Gender Deconstruction in the Silent Hill Franchise

A short essay examining the ways in which gender is constructed, subverted and challenged within the Silent Hill franchise, with a focus on the first and second installment of the franchise.

In a 2001 interview with online gaming publication IGN, character designer and cutscene director for Silent Hill 1 & 2 Takayoshi Sato spoke of his teams many inspirations for the soon-to-be hit game series. At the top of this list sat psychological horror films such as Jacob’s Ladder, and the works of directors such as David Lynch and David Cronenberg (IGN, 2001). Where such films and their decades of predecessors hold a dense community of academic analysis, particularly on the subject of gender representation, which cement film as a legitimate art form worthy of analysis, video games hold no such platform. While this has begun to change in recent years as the video game industry has grown and developed, granting the industry a slow growing academic respect, there is still a cavernous divide between the artistic merit and academic analysis granted to the film and game development industries.

Despite this dissonance, the game series Silent Hill not only matches the complexity and nuance of gender representation found in many films of the same genre, it subverts and surpasses numerous tropes and stereotypes found in film. Through its direct interaction with audiences due to the interactive format, the franchise utilizes its horror setting to question, critique and subvert various gender stereotypes. Specifically, the characters of Harry Mason (Silent Hill 1) and James Sunderland (Silent Hill 2) reverse gendered horror conventions found in the horror film genre throughout their respective games.

The first two installments of the Silent Hill franchise feature a white, male protagonist on a quest to locate/rescue their daughter and wife, respectively. Mason searches for his daughter Cheryl after crashing their car in the town of Silent Hill, while Sunderland returns to the town after receiving a letter from his late-wife Mary, claiming she is waiting for him there. Despite both stories appearing to follow hegemonic gender tropes- a male, heroic figure facing a dangerous environment to rescue a woman he loves- the game does not present these elements in their traditional fashion. Foremost, both Harry and James stray far from the stereotypical macho male archetype that most often fronts films and other games. Both characters spend the majority of their respective games clamoring helplessly to fend off the various monsters that attack them, clumsily swinging makeshift and ineffective weapons in a manner that often encourages players to simply run away from danger.

This idea is discussed in Masculinity in Video Games, which argues that the ineffective combat abilities of the protagonists set Silent Hill as "a series that deviates from the uncompromisingly macho, triumphantly aggressive, and uncritical narratives and expressions of masculinity with which video games are associated” (Kirkland, 2009, p. 166). Kirkland goes on to discuss the fact that, as evidenced in many strategy guides for the games, the developers encourage and reward players to take a stereotypically unmanly approach with their male protagonists, forcing them to act/feel helpless and vulnerable (Kirkland, 2009, p. 172) in a way that is antithetical to commonplace depictions of male protagonists that saturate AAA video games and Hollywood films. Overall, “...the men of Silent Hill frequently contrast with the assured, unquestioning, militarized hypermasculinity regarded as standard across the industry; instead, they are ordinary, flawed, even neurotic to the point of psychosis. (Kirkland, 2009, p. 178).

Alongside the nontraditional characterization of these male protagonists, the Silent Hill franchise subverts common gendered film tropes through its depiction of the relationships between the male protagonists and the females they are searching for. In the book Big Bad Wolves, author Joan Mellen discusses masculinity in American films, breaking down the common dynamics between male protagonists and those around them. Mellen states, “Hollywood has demanded that we admire and imitate males who dominate others, leaders whom the weak are expected to follow. The ideal man of our films is a violent one.” (Mellen, 1977). Despite filling the role of our male protagonist, Mason fills no such mold; one does not feel compelled to admire, imitate or fear Harry Mason, who ultimately fails his heroic quest. Although the game has four possible endings based on player action, the ‘Good’ or best possible ending will be used for analysis sake as the ‘canon’ or real ending.

In the end, Harry’s quest leads him to discover that his adopted daughter Cheryl was actually one half of a demonic deity, which split and formed both Cheryl and other half Alessa- the ‘evil’ half of said deity who also took the shape of a young girl. At the games climax, Cheryl rejoins with Alessa to form back into this deity, which Harry must defeat in a final battle. In the ‘Good’ ending, Harry defeats the deity and receives a newly reincarnated Cheryl in the form of an infant. While Harry does find Cheryl and leaves with her new form safely in tow, he fails to rescue his true daughter and allows her to rejoin with Alessa. If the player fails to successfully complete the series of challenges they face throughout their gameplay, Cheryl is not saved in any sense and Harry completely fails to rescue his daughter and shield her from harm. Harry's failure to dominate his enemies and fully complete his quest ultimately separates him from the traditional male protector archetype.

Joan Mellen's analysis of male archetypes in films goes on to cover a common quality that Silent Hill 2 protagonist James Sunderland subverts throughout his quest; “To be sexual, [the ideal man of film] has had to be not only tall and strong but frequently brutal, promising to overwhelm a woman by physical force that was at once firm and tender” In the case of James Sunderland, his relationship with Mary deviates far from traditional representations of heterosexual relationships. According to Restless Dreams in Silent Hill, the game “...critique[s] traditional family structures, in ... the destructive relationship between James and Mary Sunderland'' (Kirkland 2005, p. 174). Silent Hill 2 uses the game's titular town as a purgatory-like environment in which characters must traverse through the hellish landscape to confront their own wrongdoings and trauma. Mary and James’s deviation from normative depictions of heterosexuality is explored with this narrative device, as the games climax sees James face off with a vision of Mary, who transforms into a terrifying monster that forces James to confront his wrongdoings in their relationship (while the game features six distinct endings based on player action, all endings feature this confrontation in varied forms). James’s final battle in his quest to find his wife results in a complete subversion of this time-old plot, in which James must not save his wife, but save himself from her. He is able to do so not through simple physical force alone, but by both literally and physically confronting her, their destructive relationship and the pain he has caused her; Antithetical to the male stereotype of triumph through total and brutal domination, James ultimately triumphs due to his ability to exhibit empathy and self-reflection.

Overall, the Silent Hill franchise, and particularly its first two installments, serves as prime examples of the potential within the video game medium to tell compelling, multi-faceted stories that critique, subvert and challenge hegemonic norms such as gendered stereotypes. As summed up by Ewan Kirkland, “Silent Hill can frequently be understood as presenting a critical discourse on masculinity, rather than an enforcement of traditionally male narratives” (Kirkland, 2009, p. 175). Silent Hill utilizes the preconceived gender ideals of its audience, continually reinforced through film, to challenge these concepts in ways which enhance the feelings of horror, confusion and introspection that their stories work to invoke.

References

Kirkland, E. (2009). Masculinity in video games: The gendered gameplay of silent hill. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 24(2), 161-183. doi:10.1215/02705346-2009-006

Kirkland, E. (2005). Restless dreams in silent hill: Approaches to video game analysis. Journal of Media Practice, 6(3), 167-178. doi:10.1386/jmpr.6.3.167/1

Mellen, J. (1977). Big bad wolves : masculinity in the American film (1st ed.). Pantheon Books.

IGN Staff. (2012, June 20). Interview with Silent Hill 2's Artist Takayoshi Sato. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/08/17/interview-with-silent-hill-2s-artist-takayoshi-sato