GTA 6’s Female Protagonist: Breaking Stereotypes and Expanding Representation

GTA 6 feels so close yet so far. Hearing the name Grand Theft Auto instantly brings to mind a sequence of scenes where in-game protagonists are fighting, committing criminal activities, getting chased by police, or killing innocent citizens for no reason.

As these scenes pass by, note that every protagonist you see is male. That’s the irony of one of the iconic action-adventure series, with millions of players grinding daily.

The GTA series initially began with Grand Theft Auto, released in 1997, and over the years, it has launched numerous instalments, but unfortunately, in these 27 years, none of these instalments ever portrayed a female character with proper importance, let alone making them strong lead characters.

Finally, breaking this long-preserved tradition, GTA 6 is coming with Lucia, the first-ever female protagonist of the game. 

Lucia is Breaking GTA’s Misogynistic Approach After More Than Two Decades

Throughout these years, the GTA franchise has always been a male-dominated one, full of boys wherever you look. Starting from its creators, David Jones and Mike Dailly, all its lead characters, including Toni Cipriani, Johnny Klebitz, Franklin Clinton, Tommy Vercetti, etc., are all male.

For some unknown reasons, the dark, intriguing action-adventure franchise has always shown a misogynistic attitude toward its female characters. 

You don’t need to go far; take GTA 5. While more than half the population of Los Angeles is female, Los Santos didn’t even go close to that with its female character stats. No female character is present in the main story, and a few that you see are all either relatives or acquaintances of the male protagonists of the game. 

GTA is a series widely praised for its innovative open-world approach toward the gameplay. These games have amazingly portrayed NPCs like policemen, firefighters, paramedics, store cashiers, construction workers, etc., but when it comes to the portrayal of female characters, this game has always been criticized for being sexist. 

Unfortunately (or we may call it fortunate that finally, a female protagonist appeared), it took 27 years for GTA to break its slightly sexist attitude and feature a female protagonist who’s not a nagging wife or lovey-dovey girlfriend. Instead, Lucia is a strong character who can cause chaos and is an equal partner to her male counterpart. 

Technically, if we analyze, Lucia is not the first female protagonist of the franchise; the original Grand Theft Auto had Katie, Mikki, Ulrika, and Divine, who were all selectable protagonists and used to speak the same male-character dialogues.

In GTA: San Andreas, players had the option to create a female character. This was the same in GTA Online, where players got a chance to create a customizable protagonist, and that can be a female. 

Lucia is different. She is the first fleshed-out female character of the two protagonists that Rockstar talked about. The way she kicked-open the door of the convenience store metaphorically represents how her appearance breaks the long-continued stereotypical male dominance of the game.

This opening of the door may also be a symbol to hint at the new openings for the game’s story—new avenues—new expansions. 

The trailer shows her as a more down-to-earth character to whom players might relate to, at least female players. Anyway, players have already been scared that this game may be a slow and boring one. It’s just the wait to see how the male chauvinistic approach takes Lucia, a powerful woman equally capable as Jason, the male protagonist of GTA 6.

Best and Worst Portrayals of Females in GTA

Of course, the GTA games feature female characters, and some of them have really left marks in the hearts of fans, but they have never been important. They were mostly featured as frivolous, greedy, and meritless people, in contrast to their male counterparts. Take any game, starting from GTA 3, and you will even come across sex workers. All of them are female. 

Another very prominent example of the franchise mistreating women could be found in the same game, if you remember, what happened to Maria Latore. She was one of the best written female characters of the franchise, who was probably killed by a gunshot after she was rescued, though it was not revealed whether she died or not.

Initially, her character was silly, impatient, and frivolous, but with every instalment, she developed her personality, and in GTA 3 she became a mature lady who was down-to-earth and friendly. This personality growth was well-portrayed, starting from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which was set in 1992.

From the pile of female characters, it is hard to find many who were well-written. While we have been struggling to find a suitable positive female portrayal, let’s take an antagonist from the series. Yeah, it’s Catalina, the antagonist of GTA 3. 

She was one of the coolest characters ever featured in the franchise’s history. Despite having flaws, her character was written well as one of the toughest villains.

Now, if you look for the worst portrayal of females in GTA, no need to stress, as two of them can be found in GTA 5. First, we can take the instance of Tracey de Santa. Despite being a major character in the game, she was portrayed as an annoying and obnoxious woman who walked into a casting couch willingly.

Of course, you can counter that she went there without anyone pressuring her, but the game portrayed her in a way that she didn’t have any knowledge of what was right and the consequences of her actions.

The second major female character in GTA 5 was Amanda de Santa, the wife of Michael. She is head to toe portrayed as a nagging wife. She constantly insults her husband. She even cheated on him.

We have discussed a lot of things, and it’s time to conclude it. GTA has been portraying women either as sexualized objects or as prizes to be won for more than two decades. Even with a large female player base playing these games, this traditional portrayal never took any different turn before GTA 6 revealed Lucia. 

If not entirely change the way generally women are represented in this action-adventure franchise, she is at least going to introduce a new way in which women can be presented in GTA games in the future. 

What do you think of Lucia’s introduction in GTA 6? Don’t forget to tell us your thoughts!

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