I never feel too bad for saying snarky things about massive, soulless, multibillion dollar corporations, but I do think it’s important to be fair, if only because being honest is more important than being funny. So I don’t think it’s necessary to go on a tear on Rockstar for saying that there won’t be any playable women in Grand Theft Auto V right off the bat even given their excuse was "The concept of being masculine was so key to this story.” Still, also in the interest of being fair, that excuse is kinda bullshit. Bullshit excuses irritate me for two reasons: the first is that it is bullshit because it is objectively a not true statement. This is my critique from a creative angle: do you really believe I can buy that excuse when The Last of Us is sitting right next to you? (Awkward!) The second reason bullshit offends me is simply from the soulless marketing PR machine angle—I mean, if you are going bullshit me, bullshit me, but please, bullshit me in a way that I might actually believe.
Ordinarily I would not really be comfortable with writing an article that basically explains to corporate PR how to lie to me better, but I am giving Rockstar the benefit of the doubt this time because there is a universe in which I might actually believe that they have a good reason for having no playable women in their game. They haven’t given one, and their attempt to explain it only raises further questions. Why does Rockstar need an excuse in the first place, you might ask? Well take The Last of Us as an example: here is a game that is entirely based on a core narrative of masculinity that still devotes a significant amount of time to a secondary narrative of a young woman growing up a nightmarish world. Ellie’s development is reflected by her gradual participation in gameplay, until the point where she’s actually playable. This is an extremely well crafted and purposeful move, and it’s unique to The Last of Us. This is not to say that Rockstar should, has to, or is under any obligation to do the same—it’s their artistic vision and their choice to do what they want.
However, since it is possible to include playable women in a game that centers around masculinity, why aren’t they? The reason given by Rockstar falls on its face because it’s completely, 100% possible to tell a violent masculine narrative and still include women in major roles. So then: why aren’t there any? Sure, artistic vision and all that—except now it just looks like Rockstar was just unable to imagine the very possibility—something that Naughty Dog pulled off without really having a problem. The issue is that “women don’t fit into a story about masculinity” is in itself a statement I don’t agree with.
Another reason for feeling uncomfortable with Rockstar’s statement is a bit more holistic. Rockstar has every right in the world to tell the story they want to tell, and if that story happens to be the same god dang story of a man being a man in a manly man world fine sure that’s your artistic vision: it just looks exactly like everyone else’s artistic vision. For the same reason I am not terribly excited for each new brown cover shooter that is released, I have little excitement for a game that looks like it will say everything everything else ever has already said. I have read The Sun Also Rises, guys. I kind of get it. If you like masculinity narratives, by the way, I guarantee you will like Hemingway, because if you like manly man stories he can write them roughly a billion times better, though only rarely will you read about shooting zombies or aliens or the police.
Which is not to say that no one should be allowed to write these really boring masculinity narratives. Revisiting and retelling stories is completely rad. No one reinvents everything from the start; we only build on what’s already come before. But it’s not exactly an interesting or new move, and it reflects one of the most disappointing traits of the masculinity narrative, which is possessing such a narrow viewpoint that it seemingly cannot see anything outside of it, and GTAV’s lack of women characters seems suspiciously to be a result more of lack of imagination rather than a serious decision. The Last of Us has pretty standard masculinity narrative, even, but it also critiques it; at the end, the main character makes the most selfish choice imaginable, against the actual feelings of the young woman he’s making it for—and it’s something the audience is supposed to feel conflicted about. The story’s about him, but she is there to provide us some needed outside insight. Rockstar’s dismissal makes it sound like it’s going to be a narrative that indulges in masculinity narratives as taken for granted, not interested in critiquing or advancing them by confronting other perspectives rather than ignoring them. It’s not legit to ignore them, by the way. It’s their artistic vision, sure: but just so you know, an artistic vision that can’t see outside itself is pretty derivative and boring.
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that half of the problem was Rockstar didn’t even have the decency to bullshit me in a way that I’d believe, and I’m going to open this up to the meta discussion of what a good line of bullshit might be. I may be picking over just one simple line here, and who knows how this is going to turn out, right? Except I’ve seen this all before so many times I made a bingo sheet out of excuses for not having women characters, and if I am right that GTAV doesn’t say anything, then you all owe me $10 (I accept PayPal). And if you then say, but it wasn’t even TRYING to say anything, then when they threw around the words “artistic vision” they didn’t even believe them themselves. Which is why from a PR perspective, I would like to let Rockstar or any future company know that if you want to explain why you don’t have any playable women in game that’s sort of about doing whatever the hell you want in an open world, you have to do it in a way I’m actually going to buy, which unfortunately means more than a sentence. What I need is some confidence in their artistic vision. Okay, you have one, that is great: it would be pretty bad if you didn’t. So, now that I know that, convince me that your artistic vision is something cool that I might actually be interested in. I’ve played a lot of games with pretty bad ones.
