Earlier today, we reported on something pretty spiffy that the legendary Jennifer Hale just so happened to say. Namely, she told Polygon which scene from the Mass Effect trilogy hit her the hardest.
But Hale’s always great for insightful commentary, and plenty more stemmed from that self-same interview. What stood out to me just as strongly as her emotional reaction to a certain turian farewell, though, was her view on how impactful Mass Effect’s commitment to inclusivity proved to be.
“Something Led Me To Grab My Phone”
Speaking of legendary… er, Legendary Edition. That’s the subtitle for 2021’s excellent trilogy-wide remaster, and just seeing the trailer for it, which notably included “FemShep” despite a relative dearth of original-era marketing material for the non-male option, struck Jennifer Hale pretty freakin’ strongly. “Something led me to grab my phone because I just wanted to be with everybody in the Mass Effect community at that moment.” And, by the way, she’s bullish on calling it a community, rather than referring to us all as “fans.”
“I don’t use the word ‘fans’. I find that I’m very uncomfortable with that, because everyone out there’s the community. You’re the other end of the experience, if you will. It’s incredible what the game means to them.” -Jennifer Hale, to Polygon
So, we’ve again established that Jennifer Hale rules. Let’s hop to the meat of things, maybe. Once she’d grabbed that phone, she witnessed the community’s initial response. “They said, ‘This is what representation looks like.’ And it just hit me.” That representation means a lot to Hale on a deeply personal basis. She grew up at a time when women were often treated as “second-class citizens,” as she puts it, so the trailer put things into sharper perspective on the strides that have been taken toward ending that:
“You just get used to being second-class and you don’t even realize it until somebody puts you in first class and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is what it feels like.’ And then suddenly you see everything you’ve been missing.”
But Mass Effect, even if the advertisements were originally frustratingly timid on showcasing the female Shepard option, has always championed inclusivity overall. Consider when the particularly-inclusive sequels came out: 2010 and 2012, respectively. It was a different time, as many of us can handily recall. The first entry wasn’t too steep on all that, but many fans – sorry, community members! – found real solace in a pair of AAA titles via ME2 and ME3 that offered genuine options for romance arcs that didn’t conform to the heterosexual so-called norm.
“[I] instantly felt an awareness of where all my representation is and where all these other people aren’t represented. […] This game gave so many people the feeling of being represented. I don’t think you can underestimate that.”
Looking back, yeah. BioWare was on the ball. There were romantic pathways rich in characterization for several preferences, and whilst I’m personally just about as straight as an arrow, it was great watching some of my friends’ reactions to the steady realization that a big-budget space adventure video game trilogy genuinely let them feel seen at a time when such things were still pretty risky.
Mass Effect’s Jennifer Hale Reveals Which Emotional Scene Hit Her The Hardest
Mine, too, tbh.
