User blog comment:Damac1214/Sledgehammer Interested in Female Leads for Future Call of Duty Titles, Have Already Started Pre-Production for Call of Duty: 2017/@comment-1913529-20150210163619/@comment-1055346-20150210184154

Really we just need more females in every corner of the game, but not drawing attention to the fact that they are females.

It's like an argument I saw about Peter Dinklage in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The man is a dwarf, it's obviously noticeable, and it's a huge part of the character he famously plays in Game of Thrones. But in X-Men, it wasn't brought up at all. It's not part of his dialog, it's not part of anyones dialog, no one mentions it as a joke or a serious discussion of his characterization. Nothing. He's just playing a compelling actor, but happens to have dwarfism too. It doesn't matter.

And this is what I feel a lot of media gets wrong about depicting women in traditionally female roles. They all play it too safe, they make comments like "She's a girl tougher than any man" or her character is the subject of her discrimination based on her gender. For some series this works. Agent Carter, the TV show, for example is a semi-period piece set in Post-WWII U.S so seeing some anti-women themes isn't uncommon, it's probably expected. But seeing these themes played out in other media, especially those set in Modern Times or even the Future would just be odd.

But this is also an area where I think Call of Duty really shines. When there is a female character, they rarely draw attention to the fact that she's a girl in a traditionally male environment. Pelayo was basically a throwaway character who happened to be female. Karma was a strong female character, with an important role in the story, and I can't remember a single time her gender called any of that into question. Even Ilona, despite not being characterized well, never had attention drawn to her specifically cause of her race. And in this way I think Call of Duty campaigns are really good at integrating female characters and will only get better as time goes on.

Sure, some examples don't work. All the female zombie characters Abigail "Misty" Briarton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and that girl played by Rosario Dawson are constantly having their gender referenced, both by themselves and others. But in the context of Zombies, the much less serious gamemode and the much easier one to be a total bad ass in, it really seems to work. Yes, these characters are constantly having their gender referenced, but they're also tough as fuck and can easily prove themselves equal if not stronger then the men.

So all in all, I don't really think we have to worry about more females in Call of Duty. We'll almost certainly see Playable Characters, Major Characters, and Personality-less NPC Soldiers that are female all in due time. The trick is just to treat them as CHARACTERS. Not as CHARACTERS WHO ARE ALSO GIRLS.