Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters : An Ecofeminist Look at Resident Evil Antagonists

Pinder, M. (2021). Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters : An Ecofeminist Look at Resident Evil Antagonists . M/C Journal, 24(5).

In depicting female antagonists as ecoGothic monstrosities, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil VIII: Village position the player character in vain defence of human specificity and supremacy. It is telling that, as a figure who has been unknowingly infected with the Cadou, Ethan Winters has already lost the battle against the parasitic invasion of his own corporeal form. By tapping into ecophobic anxieties about fungus and slime that defy categorisation, Resident Evil is able to challenge the player’s human specificity and agency. This lack of specificity and agency is only accentuated by the monstrous and transgressive presence of the unnatural mother and the dangerous female. It is this loss of control and vulnerability that is common to both the ecoGothic and the survival horror genre. By contrasting examples of the monstrous feminine with sanctioned feminine figures like Mia, Rose, and Zoe, Resident Evil 7: BioHazard and Resident Evil VIII: Village establish policeable boundaries for female behaviour and a means of justifying the killing of abhuman bodies. While the powerful monstrous female antagonists of the games are able to exert a phenomenal amount of agency when compared to their monstrous peers, their construction still plays into destructive misogynist and ecophobic ideas of the female and the non-human world.

The literature named above is interesting because it looks at eco-feminism within the Resident Evil Village games. Since the game is relatively new it gives an insight into the story of the game and also how the female antagonists are portrayed. By using the concept of eco-feminist green media studies can use this literature to further analyse the ‘green messages’ in the Resident Evil games.