Is it really the Legend of Zelda?

Trash Talk, a grad student conference focused on pop culture, was this weekend in Regina. I only went down for the Saturday, so unfortunately I missed a few presentations (including some by my PhD bros, alas), but the ones I did see were pretty great. A couple papers on Harry Potter, and one on the "feminine" computer in Galatea 2.2, a 1995 novel by Richard Powers, were particularly interesting. Also, the keynote presentation, “Lives in Little Boxes: The Unstable Subjects of Graphic Biography” by Dr. Candida Rifkind, was very engaging, especially considering my Book as Object class and the graphic novels I've been reading lately.

My presentation was on representations of gender in Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, with a focus on how Zelda and Sheik are portrayed.

Here's a brief summary:

Zelda is heavily gendered (virginal) feminine, including through her clothing, body language, and actions (or lack thereof). She does a lot of waiting, and we only see her in places where the player expects her to be, or she is forced to be - behind castle walls, being saved by Impa, captured in Ganondorf's castle.

Sheik, on the other hand, is gendered masculine. There's a great deal of debate over whether Sheik is actually (biologically?) male or female; however, that isn't the most important part of my argument. Instead, I focus on how Sheik is portrayed as masculine: s/he roams around the most dangerous places of Hyrule, demonstrates great physical fitness, strength, and dexterity, and dresses in masculine clothing. Most importantly, however, the player and other characters in the game treat Sheik as a male, at least on the first time through; most notably, Princess Ruto refers to Sheik as "a young man," and in the Japanese version of the game, Sheik apparently uses a pronoun that is usually used by young men.

Most importantly, however, consider what happens when Sheik reveals him/herself to be Zelda: within a span of minutes, Zelda is captured by Ganondorf, which must be awfully disappointing for her after avoiding Ganondorf for seven years while being disguised as Sheik.

But that's all right, because now she can just sit like a prize on the mantel over Ganondorf's organ and wait for Link to save her. Of course, most of the other notable female characters (Saria, Impa, Nabooru, Ruto, Malon) are saved by Link too.

I close with a hypothesis of why Zelda is portrayed this way, beyond just the usual "damsel in distress" trope that is used to sell piles of games. Zelda becomes an object and idea, an embodiment of Hyrule, the Good, and Wisdom, and those things can't exactly act in their own defense. Therefore, Link saving these "things" is why it is called the Legend of Zelda, similar as to why football is called football instead of "two teams that do things with balls."

Some things that don't appear in my notes:
At times, I deviated from my script to show body language and posture.

If you're interested in video games and female characters, I recommend you check out the Tropes vs Women in Video Games project; it has some great insight, and I'm really looking forward to the upcoming videos. This project is the one that you may have heard about on Kickstarter that raised a wicked amount of money, but also drew out the trolls in masses.

Anyway, if you want to read my presentation and notes, you can grab the pdf here.