The Horizon franchise (made up of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West) unintentionally spurred a debate about misogyny in gaming when the trailer for Horizon Forbidden West was released in 2021. The first major event in this debate was Twitter user ApexAlphaJ tweeted this now infamous quote and images.
“Is it me or Sony be making their lead female protagonist look masculine as hell..barely no curves or rough non feminine features..Unlike the average woman. Like *cough cough..TLOU2’s [The Last of Us 2] Ellie…etc. Just saying #My2cents
Pic from the game on the left, fan made on right. Hire fans lol”
Aloy, the character above, lives in a post-apocalyptic version of the United States, where mechanical animals terrorize people. This tweet was repeatedly dunked on since narratively, there is no way or reason that Aloy would wear makeup or use eyebrow tweezers.
Almost a year later, a similar conversation would be prompted by another tweet.
Text : Can you explain to me why the hell Aloy has a beard?
Again, Aloy’s appearance is critiqued for being “too masculine” when she has natural peach fuzz and again it was dunked on for showing how little understanding of women some men have. This discussion is what prompted me to explore the game from a feminist lens. Were these men perhaps threatened by feminist themes in the original game which led to their outrage?
From the opening cutscene, Horizon fully embraces the upliftment of women. Rost requires permission from the matriarch to speak, the tribe worships a goddess, and he notes that it would be the mother’s responsibility to name and bless their child typically. He also wholeheartedly takes up the role of caretaker for Aloy, being a role model for positive masculinity, which is also feminist.
After Aloy ages, players are able to decide what her personality is through actions they choose for her to take. This is an example of the “empathy building” that is mentioned in the reading, since players can understand multiple perspectives Aloy could have given her situation. It also gives players’ agency over their expression, another part of the feminist equation.The mechanics of the game support feminist ideas for the most part but some plot elements could be interpreted as contradictory to it.
*Spoilers Ahead*
In the end of the game, Aloy discovers she is a clone of Elisabet Sobeck, an Old World scientist, and was created to follow out a directive in order to end the war ravaging the Earth. This twist calls into question a lot of the agency Aloy and the player had throughout the game. Were they really forging their own path or unintentionally following the one laid out for them?
Perhaps the point of the game is to consider such a question and extrapolate it to real world social contexts. In the same way Aloy is able to challenge the oppression she faces as an outsider, feminists can reconsider how they counteract oppression now.
Discussion Question:
How do real world discussions retroactively influence the gaming experience when playing as a feminist?
