Tropes Vs Women - Damsels in Distress

Anita Sarkeesian's Youtube video Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games has been viewed 2.27 million times. The central theme of the video is how portrayals of damsels in distress is "pernicious" and harmful to women, because it strips them of their power. This video is the product of flawed reasoning and a damaged psyche, and for these reasons, comments are disabled. A viewer cannot even vote 'like' or 'dislike' on any of her videos.

Sarkeesian claims that the damsel construct "disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own right." The narrative focus is on the male character, but the female character is not 'disempowered,' rather she becomes the inspiration for the quest, literally breathing life into the story.

Sarkeesian does acknowledge that this plot device is ancient, by relating the tale of Perseus. Another classic story employing this synecdoche is Homer's Odyssey. According to Wiki, "The poem [Odyssey] is fundamental to the modern Western canon and is the second oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad being the oldest." In addition, "many scholars believe that the original poem was composed in an oral tradition."

These are stories that are as old as Western Civilization, and fit comfortably within the linear heroic narrative that most video games employ. Even the very first video game console was called the Magnavox Odyssey.

Perhaps what most bothers Sarkeesian is human nature itself. When a woman becomes pregnant, she becomes imprisoned by her pregnancy. To employ a common idiom, a girl who gets pregnant is often said to be "in trouble." Thus the damsel in distress is not just a quick plot device, it is part of feminine nature.

Sarkeesian went back to 1980's video games to bolster her rhetoric, but she completely ignored some very popular titles produced since then, that fully empower female characters. Perfect Dark, released in 2000, sold more than 3.2 million copies, and had several spinoffs. Tomb Raider has sold more than 42 million units, and inspired ten iterations and two major motion pictures. And today's RPG's all feature the option of selecting a male or female protagonist.

Maybe Sarkeesian should produce a Youtube video complaining about the damsel device in major motion pictures. Movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, and Star Wars are continually made and deliver the highest grosses. They get rebooted constantly, because it is easier than coming up with new ideas, and nobody with any credibility calls them "regressive crap."