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Sexism in Gaming: Why I will NOT buy Sly Cooper 5 if it gets made...
Basically, I believe that Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time perfectly encapsulates what is WRONG with the current gaming industry and culture vis-à-vis female representation. And this essay explains why.
FYI, The essay contains MAJOR spoilers for all four games. So if you want to play the original trilogy before reading about how Sly 4 took a steaming dump on it & locked the female characters in the fridge, go do that now. The essay will still be here when you get back.
I want to start out by saying that I adore the Sly Cooper series. Sly 2: Band of Thieves is my favorite game of all time. And it always pained me that this franchise never got the praise and recognition that it so richly deserved. So you’d think the recent release (and overall good reception) of the new forth game would make me elated. And at first, I was elated! I pre-ordered it despite some of my reservations about it (more on that later…) and was happy to see that Sanzaru Games (the developer that took over after Sucker Punch ended the series) did a good job of recapturing the feel and gameplay of the trilogy that I love so much.
However, even though Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time is a great game on a technical level, I simply cannot recommend it. And I came to this conclusion for one BIG reason…
As a woman, I felt like this game was actively alienating me in a way that the previous Sly titles NEVER did. I’m sure this wasn’t an intentional move on the part of the writers and artists at Sanzaru; but I felt actively uncomfortable during many points of the game. And that feeling made it difficult to enjoy all the things that Sanzaru did right.
My main beef is with the sexualization of the only two major female characters in the series (Carmelita and Penelope). While all the Sanzaru re-designs of the MALE characters were mostly unchanged from the classic Sucker Punch look; Penelope and Carmelita look so different that they’re virtually unrecognizable!
For those unfamiliar with the series, here's the difference between how the girls looked in the original trilogy and how they looked in Sly 4....
Carmelita
Penelope
...and the girls stand out a LOT because, aside from normal stylistic tweeks, all the male characters retained the same basic appearance and wardrobe from the past games. And the sexualized redesigns of the girls combined with their new personalities just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I’ll start with Carmelita:
I see a lot fans defend her re-design by saying things like "Carmelita wasn’t exactly a nun in the other Sly games" or "The boys don’t even wear PANTS! So what does it matter if Carmelita runs around in a mini-skirt and high heels?”. And I think the major difference is this…
While the original Carmelita design didn’t wear very realistic police-lady attire; the character was never drawn, posed, or characterized in a way that felt like it was ONLY there to titillate the male furries. Her character was always treated with respect and, aside from the dopey corset-top, her clothing wasn’t ridiculous or laughably impractical (and at least Sucker Punch had the courtesy to give her a turtleneck during the one level in Sly 2 where she was wandering in the snow). Her body was drawn to look strong and athletic. She almost always saved and/or assisted Sly in the final boss battles. And even in the few instances where she needed to be rescued, she never came across as a wimpy damsel-in-distress who needed her manly love-interest to rush in and save her.
As for her personality, she always came across as professional and driven by her love for her job. And she always behaved like a mature adult who was torn between her law enforcement career and her growing infatuation for a brazen, unashamed criminal like Sly.
Compare this to Sanzaru’s treatment of her…
Her design looks like one of those “stripper/slutty cop” Halloween costumes you see on the shelf every October. Her re-design was clearly more focused on looking sexy than looking strong. Not only was her outfit insanely revealing and impractical; but she was also slimmed down to the point where she looks like she could be knocked down by a strong breeze. And the outfit design is made even more ludicrous by the fact that a later level has her get indignant over having to put on a “revealing” harem girl outfit that covers more of her body than her cop uniform (and is also more sensible for crime fighting because it has a more practical pair of shoes).
As for her new personality, she continually acts like a surly, unprofessional brat for no good reason. And her relationship with Sly feels like it came out of a bad high school drama. For example, she snaps at Sly constantly and flirts with most of Sly’s ancestors in a pathetic attempt to make him jealous instead of just talking to him like a grown up. And in the Pre-Historic level, she chooses to leave the gang’s safe, warm hideout (not to mention the security of “safety in numbers”) and go out into the tundra dressed in a mini-skirt and a bra just because she’s pissed at Sly. And she doesn’t tell them where she’s going, what she plans to do, or when she intends to come back. So they’re stuck worrying about her and can’t ethically return home (or continue their time travel mission and their search for Penelope) until she sorts out her emotions and comes back. Regardless of how Sly hurt her or lied to her, the old Carmelita would not be that stupid, petty, or inconsiderate. ESPECIALLY when there are lives at stake!
Basically, Sanzaru reduced Carmelita to nothing but shrill furry fap material. She behaved like a whiney teenager instead of a grown-up professional cop. And the harem scenes were just disgusting and degrading. Not only was the player prompted to use the sixaxis controller to make her shake her ass for horny thugs (while they throw money at her, no less!); but one scene toward the end has the Big Villain taunt Sly by feeling her up in front of him while she was tied up and helpless. Just….*shudder*
Now, let’s move on to Penelope:
While her Sanzaru design wasn’t as blatantly sexed up as Carmelita’s, it tried it’s darnedest to make us forget that Penelope was a frumpy nerd in the last game. They slimmed her down and changed her design so much that I didn’t realize it was supposed to be her when the first few Penelope screenshots from Sly 4 were leaked! But the new look is honestly the least of her problems.
In my opinion, the main thing wrong with the "Penelope is evil" twist in Sly 4 (aside from all the gaping plot holes) is how it treats her like she’s just “Bentley’s Girlfriend" and not a member of the Cooper Gang, a friend to Sly & Murray, and an independent character with or without the romantic link to Bentley. In Sly 3, she showed strong, platonic bonds with the rest of the team. They weren’t just her boyfriend’s pals, THEY WERE HER FRIENDS, TOO! We saw her have fun with them and connect with them one-on-one way before she and Bentley became an item. And Sanzaru expects us to believe that she just randomly decided to hate them all one day? Or that she was just “faking it" throughout Sly 3 because she was a gold-digger and believed Bentley’s brains could somehow make her a rich weapons dealer?
Also, the betrayal twist might have actually had an impact if the other characters had shown more than a modicum of concern for her well-being when she was still missing. But Bentley barely expressed concern for her safety (morosely glancing at photos/videos in one cutscene doesn’t count) and Sly & Murray acted as if Penelope was just their bro’s bitch and not someone that THEY CARED ABOUT, TOO! Hell, these guys showed more concern for her in the pirate level of Sly 3. And at that point they still barely knew her!
It’s clear Sanzaru just didn’t like Penelope and thought the best way to get her out of the main cast was to use her as a cheap plot device. Otherwise, they would have at least spent more than 5 minutes thinking of a plausible explanation for her betrayal. Hell, I just thought up a more plausible “Penelope betrays the gang” plotline and it took me less than 5 minutes. Here it is:
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Even though she never let it show, Penelope was extremely disappointed when the Cooper Gang disbanded just a few short months after she gave up that lucrative con job in Holland to join up with them. Yeah, Sly left them with enough cash to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. But she expected a glamorous and exciting life of awesome heists upon joining the gang. And, although she loved Bentley, their relationship cooled off after the honeymoon phase was over. And he eventually got buried in his time machine research and started treating her like his “Lab Assistant With Benefits” (that is, when he bothered to pay attention to her at all). And for a woman who managed to use her wits to conquer a village in Holland when she was still in her teens, simply being known as “Bentley’s Girlfriend” was kind of degrading. And she eventually grew to resent Sly for disbanding the team because it felt like she was recruited to The Cooper Gang under false pretenses.
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See! That wasn’t so hard! It still doesn’t jive with Penelope’s characterization in Sly 3. But at least it’s free of plot holes and it’s better than Sanzaru’s stupid (not to mention sexist) explanation for Penelope’s betrayal. Sanzaru’s explanation was basically…
“Penelope was just a gold-digging slut all along! And she spent YEARS in a (presumably) intimate relationship with a man she didn’t really love just because she wanted to use his superior brainpower to build super-weapons/get rich/take over the world/whatever. And she couldn’t do any of this without help from that loser La Paradox because her feeble female brain isn’t capable of much more than putting on tight clothing and stealing shit that doesn’t belong to her!
And poor Bentley was the saintly and totally blameless victim of a deceitful whore! That’s why the player should feel no discomfort whatsoever when Episode Four’s boss battle compels them to have Bentley beat his diminutive girlfriend unconscious while making jokes about how much she sucks at evading his punches! Because domestic violence is HILARIOUS when the dude is a dorky cripple and the ‘bitch’ has it coming!!!!”
Now, before people start throwing words like “feminazi” at me, let me clarify that I do NOT believe that the people at Sanzaru are misogynist monsters intent on rolling back the women’s suffrage movement via lame video games. On the contrary, they seem like perfectly nice dudes in all the interviews I’ve seen them in. However, I don’t think any of the (mostly male) writers and artists understand just how alienating all this stuff can be to long time female fans who dug the Sly Cooper series precisely BECAUSE it was one of the few modern games out there that was both well made and completely free of gratuitous nonsense like rail-thin female cops dressed up in fetish attire.
In conclusion, I don’t wish to waste my time and money on games that seem intent on reminding me over and over that I am NOT the target audience and that my gender is only good for titillation and/or lame plot twists. And that is why I will not purchase a fifth Sly Cooper game if it gets made. Which is a shame because Sanzaru actually did a good job with most of the gameplay elements (ie all the stuff that didn’t involve the stupid PS3 motion controls). But Sanzaru MAJORLY bungled the story and female protagonists. And I honestly don’t see how they can salvage the mess they made of these great characters (unless they do "The Dallas Dream Ret-Con”).