Are you truly naked in your skin?

John Berger’s documentary ‘Ways of seeing’ looks at the true meaning behind being naked and being nude. I found this to be a very informative perspective on the female image in the present and past human culture. He describes a nude as being a disguise, in which woman put on when being looked upon naked an disguise that cannot be taken off an disguise to last a life time.  Yet to be truly naked he said is to simply be one’s self. Which for me is what video games can be, both a nude and naked experience. As video games allows me to be myself to enjoy all the activities offered and to be naked with one’s identity and also allows me to disappear in to a world that doesn’t exist and put on the disguise of the hero or heroine within.

              Video games have been some of the worst offenders when offering “Nakedness for the people who are dressed” an clear example being the original Tomb Raiders where the camera seemed to locked to the height of Laura’s butt as shown and described during feministfrequency’s strategic butt covering video on YouTube. Putting the player at “butt height” throughout the game. However with games progressing in age and maturity this kind of blatant sexualisation of characters is slowly falling into the history books. In favour for more diverse and interesting female characters that bring more than their bodies to the story. A game that I played recently that uses a females body in nude for story plots was the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. They made the nudity of Keira Metz part of the woman’s disguise and not the woman’s being nude for the people who are dressed. As she used her nudity as a diversion for Geralt the hero of the story to get what she really wanted which in turned showed us the player Keira naked, with her true intentions. This use of the meanings of being nude and naked in storytelling for me is satisfying as it gives the character depth and that she was using her body as a disguise to get what she wanted. Thankfully games are becoming more adapt to presenting the female image as naked rather than nude, where we get to develop feelings and relationships for the heroine in question.

              Yet the Witcher does present one feature controlled by the player in which Geralt the male hero of the story can decide who he has sex with and in turn has a future with. You can have sex with all the female characters presented to Geralt throughout the game this does however have a impact as by the end he has no one to have his future with but this does however feel like the judgement of Paris presented in the documentary. That you are lucky to be picked by Geralt the hero and that you will now have a happy and successful future because of this. “…how she appears to others and particularly how she appears to men is of crucial importance as it is normally thought of as the success of her life.” Words of John Berger during the opening of his documentary words that couldn’t fit better with this particular feature and narrative direction. Although games still have some way to go when presenting the female image to the consumer in art and in play I believe we’re on the correct tracks to see some incredible female protagonists and characters.

References;

Tw1975, (2012) John Berger / Ways of Seeing , Episode 2 (1972). [YouTube video] Available from:< <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GI8mNU5Sg&list=PLlhSx0L1hpaGKfq1qXe1vWUhG1EgIN9Yf&index= >[Accessed March 2016]

feministfrequency, (2016) Strategic Butt Coverings - Tropes vs Women in Video Games. [YouTube video] Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTufg1GvR4> [Accessed March 2016]

CD PROJECT RED. (2002) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Playstation 4. Łódź, Poland.