Female Game Characters Photoshopped to Average American Proportions
- Thread starter Conrad Zimmerman
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I'm also surprised at how people are assuming because someone is chubby that they're unhealthy/obese.dunam said:
Basically, people often think that they can just look at someone and determine their health, be it from someone who is thin or someone who is fat. Those people should probably just mind their own business instead of play doctor without actually having a medical degree and without actually examining the patient thoroughly. Outside of a few huge extremes, you can't actually know if someone is healthy just by looking at them.
Given that I said "I am being a tad facetious" I'm not sure that reminder was necessary, but whatevs.DayDark said:
I'm a feminist and I'm aware of the concerns, but I also think this stunt does more harm to the dialogue than good. You cannot ignore context when studying the cultural value and potential impact of something, and that's precisely what the nomark/s who constructed that inane list did.
8 out of the 10 are either highly proficient martial artists or highly capable fighters, and the other 2 are a non-character who, as I understand it, never once even appears in the cited game (the promo bikini blonde for GTAV), and a piece of art of a hologram AI which, again, never appears like that in the games ('actual' Cortana could be seen as 'worse', ironically).
Tifa's a great example of their shitty, misleading methodology: any discussion of her design and proportions must be had taking into consideration the relative proportions and overall artstyle of FFVII - one look at artwork (because they didn't choose in-game Tifa to moan about) of Cloud is enough to gain perspective about the tone and contexts of the game's art style. If an impressionable girl is playing FFVII, she is assimilating the totality of the work, not just the individual components.
The same approach can be applied to dismiss every single character on that list. Oh, and the Lara they idiotically chose is 12 years out of date, and their apparent gripe with ye olde Lara is ironic given that the current - culturally relevant - Lara has been pretty well received in terms of being a good, relatable female character.
I believe games do need to represent wider variations in body image (primarily for female characters, but also for male), but that site's stunt is only destructive to proper discussion.
I think maybe I should have put an /s somewhere to make sure it showed that I wasn't exactly being serious, since I don't really believe in the "we didn't say it! [small]we just heavily insinuated it...[/small] ", but thanks for the thought out post, I agree with you.Darth Rosenberg said:
Honestly, the fat acceptance as I understand it is simply acknowledgement that fat, even morbidly obese and unhealthy people, don't deserve to be shamed and mocked, but helped, as well as that they don't have to hate themselves because of it. I mean, when someone is fat, I do think that being kind and understanding is better than pointing fingers and yelling "You're so unhealthy and ugly!" It's far healthier to accept your body and learn to love it. It doesn't mean that you'll stay morbidly obese forever, it just means that you won't go into a diet and a workout routine with high psychological damage over hating yourself.dunam said:
As far as I've seen, people still advocate for healthy lifestyles, but they also approach fat people with care rather than anger. That's acceptable to me. Being too quick to judge is definitely a problem, especially when fatness is a consequence of some medical issue, rather than just eating in McDonald's 5 times per day. In truth, no one can tell if someone is fat because of a biological disorder or overeating just by looking at the person. And also, some people are fat, but in the process of losing weight, only it won't be visible instantly and it will take a long time. They should definitely be faced with acceptance, rather than mockery. Losing weight is an arduous process; for some, it takes years. In the meantime, their bodies should not seen as some sort of a grotesque offence. It can certainly negatively impact them and their willingness to continue with the difficult process of losing weight if they are not accepted. Same thing for thin people really. I have friends who have such metabolisms that make them thin no matter how much they eat (and they eat a lot). They are trying to gain weight, but it doesn't help when people continuously point out "Wow, you're so skinny, why don't you eat? That's so ugly."
Either way, acceptance is desirable. And acceptance is not promotion. It's simply accepting that there are various body types, various body shapes and various issues that make us look the way we look and that it's not particularly nice to shame people for any of those.
I know a lot of girls that are a similar build to Rikku on the left, they exercise regularly and eat well. Seriously, she's just slim/toned and shockingly for a vidja game character doesn't have tits the size of my head whilst being ridiculously skinny.Metadigital said:It's a good message, but it misses the mark by quite a bit.
Campaigns like this frustrate me. The majority of the realistic characters are realistic... but not ideal. The UK has put a lot of money and effort into the "This girl can" movement promoting womens sport and exercise due to the fact that it's been found that women are less likely to take part in recreational sport than men, and therefore missing out on the health/psychological/social benefits.
That is a great example of an inclusion campaign that tells women not to be ashamed of their body and engage in a healthy lifestyle. Stuff like this just seems to say "eh, it's ok to be overweight"
Finally, the other issue I have with this is that bulimic/anorexic sufferers could well look at these images and immediately compare themselves to the right hand image and see it as unattractive, which isn't exactly helpful.
Ok, I get that, but don't you think it's important to look at Rikku as who she is, not what she looks like? Rikku is:Lil devils x said:
1) 15 years old in FF-X. For her age, being quite thin is not unusual. Size will also help convey this youthful age to gamers, especially compared to the male protagonist who is a small, whiny *****.
2) A thief! (ok, technically skilled in alchemy and chemistry, but her battle command is Steal). She steals items from enemies and can destroy machina easily. So she needs legs as quick as her hands.
Whether you're male or female and have a "healthy" weight and appearance, if you're too big and slow you can't do the same work as someone smaller and faster. Stealing, fighting, sports, big and bulky can only do so much.
In a video game the player should believe what they see. I could not believe that a fat Rikku could have the speed, agility and dexterity as portrayed (and compared to other party members, and you'll have to ignore the sphere grid, but that's more or less magic).
Husky boys and girls are totally fine people, but in fictional roles that require physical standards, it doesn't make sense.
Fair enough.Lil devils x said:
Nice ad hominem you got there. Kate Upton may look like she's healthy, and at this stage in her life can surely function sufficiently to pass for 'healthy' by current standards(which are terrible standards, btw), but what about 15 years from now? 20? Heck, while her diet is certainly better than the standard American diet, it's still a long way off from being optimal and still has stupid things like cleanses thrown in. Her exercise routine is effectively no better than low intensity aerobics, and will barely help her improve her joint and bone strength. Regardless, how likely is she to follow her current lifestyle when her career no longer depends on it a decade from now? You seem to be of the opinion that everyone turns into this fragile, paper scarecrow as they age. Below are two of many studies that prove you can do plenty to significantly improve quality of life, even as you age.elvor0 said:
http://www.bettermovement.org/2012/use-or-lose-looks-like/
As you can see in this study, the cross sections of the two triathletes aged 40 and 70 have near identical muscle mass, bone mass and bodyfat percentage. The sedentary 74 year old man, however has pitifully narrow bones, high bodyfat and poor muscle mass that looks like it's actively degenerating.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22872695
This study shows that a simple, functional exercise and strength training routing can reduce falls in seniors by a singificant 30%. There are also other studies showing similar significant reductions in injuries(fatal and non-fatal) resulting from falls.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18595904
Lastly, this study shows how muscle strength is inversely associated with all-cause mortality in men.
My point is not to single out Kate Upton, or even women like her. My point is that most people are living unhealthy lifestyles and eating unhealthy food, and telling them that it's ok to look like the post-photoshop characters or Kate Upton is a problem. It's a problem because their aesthetics are irrelevant; what matters is that the general public needs to be living functionally healthy lives.
The characters role is also a separate issue than the one I was discussing, as for a better fitting character model for a character like Rikku, I think the petite agile muscular gymnast would be much more fitting. More like this :AgedGrunt said:
Petite, strong, quick, With high agility would fit her much better. I think her original character could use much more muscle.
Eh, it's FF, heavily inspired by anime,specifically shounen, which is in itself largely inspired by legends and the like. Strength is more expressed by what the character can do than what they look like anymore since around the mid-80's.Lil devils x said:
She also has an abnormally enlarged head and eyes. Anatomically, she's off in a variety of ways all over her body, though. Rikku, like most animated characters, is not realistically proportioned. It allows characters like that to be more iconic, emotive, and idealized. Nothing wrong with any of that.rosac said:
The argument that the left image of Rikku is some "healthy ideal" really demonstrates why articles like that exist in the first place. Healthy people don't look like anime characters. They also don't look like badly photoshopped anime characters. Neither is realistic. That's the point I'm making. Both sides of this situation are flinging poop.
Now, if we were talking about a piece of animation that were attempting realism, like this:
Or maybe this:
Then we might be getting closer to something to talk about. FFX isn't attempting realism, though. Neither are the other edited images from the article. On the one hand, society does give women a strong message about how their bodies should look, and that should be taken seriously. On the other hand, though, we have to understand that animated characters aren't supposed to represent how we should be expected to actually look. That kind of commentary really needs to be directed at the photoshopped images of models in marketing or the kinds of actresses / hostesses / etc that can get work. Editing a bunch of cartoon characters to look fat / deformed isn't the right way to go about it and only serves to make the criticism of women's representation in media look petty or mislead.
Oh, so the country with the highest obesity rate in the world is complaining about unrealistic standers of beauty?
If these people put half the effort into actually losing weight as they put into trying to force everyone else to see their ever slipping standard of health as ?normal? they wouldn?t be an obesity problem.
If these people put half the effort into actually losing weight as they put into trying to force everyone else to see their ever slipping standard of health as ?normal? they wouldn?t be an obesity problem.