Hello and welcome to my easy to understand guide to Horizon Forbidden West, the video game and representation. This video is going to be particularly relevant for you if you are studying AQA A-level media studies, as it is currently a set text on that specification. If we start by having a look at the representation of gender within the video game. The female characters are represented as really quite strong and powerful. Having a female lead playable character is quite unusual in a video game even now. So having her be the kind of lead protagonist and being super strong, powerful, physically strong, as well as mentally and emotionally strong, that's going to appeal to a female target audience. And it's also quite unusual for the genre. You can see her strength come through in the fight sequences, within any of the walkthroughs you might watch. You can see that she carries multiple weapons including a spear, a bow and arrow, a sling, she sets traps as well so she's super strong, intelligent, powerful and brave. She is a hunter by nature and so this idea of women being quite predatory and actually being in charge is quite unusual. So challenging conventional representations of women in video games because let's face it, in a lot of other video games, women are either damsels in distress or really quite sexualised. And actually, the video game does not sexualise the female characters really at all, which is quite interesting and unconventional. the clothes they're wearing are quite practical they're not particularly revealing and the camera does not linger on parts of their body in order to kind of engage a male target audience men within the video game however are actually much weaker they are either antagonists so they're kind of the villains of the piece or they're far less physically strong far less capable far less intelligent so really flipping the kind of gender conventions that we expect you We can also have a look at the representation of sexuality within the video game. Again, LGBTQ characters are hugely underrepresented within video games, often not represented at all. So having some LGBTQ characters referenced within the video game, whether it's just referenced in passing in the dialogue or whether it's part of the narrative, it's really quite unusual and might help to engage with different audiences who might not necessarily ever see themselves reflected within gaming. The sexuality that is mentioned within the video game is referenced almost in passing. It's not a big deal. So referencing the fact that a couple of characters might be lesbians is not a key part of their narrative, which means that it's kind of treated like any other aspect of somebody's personality. It normalises. different sexualities and makes it seem like just another feature of that person. Many audiences actually interpret Alloy as being asexual and therefore not necessarily having sexualized feelings for anyone of any gender. Within video games and within the media, a lot of narratives that surround women are about relationships and heteronormativity. So, you know, falling in love with someone, finding a romance, even if it's just a flirtation. Whereas Aloy doesn't really have that as a character, there is no kind of like male counterpart that she's falling in love with throughout the narrative. And so people found that quite unusual and refreshing that she did not need a man within the story to complete her. Actually, at a later date, the game's publishers released a DLC called Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores, which had a scene where Aloy kisses Seika, another female character in the game. So it was revealed later on that Aloy is in fact a lesbian. Many audiences enjoyed this additional representation of LGBTQ communities, although some audiences again complained that it was not necessary for the narrative. Although it's worth noting that the lesbian kiss is an option that audiences get to choose. So it actually allows audiences to choose the way they want to represent Aloy. As well as sexuality, there's a number of characters with different gender identities within the game. Several characters mention that they dress as a different gender than the one that they were born with. And this, again, is normalised within the game and makes the characters in the game and the narrative feel quite open and accepting. Let's have a look at the representations of race and ethnicity within the video game too. What a diverse representation of ethnicity with people from white, black, Asian backgrounds and a lot of other mixed backgrounds too. And we often don't see ethnic minorities represented in this way within the media and certainly not within video games. And perhaps this represents the fact that this video game is set clearly in some sort of alternative future. And maybe that reflects this idea that in the future, our world is a bit more diverse, a lot more accepting, a lot more cosmopolitan. And. And so perhaps the representations being quite diverse in the game reflects the futuristic setting. In the game, the narrative centers around how they've preserved what's left of humanity by keeping a mix of diverse human genetics and DNA. So it makes sense within the game that there's a big mix of human ethnic groups. Although it's worth noting that a lot of those ethnicities seem to be separated off into kind of tribes. So they are quite segregated. And again, perhaps that reflects tensions within society between different racial groups and discrimination that people often feel. And within the game itself, there's very little to no racism. So they don't actually reference the differences in ethnicity within the narrative and the dialogue. Some tribes are seen as more savage, and this will reflect things like Paul Gilroy's theories about ethnicity. And I think that's a really important post-colonialist ideas where there are some tribes that seems much more violent and there are lots of stereotypes about people from ethnic minority backgrounds as being seen as savage or more violent more aggressive a lot of audiences praised the game for having more realistic depictions of racial minorities in particular the use of new technologies to create more realistic skin tones and hair textures You can also consider the fact that Aloy is clearly supposed to be a kind of white hero. And there is this idea within post-colonialist theory that white characters are often represented as being there to kind of save people from minority backgrounds. And so kind of creating this white saviour narrative, which is all too common within the media. There is some representation of disability within the video game, which again is quite unusual. One character loses their sight and becomes visually impaired. Another character loses an arm and another character suffers from dementia and Alzheimer's. So a kind of different depictions of physical, mental issues as well as injuries. And that is potentially kind of quite unusual and adds a bit more diversity to the video game. The character who loses his arm actually goes on to get a prosthetic arm. which kind of again prosthetic limbs are very rarely seen in video games although at some point he does actually remove it and say that he no longer feels he needs it and he wants to accept himself more without the prosthetic limb which again is kind of representing disability in a very open accepting way and normalizing disability. Machines are represented as obviously in opposition to the humans much more kind of aggressive antagonistic. We see them as being very futuristic and powerful, the kind of low angle shots looking up at these machines on the cover, as well as in the game, the fast paced music and it's very tense editing, fast paced. It makes them feel very animalistic and ominous and dangerous. And this binary opposition representation helps to add drama and conflict, and it helps to make us feel as though Alloy and the humans are the kind of protagonists that we should support. The world of the game is obviously represented as kind of an alternative future, a possible future after a kind of post-apocalyptic event. And so you're getting very kind of futuristic representations, quite fantastical locations, quite exotic as well. You know, tropical beaches on the front cover with white sand, palm trees, leaves, beautiful blue seas. So quite exotic, interesting, diverse, global locations represented within the game. And that's part and parcel of the genre. Of course, you're not going to please all audiences. Some audiences actually complained about the diversity of representations within the game. Some people didn't like the fact that there was a female playable character. Some people thought there were too many ethnic minorities, that they didn't need the LGBTQ characters. They actually kind of slammed the game as being woke, which is a phrase I hate. But it certainly shows that some audiences don't respond well to these more diverse representations. There were also some complaints about cultural appropriation within the game. So, for example, Alloy wears face paint. At some point she dresses in Native American style clothes. And people felt that she was kind of appropriating perhaps Native American culture. And that's something that we're kind of dealing with as a society where people take on other people's cultures for entertainment value. And so, you know, there are different complaints, some people finding it more positive and diverse and some people thinking that it's more tokenism. Some people also complained about the representation of Alloy and not finding her attractive or sexualized enough. I'm going to speak about this more in my video about audiences. But certainly there were some complaints that audiences didn't like the way she'd been represented and they felt that she wasn't feminine enough for what they expected a video game character to be like. So that was my easy to understand guide about representation within Horizon Forbidden West. Don't forget to check out my channel for lots of other videos about that game and indeed all the other set texts. And if you have a question or if you would like a video that I don't already have, leave a little comment below and I'll see what I can do.