The hero does not disappear, he transforms. While the National Assembly distributes new medals to heroic citizens this week, this series examines the mutations of heroism in contemporary society. First case: the changing character of video games.
In Celestial, platform video game from the Canadian independent company Extremely OK Games, the avatar Madeline leaves her inhospitable home and attempts to climb the mountain in British Columbia that gives its name to the game production. The player quickly learns that the young Madeline suffers from severe anxiety and depression. In addition to the natural obstacles overcome with skill and dexterity, the atypical heroine must therefore confront her malaise. Her mental disorders are represented in the context of a demanding and complex game praised by critics, massively adopted by the public. It quickly sold more than a million copies of Celestial at the turn of the decade.
Oh yes, it should also be said: Madeline is trans. Clues left in her room (an LGBT flag, a photo of her “before”…) suggest this reality confirmed by the creator of the game, Maddy Thorson, also transgender and non-binary. In short, we are far from the, let’s say, classic hero of the video game, where virile, macho, violent, armed and militarized masculinity so often triumphs. The series Grand Theft Auto Or Arma, Does this mean anything to you?
“For me, it’s a unique game in the sector and, at the same time, it’s a great example of what you can achieve when you think outside the box,” emphasizes David Bédard, director and head of operations of the game scriptwriting consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc., himself providing the example of Celestial. “Plus, it’s a very fun game. fun to play and it’s a hit : Madeline therefore shows what success can be achieved when you push the limits, what good can be accomplished when you move away from the usual frameworks.
From Ulysses to Han Solo
All societies project their ideals and values onto certain exceptional beings, real or fictional. Video games now add to the universal pantheon already well stocked by mythology, literature, theater, cinema or television. From Ulysses to Han Solo, the typical hero is charming and courageous, cunning and a fighter, always on the right side of the force…
“Games from the late 1980s or 1990s were based on a simple framework: a heroic figure had to fight and take down a very big bad guy,” summarizes Mr. Bédard. “Nowadays, stories are much richer in human terms, more nuanced. There are still a lot of large-scale games that use combat mechanics. That said, we are seeing the development of games with more mature, more human, more emotional characters, who use strategies other than combat to resolve conflicts and tell other stories with other narrative means. I would say that we are moving from the hero to the protagonist.”
This guy is also diversifying. We see more and more women, people of diversity. Even the classic heroes of the franchises (“a cis white man”) are getting a second protagonist who is less clichéd. Spider-Man is now active with an African-American sidekick, half Puerto Rican, who imposes new ways of behaving.
Sweet Baby knows all too well what it can cost to stray from the beaten path. The scriptwriting consulting company founded in Montreal in 2018 continues to suffer a global campaign of cyberbullying. The reactionary movement accuses the firm of “wokizing” the games it works on, or not. A strong scene from the very recent game Suicide Squad, in which the female character Harley Quinn takes down the virile hero Batman, has amplified hostilities.
From hero to zero
Alexandre Poirier has devoted years of study to studying this overrepresentation of “militarized masculinity” and, by contrast, the lack of diversity and inclusion of characters other than “white, cisgender and heterosexual” in games. His master’s thesis, submitted in film studies at the Université de Montréal in 2017, is entitled From hero to zero. It offers “reflections on the manifestations and effects of weakness in video games,” according to the synthetic formula of the subtitle.
“I was doing a study of gaming advertising since the 1970s that showed that, overall, the concept of militarized masculinity was central at the time,” Poirier explains. “The classic is the strong, muscular white man who kills everything in his path. I asked myself why. Why is that always what sells?”
The complex, dense answer points as much to the multi-millennial tradition celebrating the warrior hero as to the anchoring of the history of the game in the military universe or the initial overrepresentation of white men among designers and players. Values and the industry change, so games accompany the mutation. Art and life advance in a rope team.
Mr. Poirier cites the game Overwatch, dating back to 2016 already, which focuses on the cooperation between “varied heroes”, forced to engage in combat against robots. He also talks about the notion of weakness, central to his scholarly analysis: the traditional hero is powerful from the outset and dies from weakness while the zero, the ordinary protagonist of the new games, assumes this weakness throughout the story. This is the case for example in the post-apocalyptic game The Last of Usnow adapted into a television series on HBO.
“Weakness or vulnerability are a bit the same thing,” adds Mr. Poirier, who now works as a game designer for Ubisoft in Montreal. He is, as he says, “at the center of the creative storm” to organize the rules of a production. “The idea is to go against the usual conventions that create heroes. We then end up with a greater diversity of designers, players, representations, stories.”
“The formula to remember is ‘virtuous circle,’” says Antoine Leduc-Labelle, head of public relations at Ubisoft, who is present at the interview. “In the sense that, every time we hire people of diversity and include women, new ideas emerge. We realize that, ultimately, video games are not just for the young white man in his basement. I taught my mother that she was a gamer because she didn’t know that Candy Crush, game she plays, is a video game. There are games for everyone.”
Mr. Leduc-Labelle cites for his part Spiritfarera “cosy” Quebec game on the theme of death in which a young girl accompanies people to their final resting place. “We are far from the militarized character,” he says. This transformation can be explained by the creators, the people behind the game, themselves from diverse backgrounds, who participate in the creation. We wouldn’t make games that are so open-minded [pour ce que ça veut dire]if there were not open-minded people behind it who saw the need for evolution in the environment.”