Female Game Characters Photoshopped to Average American Proportions

[ServebotFrank]

I got a few issues with this. (I'm gonna get really damn offensive here so forgive me).

1. Those are the absolute wrong characters to do that to. I would concerned about Lara maintaining such a high amount of body fat when she spends most of her days doing flips, climbing mountains, and spelunking without many chances to eat. So unless Lara is just stuffing her fucking mouth with twinkies every second when we are not looking I am calling bullshit.

2. That is not average. Average is like, slim. Not skinny, thin, fit, athletic, just slim. If those body types are "average" I worry for the health of this country. Most likely this is someone attempting to feel better about their weight, much like those girls who mistake "curvy" for being 250 pounds overweight. (This is way more common than you think. Go on literally any dating site and look up "curvy" body types).

3. This kind of bullshit is the reason America has not made any progress in cutting down obesity problems. It's fine to tell women that it's totally fine to not be skinny and super athletic because it really doesn't matter. It's not okay to tell fat women that they are the "normal" body weight. Great, now you are making all of the real average women feel bad for being thin. Great, because it's not like we don't have enough problems with eating disorders.

 

[Traviltar]

"Average American body types"
Hah

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

-Snip-

Not that I don't agree with you, in fact it's much more amusing when a character has abilities that don't quite connect to the condition of his physique, but the argument of their physical appearance reflecting their prowess and capabilities came from the argument that they should be portrayed more "realistically" by making them fat Americans.

Agreed, but therein lies the issue; the premise, "female video game characters should be portrayed more 'realistically,'" is fundamentally flawed.

These characters aren't real; they are drawn together and created using several elements and inspirations from different sources. To merely judge the validity of a character's appearance based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, life style, profession, experience, timeline, etc., is nonsensical.

While I understood that the argument was made towards 'realistic' portrayals of female video characters (which let's face it, was more of an overall median than a case-by-case basis), I was voicing my opinion towards a favoring consensus that female characters should be proportioned accordingly to fit their lifestyles.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Uh, that's nice and all, but people aren't 'average' That merely describes what you get if you even out what exists.

More to the point, as a non-American, looking at a bunch of characters who are mostly also non-American, I could claim to be vaguely insulted by a standard for 'American women' being applied to people of other nationalities.

I mean, Tifa? She looks pretty Japanese. Is she skinny? Probably. But forcing the average for 'an American' onto a person like that makes no sense whatsoever.

And Lara Croft? Serioisly? She's British, but more importantly, it's pretty clear from her games that she does absurd amounts of excersise.
And guess what? I have a excersise obsessed friend in England, and she looks far more like the original, than the modified, 'more realistic' version.

This is... Dumb on so many levels.

Want more realistic women? Don't blindly apply arbitrary standards to them! If you're going to do this, use your brain, and use some actual logic! Bleh.

 

[Frankster]

This is the "average" american woman?

Jeezus and I thought I had a bit too much weight... Not anymore.
Compared to "average" americans I'm a fucking Adonis, thanks for the morale boost, it's gonna motivate me to keep hitting the gym xD


As an aside I suggest redoing this for women of other countries. I doubt the average french woman for example, with their mighty national BMI of 23 (not as good as the japs) is gonna be looking like the american version.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Remember, everyone...

Toned, fit women do not exist in this world, let alone fictional ones. I mean-

That. Would. Just. Be. Fucking. Silly. Wouldn't. It.

God damn it.

Some people. I swear. It's like they don't have access to facebook, google, or, hell, the real god damned world.

That is, of course, not to say that these women are AVERAGE, but since when the hell are Tifa, Laura Croft, and the rest supposed to be AVERAGE? Who's the last person you met that spin-kicked a fucking velociraptor in an ancient tomb or brought down an alternate universes' dystopian nightmare city/government? Was it that Starbucks barista? No? Nobody?

Oh wow! It's almost like these aren't meant to be depictions of the average real life American woman!

What a coincidence!

I mean, come on now. You must know this is a bullshit argument. You simply have to. Nobody can be this dense.

No, you know what? This is the last straw. I DEMAND that you remake all of the boys from FREE! in the image of the average American male. I fucking DEMAND it.

No! Fuck you, female tumblr community! Where is the flab!? Where are the love-handles!?

These men are not representative of the AVERAGE American male. Nevermind that they're swimmers! Nevermind that their bodies fit in line with their hobby and speaks to their dedication to the craft! Nevermind that they were designed in Japan, not the US. Nevermind that they're NOT REAL. This is problematic. It is not ok. FIX IT.

If not? I'll post nude images of myself, letting my not-over-weight-but-close gut hang out while wearing a tortured expression, pleading for your sympathy to be directed toward my poor life choices or unfortunate genetic composition and pointing out the EVIL inherent in social acceptance of those damned Free! guys' physical appearance!

There! Now EVERYONE will be physically average or unappealing! We did it, world!

Drag down! Don't build up! Don't celebrate the exceptional! Demonize it! Welcome to modern progressive thinking!

Ya know what? I'm just going to avoid these sorts of topics for a while. It's driving me to drink. Tea, mind, but it's still an unhealthy fixation. I've been inundated in this crap for so many months that I'm having difficulty seeing the world beyond it...So, time for a break.

 

[SecondPrize]

Someone tell Sheryl Crow that a magazine named the Escapist published and article about realism in video game characters. Art doesn't have to imitate life, particularly in a medium designed for escapism, made to allow you to do things you could never otherwise do. The calls for stuff like this seem to reek of a fundamental ignorance in both the nature and history of video games and if we ever do elect anyone who gets to decide exactly how creators can approach their creations I would hope that person knows the medium and the market better than these people seem to.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Serious question to all fit women on the site. Don't you find things like this insulting? Telling you how all your work to have a fit body is nothing, how you can't look sexy the way you are, how you need to be 20 kilos overweight to be "normal"? How you can't think with your own brain so they need to tell you what is realistic and what isn't? The girls I see in my town look more like the original design (translated into 3D and actual human form) than the photoshopped images. They are between 18 and 30 My 50 year old mother looks fitter than half of the images and she's a freaking housewife that doesn't do any sports besides taking a walk every now and then. And for fucks sake, all of those women are extremely physically active. Can you even imagine Lara do the shit she does in Tomb Raider if she looked like in the photoshopped image?

If some sites started writing articles on how Link, Mario, Snake, Kratos, Goku, Kazuya, Ryu or the warrior from the big titted mage game that made a huge fuse a while ago look unrealistic and "negatively impacting my self image because of their unrealistic designs", I would call the authors a moron and find it insulting. I'm smart enough to know that I will never look like Link, Snake, Mario or the Gears of War dudes. I'm not stupid to know what's realistic and what isn't.

How can anyone not find those articles patronizing?

I'm gay so I honestly don't care about the "war on realistic female character". I'm happy with my unrealistic male character. I'm just confused. But then again, I don't understand how women don't find the "female magazines" patronizing. "Yo gurl, u no need no men!" - page 1 article followed by 49 pages on how to change everyone about you in order to please a man. Still not considered sexist.

 

[Maphysto]

oh no guys run the social justice warriors are gonna make all your fap fantasy girls fat

 

[DerangedHobo]

unattainable ideal for the average person

Unobtainable? I'd argue that it is completely obtainable, the average individual just lacks the information or the drive to do it healthily. I'd probably agree that some of these are ridiculous (probably borderline underweight) but most of these seem out of shape if anything else. I should close by saying that this is coming from an out of shape male.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Yeah, if you want to make characters that spent most of their time on jumping, running and kicking ass you can probably add more "meat" to their silhoulletes that ISN'T fat.
I get this is a part of anti-bulimia campaign, but that doesn't make THESE characters more realistic.

Also: Is there a point in shopping classic Lara model like that since official new Lara is already closer to realism?

Props to them for stating that this is based on average american BMI, though.

 

[Batou667]

Does anybody feel the interpretation of "they're not saying thin people are bad, guys, they're just asking for more variety! Variety is good, right?" is completely disingenuous? These "improved" character designs aren't a diverse variety of body shapes; they're universally fat. The take-home message is "It's better to be a real, curvy woman than a stick-thin Barbie, tee hee", which is a completely wrong-headed stance to take. Fine if the objective is to make yourself feel better about your lack of self-control or poor motivation, but incredibly fallacious if the intent is to promote diversity, health, or a more "natural" body image.

I mean, there are people in this thread calling Christie anorexic. Anorexic! And they're presumably not joking! We honestly live in a time where not having excess rolls of fat is considered equivalent to being in a state of starvation! I just... I can't... I...

[edit] That Wonder Woman design is magnificent. What the hell were they thinking casting Gal Gadot?

 

[Lightknight]

This is actually a more startling commentary on the issue of obesity in America than it is a commentary on the characters being too thin. Americans (myself included) are too fat and it is unhealthy. These knuckleheads are pasting images of people who are clinically obese like that's a good thing to represent as what characters should look like.

Oh, and yeah, super athletic professional fighting characters are soooo unrealistically thin. Haha, right. Tell me, what do you have to do to photo-shop them to match the average athlete that is as active as they are? Do you just copy and paste the same thin image next to the other? Are one of the messages they're trying to convey here that you can't be thin unless you have bulimia or anorexia?

What's worse is that women seeing this image aren't going to think, "By golly, they're right". People with one of those conditions are going to think the same way their condition currently makes them as, "Ugh, the one on the right is so much uglier than the one on the left" and these images could just trigger their condition all the harder.

So, I would call this an epic fail. I mean, at least they're trying something to help with the conditions but this is a hard fail.

 

[AstaresPanda]

OMFG MEN ARE NOT "ACCURATE" either jus fuck off, watched a movie ? watch a music video ? piss off. And yeh a women weight does not = sexy. Men are not as picky as women seem to think, just look at the front of most if not all womens magazines. If anyone is given women unrealistic standards and giving you shit its other women lieing to you about being able to gain that celeb of the months body while they neglect to mention the fact these celebs piss away so much money on personal trainers etc etc.

 

[Gorrath]

This is actually a more startling commentary on the issue of obesity in America than it is a commentary on the characters being too thin. Americans (myself included) are too fat and it is unhealthy. These knuckleheads are pasting images of people who are clinically obese like that's a good thing to represent as what characters should look like.

Oh, and yeah, super athletic professional fighting characters are soooo unrealistically thin. Haha, right. Tell me, what do you have to do to photo-shop them to match the average athlete that is as active as they are? Do you just copy and paste the same thin image next to the other? Are one of the messages they're trying to convey here that you can't be thin unless you have bulimia or anorexia?

What's worse is that women seeing this image aren't going to think, "By golly, they're right". People with one of those conditions are going to think the same way their condition currently makes them as, "Ugh, the one on the right is so much uglier than the one on the left" and these images could just trigger their condition all the harder.

So, I would call this an epic fail. I mean, at least they're trying something to help with the conditions but this is a hard fail.

It's also interesting that my wife, who's 5'3" and weighs 90lbs wet, catches shit about her weight and figure constantly. We've built up a backlash in the minds of women that skinny women aren't "real" women and that my wife has an "unrealistic body type." She has to listen to it all the damn time and she hates it. She's more self conscious about her weight than any woman I've ever known and it's all bred through other women feeling justified in harassing the shit out of her for it.

While I'm all for combating bulimia and anorexia, claiming that characters like Rikku have "unrealistic body types" or are an "unrealistic standard of beauty" makes it seem like my wife's body is something "unrealistic." That's fucking harmful to her and it's harmful to the women who are told that, since being thin isn't realistic anyway, there's not even a healthy solution to weight control.

 

[Lightknight]

This is actually a more startling commentary on the issue of obesity in America than it is a commentary on the characters being too thin. Americans (myself included) are too fat and it is unhealthy. These knuckleheads are pasting images of people who are clinically obese like that's a good thing to represent as what characters should look like.

Oh, and yeah, super athletic professional fighting characters are soooo unrealistically thin. Haha, right. Tell me, what do you have to do to photo-shop them to match the average athlete that is as active as they are? Do you just copy and paste the same thin image next to the other? Are one of the messages they're trying to convey here that you can't be thin unless you have bulimia or anorexia?

What's worse is that women seeing this image aren't going to think, "By golly, they're right". People with one of those conditions are going to think the same way their condition currently makes them as, "Ugh, the one on the right is so much uglier than the one on the left" and these images could just trigger their condition all the harder.

So, I would call this an epic fail. I mean, at least they're trying something to help with the conditions but this is a hard fail.

It's also interesting that my wife, who's 5'3" and weighs 90lbs wet, catches shit about her weight and figure constantly. We've built up a backlash in the minds of women that skinny women aren't "real" women and that my wife has an "unrealistic body type." She has to listen to it all the damn time and she hates it. She's more self conscious about her weight than any woman I've ever known and it's all bred through other women feeling justified in harassing the shit out of her for it.

While I'm all for combating bulimia and anorexia, claiming that characters like Rikku have "unrealistic body types" or are an "unrealistic standard of beauty" makes it seem like my wife's body is something "unrealistic." That's fucking harmful to her and it's harmful to the women who are told that, since being thin isn't realistic anyway, there's not even a healthy solution to weight control.

If only you could convince your wife to respond with, "Whatevs, fatties gonna hate hate hate hate hate..." Trade complex for complex. Tit for tat.

It's OK though, next week they'll take pictures of professional athletes and photoshop them at the weight of the average American to show how Athletes are driving people to bullemia/anorexia and therefore must change their weight.

The truth of the matter is, American obesity has only increased over the years despite all of these images. They aren't doing what people think they're doing because they should also be encouraging a healthier lifestyle but things are going the opposite route.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

There are 7 pages of comments above mine, and I don't have the time to read all of the,, so I imagine this point is there already... but surely the characters SHOULD all be toned if they achieve what they do? I'd like to see the average American tubby lass outrun a T-Rex like Lara, or last 3 3-minute rounds with someone in a fight to the death like Jade form MK, or trek the entire globe beating monsters with her bare fists like Tifa...

 

[NPC009]

Serious question to all fit women on the site. Don't you find things like this insulting? Telling you how all your work to have a fit body is nothing, how you can't look sexy the way you are, how you need to be 20 kilos overweight to be "normal"?

The weird thing is, staying slim isn't all that hard once you get into the right habits. I'm pretty lazy, not into exercise at all and I like pizza and chocolate, but I'm a twig compared compared to half of those 'average' bodies. It isn't even thanks to good genes (all genetics did is make me wide-hipped). It's thanks to me knowing one small pizza a week is more than enough, that veggies are important and that I should go for a walk/get on my bicycle every day.

I read that two in three of adult Americans are now overweight or obese (using a BMI of 25> as the definition of overweight). Of course you're going to get a highly unhealthy average weight if you throw that into the calculation, which is what seems to have happened with these images. Not giving women unrealistic goals is good and all, but how about we give them goals that are both realistic and healthy?

 

[Lightknight]

There are 7 pages of comments above mine, and I don't have the time to read all of the,, so I imagine this point is there already... but surely the characters SHOULD all be toned if they achieve what they do? I'd like to see the average American tubby lass outrun a T-Rex like Lara, or last 3 3-minute rounds with someone in a fight to the death like Jade form MK, or trek the entire globe beating monsters with her bare fists like Tifa...

How about hanging from a ledge by your fingertips for long periods of time? I'd love to see one of these doing that in real life at Ninja Warrior... Oh wait, every female that gets to that point have an even smaller body fat ratio than Lara due to having smaller breasts.

Quick, someone photoshop her to look fat so that people don't get the wrong idea about what a "healthy body type is..." :

http://www.self.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/22KaceyCatanzaroRealityShowHistory.jpg

So unhealthy... Oh wait, she is really healthy? Oh...

How dare the girl who was in shape enough to win American Ninja Warrior be in good shape!?? What kind of an example is she setting for women everywhere? [/sarcasm]

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

There are 7 pages of comments above mine, and I don't have the time to read all of the,, so I imagine this point is there already... but surely the characters SHOULD all be toned if they achieve what they do? I'd like to see the average American tubby lass outrun a T-Rex like Lara, or last 3 3-minute rounds with someone in a fight to the death like Jade form MK, or trek the entire globe beating monsters with her bare fists like Tifa...

I'm not voting for "tubby" characters in my games, but you understand that Usain Bolt wouldn't outrun a T-Rex, right?

They're games. They're fiction. Picking and choosing the elements you find believable from pure fiction is a little off kilter.

Alright... so I chose the wrong fucking example... She can also jump about 3 times her own height after a 1km sprint, turn in the air, and hit a target between the eyes at 100 yards. Fat Lara would probably just keel over and get maimed by man with shotgun/giant spider/aztec clay warrior whatever is there. Either way... it's hugely more believable!

SNIP

Wait... I thought they only chose those women for the show because they looked fit? They probably just keep the fat winners for the live show only? (also /sarcasm )