Dresses, Crotch shots and “FemShep”

I previously mentioned Femshep in one of my earlier blog posts, and today I’d like to visit her a little more thoroughly.

Firstly, the moniker, “FemShep” is a portmanteau (I do like that word) of “Female” and “Shepard” – which, right before we’ve gone into any character description, brings me to my first point.  If she existed in real life, there would be no need to identify her by her gender.  She is a woman, her name is Shepard.  I wouldn’t expect people to come up to me and say “hey, FemJess, how’s it going?” Just as much as I wouldn’t go up to somebody else and say “hi ManBob, how you doing today?”.  You see my point, yes?  And yet, the gaming community at large still sees the need to identify her by her gender.

Having said all of this, the entire reason the term “FemShep” has arisen is because nearly all of BioWare’s (the game developer) advertising drives for all three of the games have featured ManShep.



Before I continue, here’s a bit of backstory for those not in the know.  Mass Effect is a series of RPGs set in space.  So basically instead of elves, dwarves and magical weapons, you’ve got Asari (Blue tentacle headed lady-aliens), Krogans (Huge, semi-reptilian, fighting man-aliens) and weapons enhanced by cold, hard science and none of that namby-pamby magic shit (there’s actually loads and loads of really interesting races with brilliant lore attached – check it out here).  Basically, Shepard, either male or female, is an ass kicking Lieutenant Commander who saves the known universe, multiple times.  So basically, any RPG character ever created.

As with most RPGs these days, you do have the option to choose your gender, and customise the way your character looks (mine ended up looking like a cheap Catherine Zeta Jones Douglas, or however many names she goes by now).  So, with that in mind, the term “FemShep” can perhaps be excused simply because there is not one Shepard, but two.  However, when one notices that the majority of players (according to a poll on escapistmagazine.com) prefer to play as the Good Lady Shepard, why isn’t ManShep the outside option, as opposed to FemShep?

Bioware’s advertising run for the most recent instalment to the Mass Effect series (ME3) saw ManShep plastered over every poster and video campaign going.  They did announce that they would have a trailer with FemShep, and they did have one.  Out of the TWENTY SIX they currently have in their trailers section the YouTube channel (I checked).  Even then, it feels like a half-arsed attempt at lip service for the fans, who, as demonstrated above, prefer the female option for the game.  The company take great pride in the fact they feature a female hero option, and yet, to me anyway, it seems like such a hollow victory because of the downright lazy, somewhat dismissive attitude towards her.  It feels like they merely added her because they felt they needed to in order to keep up with the increasing demand for character customisation, and are only now taking advantage and riding the wave she ultimately created.

For starts, LadyShep’s animation rig is basically ManShep’s, with a little more space in the bum and boobs areas, as perfectly demonstrated by this video, which shows her utterly failing to wear a dress remotely convincingly.

Also, the romance options are clearly quite “men-friendly” in a stereotypical way.

As you can see, LadyShep not only has restricted straight romance options but more gay romance options than ManShep.  Indicating that perhaps Bioware figured its clientele would prefer more lady-love than sausage-fests.  When playing Mass Effect 2 myself, I actually cringed a little at how quickly my LadyShep had the option to attempt to romance her female PA.  Because a female PA is first and foremost a weak-willed, sexually charged fan-girl, and PA second…. And yet, all signs point to ManShep being immediately turned down by similar male characters, or worse, not even being given the chance to be turned down by a man in the first place.  In addition to the actual in game choices, other female characters tend to give people free butt shots at any given opportunity (Miranda, I’m talking to YOU.)

Interestingly, one of the main reasons it would appear the fans enjoy playing as LadyShep is because of the voice acting by Jennifer Hale.  She has taken a script that was written for a man’s man character (and only changed in a grammatical way to reflect the fact that it was now supposed to be for a lady character) and created one of the most iconic game females in recent history.  Many have said that ManShep’s voice actor is flat and emotionless, whereas Jennifer Hale’s version brings Shepard to life and thus makes the game more interesting.  However, the scripts are the same.  It would seem the combination of Bioware’s divorcement of gender from identity and Jennifer Hale’s superior voice acting has resulted in a kick ass female character; she is savvy, strong, independent and funny.

And she wouldn’t be caught dead in skimpy armour.

Hairwire out