Jimquisition: Stupid Sexy Bayonetta

[TheMysteriousGX]

Why am I seeing visions of "Stop liking what I don't like" and "Stop disliking what I like"?

To some people, Bayonetta is sexism writ large, to others she is the epitome of the empowered female, and to yet more people she's something in between. Some of the people above write game reviews which include an arbitrary score that's given far more weight than it deserves.

Find reviewers that you like and listen to them. Ignore ones you don't like. Then help me burn Metacritic to the ground and salt the ashes.

 

[MerlinCross]

Find reviewers that you like and listen to them. Ignore ones you don't like. Then help me burn Metacritic to the ground and salt the ashes.

I actually prefer Metacritic(THE IDEA) though. I like seeing a bunch of different reviews and opinions about a title.

The Score thing needs to go though and has been something we've been needing to do something about for ages.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Oh yeah, a review aggregator that's a list of "here are all the reveiws" is a good idea in and of itself.

It's the current implementation and the publisher's reliance on arbitrary "Whose Line is it Anyway" numbers is bollocks.

(I know we're agreeing, I just can't stop ranting about it. *grr hiss*)

 

[FenchurchSt]

Ahh I've been waiting for this discussion to come up... not about Bayonetta specifically, but in general. Well, the "it's okay to like something someone else doesn't and talk about it" thing has been gone over, but I'm talking specifically about female characters that are designed "sexy." Is it inherently bad? Is it good? Is there a middle-ground?

As a female gamer and a believer in the concept that "if you're asking a woman to be x, you're doing feminism wrong because she can be what she wants," I DO think there is middle ground for sure.

For example, I believe a person should be allowed to be feminine, to be sexy, or even be a homemaker if she /wants/ just as much as anything else. To me this Bayonetta debate is more a topic on character design than sexism--PERSONALLY.

I believe it's progressive in a way to have characters that aren't necessarily made to be just eye-candy but have motives to make it make sense. It's WAY better than shoehorning in "progressive" and "empowering" character traits into female characters, which is SO popular nowadays across all media.

Take the movie Tangled compared to Snow White. Rapunzel doesn't make much sense considering her background... you know, being a captive locked in a tower and having unreasonably long hair. Chances are she isn't very athletic... so they make her save the lead male with a frying pan or whatever. Compare this to Snow White, who doesn't even seem to have a character arc; at least she shows personality traits that, desirable or otherwise, are believable (kindness, trustworthiness, gullibility, etc.) as opposed to being indecisive, wanting to learn one specific thing, and being able to restrain people with her hair. They tell us what Rapunzel WANTS, but not what she IS. Sure, Snow White may be as interesting as bread to some people, but it's believable because we all know real people that are uninteresting.

In this way, although it's nothing new in the game industry, I find it nice to see that in a weird bass-ackwards way, women are at least allowed to be sexy sometimes, not just in looks, but in personality. What the world needs is more strong characters all around, not just "strong female characters" because the committee says it /looks/ progressive. To me, the more I see "strong female characters" in any media, the less interested I am; they're so... samey. They're actually less interesting than bread to me; you can put butter on bread without it saying a tired "independent woman" line like "not now, not ever, buddy."

This isn't a new debate either... Ivy is one of my favorite Soul Calibur characters and she has wobbly boob armor that wobbles all over the place. That's not why I like her... she's a fun challenge for me and she does actually have as decent a back story as any other Soul Calibur character. (She's also one of the most important characters in Soul Calibur Legends, which isn't that great of a game, but hey, I played it anyway.)


I really wish that we could legitimately just make all of the characters in a lot of games objectified in some way. I mean, even as a straight girl I don't mind playing as a wobbling sexy girl, but I doubly wouldn't mind if all the guy characters looked like Dante (any of the DMC games) or Alucard from Symphony of the Night. LOL. Geez, now that I think about it, Japan really has it better in that department than here in the US... I mean, look at the VARIETY of characters in Dynasty Warriors and Sengoku Basara... even in singleplayer games with only one character option there are a lot of different types of protagonists between games... all we seem to get are buff guys in brown armor. Even female characters are getting less wild in design lest they incur the wrath of somebody somewhere for some reason. Like... remember how Lara Croft used to look? Now even she's covered in brown with "photorealistic" characteristics. Though, in the same breath I must admit that a lot of Japanese characters, male and female, are little more than tropes placed in new scenarios. Hell, they even have names for these characters like "yandere" and "tsundere." So, "same guy" or "one of several preset guys" are our current options, I guess.

*sigh* Character design :'(

 

[Rellik San]

I am a homosexual man. I like bayonetta. I can see why people will view her as sexist.
Here's an article. Read it. It'll be clearer to you. http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-write-empowering-female.html

There's a link to a woman defending Bayonetta if it makes you happy.

That's an interesting read, despite some needlessly flame baity language when discussing objectification. It also ties in to what I've been saying, what Jims said, what others have said, that yes taken on her own Bayonetta could be a sexist stereotype... if she was in the real world, but in her universe... she makes sense and I think that's something we need to bring back to the discussion is what does Bayonetta say about her world, is she a reaction or a catalyst to it, does her design fit in?

I think that's a point a lot of us forgot. Thank you for posting that and for reminding me of this key point.

I'd recommend people read that article, it starts off as something I was expecting to roll my eyes at but actually, is a decent read and brings up a lot of points for people on both sides of the debate.

 

[Rellik San]

So... completely preoccupied by the sexualisation aspect? The first mention of gameplay comes approximately 4.5 minutes into a 5.5 minute video?

Actually, I'm completely unsurprised.

This wasn't a review. You do know that right? This was a video called "Stupid Sexy Bayonetta", discussing the debate about sexualisation in videogames (and defending Bayonetta). It wasn't about the gameplay. Is it really that ridiculous that a video about sexualisation spends most of it's time being about sexualisation?

Except the video isn't about that either... it's about having an opinion, everyone has a right to one, if you disagree, sit down and talk like grown ups you both might learn something, if you can't just part ways and move on. Bayonetta is really just a framing device for the discussion about discussion.

 

[vid87]

I'd like to put out an idea that sounds off-topic but I believe is somewhat of an endorsement for Bayonetta and the kind of interesting storylines someone that over-the-top can produce:

What if she met Travis Touchdown?

Think about it: a (nearly) rock-hard stupid otaku man-child with a self-destructive libido (he gets into the assassin game just for the possibility of getting laid) versus a confident, take-no-crap woman whose sexuality is a Dynasty Warriors level force of nature. I don't know how gratuitous something like that would have to be to do the scenario "justice" (both characters were wanted for Smash Bros but that venue would severely censor everything) and I can see the argument that involving male sexuality might dilute her purpose by making her an object of desire (or not if the whole thing is deconstructed right), but to me it plays out like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object and seems like it would be a blast to see.

 

[Lightknight]

Ugh, she's so disproportionate and her "sexy" often comes across as old librarian, not sexy librarian.

I am still regularly baffled when people use Bayonetta and "sexy" in the same discussion.

old librarian?

is it because they gave her sharp cheek bones and a strong face more appropriate for her actual age (30s) instead of making her baby-faced like a lot of other character designs do?

idk, i think thats why

Well, for example, this picture always comes to mind:

http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/entry_photo_images/8416889/WiiU_Bayonetta2_scrn08_E3.jpg

When I see this, it reminds me of old women that wear broaches and doily shawls with saggy breasts and old fashioned beauty marks. The ruffled neck part of her undershirt is particularly old school. She doesn't look 30 to me. She looks 40 or older with a dye job. The librarian bit is because that's the look they explicitly shot for with the glasses. Like someone decided to run with the sexy librarian and went with the senior librarian instead.

So yeah, she strikes me as an old woman with horrendously out of proportion body parts. I mean, look at the woman behind her too. How in the world can these terrible disfigured women be perceived as attractive rather than evoking sorrow on their behalf. Part of beauty is symmetry and healthy proportions. To me, they look decidedly not that.

 

[ryukage_sama]

"I think Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Gets across that it's opinion, won't cause any issue from me.
"Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Immediately earns my ire, expressing opinion as fact.

Also, the first 50 seconds of that video was the most condescending assery I've experienced in a long time. People were dicks to you on twitter, that's awful. Don't take it out on your audience.

The entirety of the human population should not be required to put "I think" in front of every subjective statement. In your own post, you failed to follow this requirement. It's an unreasonable, unnecessary standard for statements which would be obviously subjective.

Also, I never felt that Jim was taking anything out on me. I understand that he was referring to other people who were guilty of things I never took part in. Why should I be offended when he is clearly criticizing somebody else?

 

[VanQ]

"I think Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Gets across that it's opinion, won't cause any issue from me.
"Bayonetta is sexist because it has gratuitous ass and crotch shots" <- Immediately earns my ire, expressing opinion as fact.

Also, the first 50 seconds of that video was the most condescending assery I've experienced in a long time. People were dicks to you on twitter, that's awful. Don't take it out on your audience.

The entirety of the human population should not be required to put "I think" in front of every subjective statement. In your own post, you failed to follow this requirement. It's an unreasonable, unnecessary standard for statements which would be obviously subjective.

Also, I never felt that Jim was taking anything out on me. I understand that he was referring to other people who were guilty of things I never took part in. Why should I be offended when he is clearly criticizing somebody else?

There are a myriad of ways that one can express that what they're saying is an opinion. You're taking grievance with an example. Move along.

 

[VanQ]

Ugh, she's so disproportionate and her "sexy" often comes across as old librarian, not sexy librarian.

I am still regularly baffled when people use Bayonetta and "sexy" in the same discussion.

old librarian?

is it because they gave her sharp cheek bones and a strong face more appropriate for her actual age (30s) instead of making her baby-faced like a lot of other character designs do?

idk, i think thats why

Well, for example, this picture always comes to mind:

http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/entry_photo_images/8416889/WiiU_Bayonetta2_scrn08_E3.jpg

When I see this, it reminds me of old women that wear broaches and doily shawls with saggy breasts and old fashioned beauty marks. The ruffled neck part of her undershirt is particularly old school. She doesn't look 30 to me. She looks 40 or older with a dye job. The librarian bit is because that's the look they explicitly shot for with the glasses. Like someone decided to run with the sexy librarian and went with the senior librarian instead.

So yeah, she strikes me as an old woman with horrendously out of proportion body parts. I mean, look at the woman behind her too. How in the world can these terrible disfigured women be perceived as attractive rather than evoking sorrow on their behalf. Part of beauty is symmetry and healthy proportions. To me, they look decidedly not that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. I always thought that Bayonetta acted sexy but never actually found her sexually appealing in any way. I always thought she was satire/parody of what people complain about.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. I always thought that Bayonetta acted sexy but never actually found her sexually appealing in any way. I always thought she was satire/parody of what people complain about.

Whew, someone else! Exactly. She does all kinds of sexy posturing and sure, she shows some skin here and there, but attractive isn't what comes to mind.

Honestly, I'd say her proportions fall into the uncanny valley for me.

 

[Deadcyde]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. I always thought that Bayonetta acted sexy but never actually found her sexually appealing in any way. I always thought she was satire/parody of what people complain about.

Whew, someone else! Exactly. She does all kinds of sexy posturing and sure, she shows some skin here and there, but attractive isn't what comes to mind.

Honestly, I'd say her proportions fall into the uncanny valley for me.

Bayonetta escaping the uncanny valley.

Insert crevice jokes and bam.. bayonetta 3.

To be far i think it's more the fact that she's a fictional character is why she doesn't do it for me. But to be fair, aren't all fantasies fictional?

 

[Lightknight]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. I always thought that Bayonetta acted sexy but never actually found her sexually appealing in any way. I always thought she was satire/parody of what people complain about.

Whew, someone else! Exactly. She does all kinds of sexy posturing and sure, she shows some skin here and there, but attractive isn't what comes to mind.

Honestly, I'd say her proportions fall into the uncanny valley for me.

Bayonetta escaping the uncanny valley.

Insert crevice jokes and bam.. bayonetta 3.

To be far i think it's more the fact that she's a fictional character is why she doesn't do it for me. But to be fair, aren't all fantasies fictional?

Fantasies can certainly become realities. Fantasies are just outlandish desires but not necessarily impossible.

I'd say that there are fictional characters that I am very much attracted to. For example, the beach volleyball girls that Jim is always showing when discussing gratuitous sexual objectification in gaming. Those girls are hot and although I wouldn't necessarily call their proportions normal, they do look healthy and appealing. sure, if I saw them in real life as real people I'd probably think there's something wrong with their eyes. But it just isn't as blatant.

There are then also numerous other characters that I don't find jarring in the least. Not necessarily attractive but not ugly either. Bayonetta, however, is sooooo out of proportion that attraction isn't even a thought in my mind.

 

[Rellik San]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. I always thought that Bayonetta acted sexy but never actually found her sexually appealing in any way. I always thought she was satire/parody of what people complain about.

Whew, someone else! Exactly. She does all kinds of sexy posturing and sure, she shows some skin here and there, but attractive isn't what comes to mind.

Honestly, I'd say her proportions fall into the uncanny valley for me.

Bayonetta escaping the uncanny valley.

Insert crevice jokes and bam.. bayonetta 3.

To be far i think it's more the fact that she's a fictional character is why she doesn't do it for me. But to be fair, aren't all fantasies fictional?

Fantasies can certainly become realities. Fantasies are just outlandish desires but not necessarily impossible.

I'd say that there are fictional characters that I am very much attracted to. For example, the beach volleyball girls that Jim is always showing when discussing gratuitous sexual objectification in gaming. Those girls are hot and although I wouldn't necessarily call their proportions normal, they do look healthy and appealing.

There are then also numerous other characters that I don't find jarring in the least. Not necessarily attractive but not ugly either. Bayonetta, however, is sooooo out of proportion that attraction isn't even a thought in my mind.

NOW! THis is an interesting point, is Bayonetta designed to be sexy or represent an extreme of ideas that people find sexy (Long legs? ONLY THE LONGEST! impossible back curvature? NOT EVEN A CHIROPRACTER COULD CORRECT HER!) she's a representation of the concept of sexiness as opposed to being sexy herself?

What does this mean for her interpretation and her actions? Does this mean she could stand as a satire on the archetypes of sexy and how absurd the "ideal" supposedly is?

 

[Lightknight]

NOW! THis is an interesting point, is Bayonetta designed to be sexy or represent an extreme of ideas that people find sexy (Long legs? ONLY THE LONGEST! impossible back curvature? NOT EVEN A CHIROPRACTER COULD CORRECT HER!) she's a representation of the concept of sexiness as opposed to being sexy herself?

What does this mean for her interpretation and her actions? Does this mean she could stand as a satire on the archetypes of sexy and how absurd the "ideal" supposedly is?

If not, then the designers have utterly failed at whatever else their goal was. I sincerely hope that this was their intention because that would be genius and I love to find genius in works of art.

 

[Rellik San]

So here's another angle worth looking at, brought to my attention via Twitter... we've discussed this from aspects of what the character means, how she's represented, what we thing she's representing and how people have reacted to her... however, I don't think I've seen anyone bring up the issue of her from a cultural standpoint... that standpoint being... her creators and designers culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbSL2wvlq0Q

This helps explain a lot about character design and such practices in Japan, it's an interesting cultural look at the topic and sure there is still the argument of "Well they should conform to the global market standard"... but I'm sure those of you who dwell on such things would also agree, that would be a pretty imperialistic and colonialist argument (I dun liek ur kulcha, mak mah uncomvertabul).

I know most of you aren't really that way and that last comment was aimed at an incredibly vocal minority, mostly made up of people who thankfully seem to have not engaged in this conversation meaning we've actually been able to discuss it without vitriol.

 

[Kwak]

"Yes even feminist disagree with each other, and no, they don't threaten to come each others house to do murder" -Jim Sterling
So who threatened to go over to polygon's house and do a murder over this?
Because obviously that happened or you wouldn't have felt the need to say it, yeah?

 

[Gather]

Death threats against women are terrible however... Death threats against non-women are just as terrible?

I do agree, that a characters appearance should be tailored to their personality... But I try to be one of those guys that play games and not think about the implications.

 

[DragonDai]

The first is that it is NOT okay to dock a game's Metacritic score because you personally have a moral or societal concern with a video game.

This statement is ridiculous by its very nature.

One, there's a reason that we have multiple critics out there, rather than just a single official critic that gives everything a single official score. It's because we want multiple viewpoints.

When you're looking to judge works of media, you want to read multiple reviews, look at the points they raise, determine which of those points are relevant to you, and decide accordingly. Long-term, you can find reviewers you generally agree with and take their opinions as stronger than others, although you should still never rely on a single reviewer (who knows, they might have just been having a really good/bad day).

Two, similarly, there's a reason that Metacritic is an aggregate of multiple reviews. It attempts to quickly gauge the overall objective quality of a game by combining multiple subjective reviews. A single bad review isn't going to have a huge impact on the Metacritic score, so long as it's a major game with a lot of reviews.

Plus, subject matter matters. If I have two games, both with the exact same game mechanics, exact same technical specs and performance, etc etc., and one of them is a typical shooter while the other one is Baby Murder Simulator 2014, you know what? Yeah, I expect the latter to get some lower scores. Some reviewers found it objectionable. Some people playing it will find it objectionable. Therefore, you could say it's an objectively worse game by virtue of the fact that fewer people can enjoy it. If you're looking for a sure-fire gift, pick the first game; if it's for yourself, then just make your own damn decision.

Three, on the subject of Metacritic scores as determining how much money devs make and whatnot: So what? This is the fault of the publishers who make these stupid decisions. Letting this affect review scores amounts to blackmail. There are other, far more useful and important stats you could be basing bonuses on; you know, like, how many copies a game sells? And keep in mind that a huge number of people still buy games without reading a single review, just based on brand names and marketing (which is how Aliens: Colonial Marines sold over 1.31 million copies).

Been a couple days since you posted this, so you might not even see my reply, but what the hell, your response needed a response, so here I am to give it to you.

First, you say that "When you're looking to judge works of media, you want to read multiple reviews, look at the points they raise, determine which of those points are relevant to you, and decide accordingly." And I couldn't agree more. In a perfect world, this would be how ALL consumers consumed ALL products. In the real world, however, the VAST majority of consumers don't care/don't have time to do this. At best, they glance at a metacritic score and move on, and at worst, they by a product solely on advertising and hype. There is a reason Metacritic scores matter so much to publishers, and that's because the overall metacritic score sells games.

(As a quite aside, no, I couldn't give two shits about bonuses/money made off of Metacritic scores. People seem to think this could be the ONLY reason to worry about Metacritic scores. It isn't. What I DO give two shits about people missing out on a great game because the metacritic score is artificially low and that's the only thing a person checked. Is it their fault for not doing their homework? Partially, but it is equally the fault of the biased reviewer purposefully misleading their readers as to the objective quality of a product.)

Second, Metacritic works well in the case of a game like Shadow of Mordor. You're totally justified in thinking that Polygon's artificially low score didn't really impact Shadow of Mordor at all to the casual review reader who probably looks at Metacritic's aggregate and moves on. But that won't be the case for smaller titles. Many smaller titles will have a MUCH smaller pool of reviews, and one artificially lower score can and will drastically affect their overall score. And that doesn't even account for the fact that if a couple of reviewers were all on a mailing list together, for instance, and one of them found a game that was objectively good but had some social or moral element that said reviewer didn't like he could convince his buddies to all also review it negatively and tank the score of a smaller game. Not that that sort of thing would EVER happen...oh wait...

Third. Subject matter DOES matter to games. And there is PLENTY of space to write about subject matter in the review. I have NO problems with journalists voicing their opinions on games, no matter what that opinion is. But I do have a problem with objectively good games being given artificially bad scores because of subjective bias. You can make your subjective opinion on subjective content of a game without affecting the review score. There are many ways to do this. I'll have an example of this how this can be done right a little later on, at the end of this reply. But at the end of the day, if you're numerical score is affected by your subjective bias to a subjective part of the game, you are a bad reviewer, end of story. This would be no different than if a game reviewer docked points off of GTA because it was violent, and violence is wrong, or if a reviewer docked points off of Viva Pinata because it WASN'T violent. Both of those examples are JUST as bad a reviewer docking points off of Bayonetta 2 for it being "sexist."

So yeah, that's my reply, here's the link I promised:

https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/index.php/reviews/56-console/xbox360/5672-watchmen-the-end-is-nigh-xbox-360

It's a Christian-centric gaming website that reviews games based on their objective merits AND their subjective/moral merits SEPARATELY. If the religious right can review games in a proper, objective manner but the general gaming press cannot, there is an OBVIOUS and CLEAR issue with the general gaming press.