I’m late for this party but I feel like my comment got the ball rolling on the subject.
I’m definitely not an overt feminist and really never had any issues with TLOU having an older male character paired with a young girl (though would it be interesting to see Tess in place of Joel- yes!). I love that game to bits and I think Naughty Dog does a fantastic job with aging their characters. Tess and Marlene are clearly older in age and a bit rough due to circumstances. Naughty Dog even does a good job aging both male and female character in the Uncharted series.
That being said, as a female gamer hitting her 30s next year, the lack of older female characters utilized in RE is something I (and apparently other gamers on here) can’t help but notice Capcom strays away from.
Nearly every single leading female character is young. Frankly the entire STARS officers are ridiculously young to have accomplished being on a “SWAT” team. You will find more individuals in their 30s, rather than 18 year olds like Rebecca, working a job like that.
As Hel pointed out previously; we have a young Helena, partnered up with Leon, Sheva being 23 years old who is teamed up with an older Chris. Let’s not forget Jessica and Rachel in Revelations and, meanwhile, Jill gets paired up with a chubby, middle age Parker. Then of course there is RE7 with Zoe and Mia.
I will give Capcom credit for Alex aging Ada properly in RE6 and also the route the took with Alex Wesker. An older Claire in Rev2 was also satisfying even though she could have used a bit more edge. I’ll even give you Marguerite Baker and that still doesn’t compare to the amount of older males featured in the games.
I’m not trying to be obnoxious with this but the different ratio of older male characters versus older female characters featured in the RE games is evident.
This is also a glaring issue for casting in Hollywood too. You really don’t see too many actresses in their late 30s, 40s, or 50s playing too many exciting/heroic roles outside of so-and-so’s mom.
As stated above, though, change does take time and maybe we will begin to see more older female characters featured in future installments.
In regards to Alex being concerned with her looks and wearing makeup, I think it makes sense seeing as she is fighting to maintain her youth and discover some form of immortality.
I'm not saying you're off base here. In fact, I liked a lot of your points. That said, I'm not quite sure I follow. I'm confused as to why the ratio is a problem? I mean, you gave a list of 3 older female characters, plus I'd even through Jill in there since she was 35 in RE5. I think the problem is there's a detail that's not being looked at. Anytime RE introduces a new character that they're hoping will be in future, games, they're ALWAYS young, male or female, but pair them with older cast members to draw in longtime fans.
Piers - Young (And remember, he was originally gonna take Chris's place until Capcom chickened out and killed him off instead. New young face, who was going to be young, alongside older character.)
Moira - Young female, but paired with an older female. Presumably they'll use her in future installments, or at least the option is there now.
Jake - Jake is young, at only 22 in the time of his appearance, and he looks it. I mean, he looked hardened, cause he's a mercenary, but he's no Chris or Leon. Sherry and him look about the same age, and you may argue that that's a problem, but I still don't think so, considering she's still far younger than Leon and co. and could easily have become one of the new main cast.
Basically almost every instance of "Young girl being paired with old guy" or even young GUY paired with older guy in Chris's case, was most likely used as a way to bring in new, Fresh faces, most of which happened in RE6, which ended up being a COLOSSAL failure, causing Capcom to change plans. As we saw with RE7.
Hell, RE6 even established 2 new potential main males, and main females, just like RE1 and 2 gave us. You have Piers and Helena to represent Chris and Jill, and Sherry and Jake to be Leon and Claire. But that just...Didn't happen. So I wouldn't call it a representation issue, as much as I would a failed plan because Capcom wrote a cheesy, ****ty story, paired with awful gameplay (According to most people at least. I like RE6. Anyway.)
Also, while we're at it, I could even throw out one more older female character...Excella Gionne. She definitley wasn't a "young" female. She was a powerful business tycoon. Sure, according to Canon, she was only 26 in RE5. But...look at that character model. She was mid 30's MINIMUM. Hell, Helena looks late 20's to early 30's for that matter. I think Capcom is just sh*tty at picking dates. You hear "This character was born in 1983, and you think, damn, they're probably in their 30's or 40's. Nope. 20's canonically. Excella in RE5 looks a couple decades older than Sherry in RE6, but is actually close to the same age. I'd lean more towards poor character design than lack of representation.
