So today I watched the two most recent CP2077 trailers Postcards from Night City and Gangs of Night City and was struck by the sheer number of hypersexualised in-game ads there were. Not only were there so many, but they all appeared to feature women.
Curious, I decided to go back through each trailer frame by frame to collect every 'sexy' ad, just in case I missed something.
Combined the two trailers add up to almost eight minutes of footage and I managed to spot no less than TWENTY-ONE unique ads featuring sexualised women, only one of which featured a male body prominently (but was still about a straight male fantasy), and only one featuring a same sex interaction (two women of course).
These ads/images range from generic to actually pretty fucked up (the dog one and the 'king size' one are particularly gross) but I still think the sheer variety and uniformity of them is what shocks me the most. Worth nothing that all of the pole dancers and other sexualised characters in the footage of the game itself were also women.
Anyway here they are for your perusal (apologies for the quality, I just used the windows snipping tool):
What, if anything, are CD Projekt Red trying to do here? If it's to reflect our own world they've failed because even 2020 advertising manages to be more diverse than this. Is it to depict a future where women are still sexualised to a far higher degree than men? If so, why? We know our current world is homophobic, transphobic and sexist, do they really think ads like this are cutting satire, or nuanced critique?
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EDIT - My follow up post after the thread was locked and reopened (twice):
EDIT 2 - Some users have posted higher res versions of ads I included, or others featuring men, here they are:
Curious, I decided to go back through each trailer frame by frame to collect every 'sexy' ad, just in case I missed something.
Combined the two trailers add up to almost eight minutes of footage and I managed to spot no less than TWENTY-ONE unique ads featuring sexualised women, only one of which featured a male body prominently (but was still about a straight male fantasy), and only one featuring a same sex interaction (two women of course).
These ads/images range from generic to actually pretty fucked up (the dog one and the 'king size' one are particularly gross) but I still think the sheer variety and uniformity of them is what shocks me the most. Worth nothing that all of the pole dancers and other sexualised characters in the footage of the game itself were also women.
Anyway here they are for your perusal (apologies for the quality, I just used the windows snipping tool):
What, if anything, are CD Projekt Red trying to do here? If it's to reflect our own world they've failed because even 2020 advertising manages to be more diverse than this. Is it to depict a future where women are still sexualised to a far higher degree than men? If so, why? We know our current world is homophobic, transphobic and sexist, do they really think ads like this are cutting satire, or nuanced critique?
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EDIT - My follow up post after the thread was locked and reopened (twice):
So... I guess what I would ask from people in this thread is to go beyond "this is Cyberpunk not sure what you expected". I am not American, I am not puritanical. I'm also not 'offended' like so many people have suggested. The content of the ads on their own doesn't disgust me.
This game does not exist in a vacuum. Its developed by a studio with a history of sexualising/objectifying women and of catering to the worst kind of gamers. There's a reason this game is being held up as the second coming of Christ by certain folk and there's a reason that ANY kind of criticism of this game is met with such ferocious, blind resistance on this forum and elsewhere.
I also don't think criticising a game's marketing prior to actually playing it should be dismissed automatically. I'm not crying for the game to be censored or banned and there's plenty of posts in this thread that suggest that a worthwhile, respectful discussion can be had. Don't take it personally when people criticise something you're looking forward to.
I'm also not saying everyone who disagrees with the premise of this thread is wrong, people rightfully brought up that there is one ad featuring two nude men in the trailers in question as well as other ads found in other marketing materials. I didn't omit mentioning these in the OP by choice (I included the screencap after all) I simply thought it was one example among many that don't feature men. It's there, sure, but it's anything but equivalent.
I'm not going to waste any energy responding to people who say "but what about the ultraviolence".
EDIT 2 - Some users have posted higher res versions of ads I included, or others featuring men, here they are:
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