(I first want to come out and explain that I am a big fan of the Metal Gear Solid series but regret to say that I have yet to play the latest instalment and consequently am unable to include reflections on it in this analysis.)

The Metal Gear Solid-franchise is one of the most prominent and successful game series ever created. Only last month figures showed the latest instalment of the series rocketing sales of Playstation 3 consoles and the game itself topping the charts. It’s therefore safe to assess that the main protagonist of the series, Solid Snake, is one of the most well known video game characters in the world.

Snake himself presents as a rather typical special ops agent; white, male, well built, intelligent, lone-wolf and weighed down by a passed filled with violence and dubious deeds. He is therefore, as it seems, the perfect protagonist for a storyline laden with global conflicts demanding swift solutions outside the diplomacy’s playing field or mainstream politics. The similarities between snake and the classic epic hero character are in other words striking.

It is therefore interesting to note what certain aspect of this otherwise archetypal protagonist has become the target for speculation, namely his sexuality, or rather his lack of the same. A blog called Binary Fractal recently published a text claiming that Snake suffers the lack of reproductive organs. Though through a highly speculative and “comically” undertoned analysis the text strikes on a somewhat relevant aspect of Snake as the heroic protagonist; his relationship with the female characters of the series.

In her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” film and media professor Laura Mulvey discusses the use of the male gaze in narrative film, primarily taking aim towards Hollywood productions. Mulvey argues that narrative cinema to a wide extent provides visual pleasure through scopophilia deriving from patriarchal structures reflected in the established narrative of mainstream film. Through psychoanalysis she presents arguments showing how this voyeuristic process supports a subjective identification with the male main character.

Mulvey further argues that the displaying of the main female character functions on two narrative levels:

“As erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen. [...] A woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined without breaking narrative verisimilitude.”

If we however apply this perspective to the Metal Gear Solid series, as I will show, some ambiguity will arise.

If we start of by focusing on the “first” Metal Gear Solid game and specifically on Solid Snake’s relation to the rookie sidekick Meryl: A relationship toned by strong emotions and mutual dependence from the start and seemingly an inevitable love-affair waiting to happen, Snake and Meryl start of unaware of each others involvement with the situation. Their first encounter weighed down by both confusion and misunderstanding, causes a prefatory rivalry between the two. Meryl disguised as genome soldier and unsure about the motives of our protagonist, suspiciously holds Snake at gun point, questioning him about the pretext of his presence. Though revealed through her voice to be a woman, Snake instead of occupying sovereignty mentally or physically by his supremacy as a male, chooses to attack Meryl’s apparent lack of experience in battle. Callously evaluating everything from the grip of her weapon to her deficient confidence and then verbally confronting her nervousness, he gains his dominance through his excellence as a soldier rather than the dominant gender. As Meryl leaves the scene the perspective changes to focus on her legs, only to approach her backside wiggling as she jogs away leaving Snake’s question, “Who are you?”, unanswered.

What we see here can effectively be understood as a breach with the two levelled narrative function of the female character that Laura Mulvey describes. Snake though his knowledge about the gender of his rival shows little tendencies of playing the role as the intimidating superior, he instead fully takes on the part as a result of his most prominent qualities that of the calculating cold blooded soldier. (He even fortifies this position later as he reveals how he noticed Meryl’s lack of experience: “It’s your eyes, they’re not soldier’s eyes.”) Instead of commenting, or even reflecting, on the fact that the person holding him at gun point is a woman he attacks her inept handling of the weapon, thereby placing Meryl on an equal level rather than enforcing distance through his patriarchal advantage. The player however is still prompted to obtain a role of the spectator, upholding the male gaze as Meryl runs away, wiggling her behind and the perspective persistently zooming it in. It is thereby obvious that the breach extends from the two levelled narrative function of the female character to creating a space between the player and the protagonist. This could seem somewhat contra productive as it might remove the player from its character, in the aspect of empathy and comprehension of character development. I would however argue that it instead creates an immerse depth of the character, enforcing the complexity of Solid Snake both as a soldier and a human being. It promotes the notion of a character shaped by his past and further more encourages the player to understand the character as a living, evolving part of the narrative – even though the player itself seems somewhat left out of this process.