Final Project: Destructive Plasticity and Gender in Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain

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Metal Gear Solid is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. Helmed by director Hideo Kojima, the series focuses on what it’s coined as “tactical espionage action” against the backdrop of an ever changing militarized world. While the series has featured male protagonists exclusively, it has played with gender in interesting ways and contains a host of female characters that play pivotal roles in the plot of each and every game.

For my final project I created a web site that explores controversy surrounding a character Quiet that will debut in the next upcoming installment of the series, Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain which comes out in 2015. The initial controversy started in September of 2003 when director Hideo Kojima wrote on his English Twitter account:

“I’ve been ordering to Yoji [Shinkawa, the game’s art director] to make the character more erotic, and he did it well” [Source]

After saying this, he provided more context, explaining that the aim to to make people want to cosplay as the characters and to sell figurines. He then revealed an image of the character Quiet’s rear end, which can be seen on the right.

This stirred up a firestorm of outrage from both fans and critics alike. Many explained that Kojima was being exploitative in his actions. And while he attempted to clarify that the word “erotic” may have been a term that was misused in translation, many still cried foul.

And for obvious reasons. The commodification of women’s bodied is still a huge issue worldwide and many felt that Kojima’s choice to have a female character so scantily clad for the purpose of making her more “erotic” was simply a ploy to make more money. Kojima’s reaction to the backlash was interesting. He in a flurry of tweets he says:

“I know there’s people concerning about ‘Quiet’ but don’t worry. I created her character as an antithesis to the women characters…” [Source]
“appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed. “Quiet” who doesn’t have a word will be teased in the story as well.” [Source]
“But once you recognise the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds. [Source]

Now, this is where the theorizing starts. What could possibly be so damning that would prompt Kojima to say that the secret reason for the character’s appearance will make people feel ashamed of their “words & deeds?” This really stuck in my mind for some reason. And after playing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes I came to the conclusion that what Hideo is referencing is that the character Quiet is, in fact the same person who used to be Chico. Here's the link to the website where I discuss how and why:

https://destructiveplasticity.wordpress.com