TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains a handful of graphic scenes involving violence against men. Parents should preview the video first before sharing with young children.
This is the third in a series of videos exploring sexist tropes in video games. In this installment we look at “dark and edgy” side of the trope in more modern games and how the male damsel or “mansel” in distress plot device is often used in conjunction with graphic depictions of violence against men. Over the past decade we’ve seen developers try to spice up the old Damsel in Distress cliche by combining it with other tropes involving victimized men including the disposable man, the mercy killing and the man in the refrigerator.