draconiansundae said:
I feel that this is a little extreme. I don't understand what you think a solution to this conundrum could be. Would you prefer that Shepard was unattractive, solely because it would pander less to people's instinctive preference for symmetrical facial structure? Should I be offended that the industry assumes that people prefer their fictional characters to be attractive and insist that femshep have acne scars and buck teeth?
If you're going to use a game to fuel such an argument, there are much, much better candidates out there.
There are other games, which are more blatant in their.. hmm "exposure", but here we have a disappointing kind of... "betrayal", for lack of a better word at hand.
Shepard, female option, has, repeating myself here, already gone through two games, enjoying the same natural respect as her male counterpart, based on her merits and personality and to some degree on decades of evolution in society. What she looks like, or even her gender, never really came into question at all. This was mostly because interaction was created neutral, to fit any Shepard, but it gave a degree of strength to the characterisation.
Had a model Shepardess been there all along, that would have been that (although just as "cheesy" as the usual marketing Shep) -- a complete swap two thirds into the trilogy, however: "Why? Why not just add detail to what you have - she'd already taken on something of a life of her own."
I'll admit I kind of liked that the slider preset was kind of "homely", by no means ugly, because, sure; one can be both "badass" and young and pretty and carry three-hours-to-appy styling into battle (and even be blonde
), never said otherwise, but EVERY time in a movie/game/etc?
I am sure there was good intention here, on Mr.Silverman's part, giving the audience a feeling of participation, but the way it was done...
Some people try to turn the argument upside down, by suggesting critics of pandering to the male gaze, are themselves perpetuating a stereotype about "bimbos", but that is just hyperbole, more than bordering on an a strawman argument.
You hear people argue that it is only natural that the new marketing female Shepard looks so much younger, in a future where human lifespan has increased considerably. When asked why this doesn't seem to apply to Mark Vanderloo Shepard, they will state that people age differently. Well, that doesn't wash; Shepard is not two different people and at the end of the day, it is pure aplogism.
The real reason: Different beauty standards between the genders.
A man, who is handsome to begin with, can get away some wrinkles, a bit of stubble, a little salt and pepper at the temples - it may likely be a plus, supposedly adding an air of character, experience, sophistication, maybe a little bit of danger, but still: solid reliability.
Women seldom get to enjoy that luxury: young, pretty and fertile is the order of the day - use up and throw away. (I am exaggerating, of course, but still)
These are our base instincts in the moulding and, to some extent, tempering, of civilsation.
It's not solely "the male gaze", either, naturally. The expression: "The women want to be with him, the men want to be him", works correspondingly with the genders swapped.
I'll indulge in the same sort of hyperbole I'm accusing others of, by submitting that by making this a beauty contest at all (that is the big one) and with only a small selection of nigh identical "dollfaces" and on facebook of all places, Bioware has perpetrated a rather douchebag move, in which Shepard's merits are all forgotten and she is suddenly degraded to: "seriously dude: how hot is she?".
