Surely, you've seen the now classic image of a woman watching a horror movie with a man in a darkened theatre -- she watches the events on the screen with a pensive expression, sometimes burying her head in her date's shoulder (and of course the man chuckles and seems to enjoy it). The image is an old one -- long perpetrating the idea that women do not like scary things, and in fact need the help of a man to tolerate them.
Allow me, then, to introduce you to an entirely different type of woman: a woman that not only would never dream of covering her eyes with her hands for the gory parts, but in fact seeks them out with relish, begging to be not only frightened but terrified. That type of woman would certainly seek our survival horror titles that provide not only scares that affect the physical, but also the psychological -- for this is the heart of where the best scares come from.
Series such as Silent Hill have been praised for their achievements in providing a frightful experience in both of these ways, and I'm here to tell you that while the woman in the theatre may be the archetype when it comes to women and the way they react to horror, there's a new breed coming down the pipeline.
Hit the jump for more.
Maybe you're complaining at this point, ladies, because I'm making you feel like you aren't very brave. And you know what? You're right. You aren't. Not only are you cheating yourselves of one of the best gaming experiences that is available to you, but you're curtseying to that old stereotype. Maybe its not just ladies I'm speaking out to, in fact -- some men are too shaken up to play survival horror, too.
While the shmup genre forces a player to succeed by honing his or her skills to a point of almost surgical precision, survival horror asks for a very different approach: nerves of steel and patience. These are not fast-paced games, often relying on long, slow periods of exploration to further the story, and often forcing your character through grueling fights with nothing better to defend him or herself with than an old plank wih a nail through one end. Turn up the difficulty, and it seems almost hopeless to think that one can survive.
What about this would appeal to a woman?
Allow me to show you.
Now a classic scene in Silent Hill history, the "rape scene" from Silent Hill 2 may turn off a woman seeing it for the first time. After all, rape's kind of a touchy topic. When I saw this scene for the first time, I was simultaneously fascinated and revolted, specifically because before it, I had never seen anything quite like it in a videogame. I needed to understand what it was that Pyramid Head was doing to those mannequins, and even before I really grasped it, I sensed that it had less to do with him and more to do with the character I was playing -- an encoded message that I have to find a way to decipher.
It'd be easy to turn away from a game like Silent Hill 2 at this point, having been disturbed by a turn of events that's clearly more than just a cheap scare. Not that I have a problem with cheap scares -- they serve their purpose, and sometimes I enjoy them. But a scare like the rape scene has deep resonance. It still sits firmly in my consciousness some seven years after playing it for the first time, and its things like that that make me know that if other women could muster up the bravery to enjoy the game as I have, they might find a pretty formative experience waiting for them beneath all the ghoulies.
Of course, some people just don't like to be scared. And you know, that's fine. I'm sure as hell not going to be talked into playing Halo 3, because I don't care for those kinds of games. No, this monologue is more directed at the people hovering at the edge, the ones that say "Oh, I'd like to play those games, but I'm too afraid to try them."
Playing these games, and therefore directly facing the horror they contain, is not only brave in the sense of the gaming experience, but extends beyond that. A person brave enough to face the horrors of a series like Silent Hill can perhaps stand in the mirror and face his or her own reflection with courage, even if they don't like what they see. I touched on the idea in
another recent article that the experiences we have in games can have a very real effect on our real lives, and I dare to mention it again -- steeling your nerves against fictional horrors may very well prepare you for some of life's real ones.
Beyond all that, though, there's something truly delicious about getting home with a solid horror title in one hand, turning down all the lights, tweaking your surround sound to the perfect levels, and getting good and scared. It's completely safe. The worst it can do is give you nightmares or make you jump at shadows, and that isn't going to kill you. At its best, it makes you feel incredibly alive and engaged in the gameplay experience, and it can provide some of the most genuine immersion I've known as a gamer.
The scene below in which James reads Mary's letter in Silent Hill 2 (major spoilers, btw) and faces the truth of what he has been running from (and running to, I suppose) is an ideal example of the reward a player gets for their courage and tenacity. Sure, its been hard and frightening to get to this point, but in exchange we are given a scenario so real and so shocking to face that it's all but impossible to be completely drawn in. Many fellow fans of the series have admitted to crying during this scene.
Because of all these reasons, a gamer who admits to playing survival horror games with relish earns my respect, for multiple reasons. A female gamer who admits to the same earns it doubly so, because we have decades of stereotypes to go up against. Yeah, I could play a pink DS and enjoy Nintendogs with gleeful abandon, and there's nothing wrong with that. I have done that, in fact. But a girl who says she enjoys nothing more than to plow through the often disturbing mysteries of a game like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame -- well, she's turning the stereotypes right on their asses. And I kind of like that.
So do it -- be willing to make yourself a little uncomfortable. Push your boundaries. You might find that what you get out of it was worth the journey. Sure, maybe your nerves will get a bit tweaked on the way, but people have been flocking en masse to haunted houses for countless years, seeking that elusive something that I can now march the store and buy in the form of a videogame, and utterly lose myself in the experience of each and every time. What a remarkable thing that is -- I don't think I'll ever stop being thankful for it.
Contest:
4:14 PM on 11.25.2008
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And Silent Hill is fuggin awesome.
My girlfriend hates scary stuff and I like it, but I don't feel superior to her because of it... Maybe that's not what you were getting at though.
The same reason he was in the movie. Fan Service.
Pink DSes are the best DSes. Unless it's metallic rose, then that's the best. Kirby also owns, so don't hate :)
On the topic at hand, amen. A-fucking-men. Everyone should come out of their comfort zone once in a while. Hell, it wouldn't hurt to at least try. You don't know what could happen, and as you said, they could even end up liking it.
Thank goodness my girlfriend doesn't fall into that category.
I really respect you, Colette, for taking such an enjoyment in these games as well. It's always nice to see someone else who looks at the survival/horror genre and doesn't automatically associate it with fast past FPSes. They are definitely more of a combination of puzzle and adventure. I've recently picked up Silent Hill 2, since I've never played the Silent Hill series, but am having a hard time getting into it, especially in the beginning with all the walking alone for what seemed like forever in the fog. I later heard that this is supposed to give you a sense of loneliness and it wasn't until later that I realized that yea, I had called my boyfriend during it not because it was scary, but because I felt so alone.
I would really like to find some more psychologically scary games if anyone would know of some...
One point that stands tall in this article is your consideration of fear as a very real indication of immersion in a game. I think that last month's series of "The FEAR" musings placed a strong emphasis on this idea.
i'm not a scary movie person, watching them just makes me angry because a) i don't like most of the female characters in scary movies and b) i don't like it when characters do stupid shit that gets themselves killed. that said, i am definitely a scary game person. why that is the case for me personally, i can't tell you, i'm still trying to figure it out. one theory i've developed has to do with the sexual factors involving my enjoying multiple levels of masochism, but only when i'm in control of its limits.
in general, i think horror games are the pinnacle of emotional and mental involvement that is available through gaming. horror games are not games in which you can just turn off your brain and shoot the living daylights out of everything. to me, FPSs turn people into robots, and that's why i don't like playing them in general. i've always had the belief that the more a form of media/art makes the viewer/participant react, the more effective it is. never have i had a more intense media experience than playing silent hill 2. also, i have a firm belief that people who like playing horror games are generally smarter than the average gamer, and if someone did a study on that i think it could actually be proven.
that said, i feel incredibly proud to be a real woman! woo!
Yeah, I guess you're right...I am a fan, and because of that, I did NOT want to see Pyramid Head. Oh well.
Speaking of that, have you played Afraid of Monsters: DC Collette? It's absolutely, without exaggeration the scariest game I've ever played. It's got the jump scares, yes, but it's also got this pervasive horror behind it, and it's really simplistic horror. No Pyramid Head, no murdered wife. It really is like an instinctual terror of the dark and things IN the dark, even when they aren't around. The main character is a drug user and the game's set in the mother of all bad trips, it's fairly open in the setup from the get go, but the experience rises far above what you'd expect.
It's the first horror game to make me yell and shut the game off since RE1 and the dogs jumping through the windows, and when I first played RE1 I was ten. I first played Afraid of Monsters two years ago, at 18.
The Silent Hill rape scene was probably the single most bizarre, epic scene I've ever seen in a game.
I was almost disappointed that we didn't see more of Pyramid Head in the SH series after SH2.
I haven't had the opportunity to actually play through any, but have always wanted to. I have the newest on my Gamefly queue but would rather start with the old ones. I would dive into SH2 but I pretty much have had it spoiled to death already. Even then, I still want to check it out. I don't have a ps2 though :(
My wife has bigger balls than me, she's Korean so she reads manga all the time, but really freaky stuff. She reads ghost stories with demon babies and freaky stuff like that. She wants me to play Silent Hill so she can watch, since the only game she plays is Katamari Damacy, but I'm too scared.
Something about controlling and making the scary stuff happen freaks me out, when I'm watching I can close my eyes or look away whenever I want.
I am a coward.
yeah, it's unfortunate the developers borrowed too much from the movie, including the designs of the nurses and the way the "otherworld" pops into this one.
I always found it more disturbing in the other games where all of a sudden you were thrust into the "otherworld" without explanation.
Silent Hill 2 was the only one I played out of the series, but man, does any other game even come close to it in the space of games? The only game that comes pretty close is Braid, which has similar themes of guilt and confusion.
Silent Hill 2 - a must play.
"Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit. That's all it is. It's all bullshit and it's bad for ya" -George Carlin
I think that we, the women that play videogames, must fight a lot of prejudices and that image of dammsel in distress that must be save, is one of them. I love Silent Hill series, and in fact I've got a blog dedicated to survival horror in spanish called Raccoon Hill (wow!, how original I am! XD).
My first survival horror was Silent Hill 2, but that "sex" scene didn't scared me at all. The truth behind that videotape at the Lakeview Hotel shaked all my conception about videogames and since then I'm a terror-adicted videogamer girl, and of course, a Silent Hill lover.
Great article, Colette!
P.D.: Here in Europe, we're still waiting for Silent Hill Homecoming,... Until February 2009!
Hopefully the release of the new Silent Hill will get me a new console for Christmas ;)
I mean seriously damn
Colette you have gain a plus elevnty bajillion points in my book
kudos on your piece
Also I sometimes post in a silent hill fansite forum and find that about 50% of the members are female. So it seems to me that Silent Hill in particular has a decent sized, if somewhat reserved female following.
@Matthew Blake -- yep, we want to make the Real Men Play... thing a series. Hope to bring you guys more very soon!
Good Job Colette!
I haven't ever finished a Silent Hill game, not because I was scared but because I didn't know much about the series growing up. I was more into Resident Evil. I would love to play the first few eventually, unfortunately I know pretty much all Silent Hill lore from just being in a community like this so it wouldn't surprise or shock me and probably not scare me that much.
For example, Jill Valentine in Resident Evil was always supported by Barry Burton and saved often in extremis. In Resident Evil 3, game where she was the absolute leading role, she had to be saved by Carlos Olivera after getting infected... With Claire Redfield, we've got the same pattern: in RE Code Veronica, we survive all alone Rockfort Island and the Antartic Base... to finally be saved by our own brother Chris... At the end, at least at Resident Evil, it seems that women in RE series had always to be saved by her male companion. Ada (remember, great skills and "powers") have to be saved by Leon too!
And in Silent Hill, women almost always played secondary roles, except for that little experiment called Silent Hill 3. I was hopping that Konami will repeat that movement again, but it seems that seeing a little girl covered in blood was too disturbing for some people...
That's all.
P.S. Sorry for my grammar, my english is not as good as I wanted.
PS. Never laugh at this rape scene when a girl is around.