The infamous ME3 F!Shep Contest

[wallwalker]

(Cut out the other stuff to post in its own post.)

I've read about the controversy that is apparently happening over the FemShep vote on Facebook and the fact that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed model is in the lead. (In fact, I think that it's been decided, with her as the winner.) The general point of that article appears to be that blonde model makes Shepard look like a bimbo, and Shepard deserves better.

All I have to say is, you have to be very careful using that argument. Because when you strip it down to its core, what you're saying is this: "It doesn't matter what a female character has done; what she looks like is more important." Because apparently blonde!Shepard is a bimbo - despite the fact that she's the same Shepard that's blown up Reapers, destroyed alien bases and punched out incredibly powerful aliens in single combat, and figured out ways to avert inevitable invasions. Why does it matter what she looks like? Either to us, or to Bioware?

And where is the female Shepard that we've seen for the past two games, the default one that more fans will recognize than any of these newcomers? Why wasn't she at least an option? What's the deal with that?

Comments

[wallwalker]

It's a tangent, but you know what always irritated me about DA:O's character customization? You couldn't actually play a black character. The closest you could get was a mix of dark-ish skin and red hair, which was too Ambigiously Brown for my tastes. :/

[owlmoose]

Yeah, it's true. My husband, T, who is Chinese-American, was able to make a PC who was tolerably close to his skin tone/hair color/eye shape, but it took some doing, and the character doesn't really look "Asian". But then, pretty much everyone in Ferelden reads as white to me, party members and NPCs alike. Racial diversity is not DA's strong point (not, so far, in DA2 either).

On the other hand, I do think that the DA series does pretty well by its female characters, at least in DA:O and the first half of DA2 issues mentioned upthread notwithstanding. It's not perfect, by any means, but I've found it one of the better games I've played in that respect.