Ashley Graham (Resident Evil)

Ashley Graham (アシュリー・グラハム) is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. She was introduced in the 2005 video game Resident Evil 4, in which she is presented as the daughter of the sitting President of the United States. She is briefly held captive by the Spanish cult Los Iluminados as a means of gaining influence over the United States President before being rescued by the game's protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy.

Ashley was originally designed by game designer Yasuhisa Kawamura as an important player character in the original version of Resident Evil 4. Her role was changed into that of companion character who is defenseless following a major structural change in the development team which led to the cancellation of the original version of Resident Evil 4. Her characterization has received a largely negative reception from video game publications, with many questioning her relevance as a stereotypical damsel in distress or usefulness as a sidekick character. In the 2023 remake, she was more positively received after being redesigned to have a more pleasant experience escorting her.

Concept and design
Ashley was originally created as an unnamed character simply referred to as "Girl" by the game designer, Yasuhisa Kawamura. "Girl" was intended to be the second playable character of the initial version of Resident Evil 4. Scenarios featuring the character were written for the "Castle", "Hallucination", and "Zombie" builds. In the "Castle" scenario, she was supposed to be a test subject held against her will within an underground lab beneath a castle. With the help of a B.O.W. dog taught to follow her orders, she manages to escape. Following the 2002 edition of the Tokyo Game Show expo, the "Castle" game script by Kawamura and Noboru Sugimura was discarded, though Kawamura went on a new script based on the same story.

Development was restarted with a version of the "Castle" build script supplied by Sugimura when Shinji Mikami took over as director of the project in late 2003; the original version of Resident Evil 4 which was undergoing development was abandoned. "Girl" was reworked as the daughter of the American President, who player character Leon S. Kennedy must search for and rescue. She is written as a "very weak, fragile" companion that the player must lead and help through obstacles and protect from enemies. Ashley is predominantly controlled by artificial intelligence, but can be directed to wait or hide, and there are certain narrative segments of the game that are played from her perspective.

In the remake of Resident Evil 4, the team aimed to expand Ashley's characterization and relationship with Leon. In contrast to the original, Ashley cannot be left alone and will always follow Leon, though she can be told to stay close or maintain distance. Yasuhiro Ampo, co-director of the remake, explained the change: "As a character, we wanted to have her by your side so she left an impression, and as a game, having her hide while you went and fought in the original was fun in some ways. But having a character like Ashley and then having her basically disappear for a while felt like a waste. We wanted to avoid that in the remake." Ashley's health bar was also removed; however, she will get downed after taking too many blows, and Leon must revive her to continue. She can also be picked up and carried away by enemies, and if carried too far away from Leon without being saved, the game ends. Her outfit and overall design were altered to look and act more like a true partner than a damsel in distress.

Carolyn Lawrence, who provided the voice for Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4, described her character as "vulnerable, because Leon has to come to her rescue all the time". In June 2022, Dutch model Ella Freya publicly disclosed that she is the face model of Ashley in the remake of Resident Evil 4, while Genevieve Buechner provided her voice.

In Resident Evil 4
Ashley Graham is the daughter of the newly-elected President of the United States. She is kidnapped by Jack Krauser on her way home from Massachusetts and kept captive by the Los Illuminados in a European town. Leon S. Kennedy's initial goal is to find and rescue her. After finding her, it becomes clear that she has been implanted with a Plaga parasite as part of the cult's plan to gain control of her before returning her to the United States.

The rest of the game is about Leon and Ashley trying to discover a solution to get rid of the parasites inside their bodies before they are taken over by Osmund Saddler. After Saddler is eliminated, Leon and Ashley escape the sinking island with a jet ski left by Ada Wong. Leon graciously declines Ashley's invitation to visit her at her home. Following that, they are both apprehended by US government agents and put into detention for debriefing.

Ashley also appears in the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4. She was reworked via her gameplay for eight minutes compared to Leon, eliminating her health bar and allowing her to be revived after being incapacitated. Ashley can additionally be commanded now, either to provide Leon some space whilst in a fight, or to stick close to him to be more practical, in contrast to in original which had solely used "wait" or "follow me" commands. She has dozens of outfits that can be unlocked after players have purchased CP after completing their first playthrough.

Other appearances
A framed photo of Ashley Graham is briefly glimpsed in the 2021 Netflix animated mini-series Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, set after the events of Resident Evil 4. Her father, President Graham, is a major character in Infinite Darkness. In 2023, before the release of the remake of Resident Evil 4, Capcom released a promotional anime of the Resident Evil Masterpiece Theater, depicting the story of Leon and Ashley.

Reception
Ashley's appearance in the original game received a mostly negative reception. Many gaming media outlets have criticized her as one of the worst or most annoying video game characters. Toadette Geldof of Vice described her as one of the lamest video game characters of all time, commenting that "She's so lame that she can't even really walk on her own, so you have to piggy-back her around and then set her back down any time you need to kill something." In Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian also described Ashley as a damsel in distress who appears to be helpless, arguing that defending her caused players a lot of frustration. Samara Summer of GamePro wished that Ashley doesn't appear in the remake of Resident Evil 4, commenting that "She can't fight, she can't free herself and she can't even look for a hiding place on her own. With her screaming she doesn't motivate me to help her either." Conversely, Shacknews cited Ashley as one of his favorite video game companions, saying that "When you are saddled with her, she's perfectly content to hide in a dumpster while you clear out enemies. If only all companions were so agreeable." Andrei Nae of Immersion, Narrative, and Gender Crisis in Survival Horror Video Games said that Ashley Graham fully embodies the gender role of damsel in distress with her constants pleas to Leon Kennedy to help her, while Bernard Perron of The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror felt that some characters, like Ashley, have been eroticized in which she can swap her schoolgirl uniform into a white starlet costume that "highlights her breasts".

Critics have also praised the character's portrayal in the 2023 remake, highlighting how less of a sexualized damsel in distress she is. Elijah Beahm of DualShockers appreciated her chapter where she was playable, commenting that she now gets a chance to demonstrate her true competence rather than just a latent capacity to crank old machines extremely quickly and pull switches like she did in the initial game. At the same time Vixal Plane thought Ashley deserved a DLC or standalone game. Jade King of TheGamer noted that the remake avoided sexualizing Ashley, including by eliminating the possibility of players looking up her skirt. Similarly, Ashley Bardhan of Kotaku praised Ashley's new character model, especially the decision to replace her skirt with a skort, but criticized the lack of overall improvement in her characterization. However, Jade King of TheGamer disagreed, arguing that she had been substantially improved as a character. Joseph Yaden of Inverse and Ed Smith of PCGamesN both noted that Ashley had shifted from being a helpless damsel in distress to more of a partner.

Ashley has become an internet meme on Twitter known as "Moushley", stemming from a piece of fanart depicting Ashley as a mouse that was shared by fans. They have additionally created various mods involving her. Capcom also acknowledged it, and the official Resident Evil account tweeted emojis of a mouse and cheese in response to the meme.