Jimquisition: Objectification And... Men?

[verdant monkai]

I know what Jim means but I disagree to a certain extent. Whilst women are often made to be sex objects, men are made into objects of violence. Reduced to nothing but a grunting monster that just wants violence and slaughter. Thats not one of my ideals and I don't wan't to be that.

Theres a guy in skyrim called Hrongar who sums this up "I'm not a man I'm a weapon in human form".

I will obviously admit that women have it a lot worse. It's just that objectification of men does exist and it is a valid complaint. It's just that I don't think devs should be told to curb their games in anyway, to avoid offending people or making it safer for certain groups. Not because I don't want women enjoying games, just because I don't like it when art is stifled and censored.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Dear Jim, your argument is invalid, this is due to the Postal Dude. He is a male character that is in no way idolised nor should he be. He is at best a terrible human being.

Hey, I take offence to that. J/k. But yea, he isn't apart of the big "AAA" releases, so unfortunately our favorite psychopathic red head can't be used for this argument.

Even if Postal was AAA, the argument is a very flawed one. In general, male heroes are idealized. I do not believe, however, that ALL male characters are idealized. We're only dealing with the general and common examples here. Of course anti-heroes, flawed heroes, and downright villain protagonists exist. I always Kane & Lynch's best feature was how it starred two characters who were both physically *and* psychologically ugly people.

But again, male characters are allowed to be flawed, ugly, and even broken. Female protagonists, not so much.

True, very true. But, (And I'm sorry for potentially playing devils advocate)the flip side to this argument is, IF they made a flawed (physically or mentally) there could be a potential uproar over it.

Maybe, but I must ask, so? There will always be some uproar about any game. Hell, remember when Jim made the joke about the people who made an uproar about Sonic's eyes being made green?(hahaha...that was funny)

That, and there have already been female characters in games that have been ugly physically and mentally (sometimes both but most just mentally) before. Granted, most were not the protagonist, but I don't remember much complaining about them. Not to say that there wasn't, but if there was it wasn't very widespread. Plus we could use something not so over done once in a while.

 

[Reeve]

Here's another thing: An ideal woman, even from a woman's point of view, would look attractive to most men. Because who doesn't want to look attractive?

 

[franksands]

Don't both genders want to be desirable? Making male characters appeal to men, means making a man whom women want. Old and grizzled can still be attractive to women. Sean Connery won People's Sexiest Man Alive at 59, and there are regularly men over 40. It seems to come down to more what each gender finds attractive and playing to that. Women buy those skimpy outfits and try to pull off those looks even when they shouldn't.

Games are playing up that old 'men are shallow, women are deep' stereotype of what each find attractive. Not necessarily wrongly. My wife can watch Hunchback of Notre Dame and say Esmeralda should have chosen Quasimodo. And it seems just as many women go for the dark, troubled, and brooding Snape as do Edward or Jacob.

For the record, I'd like to see more variety of women in games for variety's sake, but this might be more of a 'men and women are different' issue. I personally like the female avatars. I preferred Fem Shepard to Male Shepard, and had no problem romancing Garrus with her. My wife preferred a blond male renegade Shepard.

*Side question* is Jack from Mass Effect objectified? She wears the skimpiest outfit and I'm sure fits some peoples definition of desirable.

*Side Side note* Is it weird to find Kasumi and Tali the most attractive females in Mass Effect? They are the most covered.

(M)Ass Effect 2 wins the trophy for most objectified women. Aside from Jack, you have Samara, the justicar with high red heels. But the 1st place goes to Miranda, because the camera always focuses on her ass.

 

[Dire Sloth]

This is my idea of an idealized female protagonist:

Spoiler

YESSSSS! Can't fucking agree more.

Because unlike most other "strong female protagonists", she actually is aware she is still a woman instead of just being a woman acting in the role of a man and shunning all things womanly.

If you watch GoT (I'm assuming you do):

Spoiler

When Jaimie and Brienne duke it out for the first time! I got so excited when Jaimie fell over trying to tackle her. She is a womanly beast.

 

[Psykoma]

But then the character design would have to deal with the issue that so very very few women think having massive boobs with a petite frame is more attractive and preferable, and yet even fewer would think highly of being dependant on her man.

How well do you think a game would sell if all the women were obese and had the personalities of reclusive anti-Semites?

Except that's not the argument you posted. You posted that women are idealized as well, but sorry - they aren't.

And even then, women who women find attractive wouldn't be "obese [with] the personalities of reclusive anti-Semites", they would still be attractive to the vast majority of men.

 

[TheThirdChild]

For the 'smug' bit you could have just put up a flashing sign saying "satire". Maybe then people would connect the dots, or learn a new word...
Has anyone ever ask female players what they'd like their female (and male) characters to look and act like?

 

[Reeve]

Women in video games are idealised. Unless you think that women don't want to look attractive.

 

[Reeve]

For the 'smug' bit you could have just put up a flashing sign saying "satire". Maybe then people would connect the dots, or learn a new word...
Has anyone ever ask female players what they'd like their female (and male) characters to look and act like?

Except that it's not "their" characters. It's the writer and artist's characters.

I'm sick of seeing entitled whining from people who get the privilege to play someone else's work.

 

[Orekoya]

I have heard this argument before when people talk about comic book women being objectified. This is the best response I have seen.

Make of it what you will.

Question!!! Why does Superman shave his legs? HOW does Superman shave his legs? I mean Greenlantern I can get, Human with alien technology. How does Superman manage though? Industrial strength polymer leg waxing?

Like, maybe he just uses his breath to freeze his own leg and then just brushes them off. Or maybe he just, like, burns them off with this eyes.

Can Superman's powers harm himself? His hair is basically indestructible if not he'd have his glorious mullet burned of every single time a heat based enemy was encountered. So why should there be an exception for his own heat vision which still works on the same principles and does not seem to be all that strong, compared to other heat powers in the same universe.

Kryptonite razorblades?

There you go.

 

[Bke]

Exactly like this video. Not letting the topic die. Making the conversation louder so publishers can't help but hear it. Not shutting up just because some people are "tired" of hearing the issue discussed. We'll stop talking about it when the industry changes its practices.

However I wonder about the effectiveness about talking about it. While Jim is right to think that his predicted console market collapse will bring and end, or at least a change, to DRM and other such practices, I don't think this is such a prominent issue to be considered in the proceeding regrowth after the collapse.

If we look at what happened in the 80's, consumers became disillusioned because of poor quality control, leaving Nintendo strictly controlling its releases even today. If another collapse were to occur, or even something near to it, how could we ensure that sexism is indeed identified as one of the causes from a profit standpoint?

Of course speaking to the publishers and developers is one way, but the feeling I got from replies to the e-mails I sent is that this is still a non-issue in the eyes of publishers, and may have been brought up too late in this "second era" of gaming history to see effective change come soon enough.

I suppose I answer my own question by way of pointing out that we can't directly "vote with our wallets" on this matter, but it's still sad to think the industry may still have to endure another era with cliché stereotyping. But I can see no way to alter this course.

 

[Spearmaster]

Internet-"Hey! There is a problem"

Me- "What is it?"

Internet-"Women in games are over sexualized!!!"

Me-"Why is that a problem?"

Internet-"because some people don't like it"

Me-"Well I don't like tomatoes on my tacos"

Internet-"Derp,Derp'Derp"

Me-"Is it hurting people?"

Internet-"Well there is absolutely no evidence but we say it is... so yes it is hurting people."

Me-"Ohh, so what do you plan to do about your problem?

Internet-"Just another wave of over entitled bitching about someone's art form and how things have to change"

Me-"Really? I just don't buy tacos that have tomatoes on them, some people like tomatoes on their tacos so I don't think it has to change"

Internet-"Derp,Derp,Derp"


**Disclaimer**
This was a fictional dramatization of a typical conversation with the internet.

Is there a solution in this mire of sexism in video games that doesn't trample all over an artists creative design? Or is it nothing more than a whine about stuff people don't like. I hear thousands of people AGAINST sexism in video games and AGAINST over sexualized women and now even the idealization of men. Never once have I heard someone FOR a solution to this supposed problem, just whiners and the supposed moderates that say we should have discussions about it which is just a cowards way of supporting the whiners by giving credence to their argument.

 

[Xanex]

I have yet to see any correlation between how female characters are portrayed in games and any harm to women in reality besides "it offends me". And I have yet to see anyone forcing anyone else to buy and play games that offend them. Well, besides game reviewers.

 

[Psykoma]

And even then, women who women find attractive wouldn't be "obese [with] the personalities of reclusive anti-Semites".

I think you read two different posts, one of them being mine, and somehow merged them together in your mind because I never said that.

Except that's not the argument you posted. You posted that women are idealized as well, but sorry - they aren't.

i·de·al·ize (-d-lz)
v. i·de·al·ized, i·de·al·iz·ing, i·de·al·iz·es
v.tr.
1. To regard as ideal.
2. To make or envision as ideal.
v.intr.
1. To render something as an ideal.
2. To conceive ideals or an ideal.

They are so long as they fit someone's ideal.

Jim's choice of words was poor.

No, they are idealized if they fit the general ideals of the group they represent.
Women game characters are what they think men find ideal in women, that's not idealization, that's objectification.
If the women game characters were what they thought women would find ideal in women, then that would be idealization.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I know what Jim means but I disagree to a certain extent. Whilst women are often made to be sex objects, men are made into objects of violence. Reduced to nothing but a grunting monster that just wants violence and slaughter. Thats not one of my ideals and I don't wan't to be that.

Theres a guy in skyrim called Hrongar who sums this up "I'm not a man I'm a weapon in human form".

Spoiler: Bah! Never saw that milk drinker on the battle field!

I will obviously admit that women have it a lot worse. It's just that objectification of men does exist and it is a valid complaint. It's just that I don't think devs should be told to curb their games in anyway, to avoid offending people or making it safer for certain groups. Not because I don't want women enjoying games, just because I don't like it when art is stifled and censored.

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.

 

[the December King]

I always felt that the protagonist/hero in an adventure story should most likely reflect what is needed or wanted of him or her. Lara Croft has to have 'sexy' (or in practical terms, developed and strong) abs and legs to make jump after jump and climb ridiculous things. She has to be fit, and to many people fit is sexy, on a very basic level.

I'm sorry, but the "the women have to look like for what they do in the game to be realistically feasible" does not work.

I guarantee you, a woman who could 'realistically' do all that Lara Croft does has 0 boob - all muscle (thighs and butt for that matter as well). A real life woman who can do what Lara Croft does has the same body as Kratos. Well, minus the willy.

Not sure where I am going here, but I assume toned or muscular men must be attractive to some women, or something.

Yes, there are some who do find that attractive.
But the point is that they are incidental to it all, they aren't the target.

Fair enough, I suppose, but again I was suggesting that the characters in action/adventure games should look like they COULD do some of the things they do, but I didn't mean to imply any sense of realism.

Because there is none, really.

If you get shot you can't normally hide for a moment and then regenerate, for example.

Rock-climbers and long-jumpers don't all look like WWE headliners. I was just saying that Lara fits the image/ideal better than, say, a non mountain- climbing, long-jumping stripper. Or something.

And again, the target would be the audience that pays the company for a product, so if giant ham-fisted troglydyte for a protagonist appeals to the demographic, you pander your suits off to make that money. And if there really are almost 50% of gamers basically not bothering to speak up, the squeaky wheels will get the grease, I guess?

 

[Jack and Calumon]

All very good points and arguments that have, unfortunately, been covered many times by many people for about a year now. Sure, people still use this defence so you could argue it bears repeating, but honestly this has been said ad nauseum. No new perspectives were brought up, no new ideas, just the ones covered by everyone else.

Not that it detracts from the points you've made. I firmly agree, it's just dull to see what you've seen before.

Calumon's sleeping, I'm lazy. Bleck.

You'd be surprised to find out just how many people don't know or haven't seen things that you would think that everyone should have heard about already.

I know people who haven't seen Star Wars, anime fans who haven't watched Cowboy Bebop, shooter fans who haven't played Half Life, Half Life 2, or Portal.

Just because you think everyone has heard this already, doesn't mean they have and if a tenth of the audience Jim has has learned something new, then I would say this is a video well made.

I think if anyone cared about this debate enough to watch this, they would have seen this. Heck, MovieBob did it nearly a year ago. and I'm not even going to point out the massive amounts of people who've said this in forum debates, blog posts and several articles.

I did say that the argument is still being said and that does grant, perhaps, repeating that counterpoint until people stop saying it. My point is is that the vast majority of people have heard this and this video is dull because of that. We've heard this before, it's been said already. The majority have heard this and now we're having the same thing but with Jim's face and voice. You can argue that if someone's going to get enlightened, it's worth doing sure. That doesn't mean I can't say it was boring for me to watch because in my view, this is very slow on the ball.

Calumon likes people. End of. Go home.

 

[The Funslinger]

Your use of forward slashes has totally changed my way of doing things. I'll do a top ten gaming babes next week.

With a piece of female Willem Dafoe fan art making a surprise win on the number one spot, right? It counts because of Beyond: Two Souls!

 

[Redd the Sock]

Even if the arguement that both male and female characters are equally objectified would be entirely true, I can't for the life of me see how that solves anything. It would only make the problem worse, wouldn't it? It doesn't really seem like another reason to just ignore it and go on as usual if the problem is that much larger.

The thing is, that most people from what I have seen do not use the "They are both objectified" argument as a way of suggesting that it should be ignored, but as a way of pointing out that the issue isn't with bad female characters, but with bad characters overall.

That writers should be working on writing decent characters in the first place, rather than simply trying to fix female characters.

Note that I am not expressing my own opinion, merely pointing out what I have seen when people actually talk about male objectification.

Although I would say that despite most male characters being written to appeal to male gamers. They pretty much exist to make "witty" one liners and shoot things. So while they are not "objectified", they are pretty bad in their own right, as the "ideal" male is apparently a meat head with the inability to converse like a normal person, no emotions or value for human life.

Which I think is the point people who make the argument are trying to get across.

Well some of them.

There does seem to be a fair amount of people who actually think the muscular men in gaming are the equivalent of the sexualised women. Which is worrying.

It depends on the guy and the girl in question. Dante didn't go shirtless for the guys to look at his abs.

As someone that has used that argument in the past, I do so more to address the issue of self image: specifically that stereotypically men don't look at Kratos and think they need to hit the gym while an attractive female character seems to put off women that can't live up to the big boobs and thin waists. It isn't that I don't get where women are coming from, but I think the wrong message gets taken away. I'm a 35 your old hairy guy with minor acne, crooked teeth, and a beer gut, and I don't get self conscious when I see Dante, or Brad Pitt, or a muscle bound guy in tights in a comic book. I'm not always happy with everything about me, but I know I don't have to live up to some ideal, especially one that can only exist digitally, or through plastic surgery, starvation diets, non-stop exercise, and drugs.

But an element behind these gender topics is that yes, a lot of women still feel the need to live up to the Lara Crofts, and the response is to minimize their usage, not to try and break through their personal beauty myth. I'd like to think that a something women could learn from the guys in these debates is that you don't need to have your self worth dictated by how much you match something designed to be an unrealistic fantasy, and that the problem we do have with the beauty myth, exists less because of the myth's existence, but on people that do seem to think that their fantasy should be reality. Don't attack Lara Croft for being attractive, or anyone that finds her attractive. Attack those that expect you to be her, especially if that someone is yourself.

 

[mdqp]

That's why they have a whole game world made for them to do just that. The females on the other hand... you don't get 8 hour games about putting on make-up, doing cardio at the gym, sticking to a low fat diet and shopping for impractical fanservice clothing. =/

Well, not any good games anyway.

I know you didn't mean it, but that sounded terribly sexist right there, I think you might want to word it differently...

As someone pointed out before, the point about living up to any standard is madness. If your friends pressure into certain standards, they aren't really your friends, and if it's your family doing it, well, they might still be your family, but they might just suck. And society is pretty much a faceless, shapeless thing, getting pushed by it into doing anything is something I can't really understand. Also, even if someone was pressuring you into anything, you still have a functioning brain, which allows you to disregard any dumb suggestion thrown your way.

Also, I believe it's a bit unfair to arbitrarily say: "if males are inept in this media, that's a standard which is easy to meet, while if they act like badasses in that media, then it's just empowering". I agree there is an issue in variety and quality of female characters portrayal in videogames, but that's just cherry picking.