Here's my opinion on the characters based on my time getting rather exited about this game:
I think they did a pretty good job. To go trough each character, Tracer I think we can all agree is pretty good in terms of how progressive she is. I wouldn't at all consider her sexualised. Sure she does the whole hip-jut thing that seems all too common in female presentation these days (and it will be back in this post), but I think she's pretty neat.
Pharrah has the whole Samus Aran chest thing going on and I'm digging it(note: I'm looking forward to playing her most. Zone of the Enders missile barrage yo). And people thought Samus was a man until Ninty told us. Again, pretty great, even more against stereotypes than Tracer, and Tracer's pretty great.
Symettra is an interesting one, since we can't deny that she's got the sexy going on(Yes, the hip jut is back, WITH A VENGANCE). Thing is, it isn't unfitting with her character, to the point where I'd have trouble believing her as a character if she DIDN'T do the sexiness. Her character is all about elegance and finesse, and a key element of elegance and finesse is CURVES. It would be weird for someone that knows the importance of curves in design not to show of her own. So yeah, I like it.
Mercy probably rang a few alarm bells for those inclined to worry about these things at first glance, but give it a bit of a thaught and she actually isn't bad. People assume that a woman wearing a skinsuit immediately means that the character is sexualised, but here's a little experiment: mentally switch her gender in your head. Rid he rof the boobs and maybe give some bulge down there. It's actually not that bad. Point being she isn't wearing anything that a man wouldn't wear, so I would personally put the fact that it's sexy down to the personal preferences of your average observer(myself included). The high heels are a bit much though. She poses herself evocatively, but I think that's more to do with the Angel imagery than sexuality. Angels have presence, they're GOD'S BEINGS ON EARTH, so the semantic field of Angels she has going kind of means she has to ham it up a bit. Tell a guy to give himself presence and he's probably push his chest and crotch forward as well.
Widowmaker, yeah. I'm not denying this one. I defended skinsuits before though, so to explain the specific problem here, and the difference between Widow's an Mercy's, it's the highlight in the centre. The white line that focuses attention on the well-defined cleavage. That and the defined line between the legs and hips, while also highlighting the inner thighs. Widow's skinsuit is a VERY different story to Mercy's, and is indeed sexualised. Coupled with the return of the hip-jut WITH THE FORCE OF A THOUSAND SUNS, and a personality which has no bearing on her actions makes her pretty heavily sexualised. But you know what, why not have one, eh? I mean, I'd suggest they make her personality better suit the actions she performs, but I'm not opposed to having your one sexualised character. And hell, anyone here think of a way to have a spider-woman without making I sexual? Thanks to beauty's like Quelaag and Arachne, Spider-Women are inherently sexual, so I guess it's just conforming to some good old tropes. And tropes aren't bad, you know? There for fun.
So there's my analysis, for what it's worth. They've done a pretty good job as far as I'm concerned. Some work in places could make things a little better but equality has no perfect state, we'll never be exactly equal or we'd end up the masked, cloaked, monk-bricks.Not bad. Keep up the good work Blizzard.
