties her down and almost makes her take a cordless drill to the hoo-ha. That made me fucking cringe.

The worst thing? Completely avoidable, so it's in the game for no reason. Which, as you said, is a lot of Madison's character. Which makes me sad. I'm a fan of David Cage, actually. Both Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy do a great job of building up tension, and feature a compelling story. It's just that it is always marred by problems: Both had a terrible ending that tore the story apart, and Heavy Rain had the sexism, poor voice acting, and a story that contradicts itself so many times.

What I'm trying to say is I hope Cage learned his lesson from his last two games.

So what trailer are we talking about, link?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is a ludicrous criticism to make about a game which, as you acknowledge, we know basically nothing about. First off, an aside: just because a female character isn't an ass-kicking warrior doesn't make her character sexist, a word that is vastly overused to the point that it is now basically meaningless. Madison made due with the tools she had, and was quite successful with them as well, a fact you fail to mention. She interrogated a mob boss, took care of someone who could have been a murderer, fought off attackers, and used her abilities as a journalist to piece the killer's identity together. I'd say she was a pretty integral role in the story and the fact that there was some fan-service doesn't change that. She was almost always out-manned or out-gunned the entire game and still fought through it. I'd say she's someone to be admired, not someone who's only role is eye-candy. Now, as for the topic at hand, you're saying that because the main character of this game *seems* to be a woman (we don't really know for sure yet) and is going to be written by the same guy who worked on Heavy Rain, that you think the game is going to portray the female character in a sexist light? That's downright silly and is such a huge leap in logic (or lack there of) that I'm finding it hard to believe you're going to give this game a fair shake. I appreciate your opinion, but when you do finally play this game, I'd be on the lookout for confirmation bias.

I'm hoping the main character isn't sexualised, she seems a little young for that :|
I also agree with you when it comes to Madison in Heavy Rain, I felt at a lot of times during this game, she just came off as a walking pair of tits (especially her first scene, I mean come on... what was that?)
Great article and an interesting read.

In all honesty, I don't think there is any reason to think that Madison is a sexist portrayal of a female. In this case, sexuality being paired with violence adds to the overall feeling of being exposed to the world (fighting in underwear does not sound appealing male or female), which builds into Madison's current state of being paranoid (she was sleeping at motels). I would also like to point out that the scene was a dream, building into this viscous cycle whereby her paranoia builds into insomnia which builds into more paranoia. This build-up into the ultimate feeling of psychological vulnerability, perfectly paralleling that of Ethan Mars (who is experiencing trauma of some degree in almost every facet of his life). Point being: Nothing really gender specific here, just two different ways of getting the same point across. Also, many of the themes pointed out in the article can be grouped under admirable qualities of humanity, such as altruistic motivation (Madison aids Ethan) and need for cognition (curiosity/investigative process to the point of stripteasing?). A female helping others (altruistic motivation) and being portrayed in a sexy light is not a bad thing and actually serves as a method for building Madison's character. The end point is that I don't really subscribe to the idea that David Cage nor Quantic Dream have a record for being sexist in their portrayal of female characters, but rather see this as an industry criticism being extended into a specific game where this kind of criticism does not apply.

I don't necessarily think this is a gender concerned issue, nor is sexism any part of it. It can all be chalked up to bad writing, really.

First of all, the whole Madison going around in her underwear and showering thing is absolutely no issue at all to me, considering we experience the exact same thing with Ethan Mars. The whole insomnia / nightmare thing was probably meant to go somewhere, but was either forgotten or was eventually just left out of the script for some reason. So, like I said, poor character writing. I don't necessarily think she was being posed in delibirately sexual positions when being assaulted either, just because you're moving in your underwear doesn't mean you're trying to exploit the physique of a character.

As for the whole sidekick thing, I once again chalk this up to lazy / unfinished writing. Odds are they started writing a character, and eventually decided to turn her into some sort of generic love interest. I don't think they're trying to sexualize her or that they're terrible at writing women, I just think they did a lazy job writing side characters (Norman and Scott weren't exactly very well developed characters, either).

I wouldn't get your hopes up or down for the main character of Beyond: Two Souls, I'd just wait and see what happens.