Chicks Don't Skate?
Interestingly there's in-game lore to back up these irregularites. If you watch the opening for the game you'll see that the player character has just been released from prison (it doesn't appear to be co-ed). When you jump into the game and customize your character you're getting plastic surgery. That's how they solved the problem of character customization in the first game as well. Your body gets smashed in a horrible traffic accident. The Gonz, moonlighting as a surgeon, fixes you up (to the tune of Slayer's "Raining Blood") and thats when the game lets you tweak your own looks.
So, technically, if you chose to play with a female avatar in Skate 2, you're not playing a natural-born woman, so much as a post-operative transsexual. I guess it makes sense, now that I think on it, that the achievement/trophy around switching to female avatars is called "Gender Bender."
Still, I imagine female skaters (there's got to more than 14 notable pros) or female fans of skateboarding games might feel funny about the way all this all plays out -- especially when they get labeled a gender bender for switching to the sex that god gave them.
Pictured: Legendary Z-boy Peggy Oki.
Labels: Mark Gonzales, Peggy Oki, Sex, Skate 2, Slayer
posted by Gus at 7:20 AM
3 Comments:
Take another look at those girl skaters, would you? They may not necessarily have masculine figures, but the majority of them certainly have a masculine dress sense. Baggy shirts which give the impression of broad shoulders, baggy pants which give the look of sturdy legs. It's kind of par for the course in the skate world, without casting any aspersions (being that I am a male) girl skaters are actually taking part in what could be considered a 'tomboyish' activity. In fact the whole idea could be considered one of those things that is 'breaking down the barriers' when it comes to gender equality vs. social acceptance.
The other thing to note is that, no matter what gender the skater is, the activity requires a fair amount of 'masculine' physical exertion. Big kicks, flicks, twists, stomps, etcetera. Even the most petite young lady will be sacrificing some feminine charm to pull of some of the moves required to be considered a pro.
I played around a bit with the demo, and being a tepid-blooded young male, I decided at one stage that I'd prefer to have a pretty girl's ass in my face during play instead of a sweaty, hairy, obese male's rear-end (assuming the avatar was an accurate doppelganger of myself). I will actually give kudos to the developers for not letting me pump her breasts up to DOA proportions - if the game is being marketed towards young males, wouldn't this be considered an oversight?
I don't have any excuses for the narrative interpretation of gender swapping, though. Maybe it's just a product of a skate sense of humour, they can all be rather crass sometimes.
You raise a great point. When I first made my character my wife said, "You look like a girl." I told her, "I AM a girl!" She replied, "then you look like a boy."
Your wife is officially fucking awesome.
I hope your gender issues haven't tarnished your opinion of the game, it's one I've been very much looking forward to since it was announced.
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