Playing Dirty: The queer hero
This week, Scott Jon Siegel contributes Playing Dirty, Bonnie Ruberg's column on sex and gender in video games:
In her last several columns, Bonnie has talked about the role of effeminate men as protagonists in video games. In her examples, she's discussed threats to the heterosexual male archetype, and, I believe, has hinted at the possibility for an even more potent figure: the queer hero.
In my mind, the queer hero is almost a challenge to the industry, which so often writes archetypal characters for the sake of easy identification by their audience. Homosexuality has been present in video games for years, but often as a farce -- at best, a flamboyant frog in Rare's Banjo-Tooie but, at worst, figures to be ridiculed, as amusing as a minstrel show.
The queer hero is not merely "gay for gay's sake." Rather, I define the queer hero as a protagonist whose orientation is arguably less-than-normative, but which ultimately plays no part in the telling of his or her story. This automatically discredits the lipstick lesbians of Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix, whose "taboo" romance played an overt role in the game's marketing to a young male audience. No, the queer hero is, to put it simply, "cool," and seen as "cool" neither because of his/her sexuality, nor in spite of it.
Assuming this character couldn't possibly already exist, I've fantasized for years about the making of a truly great game, with a protagonist who just happens to be gay. But one random, crude webcomic made me double back on my assumption, and take a closer look at one of gaming's most popular franchises. In Resident Evil 4, Leon S. Kennedy, the once-rookie cop from RE2, returns to the series wearing blue-jeans and a bomber jacket -- dressed for success. I played through the entire game without giving it a thought, but looking back, I think I found my queer hero.
It's not just the outfit (although Leon did receive one of the best makeovers in video game history). In Resident Evil 2, Leon entered the story late, after a rough breakup with his girlfriend. He later assumes a spark between himself and Ada Wong, only to get burned when it's revealed that she'd been using him to get what she wanted. But this is not the same Leon we later meet in RE4.
In RE4, Leon encounters two major female characters, but two prominent male ones as well. Ada returns, but any heat Leon had for her has invariably cooled off. She's a figure of overt female sexuality in the game -- dressed to kill in a red one-piece with a thigh-high slit down the side -- but Leon barely gives her a second look.
Ashley Graham, the barely-legal daughter of the American president, is the main focus of Leon's mission, as he has been sent to find and rescue her. Wearing a tight sweater and short, plaid, schoolgirl's skirt, Ashley's a comely character, who (as we all know) flirts unsuccessfully with Leon towards the end of the game:
Ashley: So, after you take me back to my place, how about we do some ... overtime?
Leon: Heh. Sorry.
Ashley: Somehow I knew you were going to say that ...
Leon's relationships with male figures in the game prove to be equally interesting. Early on, he befriends Luis Sera, a former Madrid police officer and native of the village. Though knowing very little about him, Leon puts his trust in Luis almost immediately. Later, when Sera is stabbed through the chest by Saddler, we are treated to the game's most sentimental sequence, as Leon holds the dying Spaniard in his arms.
Jack Krauser, mercenary and one-time friend to Leon, appears as a rival figure in the storyline. Though betrayed in time by both Ada and Krauser, Leon takes Krauser's betrayal more personally, reveling in it during a phallo-centric knife fight between the two men (and what is undeniably the sexiest sequence in the entire game).
Frigid to women, yet heated to various temperatures by the men in his life, is it possible that Leon S. Kennedy is the queer hero? Could his next Resident Evil appearance feature an offhanded comment about a boyfriend in the city? Would Leon even have time for boyfriends in his line of work?
Worst-case scenario: What if Leon isn't queer as I had hoped, but just another effeminate, pretty-boy het? If not Leon, then whom? Who will save the industry from its own archetypal protagonists? Who will be our queer hero?
Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.
