“A Jill Sandwich”. Gender Representation in Zombie Videogames.

From Resident Evil (Capcom 1996 - present) to The Walking Dead (Telltale Games 2012-4), women are represented in zombie games in ways that appear to refigure them as heroines in their own right, a role that has traditionally been represented as atypical in gaming genres. These women are seen as pioneering – Jill Valentine is often described as one of the first playable female protagonists in videogaming, whilst Clementine and Ellie from The Walking Dead and The Last of Us (Naughty Dog 2013) are respectively, a young child and a teenager undergoing coming of age rites of passage in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. Accompanying them are male protagonists who either compliment these roles, or alternatively provide useful explorations of masculinity in games that move beyond gender stereotyping. This chapter examines how these forumulations have developed in videogames, and suggests ways in which players have repurposed their conceptions of these characters over time.