Unfolding female quiet in wargames: gender bias in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain from representation to gameplay

Abstract

This article investigates the cultural mediatization of the relationship between gender and war by looking at the representation and agency of female presence in one of the most popular sagas in video games: Metal Gear Solid. We have specifically focused on the last chapter of the series, Metal Gear Solid V (MGS5) by putting under scrutiny the character of Quiet. The analysis draws upon the rich theoretical corpus of feminist film studies, with reference to two main concepts: the “visual pleasure” by Laura Mulvey and the “female voice” by Kaja Silverman. These analytic tools are employed in order to scrutinize both the visual representation and the design of the game. We argue that MGS5 is a relevant instance of a large part of gaming production that develops a war imagery characterized by (a) the exploitation of women and (b) an employment of female body as a tool to fulfill the visual pleasure of the male gaze. The figure of Quiet, with the oversexualization of her body and the deprivation of her voice, is particularly telling in this respect. Our analysis aims to identify effective solutions in order to think about more inclusive digital games able to address conflictual issues without surrendering to sexism.

Keywords:

• Wargames
• representation
• agency
• Metal Gear Solid V
• gender
• feminist film studies

Notes

1. http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Wiki.

2. The voyeuristic and fetishistic mechanisms that Mulvey brought up in her essay are seen as the male unconscious’ reaction to the castration anxiety. Such understanding is to be situated in the psychoanalytic background, from which her analysis stemmed. In our discussion, we use “fetishism” more in terms of the common understanding, as overvaluing parts of a sexual object—the female body in this case—as a substitute for the whole (Chaudhuri 2006).

3. For instance, Sniper Wolf from MGS 1 is a warrior moved by deep and multi-angle motivations, and her influence on the main plot is far from being merely accessory (her echo is glaring also in MGS2).

4. See the case of Rimworld, in which gender/sexual differences (and biases) are glaringly embedded in the game code itself. This article addressed a more superficial level of analysis for evident reasons (i.e., usually codes are not available to the public), but when possible the backend of a digital game may be an interesting research focus.