Portal is the most subversive game ever

I agree with some things expressed in the article like:
1. Yes, I totally agree with the fact that the game doesn't make you engage in violence, I think it is a revolutionary concept and it must be taken beyond in more games, It made you think and still it was so fun! This broke a huge paradigm in gaming.
2. I found very refreshing to find a character that actually looks like a real woman and not like a 3D blow doll, I hate games that rely in fan service and "sexploitation" to attract gamers, porn is porn games are games. I don't want to play teenage wet dreams, if sexuality must be used as part of a plot device it must be done tastefully.
But...
1. The explanation of why female characters are mostly shown in 3rd person view was interesting but still I think it is taken too far here because when you play if first person view, you put yourself in the shoes of the character so it isn't really important which gender it is, if you start to notice those things you'll spoil the suspension of disbelief and the game will be less enjoyable.
2. Although I think Portal has a lot philosophic themes, all the verbosity about feminism and the icons -the author- found in the game about it didn't make much sense to me, but I'm not a woman or a humanities student so I might plain don't get them. To me the game was an adventure which gave me hours (a couple) of fun and happiness and realization because it was more sophisticated that games that just appeal to your most basic instincts.

@Faustus


>>Do you people even KNOW the MEANING
>>of the word feminist?

I do, but go on...

>>The word "feminist" has been dragged through the mud
>>in our culture >>and become a burning, hateful label.
>>But you know what?

>>A feminist is just a person who believes in EQUALITY FOR WOMEN.
>>Is that bad? Should that make feminist a bad word?
>>Should you hate people who use the word feminist?

HOLD IT!!!

"equality for women"... well, allow me to burst your bubble, men and women are not equal, not by a long shot, and I'm not just talking about external/internal genitals.

The anger behind the feminazi movement erupted from the stupid premise that states that a woman is inferior to a man unless she does exactly what men do.

That's bullshit.

There are things that women can do easy and fast, in which we men fail.

that's ok, no gender is inherently superior in all aspects.

but then, it all started, you wanted to vote, to work, to drive, to be soldiers, scientists and astronauts.

the aftermath?

women voting for the "most handsome" politicians, all kind of unequal privileges on their work conditions, countless cars scraped while parallel parking, female soldiers getting their weak asses raped in middle east, generations of female scientists that never create anything relevant (except perhaps helping develop kevlar, but that's it) and a fucking female astronaut losing valuable tools in the middle of space...

Say whatever shit you want about portal, is a cool game and I love it, but don't get me started on gender equality, that's a scam.

Are you telling me that chell uses love to knock over the turrets?
That women do not serve in millitaries around the world? That females are not objects of female fantasy? That women do not attempt to construct idealized mother figures? The portal is not a connection; it rips the fabric of the universe apart.

While I may not agree with everything mentioned in this article, it's still an interesting way to look at it. Is this the message that Valve intended to be portrayed through Portal? Maybe, maybe not. But in a sense, that doesn't matter. The fact that this can consistently be seen in the game is significant, and give's the author's theory a great deal of value.

For those of you who are rejecting this, I haven't seen any (many) alternative theories.

And as for the Companion Cube being a paternal figure, that's probably the strongest point of the article.
Freud's theory of the Electra Complex is the female version of the Oedipal Complex; the daughter sees the father as a source of food, care, and safety, and sees the mother as competition for those resources. This can be directly related to how the Companion Cube is essential to solving certain puzzles, and how GlaDOS (a maternal figure... female and with authority over Chell) eventually forces Chell to separate from the Companion Cube.

Also, there is no denying that the turrets are essentially phallic symbols... phallic symbols that can kill Chell. So toppling over them is a victory an over oppressive, masculine power. Yes, the voice actor for the turrets was female, but the editing done to her voiceover work makes the turrets sound androgynous, giving their sexuality to be completely determined by their appearance, which is male, both in their shape (phallic), and function (projectile).

I didn't think that I could love Portal even more than I did... but now I do!

Seriously? This seems a lot like big issues being shoehorned into the game, rather than an analysis of the game itself. The Weighted Companion Cube being a paternal figure might fit nicely into your theory, but playing through the game itself, there's not much to support that specific line of thought. The Cube itslef is essentially what it appears to be at first glance, an inanimate cube, just like all the others you find throughout the game. What is unique about is not what it is, but how it is used, not by you however. The player interacts with the cube in roughly the same way as all the others. It is how GLaDOS uses the cube that is unique, as a test in itself. The hearts, the encouragement to become attached to the cube, the term 'companion', all a mental manipulation of a mind that has gone through a series of harrowing ordeals with none but the increasingly hostile, disembodied taskmistress for company. The test is, after such a lonely and hostile experience, can the subject destroy the closest thing it has had to a helpful ally throughout the entire ordeal, and retain their sanity. An insidious psychological test, and, as evidenced by the hidden graffiti behind malfunctioning wall panels, not one everybody can pass. It is also a genius storytelling device that highlights the subtle change in GLaDOS' character from something akin to an automated recording to self-aware, passive-aggressive antagonist. As for the paternal symbolism you've accorded the Cube, it seems forced and superimposed, and detracts from your point as a result. It is to bring this firmly back into the world of videogames, the Water Temple of your argument.

@Kittie
idk if you noticed this, but it was an analysis, not a review. Just saying, you shouldn't diss something for what it is before you know what it is.

A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the Companion Cube. Of course, HE couldn't come because you murdered HIM.

...Just saying.

"A psychoanalytic reading would likely conclude that the portal is an image of the female sex organs: oval and receptive, and also a metaphorical birth canal through which the protagonist is constantly being born into new trials."

O oh, someones taking Freud too seriously. I think this guy or girl is reading way too much into portal with these feminist views demonstrating how feminism really is over the top most of the time. In other words, its a fair bit of bollocks.

Furthermore, the turrets had a very distinctly female voice, not male so I really don't know why this reviewer thinks their male all of a sudden. And come on, imposing a gender-type upon the inanimate cube is preposterous.

Oh and one more thing, listen to the guy above my "speech". He knows what he's talking about.

After reading this article, I am more angry than I have ever been about anything else in my entire life. Ever. Feminists everywhere would frown on this nonsense. I think that women's rights are a good thing and they help further our society, but feminism is about equality, not hatred and slander of men. Had a bad experience? There are just as many personalities of men as there are of women. Don't push an entire gender out of your life because of one bad specimen in particular.

Funny thing is, I'm 14 years old and I've seen women objectified and everything else you feminists rant on about constantly. I have no interest in women, or men for that matter. There are things that are much more important to me than relationships, and, to be quite honest, they just seem like a bother to me anyway. Please don't misunderstand me, your intentions are good, but you are too quick to jump to conclusions. Take into regard what I've typed here and consider what it is you're doing to what you believe in.

The article isn't supposed to be based on psychoanalytic theory. A feminist READING of a work is a form of literary interpretation, not a psychoanalytic one.

As far as those who say a feminist deconstruction of Portal is unwarranted, I'd respond by saying that feminism is in the eye of the beholder. But in all honesty I don't see how someone pointing out a few aspects of the game that lend it a certain interpretation can ruin the experience for those who disagree. A lot of people in the gay community have taken things like rainbows and SpongeBob and used them as symbols. Does that mean my kids can't look at a rainbow or watch SpongeBob without being gay?

Secondly, most of the points the author makes are pretty valid. Yes, Freud is somewhat dated. But the symbolism is still there, even if the creators didn't intend it. Up until the point where the companion cube is mentioned as a male presence I would say most of the arguments are not too far fetched. Literary feminism is defined by "foregrounding the background", making the absence of something a present factor. The fact that the entire game works through the absence of things we normally expect from a first person shooter makes it pretty easy to interpret that way.

And for all you hardcore guys out there, well... think about it. You have a game you can't win by shooting things. Your 'enemy' is a disembodied presence that tries to defeat you through psychological manipulation. You, in turn, must defeat your enemy by changing the landscape to your favor. When direct force is applied against you, you must turn that force back against itself instead of meeting it head on. Conflicts end either in your foe congratulating you or apologising to you. Even in the final confrontation, you and your opponent never directly attack one another. Both of you merely manipulate the environment in order to cause indirect harm. When all else fails, your foe whips out the big guns and... insults you. Tell me this game doesn't sound like every episode of Desperate Housewives ever made.

I don't think anyone here is trying to make Portal into a bad game. Some people just make connections other people don't, and if that improves their enjoyment of the game, let them do it. There's no rule that says we all have to like the same things for the same reasons.

This article has no basis in psychoanalytical theory, or anything for that matter, and is therefore complete bullshit.

An interesting perspective, but there are a couple of factual errors present which may invalidate the premise.

Starting from the most obvious, the only cube with a heart, and the only cube personified, is The Weighted Companion Cube in the level where you, the other cubes in the game are Weighted Storage Cubes, and are used both before you receive the Weighted Companion Cube and after you incinerate the Weighted Companion Cube.

Secondly, on the turrets, they can be defeated via a brute force approach (in some cases requiring speedy running towards them in order to get behind them before they gun you down, in other cases using a cube as a shield and knocking them over with it. And then there are those where your best bet for defeating them is to manipulate energy pellets, which in the levels they appear are usually your only means of progressing, and are very much the main male imagery of the game; if we go by the primitive Freudian analogy of the shape of the portal, they're very much a phallic symbol and require you allowing their emissions to enter into your portal in order to progress)

Those are the main factual problems I think are present in the article, but there's one more issue the article has - The assumption that a character in third person is an external entity who is a puppet while one in first person is an identifiable character the player embodies, and the amount of games with male third person protagonists which would mean that those few with female third person protagonists are under your metaphor the female objectification exception to the male objectification norm.

The reason I take issue with this assumption is that, if I recall the evidence I've seen correctly, it is more typical for players to not consider first person (or second person in the case of Interactive Fiction) characters in their own right, and so are more literal 'puppets' to the player to be manipulated, while third person characters tend to be more typically considered characters in their own right rather than simply a means of manipulating the virtual world the game takes place in via manipulating a puppet within that world.

RE: cerdoenbrama - What's wrong with mental jerkoffs? They're fun and healthy, just like physical jerkoffs. (Yeah, I'm fond of the concept of Death of the Author. Provided no-one pretends that this sort of thing is intentional on behalf of the author without going by Word of God evidence, then I start getting tetchy about them)

i liked this, was it supposed to be written as the computer? because it sure seemed like it, if it was congrats on the irony factor and jesus christ people get over youself it is a review of a game, the reviewer has a right to field his/her's opinions and need not be oppressed bysome easily offened 'tard, love it for what it is.

I thought the article was compelling. It wasn't a review just a retrospective of the game and a possible artistic statement it's creators were trying to make. I don't know if it's really all that complex, but it's still interesting to think about.

Dude I love FPS´s, I like violence, blood and killing, and I´m old school, Ié played almost everything, from wolfenstein to gears of war, I played portal and found it quite different from all the other FPS, perhaps a bit too short, but challenging and extremely cool.

All that feminist crap you wrote is just a racionalization, is like we say down in México, "una chaqueta mental" (a mental jerkoff) you took the fact of the female non oversexed female as the main character and started building several layers of bullshit over it.

The problem is not that, the internet is full of harmless bullshit, the real problem is that you´re ruinig the game, for me at least.

I almost can see the feminazi´s forcing themselves to play portal in order to make a stupid point instead of playing it just to have some fun, like it´s supposed to be.

Then every dimwit stupid enough to care about that, will put to doubt the existence of my balls just because I happen to be a male who likes a fucking feminist game.

To Tymiegie and low_growl: Thanks for expressing civil and constructive feedback.

To people like Kittie and brama...
Do you people hate women?

Would it KILL you people to take the effort to make constructive criticism instead of mindlessly bashing others?

Do you people even KNOW the MEANING of the word feminist?

The word "feminist" has been dragged through the mud in our culture and become a burning, hateful label. But you know what?

A feminist is just a person who believes in EQUALITY FOR WOMEN. Is that bad? Should that make feminist a bad word? Should you hate people who use the word feminist?

I think people forget the real meaning of the word feminist and so when they hear it, they start foaming at the mouth, imagining stupid stereotypes like hairy, men-hating, bra-burners. That's what it is. A STEREOTYPE. Feminist has become a dirty word associated with unfair stereotypes.

I propose we use a new word for "people who believe in the equal treatment of men and women." Men-and-women-equalists. How's that?

The author of this article probably spent hours writing about and analyzing games he'd played and deserves thoughtful and civil responses to his ideas of how "Portal" is a men-and-women-equalist kind of game, more so than most other games.

It uses less violence to get through traps and enemies. And the game developers certainly agreed on making the main character a female, and not a female in a spandex bikini for that matter. And SO WHAT if some people think the robots sounded like little boys or little girls? Does that destroy the author's argument? ...No. No, it doesn't.

This was a thoughtful, different, and brave comment on a fun game.

People need to stop jumping out of their seats whenever they hear someone writing about race and gender. Seriously.

And seriously, people. LOOK UP THE WORD FEMINIST. Go ask a history teacher. Look in a dictionary, look in freaking Wikipedia. Feminism is the belief that women should have the same SOCIAL and ECONOMIC status of men!!! It's not bad! And if you DO think that's bad... well, what can I say?

Thanks for listening, peeps. Keep on gaming.

what

Alright. Last things first.

The guy above enjoyed Portal. He found it refreshing and a great take on today's gaming industry.He didn't say anythying about it being feminist trash. If you were implying that you thought the fact he thought the game was feminist, and therefore you think he degraded the game through your narrow standards, then your comment was voided by a subjected opinion without looking at both sides of the argument. Feminist isn't bad, it's just different.

The 'love for violence' thing was bringing attention to how a majority of new games involve simply killing the target, puzzles and entertainment restricted wihtin the gaming environment by how the game was designed, so, in part, you were correct. He was merely stating that he found Portal refreshing in that it didn't need to fall into menial stereotypes of what constitutes a 'good' game to entertain. In other words, you didn't just have to kill to have fun.

And the symbolism of the companion cube being male directly stipulates from the article, pulls itself from the already-discussed issues. It's a logical argument that anyone should be able to follow.


Personally, I really liked the article, even if I don't personally share all of the views. It was a clever and psychological approach to a clever and psychological game. I believe that, while some of the elements were present, the freudian approach to some of the views expressed above are a little outdated, and we live in a developing society with new ways of thinking emerging and the old 'sexist' and 'feminist' views are slowly begins to be uprooted by monogonous views that have no need to express sexuality.

The game itself was great, so all in all all three representatives have the same opinion, just in different thought scructures.