The idea of a “mythical norm” is one that although I had not heard before this reading was something that felt similar to another term, I had learned previously in a different media course. Audre Lorde describes in Age, Race, Class, Sex: Women Redefining Difference that mythical norm is something that people recognize as “not me [themselves]” and that “it is with this mythical norm that the trappings of power reside within this society” (Lorde 116). What stands out to me is what the implications of the mythical norm is, it being that a mythical; fabricated or non-existent, term is what is supposed to be setting a precedent for what is meant to be “normal,” as if normality could be defined with a single statement.
What mythic norm reminded me of was the term “mythic speech” used within a different course. Myth is something Roland Barthes describes in Mythologies: Myth Today as “a system of communication, that it [myth] is a message. This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a concept, or an idea, it is a mode of signification, a form” (Barthes 107). I feel these two terms really tie into each other and build upon what a term with “myth” in it means. Barthes speaks about how myth is a form of communication and its presence is signifying something; in the case of Lorde, she is saying that myth in mythic norm is to signify that normality is “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure (Lorde 116).”
This idea of mythical norm is something that is not only present in gaming, but many other forms of media as well. We are not going to sit here and pretend that the gaming industry is the only offender of this with characters like Doom Guy (by far the most Christian of games and character), Sole Survivor from Fallout 4 (while character customization is available, the game starts the creator as a married white male with a white spouse in house), and though he isn’t exactly Christian nor financially secure in the normal way, Geralt from the Witcher series, when extremely “mythical norm” representatives like Tony Stark, John Wick from John Wick, or Lucifer from Lucifer diverges much from this concept.
Sources
Barthes, Roland. Myths Today.
Lorde, Audre. Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference
I think the use of “mythical” in a “mythical norm” is interesting because myths are usually seen as things that do not exist. So I believe that Lorde is pointing out that the idea of the “norm” is non-existent no matter how close a person may get to it. There is usually something about a person that differs them from the “norm”, and so what is portrayed as normal in fiction is only idealization.
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