Apone post=9.71383.722167 said:
To the OP. Yes, that is how women are generally portrayed in video games. But when was the last time you saw a male lead that wasn't muscle bound or just another dark haired- chiseled jawed- one liner spouting american. It's the way it is. They are fantasies and that is what the companies think we as consumers want. An idealised fantasy character.
The thing is being muscle bound makes a man look like a subject. It communicates that this is someone who is in command, who has agency, who is there for himself and not for anyone else. The way women are portrayed makes them look like objects. It communicates that this is someone who is to be commanded, who is to be pursued, who is there for others.
It's not just a problem for video games--this is about depictions of women in general. There's a lot more room for depicting a man as valuable AND independent than there is for women. It's the problem with tapping into our culturally imposed ideas about men and women: a guy can be ugly and fat, but if you put him in a top hat with a huge diamond pinky ring, he'll still look valuable. On the other hand I can't think of dressing an ugly and fat woman up in a way that makes her look valuable. A woman without sex appeal doesn't come across as someone of value, no matter how powerful she is (unless she crosses over into being a monster: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_17/105-Women-Monsters-and-Monstrous-Women)
The problem is that everything associated with sexiness in a woman is also associated with submissive objectification. On the other hand, no matter how sexy a fur loincloth may be, it's associated with dominant virility. The OP mention the bare midriff--when a woman shows off her midriff it never sends the message that a bare chested man does: that of someone who is a bad-ass. Bare male skin--however sexy someone may find it--also sends a message of 'hey, I'm healthy and therefore I can kick your ass'; bare female skin just doesn't send that ass-kicking message; if anything it sends a message of vulnerability.
I mean, compare bareskinned video game characters to, say, Michael Phelps and Dara Torres. Notice how the two real-life athletes look more similar to each other than any video game characters would? When men are depicted bareskinned in video games, they pack on the muscles; when women are depicted bareskinned, they actually dial down the muscularity for video games.
Fact is, no matter how sexy someone may find them, muscles look like armor, while soft curves look like vulnerabilities.
It's a matter of sex appeal being asymmetrical which makes it difficult to depict a woman as both valuable and not objectified, because the things that make a woman valuable also signal that she's an object of desire in a way that just doesn't apply to men. Like you said, it's just companies responding to *our* ideas of an "idealised fantasy character."
