Jimquisition: Objectification And... Men?

[Mr F.]

This is my idea of an idealized female protagonist:

Spoiler

Now in video games this becomes a problem because people will claim that its just a guy with a female skin.

Damn. Just can't win!

I dunno, if you are watching the actual show they make her femininity quite clear. Its strange and wonderful and man, I fucking love Brienne. She is a pretty badass character. Also, in the series (Might have just been me noticing and it doesn't count as a spoiler) there was a clear scene where tits could have been shown. And they were not shown. Total and utter tangent here, but its nice that at least one of the female characters in ASOIAF has refused to be shown naked. Too much tits in that show.

Anyway, Brienne is a good character. And a realistic character. And I think it would be interesting to see her in an ASOIAF game that wasn't the mod for CK2 (Because that is the only ASOIAF game. There were no other games. Shut up.)

I mean to say, Brienne in a computer game would come across as female and utterly, UTTERLY badass.

 

[minimacker]

It feels like I've seen this video already. Haven't you talked about this before? Muscle men are a power fantasy for men. Women are a sexual fantasy for men.

Even before the Dogma video, I mean.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

True. There are many "manly men" in Skyrim, but there are also men who don't at all fit that description(Nazeem=prick). Just as there are women in Skyrim who are pretty girly girls, and other women will cut your head off as soon as they look at you(not just the bandits). Some aren't even that pretty either. Though, none on either gender are fat.

That said, Skyrim is kind of the exception that proves the rule. There are many different types of male/female characters because that's what the game is famous for, and that is how they are made almost always.

Many other games can't say that.

I'm talking about this character as an individual nothing to do with Skyrim other than its where he comes from. He is just an example of a man who has been objectified into a killing machine, which isn't nessecarily an ideal that most men want to achieve.

And to set the record straight I love the Elder Scrolls but the characters are some of the worst in existence. They may be diverse but they are all boring forgettable cardboard cut outs.

HA ha. A fair enough statement(I too love the games). I just meant that the problem isn't so much with those types of characters existing, but that they dominate most games as the "only" characters. That is more the problem. Also, I wanted to mention that Nazeem is a prick.

 

[Marowit]

Lost all interest with the video at "half of all gamers are women" because I knew that the rest of the video would be based around that figure, as if it's an established fact.

Show me a breakdown by genre/category that women represent half of all gamers in every aspect I will bend over and eat my own shit. Show me that roughly half of the gamers playing first person shooters, real time strategy, role playing, etc etc are female and I'll admit defeat.

No, don't show me that one ESRB report that completely skewed the fuck out of results by counting in the MILLIONS of iPhone and Facebook gamers, that is rubbish. Jim (and pretty much every feminist) are mostly talking about AAA games, not goddamn flash/java games or goddamn Tetris.

I don't understand this rant, even if 100% of the AAA population is male, so what? Doesn't seem to change, nor justify, how almost all women in AAA games are portrayed. The way women are portrayed doesn't seem like a good way to progress our hobby and for it to be taken more seriously as a storytelling medium. It just seems a great way to perpetuate the stereotype of 14-27 year old males who live with their parents, probably in a basement, and don't have much going for themselves other than how awesome their latest avatar is...

Heck, if for nothing else having more realistic, complex female protagonists could make for some great, novel, stories. But, I may be misinterpreting your statement. So, I'll go back to my biochem and await your response

 

[WindKnight]

Good points Jim, but, perhaps you've forgotten - there are male characters made for a female audience.

Male characters made for specifically a female audience, usually a teen female audience, over in Japan. They're those effeminate pretty boys so much of the western male audience seems to hate. So, oddly enough, when male characters are made specially 'for women' the reaction is about what the female reaction is to female characters made to appeal to men.

Personally I always rather liked the prettier eastern male characters, if for no other reason that they were a breath of fresh air, an escape, from the constant barrage of overly muscled, overly masculine and utterly nonsensical male characters of western games.

I think the point is that often male gamers (comic fans etc) will often complain that women should see these depictions as positive, power fantasies etc, and claim their making a fuss about nothing, yet see no irony or correlation when they react in an extremely hostile (and even homophobic) way when they encounter such 'pretty boys'. IE, hot women in the buff should be accepted by all, bishonens in speedos are a hell spawned abominations that should die. Thats even before we get into lesbian/yuri vs gay/yaoi romance or porn.

 

[Ipsen]

The problem is, Jim, that some men in some games are objectified - certainly on a purely visual level. I'd cite Dante, from the most recent DMC game. Both he and his gorgeous-looking twin brother are dreamily good-looking young men, designed by someone with a VERY keen appreciation of male beauty. Personally (and speaking as a gay man) I can't get enough of a look at him (opening cut-scene FTW!).

It is true enough to say that in most games most male characters are indeed idealised; but in a few, like DMC, they are clearly objectified as well - and as us Brits would say: Gwooarh! Eh?

Agree with this, but how many times does 'the sexy woman' (say, Trish) get the game action, conflict and backstory devoted to her , and at the same time, how does that visual sexiness transfer to the action of the game?

Legit question I attempt to ask here, since the disconnect I see in this arguement isn't between men and women per say, but between the two aspects that make video games what they are; visuals and gameplay. The objectification/idealization happens to both, but it doesn't seem to translate well into gameplay (or at all).

And I'll disclaim here; while I haven't played any DMC games, I know Trish is playable in DMC 2, and she's significant throughout the series (it's just how, and bu how, I mean you should be playing as her more if she's truly important, as far as a game goes)

Sorry to soapboxing on your post!

 

[Trishbot]

As a girl gamer, I just know I ADORE strong female characters like the new Lara, Jade from Beyond Good & Evil, Faith from Mirror's Edge, Alice from American McGee's Alice games, Aya Brea from Parasite Eve 1 (let's not talk about 3rd Birthday), Samus from Metroid Prime (let's not talk about Other M), Alexandra Rovias from Eternal Darkness, Jen from Primal, Joanna Dark from Perfect Dark, Heather from Silent Hill 3, Jill/Claire/Rebecca from the original Resident Evil games, Chell from Portal, and my strong female avatars in Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Jade Empire and others games, along with strong female supporting characters like Trip from Enslaved, Alyx from Half-Life 2, Aika from Skies of Arcadia, Elika from Prince of Persia, and others.

But for every good example, there's a huge mountain of vapid, large-breasted bimbos being paraded about as useless damsels in distress, shallow eye-candy, and valuable trophies to earn as a reward. And slowly but surely, I've watched many of the heroines I DID admire being reduced and diminished.

I'm sitting here looking at what they've done to heroines like Samus and Jill Valentine and Aya Brea and I'm not smiling or happy to see them anymore. I see the gaming industry forgetting about characters like Joanna Dark and Vanessa Scheider and Cate Archer and Sonia Belmont and Nariko and .

I'm ready to play a game that turns this around. I want to play as Alice Wake trying to find her husband, Alan. I want to play as Jill rescuing Chris (like what happened in the original game if you picked her). I want to play as Anya Stroud in THE lead role in a Gears of War game. I want to play a Halo game with a female lead. I want to play a Mario game starring Daisy (who, unlike Peach, doesn't have powers based on raging hormonal emotions). I want to play a Metal Gear Game starring Meryl or The Boss. I want to play as the Princess of Persia or the Goddess of War. I want to play as Elle from Dead Space. I want to play as Elena or Chloe in Uncharted. I'm ready for all that.

But sadly it seems nobody else is ready. It's still a guys industry with guy games with guy leads, and if I want a game with a female focus, I'd better pick up Cooking Mama or Style Trendsetters, because no girl wants to play as an empowered, clever, talented woman... those games NEVER sell anyway... right?

 

[vxicepickxv]

I think this ties in with that whole perfect pasta sauce episode. Nobody knows what everybody wants, so the industry defaults to the 80s when it comes to gaming.

 

[Doom972]

All valid points except one: Females are roughly 50% of gamers? If we're talking about core gamers (which I assume we are since the subject matter isn't facebook games and such), then no. I recently conducted a research for my bachelor's degree and saw what academic research has to say about that. I saw statistics from peer-reviewed academic articles as well as statistics I collected myself (most of which has been from from this forum - Thanks by the way), and I have to conclude that it's not true. The majority of core gamers are male. The industry knows it and this is why so many AAA games are targeted towards males.

 

[FFP2]

Well what else are people supposed to do in order to get the change they think is long overdue? Arguing and raising the debate is the only way to influence publisher (or, of course, not buying the games -- but then again, raising the issue is important). And Jim specifically said that the audience of video games is far more diverse than people think, it's not vastly more men than women.

I seriously doubt that the amount of women playing these "sexist" games is in a 1:1 ratio to dudes.

I may be wrong on this but I remember reading somewhere that the majority of female gamers play games on handhelds/mobile phones. I haven't really seen "sexist" stuff on those platforms.

 

[wizzy555]

From the capitalist angle one of the key questions developers will ask is:

If we don't sexualise women are enough women going to buy it to make up for the men who didn't buy it for the sexualisation?

 

[Yuuki]

I don't understand this rant, even if 100% of the AAA population is male, so what? Doesn't seem to change, nor justify, how almost all women in AAA games are portrayed. The way women are portrayed doesn't seem like a good way to progress our hobby and for it to be taken more seriously as a storytelling medium.

Taken more seriously by who, developers or the media? Intertwining storytelling and gameplay together is aproximately a billion times harder than simply throwing in a female protagonist, I can tell you that right now.

Heck, if for nothing else having more realistic, complex female protagonists could make for some great, novel, stories.

A realistic, complex female protagonist in a fantasy videogame is nothing more than a gender-swapped male protagonist. I mean do you seriously think there was anything stopping the protagonists of Mirror's Edge, Metroid, etc being males? Or there was anything stopping the protagonists of Dead Space, Assassin's Creed or Uncharted being females? OF COURSE not, it's fantasy and genders are as freely swappable as they were through the Mass Effect universe with characters spouting the same lines (albeit different voice actors) and being represented by a series of differently-shaped pixels.
The market has indicated that it prefers a male protagonist to a female one, these are consumers like you and me who have shown preference by voting with our wallets or indications in RPG's that have flexible character customization.
Give that a long hard thought because I would say at least 95% of games that have featured "great female protagonists" are cases where the job could have just as easily been done by a male while selling more copies, especially in the action/adventure genre. Pretty much everything that defines a great female protagonist goes along the lines of "strong, independent, motivated, willful, bold", blah blah blah a laundry list of everything we have come to expect of male protagonists.

A clever person once invented a special hair shampoo that makes it shiner/healthier and to their amazement they noticed that women were buying their product 50x more than men. You know what they did? Advertised the shit out of that product for women from that point on and plastered their faces on almost every hair product advertisement you see on TV, magazines, etc.

See what I'm getting at? The MARKET speaks, not bickering between people like you or me (or Jim) in internet forums.

It just seems a great way to perpetuate the stereotype of 14-27 year old males who live with their parents, probably in a basement, and don't have much going for themselves other than how awesome their latest avatar is...

The hysterical truth about this is the fact that anyone who assumes that is even less mature than the typical gamer and is therefore the least of our concerns.

 

[mdqp]

I'm talking about the ideal female in videogames, Not IRL. And a lot of videogames ARE terribly sexist.

Yeah, and that sounds sexist, meaning that if you read it, it almost sounds like you are telling that's how a game with a female character should be, and that it's a pity there isn't one. As I said, I know that's not what you meant, but it's kind of hilarious in all the wrong ways. XD XD XD

 

[Gorrath]

True,the two do have a lot in common, the typical hero really i'd say equally damaging but as Jim pointed out for different reasons, lets be honest the typical hero is a psychopath. And that's a dangerous quality.

I'm not sure they are damaging for reasons that are all that different. They are both dmaging to the medium because they are shitty story telling. They are both damaging to the culture because they set up unrealistic expectations and reinforce bad sterotyped gender roles. They are both damaging to the consumer because they restrict what will and will not be approved, limiting our exposure to new ideas and refreshing tropes.

Now I exist in a strange palce in this topic because I can actually enjoy games that objectify and idealize men and women, but also want to see more from the meduim that doesn't do eitehr of those two things. I'd be flat out lying to say I don't enjoy the asthetic used for many female game characters. I'd also be lying if I said I didn't enjoy acting like a psychopath in some games. So I think there is a place for those sorts of objectification/idealization tropes in all media. I also think we should push to include more games that don't stand solely on those things.

 

[Dansrage]

Have you ever played Second Life? EVE Online? Any game with a character creator? Have you seen what Avatars most women create for themselves when given the opportunity? It makes Dead or Alive look modest and reasonable. It's hypocrisy to hold one gender to one standard, and the other to another, lower standard that effectively voids all their responsibility, which of course is the agenda of radical feminism. Women idolize beauty and sex appeal just as much as men idolize strength and bravery, if you made Lara Croft or Samus Aran a plain, slightly overweight mother of three, you would appeal only to the very vocal radical feminist minority, not the vast majority of female gamers, a few of which I know personally, who are equally tired of being singled out and pandered to. In the same sense I wouldn't like Halo as much if Master Chief was an overweight, balding 40 year old, because videogames are fantasy, they're escapism.
These people only have a voice when you humor them and give them one, which is exactly what the industry and the so called 'gaming journalists' like Kotaku are doing, humoring them with this social justice bullshit.

Personally I won't have my hobby gutted by radicals, apologists and political correctness, if that makes me a woman-hating sexist pig, I'll wear that label on a badge with pride.

Keep your politics out of my fucking hobbies.