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After Ms. Pac-Man made those first tenuous steps, we saw Samus Aran take the helm of female gaming iconography as a human woman with characterization and class.
However, while Samus was a large step forward, there were still some inescapable issues of the character, not the least of which was her physical strength itself. Infused with Chozo blood and given a Power Suit, Samus' strength is augmented by outside forces. Samus Aran existed in a futuristic, sci-fi world, making connections to our own society difficult and abstract. Combine this with the tendency to show her off in a bikini or blue jumpsuit, and it's obvious that the progress could be pushed further.
So moving ahead for this feature devoted to Women's History Month, we're turning our look at female protagonists in a different direction for the 16-bit generation. She's not only the first modern-day human female to gain prominence as a hero, she managed to set the trend for hundreds of games in her genre and others that followed. I am of course talking about none other than Chun-Li.
Chun-Li Blazes Trails for Future Fighters
Chun-Li debuted in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, a wildly popular game released for arcades in the early 90s and later ported to both the Super NES and the Sega Genesis. It was a fighting game, which lent itself to large, burly men beating the crap out of each other; this was how most games of this type went, until Chun-Li came along.
In her character, the gaming world saw one of the first fully realized female characters that could stand on the same ground with men. While Ms. Pac-Man was a sprite swap and Samus was a super-powered space explorer, Chun-Li realistically stood in the fighting arena with 7 other challengers - all men - and held her own as a true equal. In a way, she was differentiated from the other characters, using her agility and speed to her advantage to conquer opponents who may have had a higher strength rating. By making her stronger in some areas, and weaker in others, Capcom put Chun-Li on even footing with all of the other World Warriors.
This has sent ripples through the gaming industry, the effects of which are still seen today. By letting players select a female protagonist, the bevy of fighting games that followed imitated it. No longer constrained to one or two selectable females, many fighting games have 1/3 of the roster or more devoted to women. Even in the non-fighting genre, if a game lets you select between two or more characters, chances are a female will be in the mix.
Chun-Li and Shadoloo
Chun-Li's story begins before the games do, with the death of her father. She joined Interpol and traced the event back to a shadowy organization known as Shadoloo. When she found the leader of it, M. Bison, he claimed to feel proud of having killed her father and defeated her in a fight. She swore revenge.
From here, Chun-Li has taken a multitude of steps throughout her career, teaming up with members of the Air Force, rescuing brainwashed Shadoloo fighters, destroying their Thailand-based base, and eventually being invited to the World Warrior tournament where she hoped to face Bison in the flesh.
It's hard to say what happened at the tournament, however; as a fighting game, each fighter has their own ending, each of which is contingent on having the hero you've selected defeat M. Bison. In the official canon of the games, it's believed by many fans that Chun-Li defeated Bison, though she did not kill him.
Currently, Chun-Li raises orphaned children like herself, teaching them martial arts.
Why Was She So Important?
Chun-Li was fully human, and the selection of many male and female gamers alike when they were plunking quarters into arcade machines. She wasn't a damsel in distress, she wasn't a male character with a new coat of paint, and she certainly wasn't a science-fiction female aided by future technologies. Chun-Li was simply a strong, trained fighter who had every right to participate in the tournament along with her male counterparts.
And while fighting game characters are usually fairly shallow, hollow shells for the player to insert themselves into, Chun-Li had a detailed past even from her early days. She wanted to find the man who murdered her father and bring him to justice; not by murdering him, but by using the authority given to her as a member of Interpol. While many others in the first tournament fought for some form of pride, Chun-Li was one of only two characters that entered it to find a sense of justice and closure.
More so, she was a pioneer in the games industry, forcing other developers to look at women as viable heroes when creating multiple, selectable characters. Many games since have included female protagonists in some form or another, helping break the damsel-in-distress mold.
On the Other Hand...
Unfortunately, many of the selections of female characters do fall back on easy arch-types. Though Chun-Li was just as capable as any male fighter, she was capable by different standards: physically weaker but more agile and faster to compensate. As many game developers search for ways to differentiate their characters, they'll give the male a more physical prowess while making the woman more agile, a magic-user, or otherwise.
On top of this, the very fact that she was powerful alone can be disturbing, when looked at from the perspective that she was made powerful by very male-defined characteristics. Her strength as a character has been judged by physical strength, her ability to beat up her opponents through force. Though she has some plot to identify with, most players recognize her by physical strength, not the strength of will.
Finally, just as Samus, Chun-Li did not escape being sexualized. Though promotional art for the game hinted at sexuality, her character was kept fairly tame until fans began to latch onto her. Noting her popularity, Capcom did begin to accent her body in official artwork.
But never has her sexuality been more blatantly exposed than in one of the most famed bits of fan service, the Street Fighter II Animated Movie. In it, Chun-Li has a shower seen that exposes her breasts and buttocks, and then proceeds to fight would-be assassin Vega wearing only a t-shirt and panties. It seems redundant and unnecessary to point out at length why this presents a problem, so suffice it to say that it marred an otherwise strong female role model.
Next Time: Artifacts and Three Dimensions
Chun-Li held her own against her opponents, but we were quickly reminded that she was created primarily by males and for males. Next time, we'll take a look at one of the most controversial female characters ever to grace the PC, a veritable Indiana Jones, and women's first awkward leap into 3D gaming.
