Undergraduate / Female Characters in Video Games - Common App Essay #1 [10]

[Hello! I would greatly appreciate some help on this essay! It's a subject that I'm very passionate about but I'm having a very difficult time executing properly (or at least it feels like it). I'd like to know if this essay actually fits and answers the prompt (because #1 is so broad), if I'm actually displaying a sense of growth, if I'm not really talking about myself enough, and any critiques/ideas that can help.]

From the age of 5 I have indulged in the vast realm of video games, escaping into worlds of wonder and limitless horizons. As I grew up and played games with a seemingly infinite variety of plots and lore, I eventually wondered why there could be so much diversity in the stories yet not in the characters that I played as. A vast majority of the roles I fulfilled when playing games were that of the straight white male. Instead of being written as multidimensional, complex, and human I saw female characters with great potential get lost in the background or worse: become objectified. From seeing female characters exterminated in order to advance the main male protagonist's story, to seeing them confined to the traditional role of the damsel in distress, and to playing fighting games that featured shots of female characters in unrealistically and scantily clad outfits for the player to ogle at, I had a difficult time connecting to a female character and finding a proper role model.

Once I became aware of this, I purposely sought games with female characters that were well written and portrayed. One female character that particularly impacted me was Miranda Lawson from the Mass Effect series. As a teenage girl, I viewed her as the epitome of the woman that I wanted to become in the future -- intelligent, capable, assertive, fearless, and skilled. But underneath her well composed surface, she struggled with the insecurities and doubts that she harbored with the knowledge that her father created her to be genetically perfect. She would tear herself down as she questioned whether she was all of those things due to the DNA that her father implemented in her, or because of her own skills. She struggled with the fact that she could not meet the expectations that were placed on her to be flawless, and I then realized that her character served to represent a woman in our society -- a society where women are expected to conceal their hardships, look and act without any imperfections, and achieve generally unattainable expectations. As I played through her journey, I saw her come to terms with her insecurities and flaws; the aspects of herself that made her human. I saw that the woman that I idolized was one with imperfections and mistakes and one who by the end of her journey, grew to accept and take pride in them while moving forward. This altered my perception as a teenage girl because I learned that despite my own flaws, I could still be all of the things that Miranda Lawson is. I learned to define myself rather than let myself be defined by others, something that I struggled with as I escaped from my anxiety to the world of video games.

The existence of well written and portrayed female characters has made me realize that presenting female characters like her- particularly for the girls who grew up admiring this extraordinary form of media such as myself - is vital and allows girls to be able to see themselves as women with stories to tell and journeys to lead. This discovery has influenced me to develop a passion for the narratives in video games and the influential characters that they can produce, and thus a desire to become a writer and activist in the industry, to ensure that more girls can grow up with a variety of empowering female role models. It has propelled me to write and create segments for my school's news on video games and female representation - for there is a misconception that video games are childish; that they are not a form of art and cannot influence or affect society's perceptions. If it were not for video games and the inspiring women like Miranda Lawson in them, I would not have found my purpose or learned to embrace myself as who I am.