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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Weemadarthur was confusing the validity of rumors as a reason to dislike ResetEra/NeoGAF with PC Culture when they were two separate issues, which is what I attempted to clear up. I apologize if this was not as clear as I had meant it to be.
Okay, so I've got a bad take to get us away from the Reddit convo.
Saw another user list a bunch of PS2 horror titles rightfully showcasing that Japan had been ahead of the west in terms of more gender inclusion. It got me thinking about the history of female representation in horror games.
I'm curious what you folks think about the relation between survival horror games and female protagonists. I feel like in the late 90s and early 2000s women had a disproportionately high representation during this this genre's golden age. Maybe I'm reaching, but I have a feeling this is due to a less than ideal reason. My bad take is that devs, when designing horror games try to disempower or make the player as vulnerable as possible to heighten the horror experience, often lowering combat capability or even all together removing the ability to fight back. Is it possible that Japanese devs in particular, chose female gender protagonists to disempower the player further? It's likely I'm projecting my understanding of Japanese gender roles way too hard here.
I made a little list of survival horror games that have female protagonists from this period. While it may not seem like that many, it's worth keeping in mind that there aren't actually that many relevant survival horror games and that this is a pretty high percentage of them. I avoided including a lot of the titles that have multiple protagonists. Also, when thinking about other horror games and comparing them to this list, I think a lot of the games that lean further towards action horror were more likely to have male leads. I feel like this manifests in gameplay too, with a number of these actionhorror games having small sections where you play as a woman only to not be allowed to fight at all.
Silent Hill 3, Rule of Rose, Haunting Ground, Clock Tower 1,2,3, Fatal Frame 1,2,3,4,5, Parasite Eve, D, D2, Enemy Zero, Dino Crisis 1, Kuon, Koudelka.
There's likely a bunch more that escape me at the moment. I guess it's worth noting that Dino Crisis 2, Resident Evil 3, 0 & Code Veronica probably work against this argument, as they have debatably somewhat empowered characters.
Anyways, most of these games are absolute classics, but it's just weird that such a high ratio of the great survival horror games that came out of PS1/2 era featured female leads. Maybe it's simply a great thing that shouldn't be knocked, especially since I'm sure most people were just happy to have more female playable leads in their video games.
Edit: Maybe a more positive take could be, they were taking the lead from Hollywood, which I believe also featured a lot of female leads in horror films.
Saw another user list a bunch of PS2 horror titles rightfully showcasing that Japan had been ahead of the west in terms of more gender inclusion. It got me thinking about the history of female representation in horror games.
I'm curious what you folks think about the relation between survival horror games and female protagonists. I feel like in the late 90s and early 2000s women had a disproportionately high representation during this this genre's golden age. Maybe I'm reaching, but I have a feeling this is due to a less than ideal reason. My bad take is that devs, when designing horror games try to disempower or make the player as vulnerable as possible to heighten the horror experience, often lowering combat capability or even all together removing the ability to fight back. Is it possible that Japanese devs in particular, chose female gender protagonists to disempower the player further? It's likely I'm projecting my understanding of Japanese gender roles way too hard here.
I made a little list of survival horror games that have female protagonists from this period. While it may not seem like that many, it's worth keeping in mind that there aren't actually that many relevant survival horror games and that this is a pretty high percentage of them. I avoided including a lot of the titles that have multiple protagonists. Also, when thinking about other horror games and comparing them to this list, I think a lot of the games that lean further towards action horror were more likely to have male leads. I feel like this manifests in gameplay too, with a number of these actionhorror games having small sections where you play as a woman only to not be allowed to fight at all.
Silent Hill 3, Rule of Rose, Haunting Ground, Clock Tower 1,2,3, Fatal Frame 1,2,3,4,5, Parasite Eve, D, D2, Enemy Zero, Dino Crisis 1, Kuon, Koudelka.
There's likely a bunch more that escape me at the moment. I guess it's worth noting that Dino Crisis 2, Resident Evil 3, 0 & Code Veronica probably work against this argument, as they have debatably somewhat empowered characters.
Anyways, most of these games are absolute classics, but it's just weird that such a high ratio of the great survival horror games that came out of PS1/2 era featured female leads. Maybe it's simply a great thing that shouldn't be knocked, especially since I'm sure most people were just happy to have more female playable leads in their video games.
Edit: Maybe a more positive take could be, they were taking the lead from Hollywood, which I believe also featured a lot of female leads in horror films.
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While I reeeeeealy want to read it, you're probably right, this is a conversational dead end for me anyway since i'm just talking about a thread I haven't even read
OT:
*complains about feeling targeted in a forum
*uses another forum to target certain people
lol?
It's actually almost amusing that people feel like they need a safe space to bitch about.... safe spaces.
I always figured the prominence of female protagonists in a lot of horror games (The ones that take inspiration from western horror such as Clock Tower 1, RE, Silent Hill 3, Clock Tower, and so on) was due to the final girl trope.
Another thing that should be pointed out is also the amount of female antagonists in those games. Clock Tower, Code Veronica, and Silent hill all had a woman as the main antagonist.
Another thing that should be pointed out is also the amount of female antagonists in those games. Clock Tower, Code Veronica, and Silent hill all had a woman as the main antagonist.
CannonFodder52 As soon as I started reading your post I just knew what the subject was. Yeah, I've always interpreted that as a way to further strengthen the feel of vulnerability, though I don't think ALL of them had that intention, as I imagine at some point it became some sort of tradition to have a female lead in them, hence why some are evidently more empowered than others.
I've never complained about it before because I think they do more good than bad, but the intent is definitely worth discussing.
I've never complained about it before because I think they do more good than bad, but the intent is definitely worth discussing.
Okay, okay, I know having a few sexy characters in an otherwise large and diverse ensemble cast is probably, most likely, acceptable to the large majority of us, but can we agree that things like this (NSFW warning despite being a FGO screenshot) is toeing the line a little too closely to outright pornography?
We are literally like a few millimeters... maybe just a millimeter... away from seeing her bloody clitoris. I am in awe. I can't even process this right now, it's too amazing and blatant for me to accept.
We are literally like a few millimeters... maybe just a millimeter... away from seeing her bloody clitoris. I am in awe. I can't even process this right now, it's too amazing and blatant for me to accept.
I think your take on Survival Horror is probably on point, though not necessarily deliberately sexist on their part. Survival Horror games definitely have female protagonists more frequently for the same reasons that many survival horror games make your protagonist extremely weak and incapable compared to, you know, God of War.
That having been said, while she didn't pick the best example during your discussion, it's also true that Japanese games have a much longer history of competent and well characterized female protagonists and secondary cast members, as well as games aimed primarily or entirely at women that aren't, you know, Barbie horseshit (sorry to Barbie fans, it was the easiest way to get to the point). Many series that this is a characteristic of took an extremely long time to begin making it out here, died before they could ever see localization, or still aren't localized, and a lot of them are extremely niche, but they very much do exist.
This is at the core of what Twig and I have mentioned a couple times throughout the thread. Anime and anime games get a bad rap for bad treatment of women and they deserve it by many angles of assessment, but a lot of stuff that'd look outwardly problematic to us winds up having surprisingly strong character writing (in context of anime's unique theatricity--it's rarely a naturalistic medium). This disconnect is actually, in my mind, probably a large part of WHY we wind up talking past each other in these kinds of debates so often, especially when anime and anime games get involved.
The best way to characterize it, in my mind, is that historically problematic Western games often had instances of "Why is the only female cast member only present to act feminine and be ogled?" until things began to push forward, and Japanese games trended (and still trend) toward "Oh my god, why are you disempowering and treating this fully fleshed out, well-developed, likeable character like a goddamned Playboy spread in this scene?" or "Why in the actual fuck did you put her in this outfit if you were going to put so much effort into writing her?"
More cynically, you can give a guy masturbatory material by making something trashy hot or a pandery cardboard cutout, but if you want him to enduringly obsess over a waifu you're gonna have to put some effort into making a compelling character. There are a...lot of ways in which this is significantly worse than the western side of things. You could write essays about it. But it is a pretty distinct and consistent difference and it can be extremely hard to articulate to people who aren't also pretty deep into The Anime.
Basically, neither of you were wrong, in my mind.
Another thing which tends to happen in nerdy communities, which makes women uncomfortable.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ha...cosplayer-forces-her-to-leave-community.8598/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/ha...cosplayer-forces-her-to-leave-community.8598/
Jesus Christ.
I suscribe to the idea that sexy outfits don't equal objectification, and that having one character centered around her own sexuality isn't the worst provided the rest of the cast is normal... But there are design choices that cross the line and are just telling of the designer's mindset. Shit like Ivy and this thing you posted are such examples, lol.
The Fate series started as pornography, so I'm not really all that surprised it carries both overt and covert objectification of women.
y'all the other thread is exhausting
I think you're completely on point with this and I'm glad you pointed this out because I would've never made this connectiion myself.
I think you're completely on point with this and I'm glad you pointed this out because I would've never made this connectiion myself.
The art is a fantasy aimed at heterosexual men. Why do you think it becomes a problem with how how extreme it gets?
I've only ever played Silent Hill 3 in regards to that list and I actually liked Heather a lot. She was clearly uncomfortable pretty much the entire game, but she was still moving forward and overcoming challenges. She didn't just sit in a room waiting to be rescued like Ashley from Resident Evil 4; Heather had goals to meet.
I think my main appeal with Heather is that she's written like an actual teenager. She's moody, sarcastic, and loses her temper when frustrated, but she has a softer side and clearly loves her father very much. She has fears, (the two main ones being mirrors and fire) and she gets scared at times. You can also feel the shift of her emotions as she becomes more desenitized to the events she experiences and she becomes more somber as the game goes on. But her sense of justice is what keeps her going. She's more well-rounded than most other female protagonists I've seen, and that's because she was always a character first, and not just a trope. That is why I loved Silent Hill 3.
I think my main appeal with Heather is that she's written like an actual teenager. She's moody, sarcastic, and loses her temper when frustrated, but she has a softer side and clearly loves her father very much. She has fears, (the two main ones being mirrors and fire) and she gets scared at times. You can also feel the shift of her emotions as she becomes more desenitized to the events she experiences and she becomes more somber as the game goes on. But her sense of justice is what keeps her going. She's more well-rounded than most other female protagonists I've seen, and that's because she was always a character first, and not just a trope. That is why I loved Silent Hill 3.
This post is marvelous, I agree so much. Whereas having sexualization everywhere is already bad enough, what hurts the most is having it shoved in franchises you love.
The only thing I disagree with is your argument about a maximum possible gulf, for two reasons:
1) The notion that anime export is a fundamental part of its revenue seems dubious. For every series that gets exported there's several that either don't or have negligible audiences worldwide, yet they're still making them in Japan, so clearly they're self-sufficient.
2) A large portion of anime fans in the west, are moving with that arrow; in fact, they have been moving with it for decades.
What has also been increasing is the distance from the tip of the arrow to the tamer part of anime (I'm not sure if I'd call it the broad part; "tamer" anime seems to be on its way to be the exception. The "arrow shaft", in opposition to the tip?). This more grounded anime is still perfectly consumable by anyone; it's just that the rest of anime is quickly becoming entirely indigestible by anyone not already submerged in that culture.
For people purportedly not caring about ResetEra, they sure spend a fuck ton of time talking about us. I wonder if we should start discussing how little we care about reddit? I mean, so as to not hurt their feelings...
Hell Raita used to be able to draw people without any issues for the most part back in the day. Like his old art is so alien to his recent style.
example:
Am I going crazy or is only the top half of this character being shown here? And what's being shown is okay to me. I'm guessing you changed the link because it was NSFW?
I think it's not just vulnerability, it's emotional engagement. Because of the way men are depicted in media it's much harder to care about the fate of a male character than a female one. My emotional reaction to a female character in danger and a male one is on a totally different emotional register. I imagine that's a big part of it.
While this is true that his style has greatly worsened, I still like that hey needs to say that one character has big breasts and needs to add hearts. Man, the signs were there from the beginning.
Uh, why? That does sound like you think female characters in danger are more vulnerable or need more... protection
If I'm being completely honest, I'd say it's rather difficult to make claims about intent. Even if an author tells you one thing, it doesn't necessarily mean that's how it comes across. The intent of the author is not always shared with the reader and in the case of horror games I'd say that it's typically difficult to tell whether the stories are empowering or disempowering, or some combination of both. I will say that the horror community does tend to be about powerless characters though, stuck in worlds often of their own creation, and yes, often with politics of blame (figuring out whose fault it is that X thing happened, or how to forgive oneself, etc.).
These politics are extremely pervasive in the genre and can often problematize issues that are more personal than general. Horror games tend to be much more specific about the problems they address, and so the characters in general are tending to only ever be caught in issues specific to them and unraveling those issues is often part of the mystery. As such, I wouldn't say that the female characters are there so much for disempowerment so much as to push a story that is believed to be related to an emotion the authors do not know how to relate to fully. In some ways I think it expresses a discomfort with addressing one's feelings specifically and using females as an analog for them. And yes, I realize this is me looking at male authors and presenting them as being afraid of both their own emotional capacity and women - which I don't think is inaccurate. However, it is also using women. It is using them for showcasing a discomfort, which is problematic, especially if that is the author's intent.
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Yea that seems like a pretty reasonable assumption too.
I just want to mention, I think that user is correct with their sentiment that there were more female protagonists coming from Japan.
Anyways, thanks for the lengthy write up. The disconnect between western and Japanese is pretty interesting and relevant especially as I have very little knowledge of anime or JRPGs. I also agree that positive qualities should definitely be recognized even among the negatives.
Here's a kind of related question, I know most JRPGs have casts that include female characters, but were there a good selection of female leads in early JRPGs?
HyperFerret
Heather, at least from my memory was actually a really great character. I really gotta replay that game again though.
But I do think both of those things. Partially because women are considerably physically weaker, partially because I was raised to look out for women (especially my little sister).
As a 6'1 guy I never really feel in danger walking anywhere. I don't really know that fear. But I do know that fear from female acquaintances talking about it, though. I feel more fear for them than for me. Has always been that way. I've never walked a male friend home. I've done it multiple times for female friends. We're not the same in that regard.
Eh...
Let's say that women, in our culture, are CONSIDERED to be physically weaker and that allows a mindset for men who are physically larger to prey upon what they CONSIDER to be a vulnerable target. But I know a few girls who can bust jaws apart with the best of them.
This is veering off-topic, but this isn't... necessarily true. For anime anyway. The industry is super fucked up right now, where they're always producing series on a tight schedule, often with a low budget, paying their animators pennies, and a lot (related to the topic of this thread) catering to the Otaku Crowd with sexualization and... yeah.
I dunno if anime's gonna pop anytime soon, but something's definitely gotta change.
I think catering to a specific crowd with the majority of output isn't totally unsustainable, but it contributes to the problem when it's a piece of the whole.
This is less applicable to video games, probably.
IIRC, international sales are barely a drop in the bucket when it comes to revenue for anime. Most of the revenue comes from creepos buying figurines of little girls. That said, I don't know how many of those creepos are Japanese. It could be that Westerners are keeping the anime industry alive by buying weird merchandising. Who knows.
Yeah, you're not wrong on either point, it's an extremely complex combination of lots of moving pieces, so it's hard to articulate in full, haha. I don't think that anime couldn't turn into itself, go completely bonkers-ass insular, and still just barely sustain itself, but I do think that international sales are a thing that both the industry and the country itself very much want. Japan has a vested interest in exporting anime culture, basically.
And yeah, some anime fans are definitely moving with the arrow, especially the most hardcore of us, but I do think that while people have always complained about anime, it seems like a lot of folks who never previously had a problem with anime, JRPGs, etc. as they were are starting to throw their hands up and back away at this stage, so I genuinely think we may be starting to look at a situation where casual fans may fall off entirely--and that would be extremely bad.
If you only need Omega Labyrinth (topical today!) to sell 10,000 copies to sustain the localization, then that's cool, you still have a sustainable business, but when you have half a dozen different Omega Labyrinth-likes (rhetorical device, not reality) coming out within a few weeks of one another not only are you not targeting general audiences, but the extreme niche you are targeting isn't going to be able to keep up and buy everything they otherwise would've, either. If we hit the point where the ONLY anime games are games expected to sell low but within margins to an extreme niche, and the niche is insular and non-expanding, well... yeah. Super hardcore fans who keep their ear to the ground on these things are the core of your market, but you NEED supplementary sales from casual fans to mitigate market saturation, and anime games are cheap to make--there are a LOT of them.
Let me tell you about the number of niche Japanese games I haven't bought in 2017 because my tolerance for both anime anime and shitty games with weird, interesting ideas is high enough that a majority of them are things I might've considered playing, but they came out so fast and so heavy in addition to more mainstream games that there just literally weren't enough hours in the day. I'm part of the extreme niche they're targeting to some degree, and I flat out didn't buy upwards of 50% of the niche anime games I otherwise would've bought this year due to sheer oversaturation.
Depends on how early you want to go, but Phantasy Star is ancient (and Alis is rad as hell), Dragon Quest 3 let you pick a female (silent, granted, and it didn't change much until the SNES remake) protagonist, and Atelier's having its 20th anniversary this year off the top of my head.
Anime basically exists to be glorified commercials for either the manga or merchandise in most cases. That said, figures and the like are a pretty large export, though I'd have to imagine the people buying the most egregious of merch are mostly natives. I guess it depends on how many people outside of direct proximity to Akihabara are actually moving as fast as the arrow is, heh.
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I shouldn't have to say that I'm generalizing with that one, but it's a strong generalization.
It's not a 'consideration' so much as it is generally fact. A 6'0 woman is in the 99.8th percentile of height. That's still smaller than me. So the idea in my mind that 'women are smaller than me' is pretty much 100% accurate. The idea that they're weaker than me is less so as there are many female athletes of various size who are probably stronger than me - but still a rare exception to the norm.
That experience is what informs my views, and informs how I react emotionally to a situation. The other part is that I was raised to see them as vulnerable and to look out for them. That part is societal, but again rooted in truth - women are at risk of rape in a way that men simply aren't, even if 'stranger rapes' or 'stranger sexual assaults' are rare and the minority of rapes.
Women being, on average, much weaker than men, wouldn't even be an issue if men weren't violent towards us at such high rates ;o
In other words, you're seeing this all backwards. You don't have to fear for women because women are weaker. You have to fear for women because men are so irrationally violent towards us. It might look like an insignificant distinction, but it isn't.
In other words, you're seeing this all backwards. You don't have to fear for women because women are weaker. You have to fear for women because men are so irrationally violent towards us. It might look like an insignificant distinction, but it isn't.
It's mostly Japanese who are part of the otaku subculture.
Also, while at one point this was much less applicable to games, Japanese video games are increasingly using practices very similar to that of the anime industry to attract the same subculture. It's also why there is an upward trend in the growth of anime spinoff games (and games that spinoff into anime).
Actually going to mention this, because I actually think it's funny, but when I was growing up as a wee nipper, the games I played which actually you know had competant women characters doing interesting stuff, were Barbie computer games. There were detective ones, a spy one, an undersea diver. I actually solved a murder in one of the games. I mean other computer games for kids often didn't really have many female characters. I mean Peach in Mario had to be rescued all the time, she didn't really do anyhting. I played the Sims which let you be any gender. I can't really think of many, though I'm sure I'm missing some out? But I loved the Barbie games when I was young, cus there was actually a girl character who could do stuff. But even then for some reason I thought those games didn't count as they weren't "proper" games. It took a long time for me to release that I really loved playing video games and even now I'm still hesitant to call myself a gamer.
Her lower half is visible through the slightly transparent text box. Here's a picture of an earlier ascension (again: NSFW) without the text box.
Apparently nearly having her labia exposed is a consistent thing with her.
Eh, I don't think that's accurate - it started with pornography present as an element, but the main draw of the original VN was never the (badly written) porn. Moreover, it's not porn anymore, so the inclusion of a design like this raises a lot of red flags.
I really, really would prefer they would drop all pretense than do something like this.
That's not very helpful though. Upholding the image that women are weak and need to men to protect us contributes to the power imbalance, contributes to a belief of male superiority, and it contributes to a negative self image that many women have. Please don't propagate the idea that women need men to protect us.
If you actually want to help, find ways to empower us instead of protecting women.
There are a lot of film essays and analysis about women in horror films, and they mostly boil down to vulnerability. The idea is that women are socially allowed to be scared and experience a full range of emotions. When viewers, including male viewers, go to watch a horror movie and get that all important catharsis, it's easier for them to get that catharsis through the medium of the female MC. They're not directly comparing themselves to the character or subconsciously thinking she should man up. It basically allows them a safe way to experience vulnerability. Since this goes against the grain of most other films and the accepted wisdom of "men can't relate to women", it's a really fascinating thread to follow down the academic rabbit hole.
I've seen this throw people for a loop before.
The conventional thinking in the West is that boys and men don't want to engage with media about girls and women. (Which is, you know. Blech.) Boys grow up and get steered away from media with female main characters or anything too pink. Big action blockbusters feature a woman or two as eye candy, and many art house or award contenders do the exact same thing. It's the accepted wisdom. (I work in a bookstore, and this is the actual bane of my existence. So many women buying books for sons or husbands who dismiss fantastic books as "too girly" often because there's a female author or the summary on the back starts with a woman's name.)
I think the first time I realized Japanese pop media doesn't have the same hang up, or at least expresses the hang up in a different way, was when I watched Azumanga Daioh. For the uninitiated, AD is a comedy anime based off a four-panel comic about an all-female cast and their day to day life. It's also made for men. I was somehow made aware of that when I was a preteen first watching the show, but it didn't stop me from relating to the characters a lot. There would be a funny little skit about boobs, and I would life because yeah, that's how I feel too. (And AD was really not skeevy. There's a creepy male teacher that's played for laughs, but I haven't seen the show in a while so I can't remember if it was gross or actually funny.) It was a weird experience, because I was used to that sort of subject matter being in girl's shows. I think I saw an episode of Lizzie McGuire about the same thing.
But it makes a lot of sense that, if you like and are attracted to women, you might actually want to like the female characters you're attracted to. I don't think it has to be an entirely cynical thing either. Like it can be. I've seen that too. But there are plenty of examples of guy's media in Japan that have good female characters. Someone mentioned Sakura Quest above, but it's (in my opinion) better counterpart Shirobako, about five female friends in their 20s trying to make it in the anime industry is classified as shonen. And it's not weird or fanservicey in telling it's story. (As a women in her 20s, it was actually disturbingly close to my life...)
Also demographic genre labels are weird and half the time barely mean anything other than what shelf something gets stuck on.
I've seen this throw people for a loop before.
The conventional thinking in the West is that boys and men don't want to engage with media about girls and women. (Which is, you know. Blech.) Boys grow up and get steered away from media with female main characters or anything too pink. Big action blockbusters feature a woman or two as eye candy, and many art house or award contenders do the exact same thing. It's the accepted wisdom. (I work in a bookstore, and this is the actual bane of my existence. So many women buying books for sons or husbands who dismiss fantastic books as "too girly" often because there's a female author or the summary on the back starts with a woman's name.)
I think the first time I realized Japanese pop media doesn't have the same hang up, or at least expresses the hang up in a different way, was when I watched Azumanga Daioh. For the uninitiated, AD is a comedy anime based off a four-panel comic about an all-female cast and their day to day life. It's also made for men. I was somehow made aware of that when I was a preteen first watching the show, but it didn't stop me from relating to the characters a lot. There would be a funny little skit about boobs, and I would life because yeah, that's how I feel too. (And AD was really not skeevy. There's a creepy male teacher that's played for laughs, but I haven't seen the show in a while so I can't remember if it was gross or actually funny.) It was a weird experience, because I was used to that sort of subject matter being in girl's shows. I think I saw an episode of Lizzie McGuire about the same thing.
But it makes a lot of sense that, if you like and are attracted to women, you might actually want to like the female characters you're attracted to. I don't think it has to be an entirely cynical thing either. Like it can be. I've seen that too. But there are plenty of examples of guy's media in Japan that have good female characters. Someone mentioned Sakura Quest above, but it's (in my opinion) better counterpart Shirobako, about five female friends in their 20s trying to make it in the anime industry is classified as shonen. And it's not weird or fanservicey in telling it's story. (As a women in her 20s, it was actually disturbingly close to my life...)
Also demographic genre labels are weird and half the time barely mean anything other than what shelf something gets stuck on.
Sure, but we're talking about horror games, where the threat of impending violence is pretty much the point. Whether it's a man, demon, alien or ghost doing the threatening.
Yeah but you were talking about women irl, that's what I was referring to.
I don't excuse my grandfather at all. Times change and people should as well.
I think when a game is released in the West we can criticise it in the same way we do westen games.
On a personal level I have mainly been playing older jrpgs and might just have to give up on the never ones.
Eh, I thought it would be worse. Maybe I'm just used to seeing microkinis. I wouldn't say her labia are nearly showing given the hip angle. Near-naked would be a fair descriptor though.
I'm not saying that I think women need men to protect them. I'm saying that me, personally - I see women as more vulnerable, more in need of protection than men. That protection can come from anywhere - other women for example - but the idea is rooted in the reality that women are smaller, weaker and more vulnerable to sexual assault.
Well, I was talking about how the strength and size of women IRL informs my emotional response to women in horror games. The context and frame of my opinion was as relates to games.
It is interesting to see this connection between real-life perception and the framing through fictional characters, especially considering how often our concerns are dismissed as "it's just fiction, it has nothing to do with real life".
This has nothing to do with being physically smaller. It has everything to do with men thinking that they're more powerful than women. Propagating the idea that women need more protection contributes to this.
Surely the idea that we bring our own experiences and subjective opinions with us when experiencing fiction isn't a controversial opinion?
How much said fiction then reinforces said opinions or how it might change them - that tends to be more what's up for debate.
I disagree entirely with this opinion. If women were the same size and strength as men the amount of sexual violence would be utterly different than what it currently is. I'm not saying it would be non-existant, but it would be an entirely different scene.
Also, when you say powerful do you mean socially or physically? Because if you mean physically that would be a justified belief and not one that would, in and of itself, lead to rape or sexual assault. It would also imply that the fact that women are weaker is part of the reason.
Then why is violence between men so high compared to violence between women? It has little to do with the disparity in strength and everything to do with men being excessively violent.
So in terms of this topic as a whole I have always felt like I've been kind of a middle ground on this position. It always felt like everyone around me online either sees any instance of female sexualization as a failure or the people who are the opposite (who I haven't really seen much in my huge lurk of this thread) who just say that it's a video game and you shouldn't care about anything as the OP acknowledged. The position I've always taken is that video games are art, and designs should artistically make sense. That includes sexy designs. As long as it suits the environment of the game and the character I think it's okay.
Since I am a huge HUGE Xenoblade fan and that was the focus here for a while I'll use that as my main example. I personally find a lot of the XC2 designs to be devoid of taste, especially that bear girl or whatever she is. Pyra I already barely liked but this blade actually made me... upset. It's just so unfitting and so stupid. Sure there's a very small chance that one may even see her in the game but Pyra is always there, and the bear girl is still in the game, and sooo many other blades seem like fetish bait and it feels wrong. I actually thought that Xenoblade X did the sexy aspect some of the best. Because of the idea of fashion slots, you can wear a huge amount of armor, sexy or non. And it felt to me like most of it was just cool sci fi shit and you had to actively try to wear the playboy costumes. In fact, a decent amount of the male costumes included showcasing their hindquarters in very tight clothes or even bare in the original Japanese release. Lots of ways to keep them shirtless, etc. And you could keep everyone fully clothed if you wish, and all the default outfits felt perfectly reasonable and just cool.
Something that often goes unmentioned with Xenoblade 1 is actually that I felt it was kind of subtly sexist in a couple ways. It's near a perfect game to me but it still has some questionable stuff in it that acts as an unavoidable stain that I think Xenoblade 2 brought back but worse. Sharla is the cardinal sin for sure of that game. EVERY costume of hers had to be slutty looking in some way it was so immersion breaking and tasteless. Sharla was such a motherly character and dressing her like a stripper no matter what you wear just because she has big boobs hurt to watch. The other thing I disliked was about the writing which isn't too relevant to this thread but I noticed most of the dialogue between the female characters in XC1 was just about who was gonna date Shulk first and that was kind of annoying. Xenoblade X I felt also fixed this.
Back to Xenoblade 2, I just think the art is ugly a lot of the time. Like I don't think as some people in this thread no offense to any of you that showing some thigh, wearing heels, or not wearing completely covering armor is even something to second glance it, but maybe I'm just numbed to it all. But not much of the Xenoblade 2 designs even make sense, just like Sharla but on a bigger scale. Even Pyra's Mythra form still looks stupid even if in a more elegant way. I basically have a couple flexible cardinal rules when it comes to sexualization, one is what I mentioned about about X which is equality of the sexes. Another would be realisticness to the character which was already mentioned with Bayonetta and even Twintelle. Another good example to this I think would be Charlotte from Fire Emblem Fates. Yes, I am defending Fates. Charlotte was basically wearing a bikini constantly and shoving her boobs in every character's face, but in reality she was actually just trying to be a gold digger to support her family and is a remorseless manipulative woman. I honestly thought she was one of the few well written characters in the game and her design was just so, her. Male gaze or whatever I don't really care sorry if it sounds dismissive, I think as long as a sexy design makes sense for a setting I accept it. Like Yakuza was mentioned earlier and it's just a grimey, silly game so I think putting literal porn in it combined well.
https://twitter.com/XenobladeJP/status/935314010668277760 Now take a look at this girl. She's also from Xenoblade 2 but by a specific artist, Nomura. He also did the art for the main villains which is really nice, I think his art actually fits the Xeno-theme a lot lot better than the standard tripe like Pyra or even Rex looking silly and ridiculous in a non-sexy way, and she actually looks cool which should be the goal. It's just such a messy game in terms of character design and someone mentioned above Takahashi had little say in what Otaku crap got put in which is a shame. I hope the game is good I truly do but I'll probably never get over these character models.
Since this post is already ridiculously long I'll kind of just explain my perspective and the basis to a lot of my opinions on the subject (which I should have done at the beginning tbh). I am actually a trans girl, and one that is into women at that. I appreciate good, tasteful, and fitting sexy designs for double the reason. I both obviously have the hots for a good body, but also, I envy their bodies in a way. Most of the time in a game with options for clothing or who you play as, I always try to play as a cute looking girl because it's just eye candy and it's actually a coping mechanism for me. I dislike myself in real life so gaming is actually a huge huge part of how I cope. Having feminine costumes gives me life and is just the way I play. I am also a giant Soulsborne fan and I love their system how every outfit is equal because it fits with one of my tenets, but actually a minor nitpick I have with it is I wish there was some more form fitting feminine stuff. I think the beefy completely covering Havel's armor or other Gundam looking power trip stuff should be in the game, but I also do enjoy being a badass sexy princess from time to time. In dark souls 1 as well as bloodborne as soon as I could get the dress I wore it.
So to end this, I'll just say what I want out of the industry. I don't want any super puritan standards introduced since as I said I do like how common cute designs are, but I think games should offer something for everyone to make everyone comfortable. Let people put a guy in a dress, or make him sexy as hell. I don't care sexuality isn't something to be afraid of even if it's not yours. Let people dress their girl in normal clothes or in full plate armor, or even lingerie. Having a range of options in games that allow it such as RPGs I think is key to a good experience. Make it equal, make it tasteful. Don't make any default designs too stupid without having a reason for it. Let people live their fantasies whatever it may be.
Since I am a huge HUGE Xenoblade fan and that was the focus here for a while I'll use that as my main example. I personally find a lot of the XC2 designs to be devoid of taste, especially that bear girl or whatever she is. Pyra I already barely liked but this blade actually made me... upset. It's just so unfitting and so stupid. Sure there's a very small chance that one may even see her in the game but Pyra is always there, and the bear girl is still in the game, and sooo many other blades seem like fetish bait and it feels wrong. I actually thought that Xenoblade X did the sexy aspect some of the best. Because of the idea of fashion slots, you can wear a huge amount of armor, sexy or non. And it felt to me like most of it was just cool sci fi shit and you had to actively try to wear the playboy costumes. In fact, a decent amount of the male costumes included showcasing their hindquarters in very tight clothes or even bare in the original Japanese release. Lots of ways to keep them shirtless, etc. And you could keep everyone fully clothed if you wish, and all the default outfits felt perfectly reasonable and just cool.
Something that often goes unmentioned with Xenoblade 1 is actually that I felt it was kind of subtly sexist in a couple ways. It's near a perfect game to me but it still has some questionable stuff in it that acts as an unavoidable stain that I think Xenoblade 2 brought back but worse. Sharla is the cardinal sin for sure of that game. EVERY costume of hers had to be slutty looking in some way it was so immersion breaking and tasteless. Sharla was such a motherly character and dressing her like a stripper no matter what you wear just because she has big boobs hurt to watch. The other thing I disliked was about the writing which isn't too relevant to this thread but I noticed most of the dialogue between the female characters in XC1 was just about who was gonna date Shulk first and that was kind of annoying. Xenoblade X I felt also fixed this.
Back to Xenoblade 2, I just think the art is ugly a lot of the time. Like I don't think as some people in this thread no offense to any of you that showing some thigh, wearing heels, or not wearing completely covering armor is even something to second glance it, but maybe I'm just numbed to it all. But not much of the Xenoblade 2 designs even make sense, just like Sharla but on a bigger scale. Even Pyra's Mythra form still looks stupid even if in a more elegant way. I basically have a couple flexible cardinal rules when it comes to sexualization, one is what I mentioned about about X which is equality of the sexes. Another would be realisticness to the character which was already mentioned with Bayonetta and even Twintelle. Another good example to this I think would be Charlotte from Fire Emblem Fates. Yes, I am defending Fates. Charlotte was basically wearing a bikini constantly and shoving her boobs in every character's face, but in reality she was actually just trying to be a gold digger to support her family and is a remorseless manipulative woman. I honestly thought she was one of the few well written characters in the game and her design was just so, her. Male gaze or whatever I don't really care sorry if it sounds dismissive, I think as long as a sexy design makes sense for a setting I accept it. Like Yakuza was mentioned earlier and it's just a grimey, silly game so I think putting literal porn in it combined well.
https://twitter.com/XenobladeJP/status/935314010668277760 Now take a look at this girl. She's also from Xenoblade 2 but by a specific artist, Nomura. He also did the art for the main villains which is really nice, I think his art actually fits the Xeno-theme a lot lot better than the standard tripe like Pyra or even Rex looking silly and ridiculous in a non-sexy way, and she actually looks cool which should be the goal. It's just such a messy game in terms of character design and someone mentioned above Takahashi had little say in what Otaku crap got put in which is a shame. I hope the game is good I truly do but I'll probably never get over these character models.
Since this post is already ridiculously long I'll kind of just explain my perspective and the basis to a lot of my opinions on the subject (which I should have done at the beginning tbh). I am actually a trans girl, and one that is into women at that. I appreciate good, tasteful, and fitting sexy designs for double the reason. I both obviously have the hots for a good body, but also, I envy their bodies in a way. Most of the time in a game with options for clothing or who you play as, I always try to play as a cute looking girl because it's just eye candy and it's actually a coping mechanism for me. I dislike myself in real life so gaming is actually a huge huge part of how I cope. Having feminine costumes gives me life and is just the way I play. I am also a giant Soulsborne fan and I love their system how every outfit is equal because it fits with one of my tenets, but actually a minor nitpick I have with it is I wish there was some more form fitting feminine stuff. I think the beefy completely covering Havel's armor or other Gundam looking power trip stuff should be in the game, but I also do enjoy being a badass sexy princess from time to time. In dark souls 1 as well as bloodborne as soon as I could get the dress I wore it.
So to end this, I'll just say what I want out of the industry. I don't want any super puritan standards introduced since as I said I do like how common cute designs are, but I think games should offer something for everyone to make everyone comfortable. Let people put a guy in a dress, or make him sexy as hell. I don't care sexuality isn't something to be afraid of even if it's not yours. Let people dress their girl in normal clothes or in full plate armor, or even lingerie. Having a range of options in games that allow it such as RPGs I think is key to a good experience. Make it equal, make it tasteful. Don't make any default designs too stupid without having a reason for it. Let people live their fantasies whatever it may be.
You are definitely - quite frankly, kind of frighteningly desensitized. I'm someone who looks at a lot of Japanese media and even I was taken aback by this inclusion.
I mean, shit, the shading even emphasizes the shape of her vulva... they literally can't go any further without it actually being considered pornographic.
Then we're back to Thompson and how that whole debacle resulted in gamers' (wrongfully) perceived self-immunity to media influences. Life is a circle, indeed.
I guess he found his true passion in fetish art. Or he thinks his abstract distortions of the female form are true art. Or maybe both. Who knows.
You're not comparing apples to apples here. Sexual violence and the typical violence you find between men are not the same thing and don't arise from the same mental processes.
In order to rape a woman a man needs to be pretty sure he is going to be able to overpower her if she fights back. To stab or shoot someone or whatnot, even just to get into a fistfight... it's not the same thing. You don't need to be able to physically restrict or dominate their body in the same way. Granted not all rapes require physical force, just threats. But if the man consciously knows that he's attempting to rape a woman, that strength difference is a huge part of what will give him the confidence to do it.
We're going off-topic. The point is that I feel more engaged by and concerned for females in dangerous positions, I believe that many men feel the same, and I believe that's why so many are the stars of horror games, and the same applies to horror movies too.
You might be right about desensitized - I've been playing DoA for 6 years now, lol, and those kinds of costumes are often DLC. And you're certainly right about the shading. Then again I was looking at it from the angle of soft-core porn rather than as a 'legit' character design. As any kind of legit design that you might take seriously it's obviously outrageous, but it clearly isn't meant to be one. It's soft-core fanservice.
As for Thompson, I was always far more amenable to his arguments than most were, even when he was gamers' public enemy number 1. I totally agree that we're not immune to media influences.
I'm still sad that Tsubasa had her vagina bones censored in Tokyo Mirage Sessions. What do people have against vagina bones?!?
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