Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games

I guess as a sort of follow up to my essay on Chun-Li's Thighs (I say, "sort of", because I actually wrote this latest essay on male bodies before the one on Chun-Li--the publication was reversed) comes an essay on masculinity in video games that also features a discussion of the Street Fighter games to some degree. To some degree because I actually try to sample a number of games (including Metal Gear Solid, Red Dead Redemption, Darksiders, Metroid, etc.) to suggest a number of examples of some of the representational ideas that I feel like are embedded in male bodies in games.

It is my perception that discussion of the female body and femininity is a common enough topic in games, but I feel like the male body has gotten less attention (something Freudian here). A comparison of some of the body types that exist (male and female) seems to indicate a general kind of idealizing or mythologizing of bodies in this medium that is somewhat akin to the kind of representations that show up in comic books (some might attribute this to the immaturity of both mediums, I don't think that that is altogether true--though there may be a partial truth there).

Anyhow, this one might be more aggravating to folks than the Chun-Li business. On the other hand, maybe male bodies just aren't that interesting to folks. I guess we'll see:

Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games