"Internalizing the Oppression"

[Azure23]

My favorite part of this while dumb thing is everybody becoming an expert nutritionist/BMI calculator with a minor in physical education all of a sudden. It's been really fun seeing people pull all these justifications outta their ass about why Riku is "a total whale after this shop." Also fun? When some well meaning people use pop culture characters to warn teens with body image issues about the danger of eating disorders, a bunch of gamers (who, let's be honest, probably didn't bother to read the attached article and probably weren't the audience) decide to throw shit fits because it doesn't somehow also please them.

Seriously. That shit was fucking harmless, go read the article. I expect it's basic rhetoric of "media effects people, don't hurt yourself pursuing a body image, be healthy and love yourself" will piss off true believers who take affront to even such benign forms of social advocacy. But it's main thrust- eating disorders are bad, pursue health healthily, love yourself, and here's a bunch of resources if you or a loved one is suffering from a disorder? Pretty innocuous stuff really.

You know what? I'm gonna turn this on it's head, the folks over at Bulimia.com just thought to themselves one day, "gaming is getting to be pretty diverse these days yeah? And demographic info suggests that the age range of men (10-15% of eating disorders, from the national association of anorexia nervous and associated disorders) and women playing them are at risk for harmful disorders, we should do an article focused on that." And lo and behold, an article came forth, along with a group of pictures of mixed quality. Anyway, there we go. This happened because we're getting better, happy ending.

 

[Yuuki]

Then again, I don't think we really need to go into this in order to realize looking more attractive to the opposite sex has its roots in trying to attract a mate. Kind of something that goes without saying.

That seems to contradict what you said here:

MEN want women to have slim waists, big tits and flowing long hair. Let's stop treating ideal forms like they're anything less than bullshit, for men and women alike. It's rooted back in caveman times where we make ourselves more appealing for a potential mate, a novelty that's worn out its welcome. I thought not focusing too much on appearances was something we all learned when we were very young.

You called ideal forms bullshit. Even though it's a fact that getting closer to ideal forms = more likely to be healthy and have good genetics = more likely to produce genetically healthy offspring = more attractive = entire race continues to refine itself.

That cycle isn't about to stop anytime soon just because a few Tumblr/Twitter folk decided to get noisy.

The only way you will truly get rid of ideal forms is to remove every single variation in humans that makes us unique, make everyone 100% identical (no genders/races). Only then will there truly be no "ideal form" as nobody will have anything to aspire to, everyone will look identical and their standards and expectations will be identical.

Even dogs have ideal forms that humans desire (hence dog shows).

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I'm not sure about your analysis here. Breasts above a certain size often attract knee-jerk criticism, accusations of "male gaze" and often misogynistic body-policing. It's the same reason why women who get breast augmentations often get accused of doing it to attract men and that they could never actually be doing it for their own benefit. Maybe this is a hypocritical attitude? There's like a simultaneous fetishization and shaming of breasts (which is why female nipples are deemed more controversial than eviscerated corpses).

As I said before, body shape isn't the problem with female representation in video games, it's usually their clothing (or lack thereof) or even worse, their portrayal as characters.

I'll admit I'm not 100% sure what you're disagreeing with here, I'll give this my best shot though.

I completely realize that there's huge misconceptions with the idea that women make themselves attractive for men. It's admittedly something that took me a little while to get as well. I certainly am not claiming that there aren't women who associate large breasts with beauty, however there are lots of women who think the exact opposite. I have another friend who loves playing seductress characters, but she always plays characters with small breasts because she has massive breasts and she hates them. As well, look at "Most beautiful women" lists made for women's magazines. Cursory glances through them show that breast size really doesn't factor in as a focus. Likewise, that men and women have rather different standards for what makes a woman beautiful.

Now this is just my personal experience, so feel free to disregard it, but out of all of my female gaming friends, not one of them considers breasts the size of watermelons as a physical ideal. And all of them recognize the massive discomfort you'd have being acrobatic with breasts that large, and typically uncontained by any sort of bra. My girlfriend has relatively small breasts and she laments on how uncomfortable was the one time she decided to bike without a bra.

You can also find articles on how uncomfortable it is to run with larger breasts, and most of the characters do far more than that. I know so many people who cringe when they see the animations for Dead or Alive because of how god damn painful it looks.

I'm definitely not disagreeing with you that nobody should be shamed for their breast size. Nor about their clothing or portrayal as characters. The latter is by far my biggest issue as well. That being said, I still think that there is a problem that the extent of the female ideal portrayed in a large portion of games is sexual appeal. Maybe put something else in there every now and then?

 

[sumanoskae]

The issue I have always had for "Society's Standard of Beauty" is that "Society" is not a person with a sex drive; it's a fucking abstract concept. A "Societal Standard" is just a rough estimation of averages; it's just a statistic made up of individual standards, assuming the standard presented is accurate.

Oh, I'm sure there ARE some poor fuckwits who are either weak willed enough to pretend they agree with the average, or twisted enough to misconstrued it as their own, but it is by in large just a fact; it's not a choice that anybody is making, and it's unreasonable to to object to an action that is totally involuntary. Nobody has any right to tell someone else what they ought to want.

By that same logic, nobody is obligated to portray any of their art work in any way. The lack of obligation is what MAKES IT FUCKING ART. I would encourage artists, in the interest of quality, to consider their character designs on a more nuanced level than their appeal to the eye, but that's up to them; it won't mean anything unless it comes from the heart, and whether or not they do isn't going to have some kind of revolutionary effect on everybody else psyche. I don't believe for a second that any sane person is going to have their self image wrecked by a fictional character.

Using fiction as a standard to check yourself against in place of reality is just nonsensical, and I find it kind of strange that appearance is the idealization that everyone thinks is the most important. People think that Helena's tits set an unreasonable standard, but the fact that she's a martial arts master and the leader of a multi-million dollar corporation at the age of 21 just... doesn't register? Would most women really rather have D-cups than be an unstoppable killing machine living a life of luxury?

Now do not misunderstand, it is totally within reason to object to those who try and stifle people for not measuring up to this standard, it is after all a preference with no objective logic behind it. But pretending this standard just doesn't exist is just ludicrous.

This whole "Everyone is beautiful" trend is just dishonest, and it isn't helping anyone. Beauty is subjective, and nobody finds everyone to be equally beautiful. Telling someone that they are beautiful based on some obscure, misplaced, objective moral standard will not permit them any of the benefits of being traditionally attractive.

What you should be telling them is that whether or not they meet the average standard of beauty doesn't define them as a human being.

If everyone was considered to be beautiful, nobody would care if they were; people don't want to be beautiful just so that they can call themselves beautiful in some kind of vacuum. People want to be beautiful because it means other people will be more likely to find them attractive; so that they never have to worry about whether someone really does find them attractive.

I'm sure someone is going to argue the converse, but wanting to be sexually desired is just human nature; you're not shallow or insecure just because you want to attract a potential sexual partner.

There is nothing wrong with wanting these things; there is nothing wrong with not wanting them. But trying to convince people who DO want them that simply seeing yourself as beautiful will allow you to get them is just not fucking true, and making pretend people look different is not going to make it any more true.

What really boils my blood about all this collective naval gazing is that our world is FULL of tangible suffering and despair, and yet shit like this is the hill people wanna die on.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I did, because they are. They're unreasonable and so many people have bought into them that apparently we can't look at average sized women without everyone calling them fat *Points to photoshop thread*. Not really, because the ideal form doesn't necessarily equal healthy. Giant tits and a nice ass don't really guarantee healthy children, neither does a handsome face. In fact, being beautiful =/= being healthy with good genes in general, because your outer looks don't mean jack if, say, you have sickle cell disease, or Hemophillia.

I don't think anyone claimed that it would.

They don't need to completely go away. The problem is that people have become overly obsessed with these ideal images.

On the other hand, pugs.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

"No one should enjoy it" kindly point out where I said that. I don't appreciate words being put in my mouth.

The party? You mean the people that we look at for 95% of the game? That's the thing. If a woman has a name, there's a 90% chance that she'll be good looking in some way if she's not under 18 (Or 16 if the game is from Japan) all the named characters in Final Fantasy, Tales of X, Valkyria Chronicles, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, you rarely see a character that has any importance to the plot that isn't at the very least pretty. Hell, even generic NPCs tend to be easy on the eyes, not helped by the fact that I good chunk of modern games feel the need to arbitrarily stick you in a brothel or a strip club because I don't know.

I take it you ignored the part where I said that the ideal image is bullshit for both genders didn't you? Yeah, but not in many countries that are the 1st world now. You don't tend to see many paintings of fat British French or Spanish Queens

 

[K12]

My favorite part of this while dumb thing is everybody becoming an expert nutritionist/BMI calculator with a minor in physical education all of a sudden. It's been really fun seeing people pull all these justifications outta their ass about why Riku is "a total whale after this shop." Also fun? When some well meaning people use pop culture characters to warn teens with body image issues about the danger of eating disorders, a bunch of gamers (who, let's be honest, probably didn't bother to read the attached article and probably weren't the audience) decide to throw shit fits because it doesn't somehow also please them.

Seriously. That shit was fucking harmless, go read the article. I expect it's basic rhetoric of "media effects people, don't hurt yourself pursuing a body image, be healthy and love yourself" will piss off true believers who take affront to even such benign forms of social advocacy. But it's main thrust- eating disorders are bad, pursue health healthily, love yourself, and here's a bunch of resources if you or a loved one is suffering from a disorder? Pretty innocuous stuff really.

You know what? I'm gonna turn this on it's head, the folks over at Bulimia.com just thought to themselves one day, "gaming is getting to be pretty diverse these days yeah? And demographic info suggests that the age range of men (10-15% of eating disorders, from the national association of anorexia nervous and associated disorders) and women playing them are at risk for harmful disorders, we should do an article focused on that." And lo and behold, an article came forth, along with a group of pictures of mixed quality. Anyway, there we go. This happened because we're getting better, happy ending.

Agreed!

Unfortunately, the suggestion that something fictional has an effect on the real world (or even has the potential to have an effect) means that you are Jack Thompson's Fascist evil twin, even when your aim is for people who have mental health problems relating to warped views on body images.

And of course any attempt to point out a trend as different from reality means that you are demanding everything in the world to be exactly one particular way. Contextualising and dictating are exactly the same thing!

And God forbid you suggest that people's tastes in women are cultural and varied and differences could be used to world-build (why do medieval fantasy games never talk about love-interests needing child-bearing hips for example?)

 

[gargantual]

One thing I don't get is....

Lara Croft would not be able to trek the wilderness as effectively. If people try to put her on 'avg American weight. In hypothetical scenario. She'd either lose the weight and get toned in the process of long term survival, or wouldn't be able to dodge and outrun the wilderness as fast. So might as well let creators express their fantasies.

these fantasy warriors don't have sedentary, saturated-fat, sitcom lifestyles. They are active. Their world is active too. No matter many polygons rendering them realistic, demand they conform to modern american reflections, or how authentic the amazon, or Chicago or Tokyo, or LA can be rendered. The fictional lives of these characters are different. Whats in their heart of motivation is LEAGUES more valuable than outward stuff. It is their duty to abstract and wrestle the extremes, the ghosts, and projections, while we wrestle our demons of a different nature, and deal with the monotony. Could you imagine Croft in a 9 to 5 office job? She'd quit after orientation. She'd probably exit the bldg naked like the Mr. Robot actor did so awkwardly in Need for Speed movie.

Look at all the female sympathetic fans for Don Draper back when Mad Men was on. That to me is clear evidence that people can identify with a character outside their own existence and personal struggle if they have something plot wise and sympathetic to latch onto.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

"No one should enjoy it" kindly point out where I said that. I don't appreciate words being put in my mouth.

The party? You mean the people that we look at for 95% of the game? That's the thing. If a woman has a name, there's a 90% chance that she'll be good looking in some way if she's not under 18 (Or 16 if the game is from Japan) all the named characters in Final Fantasy, Tales of X, Valkyria Chronicles, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, you rarely see a character that has any importance to the plot that isn't at the very least pretty. Hell, even generic NPCs tend to be easy on the eyes, not helped by the fact that I good chunk of modern games feel the need to arbitrarily stick you in a brothel or a strip club because I don't know.

I take it you ignored the part where I said that the ideal image is bullshit for both genders didn't you? Yeah, but not in many countries that are the 1st world now. You don't tend to see many paintings of fat British French or Spanish Queens

If you don't want something to be, then yes, no one would enjoy it.

Spoiler

Yeah that's some impossibly beautiful women that can't be emulated by others =P
Heck, both Fuuka and Chie look very average for most people.

I did not ignore what you were saying about both genders but the problem is that it's what I like to call the "male rape addendum", were a person add a disclosure about males and continue to say nothing about it so they can't be blamed on double standards. I'm pretty sure most males has no problems with the male ideal or atleast be willing to suffer it because, you know, it's not real.

I flat out said I enjoy beautiful women, I'm just tired of them being everywhere. In what way is that wanting something to not be.

I said that 9/10 were good looking, not that they were impossible to emulate. And I have to say Raquna is rather good looking. Hell, the Ronin and the Hexer aren't even that bad looking. And for the record Chie is very cute!

Yeah well, the ideal image for males is bullshit, but here's the thing. Men are allowed to have more diverse representation in media. We can get handsome people like Nathan Drake and Dante, big ugly motherfuckers like Marcus Fenix and Kratos, rugged looking people like Joel, Bishie looking guys like Raiden and half of the JRPG main characters, big tall guys with no face like Master Chief, short guys with pot bellies like Mario, and so on and so forth. So while I think the ideal image is bullshit for both gender, and I do think there's a problem with male representation in media, I focus on women because, frankly, they have it a lot worse. It'd be nice if more games could follow the lead of Suikoden, Suikoden II had a giant vicious barbarian woman.

So yeah. Most men are "willing to suffer it" because they don't have to go through nearly as much bullshit as women in that field.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

So I got called out with the title the other day during a discussion on another board resulting from the article on the Escapist (Link [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.880084-Female-Game-Characters-Photoshopped-to-Average-American-Proportions]) about body images.

The short version of the discussion? "You're a terrible, troubled person for accepting and internalizing society's expectations of people."

Longer version:

So during the debate on the mentioned images, it came up that I didn't disagree with the original interpretations of the characters as being fairly reasonable and not out there by that much; though I am willing to admit that MAYBE the busts on them are a bit too big for the average woman. It went back and forth for a bit until it got to this;

"Yeah, but they're still completely unrealistic."

(Me) "No they're not. If we're excluding the obviously stylized ones like the Gerudo, most of these are perfectly obtainable and healthy for real women and women would actually be doing themselves a favor by trying to look more like them. They're obtainable by little more than mild exercise and a proper diet. Just because you don't want to put in the barest goddamn effort to take care of yourself and look decent doesn't mean you get to ***** about the expectations of society when any actual though on the standards would show they're not completely arbitrary and aren't unrealistic, or at least within the realm of possibility.

I mean, if you don't WANT to, thats fine. Its your choice and we have to respect that. But just because you choose NOT to try, or got unlucky and can't conform, does not make society wrong, or the "standard" any less desirable. I can't meet the standard of attractive for men basically at all - I don't exercise enough, and even if I did my face is pretty messed up from almost a decade of acne and pimples wrecking it. But I don't ***** at the system for not making the standard more like me - I understand that I got unlucky with my face, and that I don't feel like putting in the effort to look better, so I'm not going to go ripping the system and trying to force it to include me."

Then the line from above, and the conversation was over. Maybe it's just me; but I don't think accepting the standards of society when they're not actually unreasonable. Or maybe I'm just weird in that I'm able to tell the difference between something OBVIOUSLY unrealistic like say:

Spoiler

And something merely idealistic or very high-end:

Spoiler

I don't think the super idealized female in fiction is much of a problem, or it would not be if it were not for a couple things. And while I don't mean to offend, I am going to be frank, people like you are one of those things.

Looking like Helena is not possible for most women. It is possible for some women, but not most. And you say some pretty harsh and unreasonable things. "They're obtainable by little more than mild exercise and a proper diet." for example is just plain false. Most women are incapable of obtaining such a figure with any amount of exercise and proper dieting. You are just wrong for probably 90% of women outside of serious and extremely unhealthy levels of reconstructive surgery. You then go on to say things like "Just because you don't want to put in the barest goddamn effort to take care of yourself" when we are talking about obtaining a figure many supermodels can't match dedicating their lives to being beautiful and sexy.

I don't know if you have "Internalizing the Oppression" or whatever, but you should know you are completely unreasonable in your assessment of the bodies of women, the possibility of obtaining, effort to obtain, and effort to maintain an idealized (or even near idealized) figure. And this is the big problem with this sort of presentation of women - people like you end up with warped ideas of what is healthy and realistic for women to obtain and are very insulting and demeaning (even if you don't mean to be) when talking about women who don't meet those ideals. Whether or not you mean it this way, your whole thing basically reads "It is ok that you are a lazy slob that doesn't take any pride in her body, even if you could look like that with the smallest of effort. But don't expect people to think you are anything more than mildly attractive with the non effort you put in."

Now, that all said, all the figures (save the highly stylized ones) are healthily obtainable by some women, so in that respect they are "realistic" for whatever that means. Frankly, I don't care if a female game model is realistic or not if I like to look at it. This is fantasy, it makes sense people typically want to fantasize about the sexiest people.

So I guess I kind of agree? The problem is not necessarily the presentation of fictional women, it is people who fail to properly process this kind of presentation of fictional women. As I see it, you are ruining the sexy for the rest of us.

 

[visiblenoise]

Yeah well, the ideal image for males is bullshit, but here's the thing. Men are allowed to have more diverse representation in media. We can get handsome people like Nathan Drake and Dante, big ugly motherfuckers like Marcus Fenix and Kratos, rugged looking people like Joel, Bishie looking guys like Raiden and half of the JRPG main characters, big tall guys with no face like Master Chief, short guys with pot bellies like Mario, and so on and so forth. So while I think the ideal image is bullshit for both gender, and I do think there's a problem with male representation in media, I focus on women because, frankly, they have it a lot worse. It'd be nice if more games could follow the lead of Suikoden, Suikoden II had a giant vicious barbarian woman.

Those are all generally fit. Nathan Drake and Dante, I would lump into the same broad category as Raiden, which is the fit-but-slim. Master Chief too, probably, but we don't really see much (just like Samus). Marcus and Kratos are just ridiculous bodybuilding types, but their desirability/cool-factor is well-rooted in modern examples like Arnold Schwarzenegger. None of these different types actually make the character fatter, unlike the photoshopped examples we're talking about. Nobody naturally looks like any of them, they all require some effort to achieve.

Mario is a bit chubby, but he's much more of a cartoon character. Princess Peach isn't exactly amazingly-proportioned herself. Nobody aspires to be these characters anyway. What kind of a man says "I think I'm okay with my body - just look at Mario"?

 

[DementedSheep]

It's less that's unrealistic and more that the more you ?idealise? a woman the more you make her look incompetent. Big tits are not and have never been equivalent to muscle. Are they useful? no, if anything they get in the way and they aren't even good for breast feeding. Using the ?female power? of seduction makes you an honourless whore incapable of doing shit yourself, not heroic. We don?t praise someone who fucked their boss to get a raise. Lacking in muscles (and internal organs) is self-explanatory. They get flawless doll like skin without scars or small imperfection that male character tend to have because that would they imply actually done something in their life before this point. High heels are incredibly impractical and make you look a moron. Baring your ass makes you look like a submissive ***** and for those of us not interested T&A being half naked tends to translate to boring and ridicules designs. It doesn't make you look more ?agile? either, especially not if you have tight cutoffs and straps which would be worse to move in than actual clothing. This is before we even get to animations and poses. You make a male character like that and you get crys of "******" and "pussy" because it make them look ridicules, pathetic and weak but put that shit on girl and if anything that it dose that seems to be a plus.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I'm not sure what that picture is supposed to prove. And I have a tendency to play JRPGs too, especially the Shin Megami Tensei series, and JRPGs are just as flawed as the rest of the games in the industry. I can't exactly think of many female JRPG characters that aren't attractive to some degree

Also "fear of showing women badly" is something I hear thrown out a lot without anything to really back it up.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So let's get this straight. The entire society is wrong and TERRIBLE, because they don't conform to ideas of a few individuals that are either too lazy to get off their ass and make themselves more attractive or they're unable to do that for some reason. And they blame video games now? It's never their fault. It's never about what they can do to make themselves more attractive. It's always about the world and society oppressing them and making them feel worthless or something. Boo fuckin' hoo. Get over it.
Do these people even know hot attraction works? How society works? How humans are hardwired? Their entire argument is based on ignorance and butthurt.

You know what else isn't attractive? That kind of attitude. And since this is clearly about people being butthurt that they're not as attractive as what is society's standard, let's also mention a few other non-attractive features. How about acne, being crippled, facial deformities, amputees, hairiness, warts and other skin diseases, being too skinny, bad odor etc.

Why aren't all of those people complaining that the world is a terrible place for not finding them attractive? Why is it that only fat people are offended? Why don't people with skin conditions or big noses demand that Lara Croft grows a giant wart on her giant nose and grow armpit hair? Why is being fat the only problem worth talking about?

Do you "body justice warriors" actually think that you make sense? That you're right and you're fighting the good fight? You're not. Nobody cares. Nobody will ever care. Your body type may be attractive to some people, but it isn't and it won't be considered universally attractive and there's nothing wrong with that. If you disagree, then lose some weight. But don't go around telling people that they're terrible because they don't like you the way that you are. Cry me a river. How did these people survive this long being that weak?

There's nothing wrong with people who aren't attracted to fat people and there's nothing wrong with portraying fictional characters with body type that is considered attractive in current society. If you can't handle that, then you're the one with a problem and it's up to you to fix it. Don't demand that the entire society changes their standards because you're too fuckin' weak to do something about your own problem.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Maybe they're just clear that when people write a page talking about not caring, they care.

Care about what? Since you clearly think that you read my post like an adult, answer me that. What do I care about and in what context?

 

[MonsterCrit]

Part of the issue, I think, is that these "idealistic or very high-end" body types are pretty ubiquitous for women in media, and the same standard is not applied to men.

Not applied to men? Excuse me...it's just as applied to men as women. Have you seen the physiques of many characters in video games, either steroid tank beefcake or waifisish perfect skinned slender but chiseled bishie.

Seriously. If you think swim suit models give an unhealth idea for women. Look at pro-wrestling and their idea male body.

As for busty ladies. Believe it or not. women have big boobs. and strangely enough if you start saying it's bad to portray women with DD's in media and games well what are you saying to the women who possess those bust sizes and body types?

I don't think many people would complain if "ideal" body types turned up once in a while in media-- it's that they're everywhere, and far more common than the average, and that that's true only for one sex.

Media portrays an idealized fantasy. It's why virtually no one in movies poops (unless it's meant to be funny).

 

[MonsterCrit]

Part of the issue, I think, is that these "idealistic or very high-end" body types are pretty ubiquitous for women in media, and the same standard is not applied to men.

Not applied to men? Excuse me...it's just as applied to men as women. Have you seen the physiques of many characters in video games, either steroid tank beefcake or waifisish perfect skinned slender but chiseled bishie.

Seriously. If you think swim suit models give an unhealth idea for women. Look at pro-wrestling and their idea male body.

As for busty ladies. Believe it or not. women have big boobs. and strangely enough if you start saying it's bad to portray women with DD's in media and games well what are you saying to the women who possess those bust sizes and body types?

I don't think many people would complain if "ideal" body types turned up once in a while in media-- it's that they're everywhere, and far more common than the average, and that that's true only for one sex.

Media portrays an idealized fantasy. It's why virtually no one in movies poops (unless it's meant to be funny).