Blizzard "Trying Not to Oversexualize" Female Overwatch Characters
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Lil devils x said:As a hobby artist, I have sold quite a bit of art over the years even though it is just a hobby of mine, and I can tell you that someone telling me they do not like some of my art because of how it makes them feel is fine. What is not fine is if my art makes some athletic perfectly healthy and fit girl think she is fat because she is muscular due to how women are portrayed. I actually HAVE made women in paintings that were unfortunately showing women in unrealistic standards and had someone tell me that is what I did. In fact, that is why I am much more aware about these things now when viewing them. THEY WERE RIGHT.Adam Lester said:
Women and girls for too long have been told they are fat, when they actually have hardly ANY body fat. They are told they are fat when they are muscular and it has been taken far too far over the years in regards to media portrayal of women. Now we do have to make a conscious effort to not reinforce these harmful expectations of women and girls and instead promote healthier images. The idea that a " fit" woman is not attractive, or is " big" is a problem that has to be addressed in our media and unless we stop promoting unhealthy images and expectations on women.
That isn't fat, that is what a super hero should look like.
The way they make women super heroes, it would be like making this guy the ideal "superhero"
I am not seeing them withhold the muscles on the male super heroes, only on the females.
So...much...shit to quote...I'm sorry, but I don't have the patience to figure out how to get to the guts of what I want to address. For that I apologize.
On the same side of the coin, both genders are portrayed much more realistically (with the exception of curve-hugging spandex that manages not to leave their adversaries with a face full of moose knuckle/camel toes and Schumacher brand nipples) than they have in the past. I mean, you want to talk about leaps and bounds...ye gods, I remember a time and a place where Rob Liefeld wasn't a joke. The nineties were a bad time for us all. Speaking of which, I was going to crack a joke when you mentioned that someone pointed out your characters were drawn unrealistically by exclaiming "Gasp! Liefeld? Is that you?" But you also mentioned CHANGING YOUR ART STYLE. I'd give a year of my life for Liefeld to change his art style so it doesn't give me whiplash.
On an off-hand note...this is a serious plug. You might enjoy this if you're looking to get away from the physical norm of comic book heroines. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/02-Glory-23-Ross-Campbell-r1.jpg
Historically, humans have always had expectations about what an ideal man/woman should look like. Hence all the Greek statues. They used to put them in public gyms for the purpose of saying "If you don't look like this, you're not a man". I'm paraphrasing at best, of course. Women visited the gyms and had statues staring them down, too.
And video games drew from other forms of media, specifically (later on, at least) animation. And those guys had books dedicated to showing physical characteristics that one should give their characters.
But what I was trying to get at with my statement, or maybe I'm just coming back and expanding on it with a little more thought is that it seems to me that these days a lot of the nay-sayers are more obsessed with the sexual nature of a character than the artist. And in some cases those people could have a point but it's gotten out of control, I think we can all admit to that.
Let's compare everyone's reaction to Lara Croft in the 90s' to Bayonetta in 2014, going off my personal experience.
Lara: Despite being a mobile blow-up doll with daisy dukes and desert eagles in FMVs and a horrifying origami monstrosity come to life during gameplay sequences, was silently masturbated over by teenage boys who still managed to make it through the games. These same teenagers placed her on the level of Samus because it made them look less like a weirdo talking about a fictional sex object amongst their friends guilty of the same feeling (puberty's a hell of a thing). Gameplay was called "revolutionary" for some weird-ass reason or another and my Aunt and her now-wife hailed her as the digital equivalent of Linda Carter, actually buying a PS1 just to play Tomb Raider.
Bayonetta: Called a "Fuck puppet" by a feminist video game pundit while others hotly debate over weather or not she's exploitative or empowering. People in their FUCKING TWENTIES are appalled at a sexually intimidating character of fiction as old people laugh and call us wimps behind our backs and I rub my temples, realizing we are by far the worst generation. Game reviewers seemingly obsess over a sexually intimidating character of fiction like a pack of weeaboos given a Rei Ayanami body pillow and talk in circles about this topic for many an article. (
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I do not view they are really portraying both genders equally, as in this game, for example, they amply provided men with muscles that are so lacking in the female avatars.Adam Lester said:Lil devils x said:As a hobby artist, I have sold quite a bit of art over the years even though it is just a hobby of mine, and I can tell you that someone telling me they do not like some of my art because of how it makes them feel is fine. What is not fine is if my art makes some athletic perfectly healthy and fit girl think she is fat because she is muscular due to how women are portrayed. I actually HAVE made women in paintings that were unfortunately showing women in unrealistic standards and had someone tell me that is what I did. In fact, that is why I am much more aware about these things now when viewing them. THEY WERE RIGHT.Adam Lester said:
Women and girls for too long have been told they are fat, when they actually have hardly ANY body fat. They are told they are fat when they are muscular and it has been taken far too far over the years in regards to media portrayal of women. Now we do have to make a conscious effort to not reinforce these harmful expectations of women and girls and instead promote healthier images. The idea that a " fit" woman is not attractive, or is " big" is a problem that has to be addressed in our media and unless we stop promoting unhealthy images and expectations on women.
That isn't fat, that is what a super hero should look like.
The way they make women super heroes, it would be like making this guy the ideal "superhero"
I am not seeing them withhold the muscles on the male super heroes, only on the females.
So...much...shit to quote...I'm sorry, but I don't have the patience to figure out how to get to the guts of what I want to address. For that I apologize.
On the same side of the coin, both genders are portrayed much more realistically (with the exception of curve-hugging spandex that manages not to leave their adversaries with a face full of moose knuckle/camel toes and Schumacher brand nipples) than they have in the past. I mean, you want to talk about leaps and bounds...ye gods, I remember a time and a place where Rob Liefeld wasn't a joke. The nineties were a bad time for us all. Speaking of which, I was going to crack a joke when you mentioned that someone pointed out your characters were drawn unrealistically by exclaiming "Gasp! Liefeld? Is that you?" But you also mentioned CHANGING YOUR ART STYLE. I'd give a year of my life for Liefeld to change his art style so it doesn't give me whiplash.
On an off-hand note...this is a serious plug. You might enjoy this if you're looking to get away from the physical norm of comic book heroines. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/02-Glory-23-Ross-Campbell-r1.jpg
Historically, humans have always had expectations about what an ideal man/woman should look like. Hence all the Greek statues. They used to put them in public gyms for the purpose of saying "If you don't look like this, you're not a man". I'm paraphrasing at best, of course. Women visited the gyms and had statues staring them down, too.
And video games drew from other forms of media, specifically (later on, at least) animation. And those guys had books dedicated to showing physical characteristics that one should give their characters.
But what I was trying to get at with my statement, or maybe I'm just coming back and expanding on it with a little more thought is that it seems to me that these days a lot of the nay-sayers are more obsessed with the sexual nature of a character than the artist. And in some cases those people could have a point but it's gotten out of control, I think we can all admit to that.
Let's compare everyone's reaction to Lara Croft in the 90s' to Bayonetta in 2014, going off my personal experience.
Lara: Despite being a mobile blow-up doll with daisy dukes and desert eagles in FMVs and a horrifying origami monstrosity come to life during gameplay sequences, was silently masturbated over by teenage boys who still managed to make it through the games. These same teenagers placed her on the level of Samus because it made them look less like a weirdo talking about a fictional sex object amongst their friends guilty of the same feeling (puberty's a hell of a thing). Gameplay was called "revolutionary" for some weird-ass reason or another and my Aunt and her now-wife hailed her as the digital equivalent of Linda Carter, actually buying a PS1 just to play Tomb Raider.
Bayonetta: Called a "Fuck puppet" by a feminist video game pundit while others hotly debate over weather or not she's exploitative or empowering. People in their FUCKING TWENTIES are appalled at a sexually intimidating character of fiction as old people laugh and call us wimps behind our backs and I rub my temples, realizing we are by far the worst generation. Game reviewers seemingly obsess over a sexually intimidating character of fiction like a pack of weeaboos given a Rei Ayanami body pillow and talk in circles about this topic for many an article. (
Over the years there have been quite a few comics portraying muscular women:
http://www.comicvine.com/profile/comicboy12/lists/muscle-girls/29854/
However, there is usually much to be desired in the character scripting and costuming.
Now when looking at Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, you have to look at a variety of aspects of her character. Her costuming of shorts and shirt is ordinary every day attire, something that girls actually frequently wear themselves, something girls actually can relate to. There is nothing extraordinary or overtly sexual about her costuming, I own and have worn similar clothing as do most women and girls I know. The only thing sexual I think about her clothing is maybe the push up bra she appears to be wearing that disappeared over time along with her ever disappearing boobs. In order for that to happen to me, I would have to have breast reduction surgery. Having breasts does not turn you into a blow up doll, as it is not all that uncommon for a girl to be a 34dd, as that is my size as well, and I do not consider myself or other women my size to be considered to look like a blow up doll. From playing the old Tomb Raider, I do not recall Lara saying anything that could be considered sexual, nor do I recall her being portrayed in overly sexual poses. It is okay to be feminine, it is okay to have breasts. Women should be proud of being women and appreciate the female form. We need to have an actual female form in the games though to appreciate that, and not some odd insect like legs attached to what they think a female should look like. It is one thing to actually have real female athletic forms in top form to aspire to, it is another to remove the human parts entirely and create " ideas" of them that do not accurately represent what it means to be female at all.
In regards to Bayonetta, I never really played Bayonetta, as it had a "Dante's Inferno" feel to it from what I saw and I was not interested in it enough to actually want to play it, so I could not comment on Bayonetta's character to make an assessment on that.
I did personally stop drawing women as overly slender, and instead working more on more accurate proportions because I do think that is important to reflect the reality of beauty of the actual human form, rather than the "idea" that something other than the actual human form would be an improvement. I instead now look at being able to replicate the actual human form is only trying to mimic perfection. I see the human body as the ultimate work of art, so to do it justice, we should at least make it look like one. As a child that was smaller than most, I was always considered "under weight", and the way they portray women in these games makes them look even more anorexic than my own toothpick legs from my childhood. I do believe as an artists I do have a responsibility to produce art that is beneficial rather than harmful to society and if that art is somehow responsible for giving girls a poor self image, I feel it is also my responsibility to assess what I am doing and reconsider the consequences of my actions upon others. I personally chose to make a change for that reason. I would rather my art be beneficial and inspiring and I feel I fail to do that if I am participating in a social construct that the female human form in all it's beauty is somehow faulty and needs to be altered to be considered such.
Even when looking at what people actually consider to be " the ideal woman":
http://www.kiss107.com/onair/jare-43178/the-ideal-woman-according-to-women-11705876
It still looks nothing like these characters. It still looks like a woman. What I would like to see is the ability for women in games to be able to play different body types, but have them actual body types of other women, and not this weird mutant version of women. I feel it is the portrayal of women that has gotten out of control recently more so than those wanting to see actual women in games, and as a gamer I also feel pressured by other gamers to not speak up on an issue that I feel needs to be addressed due to the stigma being placed on gamers who want to see these things changed in their games. Stigmatizing those who they see as rocking the boat because they want to see this content change in gaming in an attempt to silence dissent with the current role of women in games also harms the ability for developers to receive and review the feedback they need to better understand what players want from the characters they play. I see the stigmatizing of those speaking out about these issues as tainting the well in an attempt to make their dissenting opinions to be held with less regard. When it becomes viewed as making much ado about nothing for women to ask for the portrayal of women in games to actually be based on actual forms of women it appears that it is not the women asking for women to be women in games is the problem here, instead it is those who think that is not a valid concern.
Touché, but surely you get my point: games are fictional works of escapism, just like theatre, movies and comic books. Exaggeration and artistic license are integral to the medium.Lil devils x said:
Both men and women are exaggerated to physically impossible degrees in games - that's not intended to make people feel bad about themselves, it plays to visually-powerful, instantly recognisable archetypes of character design. In a more everyday game setting you'd expect realistically-proportioned people, sure. But in a very obviously stylised game like Overwatch? Don't expect subtlety or realism. It serves an in-game purpose too: each character has to be recognisable in a split-second combat situation, so they need exaggerated, unique silhouettes.
The problem of course with that is that the women are not being made powerful. They made them about as powerful asBatou667 said:
I was a petite gymnast, I should not be able to kick my characters ass. There is something wrong with their " heroes" if the girls playing them can beat them up.
No, i compared the way women look in fighting gear to the third picture. since you know armor is fighting gear.Lil devils x said:
ANd yes, your boobs do work like that - bras exist for a reason.
Why? Why does a female hero have to be a perfect representation of female athlete? and why does that only apply to female heroes?
Military gear is designed not ti get in the way when in combat. and yes, standard pants and shirt properly used is pretty good at it and is cheap to produce. not to mention that female soldiers actually are trying to change that to make special fit clothes just for them. Oh and plenty of clothing reveals seperate boobs, maybe you should look at more real women.loa said:
NO OUR BOOBS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT. You see, our bras are soft, they squish our boobs not mold them like a cupcake pan. The shape of her boobs in a skin tight outfit do not look like that. Our bra and our boobs BOTH squish in skin tight suits. EVEN if she had breast implants, they would not be that shape in form fitting suits, if they did look like that, she would have grounds to sue.Strazdas said:
Not like this:
Some of the women above even have larger breasts than she does, yet hers are stiff like plastic, not squishy like actual boobs.
The reason why our female Heroes should be powerful is so they can kick ass too. When the actual girls playing the characters can kick their characters ass, the characters they are playing are not what anyone would consider to be " heroes".
Any one person's personal experience is not a good indicator of everyone's attitude. And, seriously, why would you expect it to be? The 90's were 20 years ago; were you doing the same things then as you are now? For example: were you visiting gaming websites and spending time on their forums? I know I wasn't, despite the fact that I was as much a gamer than as I am now.Adam Lester said:
I dunno, I don't think the female characters are portrayed as quite that puny ad pathetic. They're sexualised, sure, and correspondingly they have idealised female proportions, which means big boobs, tiny waist, and so on. But is that the same as them being weak and useless? Within the context of this very colourful and stylised game, they don't look too out of place, and their combat abilities seem on par with the male characters.The problem of course with that is that the women are not being made powerful. They made them about as powerful as
We want POWERFUL women, and we get arms and legs that look weak instead. We want super heroes that feel powerful too.
I was a petite gymnast, I should not be able to kick my characters ass. There is something wrong with their " heroes" if the girls playing them can beat them up.
But, I think I see your point. You're saying you want some female characters who don't use solely stereotypical female indicators of coolness/ability/presige and instead take some of the characteristics usually reserved for males, like being muscular, or high tech, or grimdark, or whatever. And yeah, that's something I could get on board with. Variety is good and it could make for a more interesting set of characters. The developers are clearly playing it safe here by using a female character template that has been proven to be popular.
[Edit] Just to follow up, I don't find the argument from realism to be a particularly good one, at least in the context of video games, which are *meant* to be exciting, stylised, and frequently over the top. Very few people would prefer a female character who was an accurate reproduction of those women in wetsuits you posted - they look shapeless and frumpy. Remember the old Mortal Kombat games where the fighters were digitised footage of real actors? They looked pretty abysmal: the women looked stumpy and not very feminine, and the men looked ridiculously campy and lacking muscle mass. Don't get me wrong, they used actors who would certainly turn heads if they walked down the street, but in the context of bombastic action and fireballs they looked mundane. Street Fighter 2, with its exaggerated drawnharacters, had a much more pleasing and consistent aesthetic.
Ye gods, I wish there was a way to just tag people I'm responding to. Or figure out this quote thingamabob.Lil devils x said:I do not view they are really portraying both genders equally, as in this game, for example, they amply provided men with muscles that are so lacking in the female avatars.Adam Lester said:Lil devils x said:As a hobby artist, I have sold quite a bit of art over the years even though it is just a hobby of mine, and I can tell you that someone telling me they do not like some of my art because of how it makes them feel is fine. What is not fine is if my art makes some athletic perfectly healthy and fit girl think she is fat because she is muscular due to how women are portrayed. I actually HAVE made women in paintings that were unfortunately showing women in unrealistic standards and had someone tell me that is what I did. In fact, that is why I am much more aware about these things now when viewing them. THEY WERE RIGHT.Adam Lester said:
Women and girls for too long have been told they are fat, when they actually have hardly ANY body fat. They are told they are fat when they are muscular and it has been taken far too far over the years in regards to media portrayal of women. Now we do have to make a conscious effort to not reinforce these harmful expectations of women and girls and instead promote healthier images. The idea that a " fit" woman is not attractive, or is " big" is a problem that has to be addressed in our media and unless we stop promoting unhealthy images and expectations on women.
That isn't fat, that is what a super hero should look like.
The way they make women super heroes, it would be like making this guy the ideal "superhero"
I am not seeing them withhold the muscles on the male super heroes, only on the females.
So...much...shit to quote...I'm sorry, but I don't have the patience to figure out how to get to the guts of what I want to address. For that I apologize.
On the same side of the coin, both genders are portrayed much more realistically (with the exception of curve-hugging spandex that manages not to leave their adversaries with a face full of moose knuckle/camel toes and Schumacher brand nipples) than they have in the past. I mean, you want to talk about leaps and bounds...ye gods, I remember a time and a place where Rob Liefeld wasn't a joke. The nineties were a bad time for us all. Speaking of which, I was going to crack a joke when you mentioned that someone pointed out your characters were drawn unrealistically by exclaiming "Gasp! Liefeld? Is that you?" But you also mentioned CHANGING YOUR ART STYLE. I'd give a year of my life for Liefeld to change his art style so it doesn't give me whiplash.
On an off-hand note...this is a serious plug. You might enjoy this if you're looking to get away from the physical norm of comic book heroines. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/02-Glory-23-Ross-Campbell-r1.jpg
Historically, humans have always had expectations about what an ideal man/woman should look like. Hence all the Greek statues. They used to put them in public gyms for the purpose of saying "If you don't look like this, you're not a man". I'm paraphrasing at best, of course. Women visited the gyms and had statues staring them down, too.
And video games drew from other forms of media, specifically (later on, at least) animation. And those guys had books dedicated to showing physical characteristics that one should give their characters.
But what I was trying to get at with my statement, or maybe I'm just coming back and expanding on it with a little more thought is that it seems to me that these days a lot of the nay-sayers are more obsessed with the sexual nature of a character than the artist. And in some cases those people could have a point but it's gotten out of control, I think we can all admit to that.
Let's compare everyone's reaction to Lara Croft in the 90s' to Bayonetta in 2014, going off my personal experience.
Lara: Despite being a mobile blow-up doll with daisy dukes and desert eagles in FMVs and a horrifying origami monstrosity come to life during gameplay sequences, was silently masturbated over by teenage boys who still managed to make it through the games. These same teenagers placed her on the level of Samus because it made them look less like a weirdo talking about a fictional sex object amongst their friends guilty of the same feeling (puberty's a hell of a thing). Gameplay was called "revolutionary" for some weird-ass reason or another and my Aunt and her now-wife hailed her as the digital equivalent of Linda Carter, actually buying a PS1 just to play Tomb Raider.
Bayonetta: Called a "Fuck puppet" by a feminist video game pundit while others hotly debate over weather or not she's exploitative or empowering. People in their FUCKING TWENTIES are appalled at a sexually intimidating character of fiction as old people laugh and call us wimps behind our backs and I rub my temples, realizing we are by far the worst generation. Game reviewers seemingly obsess over a sexually intimidating character of fiction like a pack of weeaboos given a Rei Ayanami body pillow and talk in circles about this topic for many an article. (
Over the years there have been quite a few comics portraying muscular women:
http://www.comicvine.com/profile/comicboy12/lists/muscle-girls/29854/
However, there is usually much to be desired in the character scripting and costuming.
Now when looking at Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, you have to look at a variety of aspects of her character. Her costuming of shorts and shirt is ordinary every day attire, something that girls actually frequently wear themselves, something girls actually can relate to. There is nothing extraordinary or overtly sexual about her costuming, I own and have worn similar clothing as do most women and girls I know. The only thing sexual I think about her clothing is maybe the push up bra she appears to be wearing that disappeared over time along with her ever disappearing boobs. In order for that to happen to me, I would have to have breast reduction surgery. Having breasts does not turn you into a blow up doll, as it is not all that uncommon for a girl to be a 34dd, as that is my size as well, and I do not consider myself or other women my size to be considered to look like a blow up doll. From playing the old Tomb Raider, I do not recall Lara saying anything that could be considered sexual, nor do I recall her being portrayed in overly sexual poses. It is okay to be feminine, it is okay to have breasts. Women should be proud of being women and appreciate the female form. We need to have an actual female form in the games though to appreciate that, and not some odd insect like legs attached to what they think a female should look like. It is one thing to actually have real female athletic forms in top form to aspire to, it is another to remove the human parts entirely and create " ideas" of them that do not accurately represent what it means to be female at all.
In regards to Bayonetta, I never really played Bayonetta, as it had a "Dante's Inferno" feel to it from what I saw and I was not interested in it enough to actually want to play it, so I could not comment on Bayonetta's character to make an assessment on that.
I did personally stop drawing women as overly slender, and instead working more on more accurate proportions because I do think that is important to reflect the reality of beauty of the actual human form, rather than the "idea" that something other than the actual human form would be an improvement. I instead now look at being able to replicate the actual human form is only trying to mimic perfection. I see the human body as the ultimate work of art, so to do it justice, we should at least make it look like one. As a child that was smaller than most, I was always considered "under weight", and the way they portray women in these games makes them look even more anorexic than my own toothpick legs from my childhood. I do believe as an artists I do have a responsibility to produce art that is beneficial rather than harmful to society and if that art is somehow responsible for giving girls a poor self image, I feel it is also my responsibility to assess what I am doing and reconsider the consequences of my actions upon others. I personally chose to make a change for that reason. I would rather my art be beneficial and inspiring and I feel I fail to do that if I am participating in a social construct that the female human form in all it's beauty is somehow faulty and needs to be altered to be considered such.
Even when looking at what people actually consider to be " the ideal woman":
http://www.kiss107.com/onair/jare-43178/the-ideal-woman-according-to-women-11705876
It still looks nothing like these characters. It still looks like a woman. What I would like to see is the ability for women in games to be able to play different body types, but have them actual body types of other women, and not this weird mutant version of women. I feel it is the portrayal of women that has gotten out of control recently more so than those wanting to see actual women in games, and as a gamer I also feel pressured by other gamers to not speak up on an issue that I feel needs to be addressed due to the stigma being placed on gamers who want to see these things changed in their games. Stigmatizing those who they see as rocking the boat because they want to see this content change in gaming in an attempt to silence dissent with the current role of women in games also harms the ability for developers to receive and review the feedback they need to better understand what players want from the characters they play. I see the stigmatizing of those speaking out about these issues as tainting the well in an attempt to make their dissenting opinions to be held with less regard. When it becomes viewed as making much ado about nothing for women to ask for the portrayal of women in games to actually be based on actual forms of women it appears that it is not the women asking for women to be women in games is the problem here, instead it is those who think that is not a valid concern.
I both understand and sympathize with the concern, but the biggest issue we have in the community is that the loudest and most obnoxious ones are the individuals often "representing" us on both sides of the spectrum. The best examples of this are obviously Gamergaters and the AntiGamergaters.
If you look at extreme examples of both sides of this debate, they reek of melodrama and vitriol and continue to feed off of one another. At their best, both sides can only remain civil within an echo chamber. Outside of that, the trolls and squealing idiots come breaking through to the front and rattle their sabers while the sane ones, instead of ignoring it, jump into the fray and follow suit. Because both sides are so twitchy and already on the offense due to all of the crazies everyone has to endure...anyone can only remain civil for so long while getting talked over, ad homenimed to the point of numbness and subjected to accusations. And by the time anyone with a legitimate gripe shows up, they're already being lumped in with the misogynists, MRAs', feminazis or SJWs'.
Trust me when I say I'm on your side. I've got absolutely nothing against seeing a more diverse array of characters in video games as well as comic books. It's pretty clear that the Western market is pretty much hemorrhaging with cliche' and by-the-numbers bullshit and if the right people took the wheel, games could get pretty interesting pretty fast. But I want those games to be made honestly by people with a legitimate care for making them-I would much rather it be sincere as opposed to forced or altering a character just to shut people up.
I'd much rather have another Nathan Drake roll off the assembly line than see COD trying to pander to people by lazily hucking in one gay/female/transgender character that just chills in the background while quick-to-praise crowd treats it like the biggest civil rights move in years. For an example to that, I turn you to the "Making Thor a woman" thing.
*It might be worth mention I have no problem with Lady Thor past the heaps of half-assed praise given to them by people that had zero interest in comics just for gender swapping a character and talking about Marvel like a baby that had taken its first steps...while ignoring the fact that this was nothing new seeing as how Thor was a woman in the "Earth X" line a good decade ago and Loki was a woman through a majority of Civil War. Not to mention they were tackling civil rights issues back in the 60s' and also had the first handicapped super hero to the best of my knowledge.
And there's no simple answer for any of this, I mean I sure as hell don't have one. I'm just rambling at this point.
I am not actually seeing that they have large breasts nor do I see large breasts to be a problem considering I have LARGER breasts and a small waist myself. What I do consider absurd is the amount of muscle on these characters, and what their limbs are physically capable of. If you do not think there is a problem with how the women are built, imagine for a second how much damage the male characters would inflict with the same amount of muscle. Picture Widowmaker's arms (the female range character)and chest muscle( not her small boobs) on Hanzo (The male range character) and he would then look like:Batou667 said:I dunno, I don't think the female characters are portrayed as quite that puny ad pathetic. They're sexualised, sure, and correspondingly they have idealised female proportions, which means big boobs, tiny waist, and so on. But is that the same as them being weak and useless? Within the context of this very colourful and stylised game, they don't look too out of place, and their combat abilities seem on par with the male characters.The problem of course with that is that the women are not being made powerful. They made them about as powerful as
We want POWERFUL women, and we get arms and legs that look weak instead. We want super heroes that feel powerful too.
I was a petite gymnast, I should not be able to kick my characters ass. There is something wrong with their " heroes" if the girls playing them can beat them up.
But, I think I see your point. You're saying you want some female characters who don't use solely stereotypical female indicators of coolness/ability/presige and instead take some of the characteristics usually reserved for males, like being muscular, or high tech, or grimdark, or whatever. And yeah, that's something I could get on board with. Variety is good and it could make for a more interesting set of characters. The developers are clearly playing it safe here by using a female character template that has been proven to be popular.
[Edit] Just to follow up, I don't find the argument from realism to be a particularly good one, at least in the context of video games, which are *meant* to be exciting, stylised, and frequently over the top. Very few people would prefer a female character who was an accurate reproduction of those women in wetsuits you posted - they look shapeless and frumpy. Remember the old Mortal Kombat games where the fighters were digitised footage of real actors? They looked pretty abysmal: the women looked stumpy and not very feminine, and the men looked ridiculously campy and lacking muscle mass. Don't get me wrong, they used actors who would certainly turn heads if they walked down the street, but in the context of bombastic action and fireballs they looked mundane. Street Fighter 2, with its exaggerated drawnharacters, had a much more pleasing and consistent aesthetic.
Of course they are going to be stylized, but that doesn't mean they should be shown as weak ( lacking muscle tone) If they are going to make the guys muscular, the women could use a bit too. I am not saying turn them into she hulks.. I am saying they should at least have the muscle tone of REAL high school girls. If the high school boys could beat up their characters, I doubt they would be impressed by them either. You can find more muscles on High school cheerleaders, gymnasts, and the volleyball team than you do in this game, the same cannot be said for the male characters, that is the problem.
and you know that the outfit in the picture is not soft how exactly? also its funny since if you take your 3rd picture and instead make it from the side and not the front the boob part looks very close to the angel character or w/e it is.Lil devils x said:NO OUR BOOBS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT. You see, our bras are soft, they squish our boobs not mold them like a cupcake pan. The shape of her boobs in a skin tight outfit do not look like that. Our bra and our boobs BOTH squish in skin tight suits. EVEN if she had breast implants, they would not be that shape in form fitting suits, if they did look like that, she would have grounds to sue.
Not like this:
Some of the women above even have larger breasts than she does, yet hers are stiff like plastic, not squishy like actual boobs.
The reason why our female Heroes should be powerful is so they can kick ass too. When the actual girls playing the characters can kick their characters ass, the characters they are playing are not what anyone would consider to be " heroes".
ANd what exactly prevents female heroes that arent 100% real representations to kick ass? last time i checked it was a game where developers set rules who kicked ass, not concept art.
as far as kicking ass goes, im sure your aware that muscle tones in females are significantly less external lean muscle due to different hormones in female bodies (particularly those related to reproduction). This does not mean females are weaker though. if you look up female weight lifter champions in normal clothes youd be hard pressed to differentiate it from a random gal on the street in terms of strength. and yet they win medals for their strengh. The reason males are "hulks" and females arent are grounded in reality - the muscles are for most part pretty much invisible. those big muscle guys like Swartzneger actually has to inject hormones to look like that and it does not really make him stronger than weight lifters, just appear to be so, which is what he was going for anyway (body culturist and not a sport lifter) before going to movies.
So yes, the muscle amount in those women are perfectly fine to kick your ass and mine.
Since i never claimed it, what are you on about?loa said:
May be enough to kick yours, but not mine nor most High school girls. I was captain of my gymnastics team, I am FULLY aware of how our muscles appear in clothing.Strazdas said:and you know that the outfit in the picture is not soft how exactly? also its funny since if you take your 3rd picture and instead make it from the side and not the front the boob part looks very close to the angel character or w/e it is.Lil devils x said:NO OUR BOOBS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT. You see, our bras are soft, they squish our boobs not mold them like a cupcake pan. The shape of her boobs in a skin tight outfit do not look like that. Our bra and our boobs BOTH squish in skin tight suits. EVEN if she had breast implants, they would not be that shape in form fitting suits, if they did look like that, she would have grounds to sue.
Not like this:
Some of the women above even have larger breasts than she does, yet hers are stiff like plastic, not squishy like actual boobs.
The reason why our female Heroes should be powerful is so they can kick ass too. When the actual girls playing the characters can kick their characters ass, the characters they are playing are not what anyone would consider to be " heroes".
ANd what exactly prevents female heroes that arent 100% real representations to kick ass? last time i checked it was a game where developers set rules who kicked ass, not concept art.
as far as kicking ass goes, im sure your aware that muscle tones in females are significantly less external lean muscle due to different hormones in female bodies (particularly those related to reproduction). This does not mean females are weaker though. if you look up female weight lifter champions in normal clothes youd be hard pressed to differentiate it from a random gal on the street in terms of strength. and yet they win medals for their strengh. The reason males are "hulks" and females arent are grounded in reality - the muscles are for most part pretty much invisible. those big muscle guys like Swartzneger actually has to inject hormones to look like that and it does not really make him stronger than weight lifters, just appear to be so, which is what he was going for anyway (body culturist and not a sport lifter) before going to movies.
So yes, the muscle amount in those women are perfectly fine to kick your ass and mine.
Since i never claimed it, what are you on about?loa said:
I really do love you how keep telling me about "us women". Women do not have to be hulks to have muscle. No, the lack of muscle amount on these women is not enough to do much of anything. LOL
didnt knew that high school girls in US highschools are now all athletes. good on them i guess. Well if you are fully aware how muscles appear, then how come you are arguing for more muscles when visibility of said muscles are extremely minimal?Lil devils x said:
Non sequitur.
Muscle mass =/= hero.
The muscles are not minimal to other women looking at them. Of course guys muscles are huge, but it isn't like ours are nonexistent.. except on these characters. WOmen compare woment o other women, not to men's muscles. Muscle mass does not mean hero however having strong legs means you can run fast, having strong arms means you can hold that GIANT GUN steady. Ever shoot anything stronger than a glock 9? Most guns have a kick, and the more firepower they have the more kick they have. It takes some serious strength and digging in to accurately fire weapons when you are light weight. Rifles and shot guns knock me off balance and make me black and blue. Even Shooting a glock 40 takes both hands and muscles to hold steady enough to hit your target due to the kick.Strazdas said:
Muscles =/= hero, however, they are needed if you want to be able to run, jump kick, shoot or fight. If that is what the hero is expected to do, the hero should at least have the minimum muscles required to do so. UGH tracers legs look so wimpy. I had SUPER skinny toothpick legs as a kid, and I know how much you twist your ankles and get hurt due to them. Gymnastics strengthened them for me, and without gymnastics I would not be able to walk without twisting my ankles every week even now. Her legs look so weak it makes me sad and reminds me why I worked so hard to strengthen mine. The truth is when your legs are that skinny, you get injured a lot, it doesn't make you tough, it makes you weak.
*Noms on popcorn*
Okay okay, guess I should throw my hat into the ring.
Tracer - maybe throw a little more meat on the legs.
Symmetra - Loose the leg windows and I think the design is good(though girls, please inform me of how you'd run in such a dress cause I have no idea)
Mercy - Is this skintight clothing or future plastic armor? I can't tell but I've seen the design of winged girl before so I kinda like this one.
Pharah - I honestly thought this was a guy as I stumbled across images of the character. Closer look at the face and legs tell otherwise.
Widowmaker - Well...., I suppose there has to be one huh? Really I would have preferred more armor, like from Firefall or Starcraft. Though those are probably still 'sexist' too. Maybe pull ideas from Xcom? Just dunno, throw some more armor on her. Backstory makes her even worse combined with her design. Probably won't be changed but is kinda the black eye of their 'not oversexualized' claim.
I don't see why they had to make that claim anyway. Probably just for more clicks, this isn't breaking the mold. I mean they were going to get complaints anyway but given the mood in video games as of late, I guess they felt the need say this.
Side note; Err, we're counting the robot as a 'guy'? Really? I mean I haven't heard the things voice yet but wouldn't it be funny if it spoke 'kawaii' or something. This is something that just struck me as odd, especially with Bastion who doesn't look humanoid enough for me to click with it. Eh, maybe it's like a "Wall-E" like thing or something.
Okay okay, guess I should throw my hat into the ring.
Tracer - maybe throw a little more meat on the legs.
Symmetra - Loose the leg windows and I think the design is good(though girls, please inform me of how you'd run in such a dress cause I have no idea)
Mercy - Is this skintight clothing or future plastic armor? I can't tell but I've seen the design of winged girl before so I kinda like this one.
Pharah - I honestly thought this was a guy as I stumbled across images of the character. Closer look at the face and legs tell otherwise.
Widowmaker - Well...., I suppose there has to be one huh? Really I would have preferred more armor, like from Firefall or Starcraft. Though those are probably still 'sexist' too. Maybe pull ideas from Xcom? Just dunno, throw some more armor on her. Backstory makes her even worse combined with her design. Probably won't be changed but is kinda the black eye of their 'not oversexualized' claim.
I don't see why they had to make that claim anyway. Probably just for more clicks, this isn't breaking the mold. I mean they were going to get complaints anyway but given the mood in video games as of late, I guess they felt the need say this.
Side note; Err, we're counting the robot as a 'guy'? Really? I mean I haven't heard the things voice yet but wouldn't it be funny if it spoke 'kawaii' or something. This is something that just struck me as odd, especially with Bastion who doesn't look humanoid enough for me to click with it. Eh, maybe it's like a "Wall-E" like thing or something.
Meh. I don't actually see the outrage here.
Games don't have to require sexy art styles to be good...but by the same token, neither should sexy art styles be forbidden just to please some moralizing, condescending , easily-offended squawking heads.
Games don't have to require sexy art styles to be good...but by the same token, neither should sexy art styles be forbidden just to please some moralizing, condescending , easily-offended squawking heads.