Homosexuality in Modern Visual Media

[pellaz]

the gay community good/bad is getting assimilated into the main stream. For example they will be able to be recognized by law in marriage have children/family/household/religion but also get divorced.

Gays having been forced to deal with life issues at an early age they will be more capable emotionally.

It will take a good part of a generation to dissipate the haters in and out of the gay community.

[kidchameleon]

Oooh, you forgot Bully/Canis Canem Edit. It had a gay romance option for each of the cliques, and managed to avoid getting its ESRB rating put up just for the fact - which I always thought was a pretty good step forward at the time, especially considering how much abuse they got just for adding a little bit of completely optional/avoidable homosexuality :/

Ugh, Dragon Age: Origins pissed me off, they made very little effort with the finished relationship conversation trees, and they were so easy to glitch. Alistar could be seduced by a male PC, and would flirt back, right until the end - then he'd just act like nothing ever happened, or could happen

I think it's really sad that the option isn't there in more games, I mean personally I don't see the big deal with just giving us the choice - it's not like we're asking for a whole market to be dedicated to us, just a little acknowledgement. After all, we buy video games just as much as heterosexuals do.

Saying that however, I think it may be a while before it becomes a common thing outside of the more progressive companies like Bioware. The gaming industry seems to be fairly geared towards straight men; women are under-represented a lot too, so at least it's not a problem just for us, although obviously it's a bit more severe for us. But saying that, at least we don't need to be made sexually objectifiable objects before we can be considered protagonist material

So... my point would be, I think in general gaming is a fairly exclusive medium - probably because of the money that goes into it these days; and therefore the requirement to be commercial, and as casual as possible (watch how much simpler Fable got from 1 to 3 and you'll see my point -_-). I guess they think things like female & gay protagonists are just too risky a move, unless they're justified by being sexual objects, or comic relief.

Luckily there are companies like Bioware who have the common sense to see that that kind of pandering isn't the only route to success :3

I'd say that indie gaming could help bring these issues out of the mainstream, but the problem is they need this easy-digestibility even more than big-name games if they want to be succesful, so pulling that kind of "stunt" would probably be a bad move for a fledgling company.

[megumidesu]

shadow the hedgehog has two fathers , does that count ?
lol

[kidchameleon]

shadow the hedgehog has two fathers , does that count ?
lol

Watchu talkin' bout Willis? Shadow was made with alien blood. He gots no daddy!

Okay, well maybe one

God... Shadow the Hedgehog was an awful game -_-'

[megumidesu]

Watchu talkin' bout Willis? Shadow was made with alien blood. He gots no daddy!

Okay, well maybe one

God... Shadow the Hedgehog was an awful game -_-'

he was created by gerald robotnik (a male scientist) using the DNA of a blatantly male alien (as well as other things lol) . so technically ... you could say he has two fathers xD

i actually really liked that game lol ... there are some really awesome bits .
i love how if you play it a certain way , shadow goes through a few "KILL THEM ALL" missions and then suddenly he's helping amy find a tiny bunny xDD hahahah

[Spellbound]

There was a gay NPC in Morrowind called Crassius Curio, which is an insulting name. In order to continue with the quest, you had to take all your gear off so he could admire you. Not a positive scene at all.

[kidchameleon]

he was created by gerald robotnik (a male scientist) using the DNA of a blatantly male alien (as well as other things lol) . so technically ... you could say he has two fathers xD

i actually really liked that game lol ... there are some really awesome bits .
i love how if you play it a certain way , shadow goes through a few "KILL THEM ALL" missions and then suddenly he's helping amy find a tiny bunny xDD hahahah

Haha, yeah I suppose... never thought of it that way lol.

It did have good points, I liked how a second player could control your companions for instance. I think I just have a lot of issues with it because - for me - it was a sign of things starting to go downhill. But saying that, I had issues from every 3D game after Sonic Adventure 2

I did play it a lot though, so I couldn't have disliked it that much.

[Vow]

Oh Lord, Curio. I never knew what to do with that guy... yeesh.

One can only hope that seeing Bioware's success in depicting homosexuality (except Zevran) will convince other companies to try something new. And I never played Bully either... I really need to get to studying.

--Vow

[Counselor]

Dragon Age had much the same, only with two bisexual romance characters.

I was all about to post a rant about how I remember Leliana being bi, but no male character, and then I remembered Zevran, who always seemed sleazy for some reason.

But GAWDDAMNIT I loved Anders.

[Vow]

That's because he kind of is. His trophy is called Easy Lover, and he's the only romance who suggests a threesome with someone else. Though that brings up other problems...

I'm really glad I started this thread. It's given me a lot to think about.

There was also a character from Persona 4, I remember, but that was more viewed as a personality issue regarding fear of females and after the personification of his darker traits is defeated, it's not mentioned much. A little sad that the country that used to be okay with homosexual relationships for their samurai view it much less positively today.