Dear Reader,

So, “Duke Nukem Forever” came and went, and the reaction was pretty harsh. And if you take a look at the reviews, I think it’s fairly obvious that the distaste was deeper than just broken gameplay: people didn’t like this game, on a personal level. Randy Pitchford and the folks at Gearbox are a talented bunch, and I don’t think anyone blames them for not being able to salvage this train wreck, but the fact remains that DNF will probably always be their least-loved game.

But why the personal reaction? Why the intense, intimate dislike? I have a theory on this, but you’ll need to hit the jump to see what it is.

I think the answer is simple: gender roles have changed. When “Duke Nukem 3D” came out, there was cultural breathing room for type A, old school machismo. At the center of the Duke hypothesis was the idea that you could, in theory, be so balls awesome that women would simply be rendered sex slaves in your presence. Those days are good and over. Even or maybe especially in the world of gaming, feminism has sunk in. We still play as strapping, heroic dudes who score hot looking babes, but said babes are no longer idealized as concubines. More often than not, they are our equals in combat, and they usually spend much of the game rejecting our advances, much to our delight.

"I have no intention of sleeping with you"

Digital ladies are still sexual objects, to be sure, but a lot has changed about what that means. In Duke’s day, the hottest thing imaginable was a Catholic schoolgirl outfit on a drunken stripper, who seemed to orgasm at the sight of you. Now we fantasize about warrior women, tough as nails and hard to get; sometimes, we never even do get them. Trishka in “Bulletstorm,” for instance, spits vitriol at every attempt to seduce her, and is never successfully wooed. “Uncharted” features a dazzling array of beautiful women, but they have their own agendas and goals, and they keep pace with Nathan when the bullets start flying. Jack in “Mass Effect 2” greets the player’s offers of friendship with, “Sh*t, you sound like a pussy.” And, as any aspiring Shepard knows, if you give in to Jack’s offer of casual sex and bed her early, you kill all possibility of a relationship with her down the line. Even in “Grand Theft Auto,” you have to take the girls on dates now. This is a pretty far cry from a grateful hooker offering up gratis services as repayment for rescue from aliens.

“Duke Nukem Forever” attempted to hold to its past, and suffered for it. Not ten minutes into the game, a couple of giddy (and suspiciously young) ladies are playing telephone with your wing-wang, while Duke retains his typical, dispassionate “of course I deserve this” attitude. As I watched this, I could feel my nose wrinkle, and not just because I’m a stubborn moralist. There was something deeper, more insidious to my reaction: this kind of thing just isn’t cool anymore.

Now some spoil-sports will still wring their hands and insist that women are “sex objects” in video games, but this accusation ignores the fact that men are idealized too. Is Nathan Drake not exceedingly handsome? Is Marcus Fenix not ripped full of bulging muscles? Everyone is a sex object in video games, and they should be. Women are given ample cleavage and an hour-glass figure, to be sure, but this is done for the same reason they let the sun crest over a cliff side right before setting in “Red Dead Redemption:” it looks pretty. Games are visual, and in a visual art form it’s only natural to make things look nice. Call it crass if you like, but sexist? Far from it.

Hooray for amoral sociopaths

There is, of course, one notable exception: “God of War.” Kratos, gaming’s biggest douche bag, holds to Duke’s old standard by plowing through an army of mindless, gasping Greek women who can barely contain their animal desire for him. Just one more addition to a nearly infinite list of reasons why I hate “God of War.” But this is the exception, not the rule, and you’ll very likely encounter plenty of gamers like myself who find it either A) unappealing or B) kind of stupid.

Now, in fairness, “Duke Nukem 3D” was one of the first overtly sexual mainstream games. A lot of its appeal was the simple, illicit thrill of watching eroticism wedge its way into this pixelated territory where it had never before wandered. And since this was before internet porn came and ruined the mystique of sex forever, seeing some boobies in a video game still carried with it a certain weight and power. Now, you can type “vagina” into Google and see more sex than any human being ever should in the space of minutes. So maybe “Duke Nukem Forever” could never recapture that kind of excitement anyway.

But nonetheless, I think DNF illustrates how much gamers have changed in only a few years. Where feminist portrayals of women were in their infancy in the late 80s and 90s, they’re actually the standard now; “God of War” is unusual for departing from it. Most “feminists” probably scoff at video gamed and still consider them sexist, but they’re completely wrong. In many ways, video games have evolved a far more sophisticated view of women than “Twilight,” or the average Sandra Bullock movie. A casual glance at the best-selling games of the decade shows that we have totally accepted an empowered vision of the opposite sex, more so than most of the art that is actually marketed to the opposite sex. Gamers get a bad rap as a bunch of craven animals, but the failure of “Duke Nukem Forever” proves that we may be moving faster towards equality than anyone else.

–AA

initiating slut mode

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9 Comments

  1. To play Devil’s Advocate: How then, sir, do you account for the sheer success of the character of Barney from How I Met Your Mother? Granted, HIMYM and video gaming don’t necessarily intersect much on the Venn diagram of cultures, but HIMYM is pretty damn mainstream. Are you saying that gaming culture is more progressive?

    • Firstly, Barney is a ladies’ man, not a boiling pot of testosterone that renders females inert simply by being. He knows the right things to say, he dresses well, and so women like him. It’s something he earns.

      Secondly, yes, I am talking mostly about gaming culture, and not necessarily other areas.

  2. Justin Shaikewitz on

    I’ve always said Duke Nukem doesn’t take himself seriously and neither should anyone.

    Its supposed to be an over the top action 80s movie parody.

    Hes not really supposed to be a role model (except in Duke’s world).

    The over the top machismo is part of the fun/humor. If he was not like that then it would not be a Duke Nukem video game.

    The biggest problem with the game is that the gameplay overal is average at best. Its great for a Duke Nukem game, I always wondered why you could never use the alien weapons (for the most part) in 3d. However, its not the advancement that 3D was. Its also missing co-op but thats another issue.

  3. You don’t think Duke felt…dated? All comedy is based in truth, and I don’t think Duke works anymore, even as a self-parody.

    I agree that the game was just average. But the intensity of the negative reaction against it suggests that a cultural aspect is also involved.

  4. Justin Shaikewitz on

    The intensity was partly because it was never going to live up to the development time it had.

    I think people actually made a living making Duke Nukem Forever jokes. And then it comes out and it seems cool to hate on it. Granted there are perfectly valid reasons to hate on it (10 minute loading screens really? ).

    I think/hope Gearbox does something awesome with the franchise (though not before they make Borderlands 2).

    I don’t think it was dated, I mean maybe game play wise a bit but bad dirty jokes and explosions never go out of style. Honestly im glad they did not make it politically correct because again thats not Duke.

    I will admit some bias because for me the nesalgia factor was through the roof I loved the computer games and I want them to make a port of Duke it out in DC like they did for 3D (probably never happen). I also played the N64 version as a kid with my friends until the N64 would overheat. Course that was true of Perfect Dark and Smash Bros too.

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