Mortal Kombat 1's New Update Adds The Kameo Fighter Janet Cage

Why does she look like a man? I miss the Midway MK era designs..

Who? What happened to kassie?

@Truegamer79 kassie doesn't exist in this timeline. This game is a soft reboot

That’s a hideous character.

I also wonder “who?”, are they Johnny Cage’s mother or something?

@AlexanderDaniels Old Netherrealm women designs are horrendous. Good riddance to designs like Deception Mileena where it's just a woman wearing arm sleeves, a single string of cloth over her midsection, and a thong but otherwise nothing else. Those things are both skeevy and just look completely stupid.

@ChessboardMan @Truegamer79 It's a story mode thing, she's one of a multitude of potential characters who can appear at one point.

@AlexanderDaniels
I hate to break it to you, but not every woman wears 50 million layers of makeup and have perfect facial symmetry like the videogames show. This is how it is in real life

People who are confused by this if you play Mk 1 story mode ( stop here if you dont want a spoiler) towards the end you have an string of fights against fighters from other timelines/unniverses usually a mix of 2 existing fighters with a combined name or a gender swap version. She's just one of these that's one of the Kameo or assists , they run in perform an attack and run off.

"HOBBY
None"

"CRIMES
Abuse
Terrorism
Attempted murder"

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Janet_Cage

Hmm. She does not sound like a very nice person.

@GarlicGuzzler guess you've never met women in real life. Cause if you have, you'd know that a lot of them don't look ugly and actually look really pretty without makeup.

@mereel @AlexanderDaniels

A quick Google search says that she's an alt timeline (and gender swapped) version of Johnny Cage so, of course she looks like a man. I'm pretty sure she's not designed to be attractive and that nobody's pressuring you into saying she is.

Cool, would love to play it when the second complete edition of the game releases at a discounted price (I refuse to buy incomplete games on day one, except for the Atlus ones)

@mereel I just logged in just so I could thank you for giving me a much needed laugh with your comment. How ridiculous 😆

@Lizuka,

A with you on the older designs being over sexualized and stereotypical, but sureley there has to be a balance between that and an almost totally unfemenine designs, we are now presented with. A strong female figher can still look female.

@johnvboy also to balance it out we should have men looking more sexualised in video games

@Roibeard64 makes sense, I figured she was his sister.

@Megaz23 I promise I’m not trying to be argumentative here but I’m genuinely curious, what would that look like? We already have plenty of examples of men in video game with hyper stylised physiques and in various states of undress. That or dressed in such a way as to emphasise physical attributes. I think a big part of the issue is more the different ways that society views male and female sexuality. But if you want more sexualised men in games, I’m not saying it would be a bad thing. I just think it might require a bit of input from those who are sexually attracted to males as to what sexual features they would like to be on show, that we do not already see.

@mereel There’s definitely an awful error in consumer logic if the pre-requisite of every perceived good female character design has to be that they look pretty first and foremost, otherwise we get complaints like yours. It leads to far less interesting character designs, especially in the long run.

@AlexanderDaniels You just sound like the most pleasant person to talk to at a party

@WarpSpawn DONG

18 NAKED COWBOYS IN THE SHOWERS AT RAM RANCH

@nessisonett If that is what you think would do it, maybe submit a suggestion to Rockstar for the next RDR instalment.

But that is kind of the point though, isn’t it? You would probably struggle to find a suggestion that is not going to be too explicit for most games. And even then it will probably be derided by many for homosexual themes.

@WarpSpawn I would say it is more about sexual vulnerability than attraction. Males are viewed more neutrally in society. So even a man with no shirt on while some may comment on his attractiveness (relatively speaking as I have no attraction to men so I am a poor judge) most will either be neutral or admiration (men that wanna look like him).

Flip that for a topless woman. The female form is always commented on and hyper sexualized. We can’t go topless no matter how hot the temp is, unless we are around other females in a safe space, we aren’t allowed to discuss our bodies or have medical autonomy (seriously look up the bs a woman has to go through to get a tubal ligation even if it is for life saving reasons) and every comment directed at us is how we should be socially acceptable. That goes beyond sexual attraction as well. Nothing like having a homosexual man comment on your sweatpants and hoodie when you are trying to get groceries at 8am on a Saturday. When you were just minding your own business. Women aren’t allowed to just exist. Pretty, frumpy, ugly, well dressed doesn’t matter…someone always has some unsolicited comment.

So a female (because this starts when we are young. Ask any woman you know what age she was first catcalled at or hit on. It’s usually pretty young. ) is constantly forced in a position of vulnerability because of her biology and not because of attraction. Male attraction is the root but then all the other layers of society bake it in. It’s dehumanizing and exhausting. Men I am sure get some aggressive treatment but it isn’t baked into every interaction. And it doesn’t start as early.

@Ryu_Niiyama I am absolutely not going to even try and excuse such behaviour or dispute your experience. The issues do clearly run much deeper than how video game characters are portrayed. But these societal expectations and judgements do certainly feed into the differences in how such characters are perceived. There may also be a bit of a disconnect between how it works for video game characters and those in other media. For example, I’m pretty sure that the gratuitous shirt off scene for a Henry Cavill or Chris Hemsworth is intended to have a sexual element to it. But I don’t think that translates very well to male states of undress in games.

@WarpSpawn yeah as I have no idea what sexual vulnerability looks like for men I can’t give an equivalent scenario and I don’t feel there is one as one would have to ignore human society from start until now (or at least when matrilineal society fell out of favor). But the closest I can think of is Nightwing from DC comics, as there was one comic cover where he was put in a pose that female characters are often put in and there was an uproar about that. He wears skintight spandex and men don’t care but the second he is in a non aggressive pose that makes him look sexually vulnerable, that cover got a backlash. I don’t remember the issue as I am not overly fond of the batman franchise but I remember reading an article about the backlash. If I remember I will post a link.

@WarpSpawn Games should just lean into homosexual themes. Would be way more fun. Men in skintight suits making references to bottoming. Oh wait, that’s just Metal Gear Solid. I dunno, give me Mario only in GAA shorts with a mullet and handlebar moustache.

@Megaz23,

I thought they already were, unless of couse every regular male in normal life, has arms and legs as big as tree trunks, and a six/eight pack.

@nessisonett,

Not sure if you are being serious.

The Wall wins!

Fatality!

@AlexanderDaniels Sweet Baby Inc. influence, right there! If Johnny Cage would turn into a woman, he'd have the whole package, this design is just absurd.

@WarpSpawn "I’m pretty sure that the gratuitous shirt off scene for a Henry Cavill or Chris Hemsworth is intended to have a sexual element to it. "

that's meant to have a power fantasy element. scenes like that are typically what men think presumed straight-attracted women want.

anyway to bring this more on topic, this Janet Cage character is just a depiction of an average woman. not too dissimilar from what people see when they walk outside. it's fine.

@LadyCharlie I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would look at The Witcher or Thor and think ‘yeah that’s a woman’s fantasy’, it’s practically Conan the Barbarian, a treasure trove of unfulfilled homoerotic feelings bundled into a power fantasy.

@Edu23XWiiU those are two completely different looking people you just named. I'd let Jessica Andrade beat the ***** out of me in the cage, though. Seems like A perfect fit for a game where you fight people to death. but, what would you want Janet Cage to look like? call me a stupid dumb idiot, but i would actually imagine that A literal MMA fighter to be the perfect reference for someone like Janet cage. so I don't get your point.

@LadyCharlie Basically, yeah. I'm not really able to do a show of hands to see how many women do appreciate the buff male shirt off moment in a movie. I suspect it is greater than zero but less than any men involved would like to believe. Which does really lead back to my reason for asking what I did in the first place. If someone is in favour of portraying male characters in a comparable way to female ones, what do they think that should look like? What would they find appealing? Using the same logic as above, its possible that a lot of the male characters are already intended to be sexualised. But on the assumption that this is what women will be drawn in by, instead of actually asking. On a side note, I wonder how the work of female artists compares to that of male artists, when drawing their own gender versus any other.

As for getting back on topic, I don't see any issues really. Characters in fighting games routinely look like they have absolutely business being there but this one looks relatively down to Earth and believable. Maybe a bad think in an MK game but with Johnny Cage as the starting point its hard to complain too much.

@Ryu_Niiyama I'm not familiar with the issue either but I think what you are describing does tend to happen quite a lot. Presenting male characters as vulnerable tends to result in pushback from those who wish to project their own insecurities onto others and gatekeep "manliness". At the same time though, I don't think that fears of vulnerability being used against us are entirely unfounded either.

Stop making women game characters ugly.

@Mabelissimo well, she looks like a dude, no surprise she can beat up dudes too hahahahaha. They should have called her to make the voice of Justin Cage, since she fits sooo well into the game. You know where this character would fit well too? Final Fight.

This is where we solve hegemonic masculinity. In the comments section of Nintendo Life.
For my own part, IX is my favorite. But the ladies in IX are embarrassing.
I don't care what they do with this disposable series anymore.