The Broodmother as Monstrous-Feminine
Abject Maternity in Video Games
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7557/13.5014Keywords:
video games, monstrous-feminine, maternal, abject, motherhood, Dragon Age: Origins (2009), Dragon Age: Origins—Awakening (2010), StarCraft series (1998–2017)Abstract
This article examines examples of the monstrous-feminine in the form of abject maternal monsters in a selection of commercially successful and critically acclaimed mainstream video games using conceptual frameworks and textual analysis methods established in the work of Julia Kristeva and Barbara Creed. The Broodmother from Dragon Age: Origins (2009) and the Mother from Dragon Age: Origins—Awakening (2010) are considered as problematic examples of the abject monstrous-feminine which fall into a long tradition in horror media of framing the female body and the birthing process as something horrific and repulsive. Kerrigan from the StarCraft series (1998–2017) is examined as a possible counter-example, demonstrating that the monstrous-feminine can exist in a playable and potentially empowered form, though she is problematically empowered within a violent, militant framework. Overall, this article critically analyses the ways in which video games remediate tropes of gendered monstrosity and reinforce the misogynist norms and values of hegemonic heteropatriarchal ideology by forcing players to enact symbolic violence against transgressive female bodies.
References
Bernardi, Daniel (ed.). 2008. The Persistence of Whiteness: Race and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge.
BioWare. 2009. Dragon Age: Origins. Redwood City: Electronic Arts, Playstation 3 game.
BioWare. 2010. Dragon Age: Origins—Awakening. Redwood City: Electronic Arts, Playstation 3 game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 1998a. StarCraft. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 1998b. StarCraft: Brood War. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 2010. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 2013. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 2015a. Heroes of the Storm. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Blizzard Entertainment. 2015b. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void. Irvine: Blizzard, PC game.
Brice, Mattie. 2013. “The Dadification of Video Games is Real”, Alternate Ending, August 15. Available online: http://www.mattiebrice.com/the-dadification-of-video-games-is-real/ [May 15, 2017].
Campbell, Colin. 2016. “Where are All the Video Game Moms?”, Polygon, July 7. Available online: http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/7/7/12025874/where-are-the-video-game-moms [May 15, 2017].
Caputi, Jane. 2004. Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Carr, Dianne. 2009. “Textual Analysis, Digital Games, Zombies”, paper presented at DiGRA 2009—Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory, London. Available online: http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/09287.241711.pdf [December 22, 2018].
Carr, Dianne. 2014. “Ability, Disability and Dead Space”, Game Studies 14:2, without page numbers. Digital object identifier not available: http://gamestudies.org/1402/articles/carr [October 31, 2019].
Chang, Edmond. 2017. “A Game Chooses, A Player Obeys: BioShock, Posthumanism, and the Limits of Queerness”, in Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, edited by Jennifer Malowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm. Indiana University Press, 227–244. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005rgq.18.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. 1996a. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”, in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 3–25. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctttsq4d.4.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome (ed.). 1996b. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctttsq4d.
Covino, Deborah Caslav. 2004. Amending the Abject Body: Aesthetic Makeovers in Medicine and Culture. Albany: SUNY Press.
Creed, Barbara. 1986. “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”, Screen 27:1, 44–71. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/27.1.44.
Creed, Barbara. 1993. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York/London: Routledge.
Davis, Laura K., and Cristina Santos. 2010. The Monster Imagined: Humanity’s Recreation of Monsters and Monstrosity. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Dayton, Cameron. 2013. “Kerrigan: Hope and Vengeance”, Blizzard Entertainment, March 12. Available online: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/media/blizzard-comics/kerrigan-hope-and-vengeance/#/1 [link defunct as of December 22, 2018].
Dijkstra, Bram. 1986. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Doane, Mary Ann. 1991. Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Dragon Age Wiki (author unknown). 2018. “Children”, Dragon Age Wiki, July 20. Available online: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Children [December 22, 2018].
Freud, Sigmund. 1949 [1940]. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. Translated reprint edition. New York: Norton.
Goto, Lindsay. 2015. “Vilifying Mental Illness: Horror Games and The Insanity Trope”, FemHype, March 16. Available online: https://femhype.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/vilifying-mental-illness-horror-games-the-insanity-trope/ [November 27, 2018].
Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1974–. Dungeons and Dragons. Lake Geneva: TSR Hobbies.
Graham, Elaine L. 2002. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens, and Others in Popular Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Gray, Kate. 2017. “Why Is Motherhood so Poorly Portrayed in Video Games?”, The Guardian, May 9. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/09/video-games-motherhood [September 20, 2017].
Grosz, Elizabeth. 1996. “Animal Sex: Libido as Desire and Death”, in Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism, edited by Elisabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn. New York: Routledge, 278–299.
Guerrero, Ed. 1993. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Harrington, Erin. 2018. Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror. New York: Routledge. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315546568.
Hayes, Elisabeth R., and James Paul Gee. 2010. Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Headstrong Games. 2009. The House of the Dead: Overkill. Tokyo: Sega, PlayStation 3 game.
Huet, Marie-Hélène. 1993. Monstrous Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Joho, Jess. 2014. “The Dadification of Video Games, Round Two”, Kill Screen, November 2. Available online: https://killscreen.com/articles/dadification-videogames-round-two/ [link defunct as of December 22, 2018].
Juul, Jesper. 2012 [2009]. A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players. Reprint edition. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kearney, Richard. 2002. Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness. London/New York: Routledge.
Kristeva, Julia. 1982 [1980]. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lindsey, Patrick. 2014. “Gaming’s Favorite Villain Is Mental Illness, and This Needs to Stop”, Polygon, July 21. Available online: https://www.polygon.com/2014/7/21/5923095/mental-health-gaming-silent-hill [November 27, 2018].
MacCormack, Patricia. 2012. “The Queer Ethics of Monstrosity”, in Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology, edited by Joan S. Picart and John Edgar Browning. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 255–265. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137101495_23.
Miller, Monica, and Alicia Summers. 2007. “Gender Differences in Video Game Characters’ Roles, Appearances, and Attire as Portrayed in Video Game Magazines”, Sex Roles 57:9, 733–742. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9307-0.
Nama, Adilifu. 2008. Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film. Austin: The University of Texas Press.
Neale, Stephen. 1980. Genre. London: BFI.
Nikolaidou, Dimitra. 2019 [forthcoming]. “The Wargame Legacy: How Wargames Shaped the Roleplaying Experience from Tabletop to Digital Games”, in War Games: Memory, Militarism, and the Subject of Play, edited by Philip Hammond and Holger Pötzsch. London: Bloomsbury Academic, without page numbers yet.
Picart, Joan S., and John Edgar Browning (eds.). 2012. Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137101495.
Rehak, Bob. 2003. “Playing at Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar”, in The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron. London/New York: Routledge, 103–128.
Russo, Mary. 1995. The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess, and Modernity. New York: Routledge.
Santos, Cristina. 2017. Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires, and Virgins. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Santos, Marc C., and Sarah E. White. 2005. “Playing with Ourselves: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Resident Evil and Silent Hill”, in Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer, edited by Nate Garrelts. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 69–79.
Sarkeesian, Anita. 2013–2017. Feminist Frequency—Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. Video and podcast series. Available online: https://feministfrequency.com/series/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/ [November 20, 2018].
Sarkeesian, Anita. 2016. “Sinister Seductress”, Feminist Frequency, September 28. Available online: https://feministfrequency.com/video/sinister-seductress/ [November 20, 2018].
Smith, Carly. 2014. “Gaming’s Mom Problem: Why Do We Refuse to Feature Mothers in Games?”, Polygon, November 10. Available online: http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/10/7173757/mothers-in-video-games [May 15, 2017].
Spittle, Steve. 2011. “‘Did This Game Scare You? Because It Sure as Hell Scared Me!’: F.E.A.R., the Abject and the Uncanny”, Games and Culture 6:4, 312–326. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412010391091.
Stang, Sarah. 2016. “Controlling Fathers and Devoted Daughters: Paternal Authority in BioShock 2 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, First Person Scholar, December 7. Available online: http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/controlling-fathers-and-devoted-daughters/ [September 20, 2017].
Stang, Sarah. 2018. “Shrieking, Biting, and Licking: The Monstrous-Feminine and Abject Female Monsters in Video Games”, Press Start 4:2, 18–34. Digital object identifier not available: https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/index.php/press-start/article/view/85 [October 31, 2019].
StarCraft Wiki (author unknown). 2018. “Sarah Kerrigan”, StarCraft Wiki, July 20. Available online: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Sarah_Kerrigan [December 22, 2018].
Tango Gameworks. 2017. The Evil Within 2. Rockville: Bethesda Softworks, PlayStation 4 game.
Trépanier-Jobin, Gabrielle, and Maude Bonenfant. 2017. “Bridging Game Studies and Feminist Theories”, Kinephanos 4:1, 24–53. Digital object identifier not available: https://www.kinephanos.ca/Revue_files/2017_Trepanier_Bonenfant.pdf [October 31, 2019].
Ussher, Jane M. 2006. Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body. New York/London: Routledge. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203328422.
Visceral Games. 2010. Dante’s Inferno. Redwood City: Electronic Arts, PlayStation 3 game.
Voorhees, Gerald. 2016. “Daddy Issues: Constructions of Fatherhood in The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite”, ADA—A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology 9:1, without page numbers. Digital object identifier not available: http://adanewmedia.org/2016/05/issue9-voorhees/ [October 31, 2019].
Weststar, Johanna, and Marie-Josée Legault. 2016. Developer Satisfaction Survey 2016: Summary Report. Toronto: International Game Developers Association. Available online: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.igda.org/resource/resmgr/files__2016_dss/IGDA_DSS_2016_Summary_Report.pdf [September 20, 2017].
Williams, Dmitri, Nicole Martins, Mia Consalvo, and James D. Ivory. 2009. “The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games”, New Media & Society 11:5, 815–834. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809105354.
Williams, Linda. 1991. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess”, Film Quarterly 44:4, 2–13. Digital object identifier: https://doi.org/10.2307/1212758.
Wood, Andrea, and Brandy Schillace. 2014. Unnatural Reproductions and Monstrosity: The Birth of the Monster in Literature, Film, and Media. Amherst: Cambria Press.
Wood, Robin. 2003 [1986]. Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yaeger, Patricia. 1992. “The ‘Language of Blood’: Toward A Maternal Sublime”, Genre 25:1, 5–24. Digital object identifier not available.
Young, Helen. 2016. Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness. New York: Routledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Forfattere som publiserer i dette tidsskriftet aksepterer følgende vilkår:
- Forfattere beholder copyright og gir tidsskriftet retten til første publisering samtidig som verket lisensieres med en Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International lisens som tillater andre å dele verket, forutsatt at verkets forfatter og første publisering i tidsskriftet erkjennes.
- Forfattere kan inngå separate, ikke-eksklusive avtaler om annen distribusjon av tidsskriftets publiserte utgave av verket (f.eks. egenarkivering i et vitenarkiv eller publisering i en bok), så lenge førstepubliseringen i tidsskriftet erkjennes.
- Forfattere tillates og oppmuntres til å gjøre verket tilgjengelig på nettet (f.eks. i et vitenarkiv eller på andre nettsider) før og under innlevering, da dette kan lede til nyttige menings- og kunnskapsutvekslinger og til tidligere og mer sitering av det publiserte verket. (Se The Effect of Open Access).
