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Comments
She's really, really, really sexualized, so some people will see a character that was probably meant to be a satire of the sexualization of females in video games, and the types of nerds that tend to enjoy stuff like hentai and whatnot will see another female they can masturbate to. I really meant no malice on the part of the developers, since they probably did intend for it to be a parody. My question is thusly: why can't they just make a game that doesn't sexualize the female at all? Demon's Souls was very good at this, as is the Fallout series, and Beyond Good and Evil. What other games? Of relatively high-profile games put out by relatively high profile developers, the answer is not many.
I don't necessarily disagree with everything in that article, but its analytical and factual failures pale in comparison to its inability to argue a point or present itself to a diverse audience. It's a plea for attention, preaching to the choir.
As much as I'm against racism, sexism and all those other isms, there's no doubt that the social left is full to the brim with stupid assholes. It's sobering to think that this is the kind of person I'm likely to ally with politically and proves that one's strength of character has little to do with where they stand on that kind of matter.
Yeah, that's not a very good article. George R. R. Martin tries to be inclusive by mocking and tearing down the overall structure of patriarchy present in fantasy novels, but he misses the fact that many of his female characters are rather stereotypical. The rape undertones aren't very good, either (and they're even worse in the television series), but GRRM isn't the be-all end all of sexism in literature; rather, he's the be-all end-all of nerds claiming that he's not sexist at all and completely missing the point.
Fair enough. My problem is that I don't find the sexualization of female (or male) people wrong. My problem is that the scale is heavily lifted towards the female side thus creating a entry barrier for women both in the business and to get into vidya in general. Honestly, the world would be better if people just admitted they like other human beings and having sex with them. But noooooo
Madass - yeah I kinda gave up reading after her rant about how it was bad that characters living in a totally different continent have different naming conventions from people in bullshit fantasy Europe.
Or the bit about how fantasy knockoff cultures need the exact same geography as their real world conterparts instead of similar climate and conditions.
The sexualization of women directly stems from men's control on Western society, so I would prefer the sexualization of both for both than the sexualization of both for men. I agree, mostly. As long as your argument stems from the facet of providing equal opportunities for all genders to dictate what they want and not "just let everyone fuck, then we can all be equal" which disregards how others might feel.
It often appears to us that women are more sexualized in media, but I've been thinking about it for a while - maybe much of it only appears to us that way because we're, well, heterosexual men, and thus often tend to plainly ignore sexualization of men. Many male characters are intentionally designed in the way to make girls drool over them.
That said, the number of ugly or plain men in media is still way higher than the number of ugly or plain women.
Yeah the article seems to have provoked two main responses: "ridiculously point-missing" and "spot-on" with little middle ground. This attempted rebuttal got linked to in the comments albeit with the caveat that it was "very weak and embarassing" http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2011/08/29/305723/feminist-media-criticism-george-r-r-martins-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-and-that-sady-doyle-piece/, and speaking of the comments section, I have no idea what this person is on about http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/26/enter-ye-myne-mystic-world-of-gayng-raype-what-the-r-stands-for-in-george-r-r-martin/#comment-43861
Incidentally, it was really weird to see someone linking to TvTropes in an article and not bitching about the site even though that's probably more common than the alternative. SA has conditioned me.
Um, I dunno about you, but I can notice just fine when a man is walking in speedos and showing off his six-pack. I might not be interested in it, but I can notice it.
Under that logic, straight women wouldn't be complaining about their sexualization either.
The person who claimed that Castle Crashers is racist because, if you squint your eyes a little, the main characters are white (in terms of skin color) and these enemies are black (again in terms of skin color).
Which is specially odd because much better arguments could be made regarding other enemies.
I never claimed that women and men are equally sexualized - women are definitely way more sexualized then men, but the proportion is quite smaller than it is usually mentioned, if it's men discussing the subject. And I know that I'd have a much harder time remembering a speedo-abd-sixpack scene than a bikini scene.
^ I've seen people complain about the Drow in D&D being fixed to evil alignments 98% of the time, since they're black. But, you know, this kind of black:
I don't know, it's quite easy for me to remember something like that. Not to mention that people do talk about it when it happens. I mean, is there any other reason why Taylor Lautner is famous?
Either way, I wouldn't say the gap is as small as you say. Not to mention that the problem is not just that women are sexualized, but that they're objectified. Regardless of what many people think, they're different.
That is correct, unfortunately. I still can't remember the last time when a male character was there solely for the purpose of being eye candy, while the same happenes all the time with women. It also transcends media - male modeling is generally much less accepted than female modeling, for example.
Yeah, generally men in videogames are sexed to appeal to male power fantasies. They're powerful supermarines with gigantic muscles who can have as many women as they want.
The problem is that when you create a culture where blatantly horrendous shit like this and pretty much any Kotaku article on those stupid gay JRPGs for stupid gay prettyboy homos are accepted and treated as the norm. The number of times I've heard Final Fantasy characters called gay is rather unfortunate, especially since I don't frequent gaming forums very much. Incidentally, FFXIII is also a good example of games treating minority and female characters properly.
Basically my point is that gaming is sexist sometimes. Something something Mass Effect
Oh yes, this bit of cognitive dissonance. It makes playing Soul Calibur so awkward since the gameplay is so good, yet I have to put up with those ridiculous skimpy female outfits. Like Ivy has an interesting fighting style, but I can't for the life of me feel comfortable with that amount of skin showing.
"I don't know if I can still like them while admitting those flaws, or if I'm somehow complicit in the badness by doing so."
The media isn't so much a problem as the culture (e.g. the fighting game community) that devours that kind of bullshit. Developers continue to be sexist because the audience laps it up, especially if said audience is niche and insular (but of course, mainstream stuff gets this too; hence the existence of the Bechdel Test and such).
Also related, there's that media trend that is often theorized to be a patriarchial reaction to women becoming stronger in society by making them more submissive.
I remember one of her costumes was not so bad in SC2. Dunno about the other games.
Yeah, at least she had the alt in that game, which actually does look pretty cool and stylish.
I tend to play styles with characters that don't miss half their clothing, like Siegfried and Hilde, but that's just a coincidence.
The problem with Bayonetta isn't that she was objectified, because she wasn't objectified. Objectification is denying a character's agency, and I'm not aware of any female character with more sexual agency then Bayonetta.
The problem with Bayonetta is really just that she's sexualized, and she has no reason to be. Which is not the same thing as objectification.
Does anyone remember Alyx Vance? I thought that was pretty good.
>that
>not "her"
just sayin'
smartassery aside, yeah, Alyx was a cool character. Valve women tend to be less of a sex object, really. They just tap into the whole "Cool girl that every nerd would date" thing rather than the "Hot chick that every nerd would fuck" thing
Alyx was one of the most feminist characters I'm aware of, yeah. Because she behaved like an actual person, instead of some male fantasy.
Chell and GLADOS also (to the extent that Chell has a characterization); Valve is generally good with their female characters.
Winx Club, I watched it as a child and (in my mind) held it to the standard that I did W.I.T.C.H., I even thought they were evenly matched. Now with the third season back on Nickelodeon I can't help but notice that Layla falls in love with the guy her parents set her up with(Arranged Marriage), despite his stalking and that he's also a couple shades of brown darker than the rest of the cast. I also noticed that the girls aren't as diverse as I thought they were.
OK, the stalking is creepy, but... why's darker skin a big deal?
Because every other couple is white-white aside from Flora-Helia
So it bugged you because it was token shipping, and they went together mostly because they had the same skin color to fill in the cast roster?
Yes.
Ah, so Layla also has darker skin?
Sorry, thought you were getting weird about interracial relationships there.
The internet left is probably a lot worse than the real-world one in this respect, although I think Alex has experience of both.
On the general subject, whilst sexism or racism in video games or whatever isn't trivial, to me it's more important that a black man is more likely to get stopped and searched by the police than a white one or that women struggle to get promoted to senior jobs in organisations. The stupidity of some social justice people on the internet is exactly that they fixate on issues like whether Bayonnetta is being objectified or not, when (a) 99% of people in the world haven't heard of her and (b) media representations are a symptom, not a cause, of social inequality.
It's a hell of a lot easier to get a video game company to create better female characters than to (for example) get employers or the government to provide better child care for working parents, but it's not thereby more important.