nonhoration said:
I don't see why it would be hypocritical to say that a real woman is allowed to make whatever choices she wants to make about her body (though she is definitely influenced by the culture around her, since we all are), while a made-up character can be objectified by being dressed/portrayed in a similar way because outside people are purposefully making decisions in order to market her body to men. In real life there are no camera angles framing a woman's body so that her head is missing, or ass-focused cameras during conversations. In real life you don't see line-ups of men standing in powerful poses and then one woman twisted up like a piece of licorice. I believe that characters should be held to different standards than real people, because even if a woman is dressing/altering herself to be attractive to men, it's her own decision and not a corporate marketing one. Individual real women are not the entire portrayal of women in our culture the way objectified female characters seem to be.
It's not hypocritical. It's inconsistent ideology. It would be hypocritical to then go and develop a game or any form of media that objectifies women.
The inconsistent ideology comes into play here when you say objectification is wrong but then say it's only wrong when certain people do it in certain ways. If a woman is fine doing it because she has a choice to do whatever she wants with her own body then it is inconsistent to then say that developers don't have a right to do whatever they want to with their own lines of code. Without getting into any details, what is your opinion of porn? Something that objectifies women far more than men but that the women have a choice in the matter of (or they better have a choice in)? If I were pressed to answer honestly, I'd have to say that the porn industry does more to encourage objectification of women than anything else has ever done. I can't think of a single more objectifying industry and yet women are often willing participants and not always for money.
Spoilered to avoid that wall of text effect:
There is also a difference between casting a 'sexy' woman (though it has always bothered me that there are so many looks in movies for men and only one or two for women who are meant to be taken at all seriously) and objectifying a 'sexy' woman in a film. There is so much in the camera angles, dialogue and plotlines, and even marketing materials that show that these characters are not meant to be taken seriously, that they are just 'eye candy'. It is really alienating as a woman to see portrayals like that in the media that I otherwise enjoy. There is also a conflation of sex and violence a lot of the time with objectified characters, where they need to look attractive even are they are dying (or after they are dead!) which is pretty disturbing and not something that happens in real life.
So then, your problem is that the roles that they're given aren't serious or is it that they're eye candy (the combination being the worst case scenario)? You and I can certainly agree on the role issue. That is the form of objectification that I find completely unnecessary. Eye candy I understand, women dress in certain ways and even undergo surgeries to look attractive. But poor character development and limited involvement? That's unnacceptable and frankly, lazy writing. I don't want a helpless woman who wants nothing but sex. I'm a married man, sex is over-played. I can't express how valuable it is to have a woman by my side who is capable that I can rely on. The common woman in video games is not that woman and so are less attractive in my mind. I also have a problem with chainmail bikinis. *sigh* Maybe once for a joke. If the woman immediately got an arrow to the mid-section and then died slowly, saying: "If only the developers had given me real armor...". But not every game is that kind of game and sometimes it's just as appropriate for the woman to be underdressed as they would be in real life. Haven't you ever been surprised to see a woman in winter with booty shorts, bare legs, uggs, and a winter jacket and thought... "why?"? That's the equivalent of real world bikni armor in my book. haha. It isn't attractive, it's dumb (my apologies if you're one of those girls).
In regards to your example earlier regarding if it was attractive to women for men to have a large right arm: I think that it depends on how said large right arm would be perceived socially. Men are designed in media to be attractive in a way that makes men want to be like them, not to be marketed as attractive to women. This is why generally you don't see bulked-up action movie types in romcoms.
RomComs, which I actually love, don't have bulked-up action movie types because they aren't action movies. You would find the bulked up types in romantic action movies. You also find them on the cover of many romance novels in nearly any book store that carries them. You know the one, the Fabio clones. I've never read one but they're so numerous you can't help but look in their direction without seeing it.
I'd say women in general prefer the toned and capable man rather than the bulked muscular man that has to turn his whole body if he wants to look left. I'd also say a lot of men would prefer to be toned like batman than be grotesquely ripped. I mean, does anyone honestly find Marcus Phoenix attractive or want to physically look like him in real life? Probably not really. But characters like Nathan Drake (whom I'm pretty sure also piloted the Serenity
) are more commonly the norm. If they flex or have their shirt off, you can see muscle clearly defined but they still have a neck and some degree of agility. Take a good look at Kratos. He's actually not insanely bulked most of the time. He's incredibly toned with very well defined musculature. He's what you see in RomComs that ever have the male take off their shirt. But then other times they bulk him up according to the occasion. He's on some kind of tightrope act in which he leans either way when needed. If you run a basic search on him for images you'll note that some times he looks like a very in-shape frat boy and other times he's the exaggerated Fabio persona. Sometimes he has a normal neck and then the next moment he doesn't. In any event, are you telling me that women would find that body type unattractive on a normal person? This has not been true in my experience.
Do you disagree that women generally desire a thin waist, tight ass, reasonably large breasts, nice legs and a pretty face? I think they see those things as being pretty and do a lot to fit those molds, however unreasonable they may be. I don't think characters looking like that would be a problem if they had legitimate roles in the game rather than swooning or fitting the ol' screaming at a mouse from the top of a stool stereotypes.
If a giant right arm was something that made men feel powerful, then I think that you're right that Kratos would have one. The leads in every big blockbuster would have one unless it was some kind of sad story where the dude had a big left arm instead and felt like he didn't fit in. However, if the right arm situation was only attractive to women, I think that a lot of movies and games (especially something as bro-focused as God of War) would drop the arm because your average guy would be worried about getting 'gay cooties' from all the huge right arms running around. Even attractive men in most media aren't designed to specifically attract women.
Then who are they generally handsome for? Gay cooties? Maybe if it was a giant naked man with a third leg flopping around. Do you think women would have a case of the gay cooties if they played as a woman that was proportionately attractive?
It's a little bit different in games because, for awhile, it's YOUR avatar. If he's handsome, then you're handsome. If he's muscular and strong, then you're muscular and strong. It isn't just a power fantasy, it's an ideal-self fantasy in many cases. Brave and strong and capable and handsome/attractive. Things that no rational human being should ever not want. So a larger right arm would mean those things.
Please don't forget that strength and attractive are by no means mutually exclusive. They often go hand in hand. The point of the whole thing is that there's no breast equivalent for male body types. Judging from your responses, you don't necessarily disagree that men lack those components. Do you honestly believe that if women found a specific component of men attractive that men wouldn't desire having that component in the most desireable size range? That's almost laughably wrong. I'd say the one area that is the topic of most conversations (length/circumference of penis) is so over-focused on by men that entire pyschological issues pop out of it. For that reason, I earnestly believe that if that right-arm bit was desireable that men would dislike an avatar with a small one. I would want my avatar to be that way.
There still would likely not be camera framing focusing solely on the large right arm, or panning up and down the arm while the man was talking (or being eviscerated!). Incidentally, there are plenty of body parts that women find attractive in men, but they are generally not played up in media because we are never the target audience.
Again, this is the difference of there being features to emphasize. That's what the camera is doing, emphasizing. Though this happens a lot less in today's games than it did in the late 90's/early 2000's. Women have physical attributes that easily fall into those categories whereas women's desirable traits for males to have are a lot more regarding actions and words by the man. That's not to say they don't also appreciate a nice body and a handsome face. That's certainly part of it and sometimes rules out the man if they don't have them. But that's a blanket feature and not particular features that you can exaggerate in normal or easy ways.
Here's a question for you. In a video game, what do you think the ideal attractive man (for women) would look like? How does that compare to most of the male protagonists out there (rather than just the blantant examples). Keep in mind that women have different tastes and there's a reason why women flock around men like Fabio or Kevin Sorbo (Hercules TV show)
I don't think anyone (or at least most people) is saying that there should be some kind of 'Comics Code' sort of thing to say how much skin is appropriate, or what size breasts are 'correct' or whatever, because not only is it unenforceable but it's really limiting the diversity of character models. However, there is a respectful and disrespectful way to present characters, and having an almost-naked woman in a situation where she is comically underdressed compared to all the men, or done in a completely different art style because the men's art style didn't allow for sexy enough ladies, or watching cameras pan all over her body like the cheesy porn synth is about to start any second is not respectful of a character.
I once read a review of some second-rate horror movie that spent a paragraph talking about how beautifully the lead actress bleeds, and you'd never see an article like that about a male character because men in a similar situation would be framed as heroic or pained rather than sexy to the detriment of anything else.
It should be noted that there are real differences between men and women. Physical or aesthetic differences are obviously true. But in aggregate, there are also real differences in behavior to the point that it's almost like men and women have a distinct culture. Whether biologically or socialogically (or more likely some combination thereof) based, the effect is still the same. As such, different adjectives and different emphasis will be placed on similar actions performed by different sexes. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing comes in where the action is negative if one sex does it but positive if another does. That would also be inconsistent ideology.
Sorry about all the teal deer running through the post, but objectification is something that I feel really strongly about because it's really frustrating to have to enjoy something in spite of all the characters who are like you instead of at least partially because of them.
I completely understand and really appreciate your responses. Please believe that I'm really asking questions here to hear your response and my points are genuinely meant to be up for counterpointing. If I sound rude at any point, I apologize. I can be blunt sometimes.
