Female Game Characters Photoshopped to Average American Proportions

[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 )

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is one of the most ignorant ass posts I've seen for a while. There ARE people who have problems. Do all people who are overweight have serious psychological issues that effect them like that? No. I sure as hell don't. Some people have family histories that, no matter what they do, they can't lose a fucking ounce, or, if they can, it will all come rushing back if they eat a sandwich that has a pinch to much of mayo. Some have the other problem, where they can't gain an ounce, and look anorexic as fuck even if they shove cake in their gullet all damn day. Some are just lazy, and don't want to do it. Some people just strait don't give a fuck and are happy being heavier.I know it might be hard to comprehend, but there are more numbers than two, dude. That means there are more than two possibilities.

I never claimed otherwise. I just don't believe for a second that these people care about eating disorder awareness. Why would they specifically target characters to make them look fatter? Their agenda is obvious. It's also stupid for all the reasons already mentioned in this topic.
As far as my personal stance on bulimia and anorexia, calling them "eating disorders" is just a cute euphemism that hides the truth. They're born out of emotional and intellectual weakness, aka stupidity.

Also, I'd bet hard cash that you're lying right now.

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

 

[Denamic]

My sister is apparently more physically fit than what fictional martial artists and super heroes at peak physical condition should be to be considered 'realistic'. And she doesn't even work out.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think "plumping" up is counter intuitive for most of these. Female action heroes are by their very definition, in peak physical form due to their active lifestyles. Maybe if they chose a few examples of women in games with a more sedentary lifestyles, it would be more accurate. But here you have Tifa, who runs around with Cloud beating the crap out of supernatural monsters. Or Helena, a professional martial artist who by all accounts, plays a significant amount of beach volleyball.

You have to remember that "realism" is a two way street.

 

[someguy1231]

Uh, they're three games in a world made up of tens of thousands of games. And two of them are stuck in the same genre. Guild Wars 2 isn't even that popular, it only sold 3.5 million copies, which hardly makes it a heavy hitter that can show the opinions of everyone in gaming. And it's probably telling the WoW is slowly losing steam, so it's hardly the king of games that it once was, because people are getting bored and moving on from it. Hell if we're going by sheer numbers we should be taking the mobile market into account. Me pointing out the flaws in your argument is not moving the goalposts. And don't talk about moving the goalposts when I started talking about characters in general and you shifted it to customizable characters only. Your evidence is flimsy at best, especially Skyrim where the only argument you really have is "there are a lot of sexy mods". At least Guild Wars and WoW had numbers (That you didn't cite) Skyrim doesn't even have that, it has circumstantial evidence at best. Yeah pretty much. As it turns out, proving a demand for something exists is infinitely easier than proving that it's superior to all other demands. Because opinions tend to vary from genre to genre and you only included the opinions of MMO players, yet for some reason you kept pulling the "most gamers" card. I don't count Skyrim because of how insubstantial your claims were there.

Your attempts to dismiss my evidence just get more and more inane and absurd. By all means, keep moving the goalposts so that you never have to admit that most gamers don't want to play as fat characters. You're just making yourself look desperate and pathetic. I'm not trying to argue that one demand is "superior" than another. I'm trying to prove most gamers don't want to play as a fat character, given the chance.

Could've said the same for you. Deductive reasoning usually requires a lot more solid evidence to go on. "This website has a lot of sexy mods" and "most Skyrim players have sexy characters" aren't really connected provided every single Skyrim player uses that website and downloads the mods out of mandate. And what about female gamers?

Did I say that they didn't? I'm simply pointing out that you can't take the results from a game that's really lost a good chunk of steam over the years and apply it to ALL of gaming.

Oh? The mere existence of a mod proves nothing? Glad we came to an understanding. So the existence of sexy mods prove nothing. (Pick one or the other. Either mods prove a demand for something or they don't, you can't have it both ways)

You seem to believe that unless there's a game that every single gamer plays, and every single one of those gamers does not create a fat character, given the option, then it isn't "solid evidence". THAT is why I think you're moving the goalposts. No such game exists or ever will exist. You're setting your standards impossibly high to dismiss all evidence that most gamers do not want to play fat characters.

I wasn't talking about mods themselves. I was talking about which mods are the most popular and downloaded, something that nexusmods.com does keep track of. Have you even visited that site? If you haven't, let me give you some numbers:

The third most popular overall mod from that site (yes, overall, not just from the "sexy female characters" category) is a mod called Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Edition, and from the name, I think it's pretty obvious what it does. It currently has about 7.5 million downloads. On the other hand, the most popular fat mod I could find on the site only had about 22,000 downloads. So, there's your hard numbers once again. Let's see how you dismiss these...

You know, I don't recall specifically making any arguments about character customization and more about characters in general, not sure why you keep bringing it back to that. And yes, that's what I'm trying to say, specific games have specific audiences, MMOs have their own and those audiences don't speak for all of gaming.

Still seems pretty arbitrary. I mean just because I never went out of my way to customize a black character doesn't mean I wouldn't want to play a game with a black character as a main character.

Like I said above. Just because a person doesn't go out of their way to create a character that doesn't look a certain way, doesn't mean that they would refuse to play a game with a character like that. And question, how many players actually put that much time into customization? I would think a good chunk of them would either randomize their character or go with a default. Hell, most of the time my customization is limited to getting a hairdo and eye color I like.

Now you're indulging in wishful thinking. If most players don't create fat characters, even when given the chance, it seems perfectly logical to me to conclude that most players don't want to play as a fat character. Do you really think that there are so many closeted chubby chasers among gamers just waiting to come out? If so, do you have any evidence for that?

Hard numbers about WoW and Guild Wars II. Not all gamers. And you keep making claims about "most gamers" despite WoW's fanbase not even making up 10% of gamers, and not sharing the same tastes as all gamers. Because of the constant demand for them that seems to be loud enough to get forums like this one into a frenzy every time it gets brought up? Certainly seems like there's a rather significant demand for it. Question. How many games actually ALLOW you to make fat women? I've played quite a few games where you can customize. Only ever saw it in the Souls series and Dragon's Dogma. Hell, most games don't even let you make muscular women.

Again, it's the "opinion poll" analogy I made earlier. Extrapolations are made all the time about a general population, and often based on sample sizes far smaller than 10% of that population. If that is considered a valid and legitimate method to gauge public opinion, I don't see why the same principle can't apply to gamers. Of course games have different audiences, but real-world political ideals also have their own audiences, yet those polls are considered valid all the same.

I said she looks like she's anorexic, not that she's got the condition. Read what I say. No, I'm not against being corrected, I'm against people being dismisses without base. So if you want to correct me, give me a reason why I'm wrong and don't just say I'm wrong.

Yeah see? Your argument there was "No" and all you had to offer was personal experience. I offered my personal experiences too, how does that make me wrong and you right? And tell me, where those people that you knew IRL supposed to be brawlers, ninjas, mountain climbers, police officers, and soldiers? You know why they look anorexic to me? Because they are way too thin for the jobs they're supposed to be doing, it makes them look unhealthy and unreal. And no, I've run Akali by a female friend in the past, and she also agreed that she looked unhealthily thin. You know, you just kinda declared that without much backing it up.

"Looks like she's anorexic" = "she's anorexic". Period. Keep twisting yourself into logical knots, though.

Whether someone is "anorexic" or not has no bearing on their occupation. A person is either anorexic, or they aren't.

I find it utterly hilarious that you're complaining those characters look "unhealthy", while also demanding more fat characters.

Considering that a good chunk of these games are single player, I find it questionable that you knew that. Sounds like you're going back to MMOs again, and as I've said many times before, MMOs don't represent gamers as a whole. They represent gamers who like MMOs. Simple. When you make those assumptions, you don't speak for ALL gamers. Say "This type of character is popular among gamers" not it's popular among most gamers" because you can't prove that and it makes it look like you're projecting your views onto gaming as a whole.

The reason I use MMOs is they're more likely to have multiple playable races (and thus more likely to have one that's a bit on the chubby side), and the developers are more likely to release information about what their player base choose to create. Yes, despite your repeated attempts to dismiss any evidence I bring up, I'm specifically using MMOs because they're the most solid evidence regarding this subject.