An Examination of Gender Representation in Rockstar's GTA 5

This essay critically examines gender representation within the video game Grand Theft Auto 5, focusing on the portrayal of female characters and the game's overall handling of gender dynamics. It explores how female characters are represented through their roles, dialogue, visual appearance, and treatment within the game's narrative. The essay analyzes specific instances of potential sexism and discusses the critical reception the game has received concerning its portrayal of women. It delves into the use of multimodal discourse analysis to understand the various ways gender is constructed within the game, including visual, linguistic, and interactive elements. The analysis considers the game's narrative, character interactions, and the potential impact on players. The essay highlights instances of both negative and, to a lesser extent, progressive representations of women in GTA 5 and concludes with an assessment of the game's overall approach to gender and its implications within the broader context of the gaming industry.

Running head: GENDER REPRESENTATION IN GTA 5
Gender representation in GTA 5
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1GENDER REPRESENTATION IN GTA 5
The main objective of the essay is to identify gender representation in video games
and to talk about the issue in general. The essay will take the specific case of grand theft auto
5 and will analyze gender representation with the help of various media articles and journals.
In terms of market audience, character representation and player base, video games have been
identified as a male dominated area (Egenfeldt, 2013). Most of the research concerning
representation of gender in video game has stressed on how female and male characters are
portrayed in a video game. A female characters role in the game, physical representation and
physical abilities are scrutinized to get a correct picture of how a female character is
represented in a game ("Video Games and Gender: Game Representation", 2018). It is a well
established fact that most gamers are still male and research has been conducted to find out
the reasons on why there is a lack of female gamers.
Since, the game that will analyzed is Grand theft auto 5, there is a need to know what
type of game it is and what is the main storyline. GTA 5 was released in 2013 for consoles
only and in April 2015, it was released for Windows. GTA 5 is an action adventure role
playing game which was developed by Rockstar North. This game was published by Rockstar
games. The story is based on a fictional state of San Andreas which can be compared to the
real South California. The single player storyline consists of three characters namely Trevor
Philips, Michael de Santa and Franklin Clinton. It is an open world game which means
players allowed to roam freely is the fictional state. In this single player mode, a player will
be able to control three characters and complete their individual storyline. Now, there is a
need to look into instances in grand theft auto 5 where a gender has been discriminated upon.
A player might be able to locate a ditch in southbound and northbound lanes and in that ditch
a crashed car lies. When pulled near that crashed car, a woman asks for help and the mission
is to take her to a nearby medical clinic. ‘Taliana Martinez’ is the women’s name. Although
she is the strongest female character is GTA 5, she only gets a handful of dialogues. The

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female character was a getaway driver for few gang members who screwed up. A player later
on in the game will be able to choose this gateway driver for future heists. One thing that can
be noticed by observing the stats of the female character in the game, her cut for a heist is
extremely low when compared to other member participating in the heist ("Grand Theft Auto
V And Women", 2018). This was the first instance that showed how a woman is portrayed.
This meant that a talented women like her will work for a lot less bucks. It can be depicted as
a signal from game designers that picking her was the most cost efficient choice. Apart from
this, a player in this game can hire a prostitute and then kill her and take the money. These
types of incidents have generated lot of talk about how women are treated in this game. The
game was labeled ‘profoundly misogynistic’ by a critic of GameSpot. The game also faced
severe backlash since it reinforced and celebrated sexism ("Forbes Welcome", 2018). The
game only supports playable male characters as there is a lack of playable female characters.
Additionally, during the interview of Dan Houser, who is the game’s lead writer told a
newspaper that the concept of GTA 5 was being masculine and that is the reason why there is
a lack of playable female characters in the game? The whole GTA series is known for sexist
gender portrayal and violence. The main characters are men who perform illegal activities
while women are portrayed as sexualized characters. The game grand theft auto 5 does
provide a subject a subject of gender portrayal since it is one of the popular games ever
published and the representation of women in the game has been a subject of immense
criticism for years (Hoggins, 2018). The studies that had been done to analyze gender
representation in games have used content analysis as one of the methods. Multi modal
discourse analysis approach can be used nowadays to study gender representation in video
games. In its defense Grand theft Auto 5 argued that the game makes fun of everyone
irrespective of their gender. That is sort of true since the game makes fun of bankers,
politicians, waiters and marijuana legalization activists. There is one scene that proves this

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fact. There was a scene where Michael’s son was playing a video game and making fun of
worst versions of people. The overall portrayal of female characters in the game is bad.
However there are few instances in the game where women are seen to be mocking men and
this can be refreshingly progressive. There is a scene where a jogger named Mary Ann who is
a fitness freak challenges Michael to a race. She mocks Michael and discusses how men and
women do not get along. Now, this essay will talk about multimodal discourse analysis.
Digital games like Grand theft auto 5 consists of variety of representational modes such as
still and moving images, spoken language, music and sound and this modes should be
analyzed multimodally. The meaning of multimodality means multiple means are there to
make a decision. When analyzing a video game a game aesthetics should also be taken into
account which includes interactive nature of the game, tactile sensations and actions and
audio visual aspect of the game. Grand theft auto 5 being one of the best selling games has
also been controversial. Through its year of existence, this game has increased panic in the
media because of the violent contents and how the game would psychologically affect the
young generation (Stoff, 2018). Although the game is rated M which means it is for mature
users but the lower age limit defined for M category is 17+ and that age group can be termed
as fairly young (Bryce & Rutter, 2002). In this game consisting of three players, the main
objective is to commit crime and to be successful the three protagonist need to work together.
For extensive analysis of the game few cut scenes were taken in which mainly female
characters are represented in some form. There is major reason on why cut scenes are chosen.
Cut scenes are prioritized over interactive game play since cut scenes are known to reveal
ideologies of game makers and how the game is supposed to be understood. Thus, it can be
said that by analyzing the cut scenes of Grand theft auto 5, the narrative, visual and linguistic
portrayal of characters are understood. In the multi modal discourse analysis, the main
theories which are used are denotational, connotational and social semiotic theory

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(Turtiainen, 2017). Upon analysis of the videogame it was seen that Grand theft auto 5 has 77
main story lines. In only 27 missions that have cut scenes, at least one female character
appears. There are only nine female characters that appear in the story line but out of them
only four are prominent. Most shown female characters in the game Amanda and Tracey and
they are Michael’s wife and daughter. They are seen to appear constantly in the game Grand
theft auto 5. When visual portrayal is considered, majority of characters that appear are adults
and only exception is Tracey who is a teenager. Amanda’s clothing choice for various
occasions are deemed to be perfect whereas Tracey is scantily dressed. Most notable cut
scene being here is depiction of Tracey as a model and her audition for reality TV show. In
that audition she wore a revealing shirt and thus the conduct of Tracy is considered more
sexual than Amanda. This is how teenager girls are represented in grand theft auto 5 game.
Amanda can also be seen cheating on her husband in the game. Linguistic portrayal of
characters in the game is tied to situations and personalities and most of the time the
characters speak negative things (Richard, 2013). It was always seen that Tracey and Amanda
are complaining to Michael and this again generalizes the gender.
It can be concluded from the above essay that although the visual portrayals appear to
be realistic considering clothing appropriateness and body proportions. However, there is no
denying that character in Grand theft auto 5 are generalized and sexualized. In this game most
notable character is Tracey, who always wears transparent clothing and acts in a lewd and
sexual manner. A female character cannot be generalized in that manner and this tells about
the ideologies of the game writers. In this male dominated society, it can be ascertained that
the gaming domain is male dominated. However, the way female are represented cannot be
justified and the thinking is fundamentally flawed and it needs major changes.

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References:
Bryce, J., & Rutter, J. (2002, June). Killing Like a Girl: Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers'
Visibility. In CGDC Conf..
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J. H., & Tosca, S. P. (2013). Understanding video games: The
essential introduction. Routledge.
Forbes Welcome. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/09/26/on-gender-and-gta-5/
#590a14fb8cf9
Grand Theft Auto V And Women. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/09/grand-theft-auto-v-and-women/
Hoggins, T. (2018). Grand Theft Auto V is designed deliberately to degrade women.
Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10355275/Grand-
Theft-Auto-V-is-designed-deliberately-to-degrade-women.html
Richard, G. T. (2013). Gender and game play: Research and future directions. Playing with
Virtuality, Theories and Methods of Computer Game Studies, Peter Lang, 269-284.
Stoff, M. (2018). Grand Theft Auto V's grand gender problem. Retrieved from
https://overland.org.au/2015/07/grand-theft-auto-vs-grand-gender-problem/
Turtiainen, E. (2017). The portrayal of female characters in Grand Theft Auto V.
Video Games and Gender: Game Representation. (2018). Retrieved from
http://www.radford.edu/~mzorrilla2/thesis/gamerepresentation.html

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