Feminist Analysis of Halo Wars

(Written for the video version)

Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game made by Ensemble Studios. This was the first venture outside of the first-person shooter genre and with a company other than Bungie Studios. The writing is cornier than ever, though the dialog never quite tops Halo 3’s “to war”, and despite involving epic things like a Dyson sphere contained in a planet, it’s actually a very simplistic story. It’s a prequel to the main trilogy, set twenty years prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.

It starts out with Captain Cutter of the ship Spirit of Fire narrating about how hard it’s been to reclaim the planet Harvest from the Covenant. Despite the UNSC feeling they own it now, they’re still fighting Covenant off the surface. He then talks to the ship’s AI, Serina, about preparing for dropping troops.

Serina is probably my favorite character in the game, an aloof and sarcastic AI who lampshades some of the cornier aspects of the plot. Her avatar design is much less sexual than Cortana’s. While Cortana’s a naked hologram, Serina wears a normal outfit. She comes off as just a woman, a digital member of the crew, in contrast to Cortana’s appearance setting her apart from the others, though they considered Serina’s clothes having a similar style at one point.

Feminist Analysis of Halo: Combat Evolved

(I wrote this specifically for a Going Rampant video)

The Xbox first-person-shooter Halo: Combat Evolved, made by Bungie Studios, became one of the most popular American games after its release in 2001 and spawned the long-running Halo franchise. A revamped version of the game will be released this November, what we all recognize as a desperate grab for cash but what Halo fans will get anyway because we’re just that geeky. While the success of the franchise encouraged Bungie to appeal to women in later games, the first one was centered on the generic male market with a lot of homages to their mostly male established fanbase. Even though this is the future where all the countries have combined, it looks pretty much like modern day America in space.

The Bechdel Test is Flawed

The Bechdel test, used for determining female presence in movies, is flawed. It wasn't started to be a concept for serious feminist film analysis; it was just a joke in a one-shot comic where a lesbian character describes her rule for seeing movies. Because it wasn't defined in a sufficiently thorough way, it becomes difficult to use it for analysis.

The original Bechdel test (actually written by Liz Wallace, so it should be called the Wallace test) had three rules:

1. The film has to have at least two women in it
2. Who talk to each other about
3. Something other than a man

The character then notes that Alien passes because Ripley and Lambert talk to each other about the monster.

Buffy vs. Dracula

(See the video version here)

Count Dracula: classic movie monster. He ruled with tyranny over the Romanian people for centuries before making his move on England. With dark sex appeal, his power over characters Lucy and Mina fueled women’s rape fantasies for over a century.

Buffy Summers: symbol of girl power. Her superhuman strength and excellent fashion sense enables her to effectively protect the denizens of Sunnydale from the vampire menace with style. With wit and attitude, her subversion of classic damsel-in-distress imagery provides a feminist twist to the horror genre.

What would happen were these two characters to meet and interact?

Dracula: “I am Dracula.”
Buffy: (starstruck) “Get out!”

The first episode of the fifth season “Buffy vs. Dracula” allows for a contrast between the classic vampire fiction of Dracula and the modern ‘90s’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While generally looked down upon for having absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the season, I think it’s an entertaining standalone episode offering a contemplative look at the implications of the series and how it relates to vampire fiction overall. The title is simply a reference to the goofy crossovers common to horror movies, but it can also be thought of as Buffy, the series vs. Dracula, the general story.

Eli's Gender (LTROI)

For the past few weeks, I've been surfing the "We, the Infected" forums for Let the Right One In, and no topic seems to be as persistent as Eli's gender or possible lack thereof. While only briefly touched on in the Swedish film and blatantly ignored in the American remake Let Me In, the novel Let the Right One In plainly reveals the apparent vampire girl as an androgynous boy. People don't know what to make of this. The following is a summary of the information and points raised by users. Because Eli's gender identity is hard to ascertain, I will be using gender-neutral pronouns ze and hir.

Goa'uld and Yeerk Sexuality (Stargate/Animorphs)

So, I’ve watched all of Stargate SG-1, and I’m confused about the sexuality of the Goa’uld (and Tok’ra, which I’m just going to call Goa’uld because it’s easier¹). How do they reproduce? Do they have genders? If they do have genders, how are they distinguished? This confusion is worsened by exposition that seems to change the nature of the Goa’uld physiology over the course of the show, retroactive continuity change that isn’t clearly resolved, specifically in regard to the Goa’uld queens.

A World Without Feminism (Childhood's End)

Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke, was written in 1953 and it shows its age in more ways than its attitude toward racism. The book also displays a fair amount of sexism, not hatefully, but just in the way Clarke presents the role of women in his futuristic utopian society. For all his great speculation of the latter half of the twentieth century, Clarke was unable to predict the rise of feminism or even imagine a society that is not a patriarchy even when gender makes very little sense as in the case of the Overlords.

Flawed 1950s Anti-Racism (Childhood's End)

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke is a science-fiction novel about aliens known as the Overlords taking over humanity to prepare us for the next stage of evolution. Prior to the book’s story, the author places the disclaimer “The opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author” to keep people from thinking that he had changed his mind about being optimistic about space travel, which readers might infer from the Overlords declaring that “the stars are not for Man”. Despite this, I believe the author’s own opinions snuck in there as pertains to how the Overlords saw fit to run Earth, such as condemning animal cruelty and racism. The attempt to challenge racism is an interesting part of the book, specifically how Clarke tries to do it as a white man writing a book in 1953. It is a hopeful, idealistic cry for a post-racial utopian society, and is in itself a message meant specifically for other white people.

More Anti-BDSM Stuff on Bones

I’ve been continuing to watch the series Bones, and have come across more annoying anti-BDSM sentiment. The eighteenth episode of the first season, “The Man with the Bone”, is an entertaining take on an old Canadian folk legend about pirate treasure. Unfortunately, the episode also features a creepy and perverted coroner, Harry Tepper, who, it progressively becomes obvious, is a masochist and bisexual. This is problematic because it is implied that his sexual preferences are a part of what makes him perverted.

Sexist Content in Timecrimes

Timecrimes (originally Los Cronocrímenes), written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, is an intriguing time travel strange loop movie. In the style of a classic science-fiction short story, the protagonist Hector is an average guy (actually kind of a doofus) who winds up in strange circumstances, rather than a scientist or someone who knows what he’s doing. The film has some elements of sexism, though I’m not sure how much was unintentional. The two female characters, Hector’s wife Clara and The Girl in the Forest (La Chica en el Bosque), are disrespected by Hector within the story and are treated more like objects as he tries to manipulate the timeline.