Mortal Kombat Misogyny

J. Valjean

J. Valjean

BANALITY
Hey everyone. While Mortal Kombat is my favorite game series (along with Command & Conquer and Killzone), I feel an honest debate with others fans should be brought up in order to settle a big question not only with MK but with many games of our time. It is that of misogyny.

Many of us know Grand Theft Auto as the flagship game for violence against women, or rather, as the game that was put on the spot for it. I want to share an experience. Prior to playing MK9 for the first time and then buying it, I watched a few LiveStreams of players who got the game early. After cycling through some Tag and single player ladder matches, the player got onto the Fatality Trainer. Of course I wanted to see this, what MK fan doesn't want to see the new installments of ogreish finishers?

The first fatality was Noob, of course, and the kid picked Jade to finish. Alright, so some angst leftover from the UMK3 days I guess. But then he picked Kung Lao, and his victim was Mileena. Scorpion, with Sonya as a victim. Then, Kano and Kitana. Then, back to Mileena. It got so bad that I and a couple other viewers pointed out his misogyny and deep-seated perversion. But most viewers were like "yeah! haha!" or "**** yeah, awesome". Some were even like "that's hot". Am I a pansy to say that's kind of creepy and ****ed up?

Then, on DeviantArt, looking for signatures and avatars, I came upon this one kid "TheInsaneDarkOne". I won't lie, he is talented, but his drawings (comissioned!!) are all of some big, muscular MK guy beating/killing a female character. One set of pictures, he draws Sub-Zero sexually molesting Mileena. And I looked at the comments for these pictures, and they were all like "sweet", "that's sexy", "awesome", etc. Really? Is it just that isolated- that DeviantArt is full of sick creeps, or is this a sign of something the gaming community ought to look at?

(http://theinsanedarkone.deviantart.com/)

I love MK as much as the next guy. I've been following it for years; it was the first video game I played as a child and it remained fixated on my schema of video games throughout years. But sometimes, it creeps me out how far certain people will go. You can say that MK is in fact being egalitarian. That's a valid argument- but valid doesn't mean true.

Yes, MK has strong feminine characters like Sonya, Jade, and Kitana who take control and get things done. And yes, MK operates on the idea that women are equal to men and thus, we have women and men ninjas of equal strength and talent kicking the crap out of each other. BUT let's look at reality-> physically, men are at least 3-4x stronger than women. The effects of a real man-woman fight are devastating and there are 1 in 4 women in the US who experience abuse at the hands of men (I think that's an old statistic). While in the MK universe, Mileena and Scorpion may be of equal strength/skill, in the real world, there are abusive fathers and husbands and boyfriends beating on their girls and there is no such equal "strength or skill".

What the game experience of a man v. woman fight brings is desensitization. It desensitizes men and women to the realities of misogyny and the violence against women. And in that desensitization lies less empathy, in the long run, for victims, and such cultural plague. It's very similar to the effect Eminem's lyrics have. And it's a desensitization that we can't afford to bear, because women and girls face hardships that men will never know and the reality of misogyny is something we can't dismiss. How many of you guys/girls have noticed this about MK, or about some people playing it that seem to enjoy this aspect of it? I was legit creeped out by that dude- he was like doing five, six, seven fatalities all on women. Personal problem of his, yes. But the ability to do things like that on a mass marketed game.... what does that have to say about society?

If any of you guys want to know more about this desensitization effect, Jackson Katz has an article on Eminem on his website. Mr. Katz is a speaker on women and gender issues that tours nationally and also researches. He and Dr. Thomas Keith, PhD, contribute to each others work sometimes. There are two good videos you can catch online: "Tough Guise" on masculinity and violence by Jackson Katz, and "Generation M" by Dr. Keith on misogyny in music and pop culture.

http://www.jacksonkatz.com/eminem2.html


And I'm not a WGS major.
 
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i think it has to do with ,although i don't like to say it, the females "sexiness" in the game. i'll tell you the truth. i don't hate it. and honestly it's much more entertaining watching sonya or mileena in her 3rd alt getting split in half then some hairy dude called kano :P But i do see where you're going with this. But you have to understand this is an M rated series. And not just for the violence but for the mild nudity as well.
Female characters in games are made sexy in games because ,i don't like to say this also ^^, it's directed mostly for male audiences. Ofcourse there are women who want to play as sexy female characters.
You will always find such pictures like the ones from this "theinsanedarkone" but these pictures exist because ppl want them. it's like talking about drugs. drugs aren't good ^^ but there are ppl who take them and want them. see where i'm going with this.
So i think every game will be subjected to those kinds of images. Hell i've seen stuff online about pokemon sex. POKEMON SEX!!!. So this isn't bad in comparison to the s*** that's everywhere on the net nowadays ^^
 
You bring up a good point. And of course, Rule 36 (or is it 34?) applies to MK and misogyny as well. I actually think there is a name for it... "Rinona"? or something. This isn't an attack on MK, after all MK, like all other forms of culture, is just a reflection of the state of mind our society is in.

Can I ask though, what exactly is appealing about slicing Mileena in half as opposed to Sektor or Kano? Done to the latter two, it's an act of violence. Done to the former, it's supposedly more "appealing". What is appealing about a woman getting killed or beaten? I'm not asking to offend, I really want to know. Is it a "damsel in distress" thing? Or does this point to our culture's objectification of women? I will admit, I am very much a fan of the feminine figure. I'm not arguing against sex. But the thing is, when music and movies, as well as video games, turn women into sex statues that stand in the background, or even main characters that are dressed in threads exposing the derriere, what does that minimize women's status to? Even in a heroic position, the woman is not without her thong. It seems that the pass in movies, music, and games is that women have to be deified for their sexuality or displayed as receptacles for male sexual impulse. Man and woman are made for each other. But as human beings, not objects! When is the last time you saw a billboard with a big, veiny penis on it in Times' Square?

When women are lowered to the role of sex objects, complying with restricting beauty standards, all of which cater to men's desires... then women lose the qualities we attach to human beings in general- thought, emotion, validity, will, circumstance. It becomes lose-lose. Like.... "it's her fault, she was asking for it"... or "DEEEAAAAYYYUUUMMMNNN lookadatbootaaay!". Could it be that in effect, Mileena getting cut apart is seen deep down by those who find it "more appealing" as an object of sex being cut apart? If so that's profoundly frightening! It's like the ultimate statement of sexual objectification- "You're only good for sex! Now DIE!". And you're not the only one who's said women's pain in video games is appealing- look at Rumble Roses for that matter. And when MK9's first few tidbits came out last summer, people in the videos cheered when Kung Lao mid-sectioned Mileena, moreso than they did when Sub-Zero disemboweled Scorpion. Not a criticism- let's see what part of society gives us all this message that it is okay to and even promoted for, women to get hurt.

Its shocking because this sort of stuff is not that different from men actually hurting women. It flows from the same vein, and while some may say "video games are better than it happening in reality" why has it made it this far, into video games in the first place?
 
i am one of those kinda guys who look up to woman and think they are the better gender(for the most part) and i never really seen it as sexist, i think its ridiculous how every female character wears very little and lets be honest some woman bring it on themselves(to be thought as sex symbols) watch pretty much any pop video with a female singer and they are always wearing very little, so the problem is bigger than MK but MK doesnt help, sounds like its more the fanbase then anything else.
 
ofcourse i don't think women should be degraded like that. I value talking to a strong, confident woman over a dumb hot one anyday. I don't like watching women get massacred in the game. I have no secret grudge against women :D. i think the majority of the people just like to watch women FULL STOP. ofcourse i don't like the idea. and it is kind of sad that this is what most people in the world want. But i want to ask you something. You are on a mortal kombat forum i.e. you like mortal kombat. what do you like about mortal kombat? story? gameplay? maturity? for me it's all of that. es the maturity is a needed factor for me. be that violence or sex.
Ofcourse opinions and tastes will differ. But the facts society has shown us is. sex sells. violence sells. sex+violence=Epic Win. ofcourse if u think about it, it sounds pretty disturbing but i'd be a hypocrite if i said i didn't like it and i wanted it to stop. As long as it's just in Games/Movies i'm fine with it. But people being influenced by that and acting it out in the real world is something totally different.
So basically i think it's a problem with the point of view. You look at it as women being mutilated. i look at it as ppl liking to watch women. everyone get's mutilated in the game ^^ so it's kind of fair.
 
3nany said:
ofcourse i don't think women should be degraded like that. I value talking to a strong, confident woman over a dumb hot one anyday. I don't like watching women get massacred in the game. I have no secret grudge against women :D. i think the majority of the people just like to watch women FULL STOP. ofcourse i don't like the idea. and it is kind of sad that this is what most people in the world want. But i want to ask you something. You are on a mortal kombat forum i.e. you like mortal kombat. what do you like about mortal kombat? story? gameplay? maturity? for me it's all of that. es the maturity is a needed factor for me. be that violence or sex.
Ofcourse opinions and tastes will differ. But the facts society has shown us is. sex sells. violence sells. sex+violence=Epic Win. ofcourse if u think about it, it sounds pretty disturbing but i'd be a hypocrite if i said i didn't like it and i wanted it to stop. As long as it's just in Games/Movies i'm fine with it. But people being influenced by that and acting it out in the real world is something totally different.
So basically i think it's a problem with the point of view. You look at it as women being mutilated. i look at it as ppl liking to watch women. everyone get's mutilated in the game ^^ so it's kind of fair.
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Please don't take this as a criticism of you in particular! I'm just trying to find out why misogyny is popular in MK. I like MK mostly because of the storyline and characters- the violence never really got to me as I've seen some in real life (accident). But MK as a franchise, I like. I've always liked.

While violence and sex sell, and most cultural outlets geared towards men feature a medley of both, I see that only applicable in that MK has violence, and MK has scantily clad women. But not as MK giving you the ability to kill scantily clad women as appealing. That's an entirely different beast- that's what I'm trying to understand. The whole man-v-woman fighting aspect and the misogyny, (TheInsaneDarkOne)-types who enjoy watching sexualized women being subjected to male violence. I think that needs to be explored in relations to society- because storyline and all stripped away, MK is just like GTA in that it gives the player the option to subject women to intense violence at the hands of men.
 
I dunno man, it's a thing for some people. Don't let it get to you too much; I'm sure as an Internet dweller you're aware of how "guro" or gore fetishism has been a thing for years with some freaks. This weirdo might be into that. On that note, I don't let it bother me all that much because in MK, it's all about equal-opportunity murder. I personally don't approve of hurting women IRL, but part of the very core of Mortal Kombat fighting will often involve girls getting beat up, since they're there as player characters.

Not to say everyone gets off on seeing the girl characters smacked around. I get as much of a rush pulling off a Fatality on a Reptile as I do a Sonya; the gender of the character doesn't matter to me.

But on that note, the Internet has spawned some twisted, utterly depraved people. Morality tends to fly out the window in this anonymous world of interconnected tubes, I've seen all kinds of utterly NASTY fantasies people fap over online.

But is it any worse that Street Fighter lets you beat up Chun-Li or that you can smack around the chicks in Dead or Alive?

I understand the concern of misogyny, and I don't think NRS employees have a hatred of women. The MK females are sexy, sure, but that's become a commonly accepted facet of games, that there will be females made to look as attractive as possible.

Outright hatred of/spite towards women, though? Don't let it get to you, man. Most people know better than these freaks.
 
It's okay, there's male sexism too.

Happens everywhere, it's just typical stereotyping. Maybe it's not right, but it's there and we've accepted it this long. Some quarters never do make it out of the cement.
 
This is a surprisingly intelligent topic to find on the MK forums :-P

While I'd agree that there are probably a large number of people who might think like the gamer you described (subconsciously or otherwise), I don't think any of the blame for that falls to MK. Perhaps you could argue that the females should be clothed in a similar fashion to the male ninja's, but in all likelihood I think their semi-nude sluttiness is a part of NRS trying to get MK back to it's hardcore, M-rated roots.

As for where it stems from, it could be a plethora of things. I think the most likely explanation is that somewhere down the line they've been hurt by girls (bullied, dumped by, ignored or maybe even physically assaulted). I'd say the same thing about most girls in regards to men. I think the difference would be in how this typically manifests itself in each gender. You know the stereotypes.

As for that guys DeviantArt gallery, I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh. Pretty messed up. You could always message the guy and ask him for the reasons behind his subject matter.

At least he can draw? :vollkommenauf:
 
Don't forget that you can play as those female characters and rip the male characters apart too ^^
 
I never play with girls in MK because I dont like any of them, they are very boring to me, i only use Kitana, but that doesnt mean im sexist or misogynist, no way, I just dont like to play with them, because they have a fighting style that doesnt fit me (they use too many weapons and physicial moves) and I like to use the male fighters more. But no im not a misogynist. Thats like saying that (is just a random example) that someone that always play with jax and human cyrax hates white people or someone that always do fatalities to that characters is a member of the Ku Klux Klan. i dont see any racism in choosing with who you fight and on who you will perform a fatality.
People see too much between lines sometimes.

What seems to be misogynist (IMO) in the game is the way the women look, they make all women look like prostitutes and I think thats a bit misogynist, but i dont care they have to look atractive lol
 
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I don't see how ripping someone in half or snapping their bones apart can be found attractive. Actually, it does the opposite. I guess some people just have a fetish of gore? :S I don't think the guy who was doing the fatalities was doing anything wrong; this is just what he finds attractive. If Mortal Kombat was real then it would be different.

And female characters all being made to look good isn't really a big deal. The majority of girls in the world like to look their best, and I think most of them would prefer it if their characters in Mortal Kombat were sexy. And male videogame characters are the same, most of them being ripped and obviously modelled to look attractive. I'd like it if not every female in Mortal Kombat was trying to look sexy, though.
 
I certainly don't mean to knock your personal view on the matter and I do agree with the above poster that this is a rather intelligent topic. However, I do think that you may be reading into things a bit more than you should be. I doubt that either the youtube poster or the artist have any type of derogatory views on women in general nor do they mean to imply as such.

As far as the artist on DeviantArt is concerned, I actually found his skills to be rather impressive as an artist. I didn't particularly care for some of his work, but theres no denying that he is definitely skilled. One thing you have to consider about that site is that alot of times those artists get requests from people that want to see something in particular. It may not even come from his own pool of ideas. Granted, that does pose quite an interesting question. What does some of his work say about those people asking to see it?

Now with the Youtube fatalities, well I think that's just a matter of the persons individual tastes perhaps. Maybe he simply doesn't care for any of the women in the game. That's not to say that he's a misogynist, perhaps it's just his personal taste. I'm personally not a big fan of the female characters in MK. They're alright, but just don't fit my play style much. When it comes to showing off fatalities however, I have always enjoyed performing them on my least favorite characters, mostly against Stryker, Sonya, or Sheeva, lol.

Mortal Kombat has always portrayed it's female characters in a very strong, competitive, but yet sexy sort of way. I've never felt that there was ever the slightest hint of misogyny to the game. It's female characters have always been on par with their male counterparts. I suppose that there are always going to be some sick bastards out there in the world with heavy misogynistic viewpoints , but I don't feel that they represent a very large percentage of the MK fanbase.

This is a very interesting thread indeed.
 
This is a great thread and I find it encouraging that people on an MK forum are discussing this in such a cool and collected manner. As coming from a christian perspective, I would say that people will use ANYTHING at their disposal to corrupt and satisfy their perverted desires. For instance, alcohol is not evil. Jesus certainly did not disapprove of drinking it. But there are some people who use it in an unresponsible and sinful manner. People that cannot control themselves should abstain. The bible teaches that if something causes you to sin, you need to eliminate that thing from your life. It's different for everyone obviously. I imagine that Mortal Kombat can be a huge temptation for some people to satiate their weird fantasies of abusing women. Unfortunately the MA rating doesn't prevent freaks from buying the game. For those people though, if not Mortal Kombat, they'll probably find something else so use.
 
J. Valjean said:
If any of you guys want to know more about this desensitization effect, Jackson Katz has an article on Eminem on his website. Mr. Katz is a speaker on women and gender issues that tours nationally and also researches. He and Dr. Thomas Keith, PhD, contribute to each others work sometimes. There are two good videos you can catch online: "Tough Guise" on masculinity and violence by Jackson Katz, and "Generation M" by Dr. Keith on misogyny in music and pop culture.

http://www.jacksonkatz.com/eminem2.html


And I'm not a WGS major.
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NO ****ING NO! Tough Guise is one of the worst documentaries or one of the worst videos I have ever seen in my life

And I really havent read all the walls of text posted here but I understand what the thread is about. my opinion... its a videogame, Id rather have the women look sexy than not sexy and I perform fatalities on everyone. Not just the females

equal rights equal fights
 
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natedoggcata said:
NO ****ING NO! Tough Guise is one of the worst documentaries or one of the worst videos I have ever seen in my life

And I really havent read all the walls of text posted here but I understand what the thread is about. my opinion... its a videogame, Id rather have the women look sexy than not sexy and I perform fatalities on everyone. Not just the females

equal rights equal fights
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How is TG a bad documentry? I think it's actually right on the money about standards put on women and expectations of men. It gives food for thought. Remember it's a systematic thing, not an individual man-woman thing.
 
J. Valjean said:
How is TG a bad documentry? I think it's actually right on the money about standards put on women and expectations of men. It gives food for thought. Remember it's a systematic thing, not an individual man-woman thing.
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I was forced to watch that garbage in my high school Health class.. yeah it does make some great points but the guy narrating it is a smug ****** and a lot of the points he was making DO NOT apply to all men and I was offended that he lumped me into that category. The ******** about men crying. As a straight male ive cried plenty of times before including watching movies and I hated his little bit about how men dont cry becuase they have to keep up their "guise" of being a big tough guy.
 
MORPHEUS said:
I certainly don't mean to knock your personal view on the matter and I do agree with the above poster that this is a rather intelligent topic. However, I do think that you may be reading into things a bit more than you should be. I doubt that either the youtube poster or the artist have any type of derogatory views on women in general nor do they mean to imply as such.

As far as the artist on DeviantArt is concerned, I actually found his skills to be rather impressive as an artist. I didn't particularly care for some of his work, but theres no denying that he is definitely skilled. One thing you have to consider about that site is that alot of times those artists get requests from people that want to see something in particular. It may not even come from his own pool of ideas. Granted, that does pose quite an interesting question. What does some of his work say about those people asking to see it?

Now with the Youtube fatalities, well I think that's just a matter of the persons individual tastes perhaps. Maybe he simply doesn't care for any of the women in the game. That's not to say that he's a misogynist, perhaps it's just his personal taste. I'm personally not a big fan of the female characters in MK. They're alright, but just don't fit my play style much. When it comes to showing off fatalities however, I have always enjoyed performing them on my least favorite characters, mostly against Stryker, Sonya, or Sheeva, lol.

Mortal Kombat has always portrayed it's female characters in a very strong, competitive, but yet sexy sort of way. I've never felt that there was ever the slightest hint of misogyny to the game. It's female characters have always been on par with their male counterparts. I suppose that there are always going to be some sick bastards out there in the world with heavy misogynistic viewpoints , but I don't feel that they represent a very large percentage of the MK fanbase.

This is a very interesting thread indeed.
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I won't lie that MK, compared to most fighting games, actually has a better idealization of women. Boobs and ass aside, as that's a requirement for videogames it seems, MK women are more confident and leader-like. I actually really liked Jade's character in MK9. Very strong-minded and badass, as well as Sonya. MK was never short in that aspect. And it's not MK per se, or Boon that's a misogynist, or Rockstar games is misogynist. It's not that at all. Simply put, the game has an avenue for such things that is comparable to GTA.

There are far worse games, like DOA and Rumble Roses, that are very straightforward in their sexism.

While Ryu and Chun Li can fight in video games, there's no killing aspect. I personally think desensitization to violence in general can lead to disastrous things if the wrong person gets their hands on it, but even moreso, how is it not an issue for the gaming world when fans of the most popular fighting games can pop in their CD and see scantily clad women getting beat? When you see some creep on Livestream killing women only, it's easy to say it's just him and not a reflection on society. But it's twice wrong, it IS a reflection on society and what is allowed (at least to be envisioned). I don't need to explain how serious of a problem abuse and rape are, they are things men and I as a man can never understand except only in an abstract sense, but we all have an idea. When someone's on the stream doing fatalities on women and people are cheering him on, it shows what's (underneath all properness and appearance) seen as alright. Sort of like "*****es ain't shit but hoes and tricks" and other lyrics in music. There are defenses for each and every one of these instances, but there's nothing intercepting the implications they have on the state of women in society. A kid doing fatalities on all women on livestream is not any different from someone fantasizing rape, after all, the women characters are portrayed in a helpless fashion and the men "have their way" with them. At least that's what I got from it after seeing the stream. It's debatable, but there's some link between it and the urges that men are told are okay to have, through subtle means like pop culture.

I may be reading too much into it as some say but come on, let's be honest here, aside from dancing around the issue, there is a link between these themes.
 
natedoggcata said:
I was forced to watch that garbage in my high school Health class.. yeah it does make some great points but the guy narrating it is a smug ****** and a lot of the points he was making DO NOT apply to all men and I was offended that he lumped me into that category. The ******** about men crying. As a straight male ive cried plenty of times before including watching movies and I hated his little bit about how men dont cry becuase they have to keep up their "guise" of being a big tough guy.
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Right, many of his points don't apply to all men. Trust me, I saw it twice- once for a social psychology course and once for a Senior seminar. And both times I was thinking "HEY! That's not true! That's not ME...or my friends!". But that's a perspective issue. Both you and I are looking at it as if Katz is saying all individual men are like this, this is their nature, sex-and-violence oppressors. But that's not what he's saying. He talks about the system of patriarchy- part and parcel of capitalism- and how this social system shapes men to behave. Not all men do so, but many are under the pressure to. Tell me during high school you and your classmates never had to evade being called a "fag" or a "*****". That's part of the male experience. And that's what he's talking about- a system, not a male characteristic.

While it may seem to you rare, I urge you to mingle for a bit with certain crowds. The guido crowd, or the Ed Hardy douchebag crews- these are the new symbols of masculinity. MMA-inspired tough guys with cheap tattoos and sparkly shirts, who all own a copy of Neil Strauss' the Game, who view girls as "pieces" and "ass-pears". Come on, you know there are MANY men like this, and if you're a decent dude, you've probably experienced some angst in high school about guise-acting "jerks" and the dichotomy with "nice guys". That's what Katz is referring to. And if you need more examples, please, look no further than Hip-Hop.
 
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