Commander Shadowsun is canonically female, and has a model without helmet. Best reference for what female Tau look like we got. Noticeably more human-like facial features. Big ass battlesuit tho, so no clues as to what the rest of her looks like.
Another thread about sexism in video games.
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
I never claimed that. In my OP I addressed that these problems are very real in development studios all over the place. God if you are going to talk shit about my POV you could at least read what I actually said instead of projecting your dismissal onto shit I didn't even say.
I brought this up to highlight the hypocrisy of the arguments that these type of articles make. Articles that make statements of facts based on no actual knowledge of video gaming or it's history. Much in the same way that the new media harped on games like Mass Effect for daring to have a "sex scene" in them, because I think there is still a portion of the media that thinks video games are still strictly a kids medium. Which makes sense to why the sex characters are always a problem.
But sexy does not equal sexism. You mention Onechambra games and Lillipop chainsaw, both containing characters that are overtly sexualized but done so in an obviously satirical way. Being over the top with it is obviously part of the joke and it doesn't mean that those games are sexist much the same way the Senran Kagura series or Akiba Strip games don't. The lewdness is part of the overall joke concept of the game.
Zero suit Samus got brought up a bunch, and while that outfit is certainly tittlating, Samus (as far as I know) has never been used as a sex object within the games. The zero suit makes sense to be worn under that power armor because what the fuck else is she supposed to wear under that fucking thing, a parka? Much in the same way I bet Master Chef is likely wearing some sort of Under Armour skin tight shirt and pants under his armor. You could, however make the argument, that if Master Chef never takes his armor off then why should Samus ever have too, and that's valid.
It reminds me of what Twitch said and did over the hot tub girls meta, which I think is a perfectly reasonable point, they said that you cannot control what people find attractive, and it's not possible to police what other people might find sexy? @Casual Shinji said above that they are a sucker for midriffs, which is a fairly mundane thing women wear midriff revealing outfits all the time. Does that mean that characters cannot be dressed in anything that might be form fitting or revealing any sort of skin because someone finds ankles sexy?
I point out the visual appearances of these characters because that is what the article is praising. Aloy isn't super hot and therefore that makes her a good example character, which is ironic because it judges her based of physical appearance not her capabilities and personality which are more the backbone to who she is as a character.
And yes I will bring up threads about this everytime I see an article talking bullshit because i think it's fair to critisize half-assed articles.
What do you mean by this? In what way are female interests speaking to the male demographic?
Look Critical. I would say I am squarely of the same position as you on this issue, but we've talked about this before. The dead horse that is this topic is not even a corpse, not even a mushy mess of meat and bone, it has been pulverized into atoms by us on this forum. Everyone has made their positions clear on this and are not changing them any time soon. So unless there's some new angle or new blood wants to talk about this then bringing it up again isnt going to accomplish anything.
With the way you act most of the time, it's hard to feel the difference. I actually did read what you said. So you don't have to give me the attitude because I don't care.
It's really not much "hypocrisy" when they're only pointing out what is wrong with with the industry. Besides, that is rich coming from you. I just saw you contradict yourself with plenty of the responses in this thread earlier. Not to mention all the other ones. You literally have nothing to stand on. And don't give me that whole things are getting better or better than they were before now argument. They're still issues, but you still have a habit down playing them or act as if it's not that bad. I just saw you. We have nothing left to discuss here. I'm not a big reader of of that website, nor do I know them too well. As far as I'm concerned, they were just stating facts and that was it. You may not like it, but that is your problem.
An easy example would be female protagonists in games typically not getting with a guy. Like, Lara Croft never, not in any game, actually hooks up with a dude. Yet in male led videogames you can bet your bottom there'll be some girl for the hero to get romantic with. I can't think of any female protagonists that shack up with or even develop a crush on a man, apart from Abby in TLoU2 and Kat in Gravity Rush. Now that I think about, in Resident Evil 2 we get a male and a female protagonist; Leon gets a love interest, Claire doesn't. Surprise, surprise. And the reason for this is likely because developers are afraid of getting the straight male audience uncomfortable with having their avatar get a bit too close to another man.
Another example is Ellie in TLoU1. It's the one thing that made me never connect too well to her character, because she just feels a little too enginered to be cool and inoffensive to the male audience; she likes comic books, she likes videogames, she scoffs at the idea of women focusing on their looks. See guys, she's not one of those annoying teenaged girls that likes girl stuff, she likes guy things. None of this is a bad character trait, but this along with never getting with a guy seems to be the only representation we get for female protagonists in (AAA) games.
Hence why I quite like Kat from Gravity Rush because she feels like someone took Sailor Moon and put her in an open-world superhero game.
Not even close to always. How many CoD's have romances in them? Devil may cry games? Halo? Max Payne?
Do you mean romantic interest at all? Or just ones that you can actually bang? Because there are shitloads of games that do not have the later.
I think you might be projecting a bit here. Keep in mind a lot of RPG's with romantic partners available are available for the female avatar too. Though there might be a fear of if they make a female character and give her a sexy man to hump on, it might be seen in bad taste as people could call it forced romance upon a woman when the player has no choice in the matter and therefore neither does the woman therefore rape-alagory.
But yes, I think there is a trope problem in that the strong female character must always be better than every man around her while simulatinously not needing no man for herself. Hollywood has this problem too, where they will often portray the female characters as infalable badasses and every man around her is a fucking moron.
But is she a good character though? What are her goals? Motivations? Interpersonal relationships? She's just an empty character from what I remember, not offensive sure, but offers nothing to make her character memorable.
I think character independence is a flawed concept. Real people need and want other people in their lives, and I don't think it's unreasonable to write similar motivations for your fictional characters. Wouldn't Lara Croft be much more relatable as a person if she had a love interest along for the ride? Say a cross-over game with her an a Nathan Drake type in which Lara and Nathan work together to form bonds and solve puzzles and clues together? When one character gets into trouble it ups the stakes for the other character. Seems like a perfectly fine formula for a game story.
I think writers lean to heavily away from relationships or don't lean close enough too relationships. That's part of why I think relationships in video games feel so shallow because they are nothing more than action movie levels of interaction. "Hey we went through hell together, we should probably fuck now." is not a good relationship story. Kidnap my wife and now I'm coming to murder everyone you have ever known, is a much better set up because the relationship in this case would be pre-built and grounded, instead of made on the fly for no reason.
A lot of thisis solved with better writing in games, but it's a hard standard to hold video games up to when even Hollywood doesn't do a good job at this.
I still remember before Horizaon dropped and became one of my favorite games of all time people were giving Aloy crap about being some sanitized sjw female protagonist. Hell I still remember someone saying Aloy is did not resonate with people because there is barely any fanart and rule 34 of her................
Any who yes video games have had a sexist problem some were very overt, but many were more benign so unless you are attuned about those things many would shrug and see no issue.
Aloy lives in a society where humanity go hard resetted to caveman era but a glitch in the system made all the animals zoids. Take in to being banished, having only one parental figure, living most of her life isolated and add in the talking to herself and other neurosis Aloy becomes my red headed mess that her acting any other way would just seem off.
Any who yes video games have had a sexist problem some were very overt, but many were more benign so unless you are attuned about those things many would shrug and see no issue.
I think it is also about the setting. Gravity Rush setting allows Kat to be like that because its modern with some trippy gravity going on. So her being the modern definiton of "girly" because she is basically in a anime doing crazy sci fi platforming.
Aloy lives in a society where humanity go hard resetted to caveman era but a glitch in the system made all the animals zoids. Take in to being banished, having only one parental figure, living most of her life isolated and add in the talking to herself and other neurosis Aloy becomes my red headed mess that her acting any other way would just seem off.
I remember that. Wasn't it some douche on twitter? They need to be pimp slapped in the face multiple times for such a dumb statement.
No, I mean a romantic counterpart or the tease of romance. Devil May Cry 1 had it, even Halo had Cortana there as sort of a 'look, there's a girl with you *wink wink*'. And I never played Max Payne 2, but I remember a love interest for Max in that game.
I'm obviously discounting games that give you the choice to shack up. I mean set-in-stone story focused games.
She's a fun character. I'm not making claims that she's deep, but she was a rather fresh combination of not particularly sexualized but still rather girly. She was the type of character you generally don't see in an action game.
Is she supposed to be a mess, because I think that has more to do with the slightly awkward Bioware way in which the characters are presented. There are plenty of moments where Aloy is sassy or light-hearted in her interactions, but the presentation doesn't make it come across too well. I have some nitpicks about Aloy though. She's alright, but I feel her character arc is rather lacking.
Actually, it's supposed to be platonic, but Hideki Kamiya messed it up, fumbling with the writing. I don't blame you for thinking otherwise. Made the same mistake. DMC 2 and DMC 3 on the other hand, do have this and it's not supposed to be platonic. Though it's kept ambiguous in the will they or will they won't way. Nero and Kyrie become an official couple at the end of DMC4. By the fifth game, they are living together and adopted some kids. You would not know about the adopted orphans, unless you read the prequel novel.
I actually always felt that those characters were platonically flirting with each other in a strange sense of friendly banter. Like they have no interest in each other like that, but that wont stop them from teasing each other about the "will they, wont they" kind of thing. It's a concept of characters that I would like to see more of tbh.
I do remember DMC1 ending with Dante and Trish in a biplane acting like buddies, and thinking it a bit weird considering how they felt set up to be lovers. Though that may be what I was just used to in games then.
What are they satirizing? And how is it different than just doing the thing?
Because I gotta say, the 4 mission long sexual assault in Senran Kagura: Estival Versus didn't seem like satire, it just seemed like every anime that also plays sexual assault for laughs. Also killed any motivation I had to power through and learn how to deal with the bullshit super armor
If your reward for beating a game well is ever skimpier shots of its main protagonist, what would you call that?
Hilarious argument from the "hot tub meta bad" guy
I mean, the argument also brought up the "embarrassed to play in front of my parents" angle, which is valid.
Thus insuring there will be more of them, because that's how engagement works.
Easter egg? It's not Zero Suit Samus so....
Depends on the game. Usually it's a satire of games types or anime story tropes, most of the games like that are Japanese so it's hard to directly equate what the target of the joke is supposed to be because I don't know enough about Japan. But if I had to guess, it might be a shot at the super conservative culture and the idea of embarrassment that would occur if you got in a fist fight to keep your clothing on. Or something like that, there are plenty of obsured anime concepts that exists, like Food Wars.
The same way a joke about something is just a joke and not an endorsement of the thing it's making fun of. Often it's hyper exaggeration of societial concepts. That's all it should be.
Sure but there are also plenty of movies and television shows you wouldn't watch in front of your parents either because there is always a akwardness when sexual situations occur around your parents. But just because you wouldn't play/watch something in front of your parents, doesn't always mean your parents give a shit if you watch/play the thing or not. Most parents probably don't care if you masturbate, but they (hopefully) don't want to be in the same room while you do it.
So imo I feel like it's a superficial argument.
At least i don't directly engage to their site or article. But yeah....that's true.....fucking trolls man.
Oneechanbara has no satire, and it's just fan service. People like to think Lollipop Chainsaw is satire, but it really has not much to say either. I like Juliet Starling, but the game is straight-up, regular fan service, no matter how you put it. Look at the intro for Christ's sake! (Those that don't listen).
Also, Suda51 had nothing to do with the writing or directing. All he did was produce and promote the game.
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So, you're straight up guessing it's satire of *something*. And if it's satire of "games types", wouldn't that just mean you're setting the sexualization of games just one step back?
Why can't it just be straight up, unironic fan service?
So the joke is "look how sexy we can make our high school girls"? I'm not...I'm not seeing the apparent upside of this argument
This entire issue is about the superficial bits of video games, especially the bit where a significant number of lady characters have their tits out for no real reason.
It can, but it needs to have fans of something in the first place. Tifa Lockheart in a bikini is fan service because Tifa has fans of her in not super sexy form. Onechambra I would argue isn't fan service because as far as I can find online.....there are no examples of these characters not sexualized at all.
Again...Japan. Different culture and I can't really legitly rationalize there spoofs or story concepts because I simply don't know. And frankly I doubt that anyone on this board can do any better in that regard. All you can do is criticize it from a Western lens which is fine, but a bit unfair to demonize because of the culture barrier. It's hard to argue that these games have a negative effect towards the sexualization of women because Japan has a sexual assault rate of 19.1 per 100k, or about 1200 per year. Compared to the U.S. which has 470k+ per year and holy fuck that's a depressing statement.
Maybe we should embrace hypersexualization in Western media, because apparently it helps. Maybe our "rape culture" has to do with the prudish nature in which our religions view sex as evil. Or something. I dunno. I'm sad now.
You're fucking kidding me with this, right? This is a joke argument? "It's not fan service if *all* of the art is sexy, but it's also satire and doesn't count"?
It's because they count it differently
Cracking Japan’s Systemic Sexual Abuse Culture – Northeastern University Political Review
www.nupoliticalreview.com
Like, shit dude, the Act Age mangaka rode around town on a bike groping middle school girls like an over the top parody of a groper and got zero jail time if he doesn't break the law again for 3 years. Only got charged for one incident despite them knowing about 2.
The fuck do you think that does to reported rates?