Final Fight (and eventually Street Fighter) character Poison’s history has been riddled with speculation and various back-and-forths regarding her gender. Her recent return to the general consciousness of Capcom fans and subsequent addition to Street Fighter X Tekken have only helped fan the flames surrounding said issue. So, how do we finally close the door (or at least come close to it) on this issue? Leave it to Youtube user MegatonStammer and his exhaustively researched and pretty informative 20-minute documentary on Poison’s gender issues.
It definitely is interesting to see how everything can get blown out of proportion due to things being lost in translation or just simply having different statements from various people working at Capcom. Massive props to MegatonStammer for putting together something that’s not only enlightening, but is also pretty darn entertaining to watch.
So, is everything regarding Poison’s gender clear now, or are you left with even more questions? Do sound off in the comments.
Sources: [Joystiq, Shoryuken]
1 Comment
entertaining video, and well researched, but he actually DID overlook evidence that would have made Poison a girl:
one: the book “All About Capcom Fighting Games” explains she was originally conceived to be a woman in Japan in the first Final Fight game, but they were also then concerned that it wouldn’t look right to hit women so they made her a “newhalf”. Note that this never went beyond planning. Interestingly enough, Poison got her name from a female Capcom employee who actually thought of Bret Michaels’ band Poison. Although MegatonStammer was right to cite that picture, it’s curious that he does not talk about her origins beyond it.
two: it’s anomalous, but Poison is female in the English language version of Final Fight Revenge, the fighting game for the Sega Saturn. This is apparently a situation where Capcom Japan did not tell Capcom USA what was going on. If you actually look up Poison’s ending in the game, it turns out she has secret feelings for Mad Gear nemesis Cody. She plans to visit Cody in prison, carrying flowers, but gives up realizing he will only have eyes for Eliza.
As sad as that ending is, could you blame Capcom USA for thinking she was all woman based on that backstory?
Of course, it messes things up in the continuity and is kind of in a vacuum, but still, it’s proof Poison WAS a woman in a video game.
three: he puts a funny spin on it, but MegatonStammer also misrepresents her sexual identity, equating the Japanese term ‘newhalf’ with what the English speaking world knows as transvestite. A newhalf does not necessarily equal tranvestite. It’s a more general term, covering androgynes as well as hermaphrodites. So yes, in the original Japanese version, Poison may have actually had male and female body parts, making her a genetic anomaly.
We all understand the heated feelings behind this. For many in the FGC, Poison is best embraced as an intersex individual, and she actually does have differently oriented fans.
However, when you look at it in the sense of Capcom (Japan as well as America) changing her gender just so you don’t appear to be beating up women, it rightly appears as total bullshit. If you believe in feminism, you would WANT to have her really be a woman.
I think both sides have a point, and wouldn’t want to take anything from the intersex community any more than I do from equal opportunity advocates. Ultimately, there’s also the factum of the levity of video game canon, since it was not really as important for video game companies to maintain canon as it was for other media. Unfortunately, as entertaining and informative as this video is, it does not settle it.