That's one aspect equal pay
Treatment as whole is much bigger than that
There are also stats that are more favorable for women compared to men
But it seems people here dont want to understand this
But I want to talk about games
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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That's one aspect equal pay
Treatment as whole is much bigger than that
There are also stats that are more favorable for women compared to men
But it seems people here dont want to understand this
But I want to talk about games
Captian Obvious here, but OP does not speak for everyone. There are numerous female artists and designers who absolutely adore sexualizing their female characters- and not just because they think it will get them attention from men.
I think it's awesome and inspiring that every cultural endeavor we humans apply ourselves to celebrates our sexual nature and the physical bodies that we express that with. There will always be a line where it crosses over into something that is more appropriately restricted to a certain age group, and other times when it becomes criminal (child pornography, etc) when it's prudent that law enforcement step in. But for the most part, artists should be encouraged and free to express this and consumers are free to vote with their money. Culture is not a zero-sum game. If you feel something is underrepresented in the discussion, you are free to add it.
There should never be any legally meaningful or industry-wide orchestrated pressure on artists to conform to an arbitrary set of standards based on a flawed and deeply cynical view of rational, individual consumers who are responsible for their own decisions as mindless sponges that only reflect the media they consume. Then we start viewing people through the discredited lens of charlatans like Jack Thompson and Tipper Gore.
I think it's awesome and inspiring that every cultural endeavor we humans apply ourselves to celebrates our sexual nature and the physical bodies that we express that with. There will always be a line where it crosses over into something that is more appropriately restricted to a certain age group, and other times when it becomes criminal (child pornography, etc) when it's prudent that law enforcement step in. But for the most part, artists should be encouraged and free to express this and consumers are free to vote with their money. Culture is not a zero-sum game. If you feel something is underrepresented in the discussion, you are free to add it.
There should never be any legally meaningful or industry-wide orchestrated pressure on artists to conform to an arbitrary set of standards based on a flawed and deeply cynical view of rational, individual consumers who are responsible for their own decisions as mindless sponges that only reflect the media they consume. Then we start viewing people through the discredited lens of charlatans like Jack Thompson and Tipper Gore.
...really? A couple of AAA games have some sensible designs and now that's enough so let's have all other females push their boobies out? Is there a quota I haven't heard of? This really rubs me the wrong way. There are very few games with sensible designs for women, and to say there's enough when there clearly isn't is ridiculous.
I like "trash bag bikini" as a shorthand for these stupid outfits.
Yes, absolutely. At some point the designs completely stop being "sexy" and start being completely stupid.
To be fair, I wouldn't focus much on Taro's words. His interviews have a lot of troll and jokes.
2B seems morre Yoshida that anything else. That dude praises tights.
I thought a lot of people in general just liked aesthetic and sexy characters but I guess that's a bit broad. I just think of a lot of the discourse I've had with my SO on the subject and that we both end up liked over the top designs but not always for the sexualized aspect of it but it goes for make and female characters within games.
OP
OP
I used it specifically because Quiet's bikini top looks like it was made out of a trash can liner, but it works as a shorthand for garbage fanservice outfits in general, I think.
If your goal is to eliminate "non sensible" female fantasy designs, then i don't think i'm out of line in calling your expectations completely unrealistic.
Female designs in 2017 are absolutely less ridiculous than they were back in the 80s/90s, when there didn't really seem to be any kind of consciousness for conversations like these.
Sexualization is not inherently bad. But sexualizing men and women does not have the same societal effects. Like at all. Which is why you don't have anything resembling equivalent rates of sexual harassment and assualt amoung men vs women.
Even if we balanced out the sexualization with more of males (and this is a moot point because that is not going to happen) as long as the female characters are objects before characters you still have a problem. The sexualization of male character still has decades of precedence that they primarily can exist as anything. Not the same for women in the gaming sphere.
I don't think the base of the argument is that big boobs and butts on characters is bad inherently. It's that the portrayal of women in games places them as objects first and everything secondary and that is problematic.
100% agree with OP here. Cindy and Quiet are absolute trash tier characters and their representation completely undermines any characterization they have.
No people understand. They just aren't choosing to ignore or de-prioritize an issue because of other issues, these things can be worked on simultaneously.
Those are just a couple of particularly egregious examples.
I really dont understand why you are so overly defensive.
No people understand. They just aren't choosing to ignore or de-prioritize an issue because of other issues, these things can be worked on simultaneously.
Those are just a couple of particularly egregious examples.
I really dont understand why you are so overly defensive.
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That's a lot of words to say "I didn't read the OP where a woman specifically talked about the way that these unceasing sexualized depictions are exhausting and alienating."
People can like sex and sexual content and still think that there is something out of whack with the way that sexuality is handled in a medium. That's not hypocrisy.
The goal isn't to eliminate "non sensible" female fantasy designs (though getting rid of bad designs in general, sensible or not, should be a goal anyways). The goal is to have more than just a few games. Having more than the 90's isn't an achievement here. And I want out there outlandish designs for women that also aren't two piece trash bag bikinis. Or at the very least, give me male designs that are ridiculous as female designs, which, to be fair, some games do. But enough with this males dress sensibly while females dress up to titillate the audience but please take my story seriously nonsense.
I was labeling it as "wrong" in the context of armors. Mostly ment as a joke.
Like a gun firing backwards towards the user is a wrong design for a firearm.
I enjoy the sight of a worn bikini armor. I just cannot accept it as a proper armor.
It's not gamings fault that these issues exist in the first place, but that doesn't give games a pass for reinforcing these toxic societal views. If games are a place where men can escape to 'have power over women', that's a big fucking problem. Games don't always form a person's worldview, but they can definitely validate it. And while you say that this is just something they do from the safety of their own house, we have seen widespread attacks on women from the gaming community. If more of the games that these people spent so much time playing treated women like people instead of objects, some of them might think twice before tweeting out a rape threat. And saying it's just a consequence of the medium is giving developers an out and a respite from criticism. There is nothing inherent about games that leads to this. Even the audience of young men isn't inherent. That audience was cultivated over decades through a reinforcing loop of men making games and men buying games. It is possible to make games that aren't sexist; a lot of developers just don't see the need to put in that kind of effort. If more and more people start standing up and criticizing the objectification of women in games, maybe more developers will be compelled to address these problems.
I think the conversation needs to be bigger than sexualization alone. It's really about characterization. It's about having a sense that this female character is a 3D dimensional person, and what she's wearing, what she does, and how she interacts with others follows from who she is. Often characters that are highly sexualized in games tend to feel like they exist only to motivate or manipulate the male characters around them, and that's problematic and sexist.
But a character like, say, Bayonetta, who is extremely sexualized, but who isn't just a foil for men to bounce their aspirations of conquest off of. For her, sexuality is empowerment, and her character is indeed very empowered. I have no real problem with that.
But a character like, say, Bayonetta, who is extremely sexualized, but who isn't just a foil for men to bounce their aspirations of conquest off of. For her, sexuality is empowerment, and her character is indeed very empowered. I have no real problem with that.
Unfortunately, the term "sexy" is very different for all of us. One artist could like the "trash bag bikini" look and one could find it repulsive. I guess we just have to hope the new generational artists have decent taste when it comes to creating sexy characters.
You mean the non-playable love interest? Sure, that's exactly the same as a female playable central character. *rolleyes*
Also you're completely derailing what I was saying. My argument was a counter to the claim that "a female main character in a AAA game was unthinkable 10 years ago".
I think people would be willing to do that, but often this happens as weird non-sequiturs. For example Quiet in Metal Gear. Metal Gear is not a game about sex, or a game that attempts to be sexy in any way except for this one weird character. That's one of the reasons people are so irritated about this. Also, this is less of a "I don't like something" thing, it's more of a "this game kinda treats people like me, like shit" thing.
It's not the developer's responsibilities to act as parents for the assholes who play their games. If Yoko Taro wants to put sexy characters in his games and is honest he likes what he perceives to be good looking fantasy women, then it's not up to him to spend his life trying to re-educate, parent, discipline and sort out any assholes who like Nier and tweet out the rape threats you mention. If he wants to get involved, so be it, but you'll find most people who create games just want to focus on that. It's their job/career, unpaid babysitter work or spending all day arguing on forums might not be what they have time for. Taro for what it is worth is another human being we do not have any evidence of foul play in his real life, or bad treatment of his staff/friends. We can't mind-read, and as the Hollywood industry proves lots of shit is hidden, but some benefit of the doubt still has to be given not to just imply every single male creator who likes the female body/being sexual is somehow a monster behind the scenes (not saying you said that, but it's an on-going trend to call every developer a misogynist and hateful of women without evidence at times). Kojima is the biggest example. His FANTASY characters and writing may be shit at times, as is his explanations for some of it, instead of honesty, but we have no correlating evidence he's a shit person in real life. This is a distinction that has to sometimes have nuance around it at times, to be able to accept fantasy from real life and not simply throw out some pretty serious accusations and hate where it may be unfounded.
This almost starts to morph into the think of the children arguments that are making a comeback in the gaming world. Where, because parents/schools aren't responsible enough/educate their children at young/suitable ages, other unrelated adult gamers or gaming developers are hit over the head with grand statements that can be summed up as "children might see your trailer/play your game! what are YOU going to do about that?!". "I've found assholes who like your game, what are YOU going to do about that?!". Almost bordering on inferring that they must be an asshole because assholes enjoy their game. It's bonkers. The internet court at its best when without even really knowing someone you can just call them every name under the sun and state the collapse of civilisation must be their fault. How about it's the fault of the aggressors? You know, personal liability and responsibility for your actions?
Sorry, I simply strongly believe education, parenting and handling youth better is a far better route to go down than attacking the medium because adult content exists. As I laid out earlier, the aggressive, socially inept, hateful and often virgin males of the gaming world exist as a consequence of their education/family life/choice of friends/personal behaviour and so on, long before it's down to gaming. Gaming is often used due to its escapsim factor, for MANY people who are socially awkward. Not just assholes. It's the ultimate visual interactive stimulus, where anyone can escape their life and pretend to be something they are not. This by nature of being that is going to attract a large amount of people. Hundreds of millions. Lets not forget just how many decent people play games, just because some of the assholes are noisy. When I say attacking as well, I don't mean grounded criticism of games, but when some people are almost cutting off the nose to spite the face.
As an offshoot to the above, it wouldn't surprise me if some developers are socially awkward and unsuccessful males. Jumping into creating their own fantasies where they do get the girl. As I higlighted above though, social awkwardness, being a virgin and sucking with the sex you wish to be with, does NOT instantly mean you actually harass/abuse/name-call and threaten. What I have said in the topic is those who DO turn to harassing, threatening and anti-social behaviour allow their inexperience, awkwardness, low-status, exclusion from the world to turn into hate and resentment.
Thanks for your feedback, but an inability to either ignore or engage with more content/rebuttal with an opinion you disagree with is more of a derail than me being involved in this topic. I edited this reply in here as it didn't warrant a new post.
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If you seriously don't understand the difference between a playable main character whose role isn't "main character's love interest", and one who is both, you have no business discussing feminism.
Carry on.
Hmm, different effects, but however many have also argued (and just as valid) that while done differently, the sexualization of men and women both have different negative outlooks.
I see your point, but still do not agree fully. That is why I said if I had it my way, not that others will do it, just go full on with it. Both men and women. Object everyone equally. But my philosophy may differ from yours in that regard, which is okay.
Titillating content in otherwise non-sexually themed games has its very own appeal, so the typical argument about "DOAXtreme is totally fine, Cindy and Quiet are not!", is just really weird to me. A big reason why 2B's amazing ass is so great at mesmerizing me, is exactly because she's not a character in DOAXtreme. It just peeks out sometimes when she does her acrobatic moves, healing my soul one High-Kick at a time. I like porn games, I like games with no sexual content at all, I like random character flashing her tits randomly maybe most of all? Three different flavors, all good.
So when OP mentions dudes who act like crybabies because you want to take away their boobies being idiots, because you're still fine with them having their explicit porn...well, you actually do want to take away their boobies though. Or at least quarantine them in the porn zone. Makes sense to be against that.
In the end, I understand the arguments of why women criticize sexualized character designs, I just really don't care. The causal chain of "enjoying video game tits -> ??? -> misogyny" is vague, abstract and inherently unrelatable to me and probably most people who enjoy some good virtual T&A. Which is why discussions about this topic really lead absolutely nowhere, to an even greater degree than other internet arguments even.
So when OP mentions dudes who act like crybabies because you want to take away their boobies being idiots, because you're still fine with them having their explicit porn...well, you actually do want to take away their boobies though. Or at least quarantine them in the porn zone. Makes sense to be against that.
In the end, I understand the arguments of why women criticize sexualized character designs, I just really don't care. The causal chain of "enjoying video game tits -> ??? -> misogyny" is vague, abstract and inherently unrelatable to me and probably most people who enjoy some good virtual T&A. Which is why discussions about this topic really lead absolutely nowhere, to an even greater degree than other internet arguments even.
We are talking about character design for female characters no?
If you want a Final Fantasy where the story is focused on female characters and leads then look at Final Fantasy XIII, it's an entire trilogy with women as leads and central characters in the story.
As a hetero male, I think some designs are a bit much but others I accept. If I was going to create a female character, I can't lie and say I wouldn't want to create a female character that represents what I think is attractive. But within reason and not super unrealistic in an unnecessary sexual way. I think designing a female character with massive breasts or other overly exaggerated proportions leans more towards the objectification side, especially if all or multiple female characters are designed similarly. There's also other factors to consider like the character's personality, how they're portrayed (besides visually), etc.
No, but I do think that you should examine your defensive reaction to this discussion.
I also am a big fan of fanservice, including a lot of games that fall under the umbrella of "anime trash." But I can still listen to people explain why those games make them feel unwelcome in gaming. Or how fan-service in an otherwise serious game can catch them by surprise and throw them out of the experience. Or how female characters are still often poorly written or weakly characterised compared to the male characters in a work.
Liking fanservice doesn't make you a bad person. Shouting down or ignoring criticism of it is where the problems arise.
Please do not pretend that sexual assault and harassment are not serious problems in Japan. Not only is it extremely common, it is extremely difficult for women to report these crimes or seek any kind of justice.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fe...ssault-japan-girl-victim-170307101413024.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...for-rape-victims-in-japan-idUST17815620070515
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2...a-national/dubious-cost-sexual-assault-japan/
1) marketing sees men as being the dominate buyers of video games
2) they market to men
3) men like scantily clad women
I just want it to be realistic. Sexy is good and all, but if a woman is fighting on the front lines, don't give her a metal bikini, put her in real armor.
2) they market to men
3) men like scantily clad women
I just want it to be realistic. Sexy is good and all, but if a woman is fighting on the front lines, don't give her a metal bikini, put her in real armor.
I think this is the main problem. When the female character is designed specifically to titillate the viewer and that is her purpose... and htat is what you see most female characters as, that's a problem.
Quiet is an interesting one. She's definitely designed for that and they make her do actions for that purpose. But so far from what I've seen, he also gives her personality too (I actually like her as a character but cringe at the parts where she's obviously supposed to just be a sex object. If she were clothed reasonably and didn't have scenes where she's acting like she's a stripper I'd think she was totally fine and a good character). Hell... the game actually lets you play as a female if you want and she actually is dressed reasonably for what she's there for (but she's not given more personality other than being your PC and some lines given to her that are the same as Snake if you were playing him instead).
Red Dead Redemption was horrible about this. Most females were there to be helpless objects to show how evil the other characters were (and for your PC to weakly protest as he watched the villains be horrible to them. They were there just to make the bad guys look more evil. And for occasionally for the player to feel good about himself for saving them or at least wreaking vengeance for them). I think that's one of the reasons I started to really have big issues with the game (just one of the reasons though). To be fair a lot of the male npcs (The villagers) were that too but at least some of them were given bigger roles.
In addition to the countless testimonies of women (including in this thread), you have research that underlines why overall sexual objectification is "a bad thing" ->
Then you have the problems of misogyny in video games as a whole:
And then even a literal organized harassment campaign against women in games. Like literally sites to doxx and harass anyone who is a woman in games.
So perhaps building up a culture that views women as pleasurable objects for straight dudes was not a good thing, considering the rampant misogyny in video games culture. And with that in mind, maybe it's not the most creative or interesting thing to have another penis-pleasure representation for the millionth time. I mean it's not like these 'crybabies' can't get their penis stroked elsewhere - basically most of our visual culture revolves around sexualizing the female body, so these dudes can just get aroused by the billionth of other media that is made for them.
I feel the same, and frankly there's a lot of overlap between both issues. Which means both can be tackled, either independently or in tandem.
To piggyback on this: you can make a female character hot and not oversexualized.
Damn
Well said
One of the main problems here is that even gamers themselfs still see games as just "games" and still not on equal footing with other media
They have "game-ethics" and different "books-movies-music-etc ethics"
And complete different real life ethics in which they allow themselfs to do much more things that many times they dont want others to know
People, normale average people like us, behave and do much much more sexual stuff than poor Quiet will ever do
Even the oft quoted assumption that sex sells doesn't fare well under scrutiny. There's plenty of evidence that it's attention grabbing for obvious evolutionary reasons but not that it translates into positive impressions of a brand or product.
Part of the context here is that depictions of women who exist purely as objectification don't actually appeal all that much to someone who views women as actual human beings. I found Quiet hard to be around because she's not someone I would have the slightest bit of respect for. She's simply not sexy in my eyes. So arguably a rise in successful products featuring smart, sexy, independent characterizations of women says something positive about the attitudes of the market – not just the developers.
Part of the context here is that depictions of women who exist purely as objectification don't actually appeal all that much to someone who views women as actual human beings. I found Quiet hard to be around because she's not someone I would have the slightest bit of respect for. She's simply not sexy in my eyes. So arguably a rise in successful products featuring smart, sexy, independent characterizations of women says something positive about the attitudes of the market – not just the developers.
Great post OP. This shit is tiring.
Noctis, Ignis, and Prompto being attractive isn't really the equivalent of being sexualized for females at all. The only one that I would consider truly sexualized is Gladio and even then they make us work for it: you have to buy his dlc and get enough points in a bonus to get the no shirt option.
Noctis, Ignis, and Prompto being attractive isn't really the equivalent of being sexualized for females at all. The only one that I would consider truly sexualized is Gladio and even then they make us work for it: you have to buy his dlc and get enough points in a bonus to get the no shirt option.
I dont know about sexualised characters, but I'd laugh myself to death if Private Ryan had clowns
As far as men being sexualized in games having a negative effect one of the big things is that most of this stuff is designed primarily by men. So you at least can have prominent male voices confronting this stuff.
But for the most part the sexualization of males in games doesn't place them as objects before chatacters when it occurs. I meantioned as an example, Chris Redfield is sexualized but he is never treated or objectified in RE5 (well his defualt costume anyway). Similarly, Sheva is also sexualized but she isn't objectified (same thing, alternate costumes are another story).
When we talk about problematoc sexualization of males in gaming we are mostly talking about roided up soldiers. I mean it certainly can be dumb but you would be more likely to see a guy look like a gears of war character fighting aliens than a mechanic with her boobs out and jean shorts. Even as a fundamental position most of the crazy jacked guys in games are fighting wars. Why are the women fighting the exact same wars in bikini armour?
TBH, i feel like the awareness for what constitutes "ridiculous" in regards to males and females is pretty skewed in conversations that go down the route that this one has.
People love to bring up characters like Quiet, Cindy, Ivy....but these are exceptions, even among sexualized characters. Unless you're willing to dive into the niche anime side of things? There are far fewer examples of hypersexualized characters that exist primarily to be hypersexualized characters worth bringing up.
Some big AAA names, just off the top of my head:
Lara Croft got a massive redesign from what she used to be.
None of Uncharted 4's female leads fits the bill here
Aloy from Horizon shows none of her goodies
Last of Us 2's most recent female lead looks like an MMA fighter
Gears of War threw some women into the mix
Nier Automata's 2B is more "stylish" than "sexualized", though this really just comes down to preference
Mass Effect has no glaring examples i can think of
Zelda in BotW is wearing nothing too gratuitous
Tekken 7's (reoccuring) female leads are ALL wearing more clothing than they used to, even characters like Xiaoyu who were never sexualized to begin with.
Street Fighter V's women are no more ridiculous than their men
Hellblade? Nah
Dishonoured? Nah
Resident Evil 7? Nah
Gravity Rush 2? Nobody seems to complain
Overwatch? Actively tried to avoid this situation
I mean i'm not saying it doesn't happen, it clearly does. But what i'm asking is, with the exception of MGSV and FFXV, I really can't think of any super glaring examples like this.
And honestly? It's only pretty recently that Metal Gear and Final Fantasy have started aiming for the kind of appeal that would have brought them out of the "anime niche" category, where you'll have absolutely no problem finding terrible examples to complain about.
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I mean one of the only really notable games I can think of that really has this issue at large is League of Legends. And League is really just an up-jumped F2P MMO that started off using the "sex object" appeal to draw in players, like most F2P MMOs regularly do.
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Two of my (foreign) friends here in Japan have experienced harassment. One of my Japanese friends had some sick idiot ejaculate on her uniform on the train. One of my students told me she was being followed by a guy, and he eventually asked her to give him her underwear. On two occasions I've seen guys in public being rather aggressive to (what I assume to be) their girlfriends in way I simply don't recall seeing back home. Japan has REAL issues with this, as those links illustrate.
Disclaimer: I don't think people who like booby games are equal to those people, lol. I guess it's better to clarify...
I think that female characters are improving, and we're beginning to reach the point where the inexplicably sexualised characters draw attention for being outside the norm. We're a long way from equality of treatment, but the women in most western big-budget games are not sexualised. Or at least they are sexualised only to the same extent as women in TV and movies. Ubisoft and Naughty Dog games tend to have very attractive but not sexualised women.
But I agree with the OP that it's a problem when women in games are just added as eye-candy for pervy men to oggle at. It's fine for DoA Beach Volleyball to exist and I'm even okay with impractical revealing outfits in high-fantasy games - just so long as impractical revealing outfits are a theme of the setting (e.g. Conan).
Quiet stands out as especially awful because literally everyone else in the game is wearing military fatigues or regular clothes. Oh, except for those sexy parasite zombie women who wear bikini bottoms while the male parasite zombie men wear something less revealing.
Sexy Shelob is probably the worst recent western example.
It's just so obtrusive to see that kind of shit. The earlier "clowns in Saving Private Ryan" analogy is very apt.
But I agree with the OP that it's a problem when women in games are just added as eye-candy for pervy men to oggle at. It's fine for DoA Beach Volleyball to exist and I'm even okay with impractical revealing outfits in high-fantasy games - just so long as impractical revealing outfits are a theme of the setting (e.g. Conan).
Quiet stands out as especially awful because literally everyone else in the game is wearing military fatigues or regular clothes. Oh, except for those sexy parasite zombie women who wear bikini bottoms while the male parasite zombie men wear something less revealing.
Sexy Shelob is probably the worst recent western example.
It's just so obtrusive to see that kind of shit. The earlier "clowns in Saving Private Ryan" analogy is very apt.
The sad thing is that these numbers are usually used to imply "if men don't objectify a woman then they explode"
SFV women are riduclous come on man. Even in comparison to the previous games. All you have to do is look at Cammy's and idle animations.
Nobody in this thread is saying that people that enjoy sexualized content is a mysoginist (and if anyone does, please feel free to address them directly instead of derailing a thread). The thread isn't even about them, it's about character designs. You spent five paragraphs of persecution complex attacking a strawman.
I really wish everyone in this thread was as honest as you, it would save so much time. :/
If you think sexualization in games is under a bigger scrutiny than, say, movies, you're living under a rock.
Your examples are indicative of a nice trend (except for 2B, that isn't stylish), but we cannot simply erase the history that brought us here. As recent as 2014 you see the trend - a study published this year: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-32591-001
And disregarding sexualization, you have quantitative marginalization of the overall representation (older figures pre-2010):
● Beasley and Standley (2002): 14 percent of the 597 analyzed characters were female
● Haninger and Thompson (2004): 72 out 81 playable male characters versus only 42 playable female characters
● Dill et al. (2005) : 10 % female characters.
● Mou & Peng (2008) : all leading characters were male with no leading female character
● Williams et al. (2009) : 14.77 percent of all virtual characters in the 150 top selling digital games across all platforms in the U.S. were female
● Downs & Smith (2010): 14.3 percent of a sample pool of 489 virtual characters in 60 digital games were women
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