Poll: (Another) feminism discussion

[Yuuki]

I'm pretty certain more variety would come into the gaming world. Is that not a good thing?

Definitely. I can only hope it occurs gradually and naturally, instead of what some people seem to be demanding (a drastic change).
Because we've ended up with quite a few examples where a female has been thrown in purely for a "Look! We endorse female characters!".
I don't know what's worse, having a female character where her purpose is made pretty clear (exploitation/titillation) or having a female character that is placed there to purely tick-off the gender checklist and ultimately ends up being even a more pointless and slap-dash addition to the game.

And in the latter scenario we don't even get any tits. Booo. (I kid, I kid ).

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I'm pretty certain more variety would come into the gaming world. Is that not a good thing?

Definitely. I can only hope it occurs gradually and naturally, instead of what some people seem to be demanding (a drastic change).
Because we've ended up with quite a few examples where a female has been thrown in purely for a "Look! We endorse female characters!".
I don't know what's worse, having a female character where her purpose is made pretty clear (exploitation/titillation) or having a female character that is placed there to purely tick-off the gender checklist and ultimately ends up being even a more pointless and slap-dash addition to the game.

And in the latter scenario we don't even get any tits. Booo. (I kid, I kid ).

I'm sort of in the middle ground between where you are, and what you don't want. I recognize a drastic change isn't going to happen, and don't expect it to happen, but I want it to happen faster than naturally as I don't want to wait 10-20 years for it to happen naturally.
I'm of a mind it's going to take bloody forever for it to happen naturally. I've waited forever already!

I gotta ask you for some examples of "Look! We endorse female characters!" In my eagerness to glom on to most any female protagonist that appears, I might've overlooked those.

I'm of a mind that there's room for women there just to be sexy, and room for checklist made women in the world, but leaving it at that is a mistake.

I'd hope that somehow, somewhere, sometime soon, a female character will come along that will take a place in the fondly remembered characters, and take a spot next to Samus, and Lara Croft as a beloved character that stands the test of time on her own merits. It's been a long time since we had a new female icon, IMO.

 

[Yuuki]

I gotta ask you for some examples of "Look! We endorse female characters!" In my eagerness to glom on to most any female protagonist that appears, I might've overlooked those.

I didn't mean protagonists, I meant side characters
It's not possible to have a female protagonist "for the heck of it" because she's...well, the protagonist. If she turns out to be terrible, it means that the game as a whole will be terrible, e.g. X-Blades. Therefore it'll just get called a bad game and nothing more

Off the top of my head I can't think of too much, only Avengers (the movie) having Black Widow for no other purpose than looking HOT in that skin-tight suit and that clever chat with Loki (an all-male Avengers group would reflect badly on the studio), and Battlefield 4 having a single female infantry soldier in the campaign purely so they could add her in the advertisement for 0.5 seconds saying "you'll back me up, right?". I'm sure there are tons of other examples of female side characters being added to tick off the gender checklist, just like there are often racial side-characters added to fill in their respective stereotypes (e.g. Clive Barker's Jericho).

Except that instead of needing to represent a single race, the female character quite literally represents her entire GENDER. I mean how often have you seen cases of a group consisting of "the leader", "the noble", "the badass", "the genius" (all men so far) and then..."the girl". That's why you also sometimes see female characters with horribly inconsistent/flickering personalities (as if they're suffering from schizophrenia + PMS permanently), since they're only one there the developers occasionally think "oh shit, better make her represent ALL kinds of women - she has to be smart, whiny, submissive, dominating, bitchy...there, we have created "the girl", she's perfect!".

 

[Fox12]

snippyity ddo

Have you noticed that you haven't once, in your entire post, given a reference to an actual problem? You've been going on and on about how "sexualising" women is bad - yet you haven't given us a reason why it is bad.

Seriously, why is it bad? How is it negatively affecting society? I don't want to hear more vague confused rhetoric, I want to see specific examples of how society is suffering because of this.

My main point was explaining why people were angry about the examples given. Now, again, sexuality in and of itself is not bad or good. I'm not saying there can't be sexual material in a game, or in any piece of art. Sex is a part of the human experience, and if an artist wants to explore that, than that's fine. The problem is when an individual or specific gender is being exploited sexually, or when a characters only personality trait is that they are attractive. As I mentioned in my post, if you read it, this leads to people seeing these individuals as objects instead of people. It also propagates negative stereotypes, which any reasonable person can agree is a negative outcome. Our media and art has a decisive impact on our societies culture and ideas, so when pieces of art and pop culture propagate negative stereotypes it has a negative impact on our cultures collective subconscious. I don't think I need to explain why negative stereotypes and exploitation are bad things.

 

[NoeL]

snip

To be as polite as I possibly can, you're using an extremely biased sample then jumping on your high horse to proclaim how you've missed the point. I don't have the time/patience to spell it out for you, but you seem like a smart guy so maybe you'll be able to go back and read my previous comments here and figure it out for yourself.

-snip to the important bits-

I wouldn't like it because i like my protagonists to look bad-ass but I wouldn't go full self-victimization and whine about "sexusm". I'd just realize i'm not the target. And the distraction isn't about sexualization as much as the fact i truly wouldn't like staring at it all the time. When i play MMO's i also try to pick the factions/races i would mind staring at all the time the least.

And like i said: if you can't see past it, it's YOUR problem. In the example you gave me it would be MY problem. But it wouldn't be a "general problem".

*claps* Yay! You've almost got it! Now imagine that 90% of male protagonists looked like that. Suddenly you don't really have that much of a choice. If you want to play a variety of games, you're just going to have to put up with having Larry's tight buns in your face all the time.

Would you still consider this your problem? Would you throw your hands up and say "I'm just not the target market for 90% of games, so I should just stick to Farmville"? When a sizable chunk of the gaming population feels the same way, is it still just a lot of individual problems? At what point DOES is become a "general problem"?

 

[Abomination]

snippyity ddo

Have you noticed that you haven't once, in your entire post, given a reference to an actual problem? You've been going on and on about how "sexualising" women is bad - yet you haven't given us a reason why it is bad.

Seriously, why is it bad? How is it negatively affecting society? I don't want to hear more vague confused rhetoric, I want to see specific examples of how society is suffering because of this.

My main point was explaining why people were angry about the examples given. Now, again, sexuality in and of itself is not bad or good. I'm not saying there can't be sexual material in a game, or in any piece of art. Sex is a part of the human experience, and if an artist wants to explore that, than that's fine. The problem is when an individual or specific gender is being exploited sexually, or when a characters only personality trait is that they are attractive. As I mentioned in my post, if you read it, this leads to people seeing these individuals as objects instead of people. It also propagates negative stereotypes, which any reasonable person can agree is a negative outcome. Our media and art has a decisive impact on our societies culture and ideas, so when pieces of art and pop culture propagate negative stereotypes it has a negative impact on our cultures collective subconscious. I don't think I need to explain why negative stereotypes and exploitation are bad things.

You do though. Because you've still yet to provide an example as to how women being sexualized in video games is a bad thing.

People don't LIKE it, but that's preference. It might be bad for the GAME in how it makes the game shallow... but how is it actually BAD for society?

Art and society is a two-way street. Both beget the other and I firmly believe that games are not at the stage they can truely affect the dynamics of society as a whole... yet... but they are getting there.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I gotta ask you for some examples of "Look! We endorse female characters!" In my eagerness to glom on to most any female protagonist that appears, I might've overlooked those.

I didn't mean protagonists, I meant side characters
It's not possible to have a female protagonist "for the heck of it" because she's...well, the protagonist. If she turns out to be terrible, it means that the game as a whole will be terrible, e.g. X-Blades. Therefore it'll just get called a bad game and nothing more

Off the top of my head I can't think of too much, only Avengers (the movie) having Black Widow for no other purpose than looking HOT in that skin-tight suit and that clever chat with Loki (an all-male Avengers group would reflect badly on the studio), and Battlefield 4 having a single female infantry soldier in the campaign purely so they could add her in the advertisement for 0.5 seconds saying "you'll back me up, right?". I'm sure there are tons of other examples of female side characters being added to tick off the gender checklist, just like there are often racial side-characters added to fill in their respective stereotypes (e.g. Clive Barker's Jericho).

Except that instead of needing to represent a single race, the female character quite literally represents her entire GENDER. I mean how often have you seen cases of a group consisting of "the leader", "the noble", "the badass", "the genius" (all men so far) and then..."the girl". That's why you also sometimes see female characters with horribly inconsistent/flickering personalities (as if they're suffering from schizophrenia + PMS permanently), since they're only one there the developers occasionally think "oh shit, better make her represent ALL kinds of women - she has to be smart, whiny, submissive, dominating, bitchy...there, we have created "the girl", she's perfect!".

Ohhh. Side characters. I completely understand what you mean now!

Yeah, "the girl" is pretty common in Japanese media, and the PC 90s. As bad as it could be, though, I kinda miss the PC mandated girl sometimes. I'd settle in for a show, and not see a woman in the main cast, and be like "... whaaa? Aw..." Then I'll get over it eventually, and watch if it's a good show.
I kinda did that in MLP:FIM but for guys, Spike aside, but that quickly changed as male horses were included more often.
While it's entierly possible to have a show made up entirely of one gender, I like knowing there's important people of both genders around.
Of course, it's really best that main cast feel organic regardless of race, or gender mix, and created not because of PC, but because of the desire to have them.

I gotta wonder if the role of "the girl" in the Avengers movie could have been filled better by Ms. Marvel, or Spider-woman, or someone with super powers.
... Man, that makes me realize there hasn't been a really good movie with a female super hero. Another can of worms, that, though. lol

 

[Ieyke]

Yes, there is "sexism" in games. Most of it is just kind of a side effect of our culture where guys are the default action heroes and guys are taught to protect women and children, therefore making the women more often characters that are kept out of the combat-heavy primary roles of video games.....combined with the fact that most game creators are men and people tend to make things that they know and understand. Guys know and understand guys.

I don't view that as "bad" sexism per se. I mean, it's not "right", but it's not borne of ignorance, prejudice, or anything of the sort. It just kinda is...and it will be til it isn't.

Everyone's consciously aware of these issues now, so most people keep it in mind and it's already starting to change things for the better.
Combined with more and more women joining the industry and "writing what they know", I think it's an issue that will more or less eventually balance itself out over time.

It seems like the whole damn world wants an apology for how top heavy the history of gaming was with JUST men doing all the game creating, but I don't think it was ever an issue of women being kept out of the playhouse. I think women themselves just avoided it til now.

I'm a guy who tends to get along with women waaaay better than most guys (like 7/10 of my closest friends are women), so I rejoice in the knowledge that we live in a world where we're finally getting our shit together and slowly equalizing everything out.

Instant change would be nice, but I'm happy with the gradual progress too.
People value the things they had to fight for, and a state of equality is something that should be highly valued once we finally get there.

I assume we're just a few years away from the Samuses, Zeldas, Laras, and Bayonettas of the world being as regularly occurring as the Marios, MegaMans, Sonics, Master Chiefs, and Links of the world.
It'll probably never really balance out -completely- because the guys have sooooo much of a headstart, but hopefully people can deal with that.

 

[Ieyke]

I gotta wonder if the role of "the girl" in the Avengers movie could have been filled better by Ms. Marvel, or Spider-woman, or someone with super powers.
... Man, that makes me realize there hasn't been a really good movie with a female super hero. Another can of worms, that, though. lol

Ms. Marvel hadn't been introduced yet. They literally introduced "The Big 4" (Cap, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk) and snuck Black Widow and Hawkeye into their movies. They mades sense in the context of being SHIELD agents. That's why Black Widow got the part.

There's currently a Ms. Marvel movie in the works to introduce her for Avengers 3.

Scarlet Witch (and her brother, Quicksilver) are both going to be in Avengers 2.

The Wasp will most likely be introduced alongside her boyfriend/husband Hank Pym, in the Ant-Man movie, which is the movie that comes right after Avengers 2.

Gamora "The Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe" is part of The Guardians Of The Galaxy team in next year's Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Nova Prime will be played by Glenn Close, and the movie's villain appears to be Nebula.

So yea, give it a year or two. Marvel is about to add a truckload of women to the mix.

 

[Fox12]

snippyity ddo

Have you noticed that you haven't once, in your entire post, given a reference to an actual problem? You've been going on and on about how "sexualising" women is bad - yet you haven't given us a reason why it is bad.

Seriously, why is it bad? How is it negatively affecting society? I don't want to hear more vague confused rhetoric, I want to see specific examples of how society is suffering because of this.

My main point was explaining why people were angry about the examples given. Now, again, sexuality in and of itself is not bad or good. I'm not saying there can't be sexual material in a game, or in any piece of art. Sex is a part of the human experience, and if an artist wants to explore that, than that's fine. The problem is when an individual or specific gender is being exploited sexually, or when a characters only personality trait is that they are attractive. As I mentioned in my post, if you read it, this leads to people seeing these individuals as objects instead of people. It also propagates negative stereotypes, which any reasonable person can agree is a negative outcome. Our media and art has a decisive impact on our societies culture and ideas, so when pieces of art and pop culture propagate negative stereotypes it has a negative impact on our cultures collective subconscious. I don't think I need to explain why negative stereotypes and exploitation are bad things.

You do though. Because you've still yet to provide an example as to how women being sexualized in video games is a bad thing.

People don't LIKE it, but that's preference. It might be bad for the GAME in how it makes the game shallow... but how is it actually BAD for society?

Art and society is a two-way street. Both beget the other and I firmly believe that games are not at the stage they can truely affect the dynamics of society as a whole... yet... but they are getting there.

Having individuals sexually exploited or degraded in games is bad because it portrays them as being objects, instead of people. Depicting a human being as an object instead of a person is bad because it strips them of their dignity, and because it is the first step to stripping them of their human rights. Once an individual is no longer portrayed as a person it is easier to treat them as an inferior being. In essence, when a female characters primary trait is her sexuality, it is saying that women exist to be attractive, or that the female characters in question receive all their value from their sexuality. This is as opposed to men, who typically have multiple traits giving them value. The value of the first is also measured in how capable it is at pleasing the second. As a result one group is portrayed as having more value than another. You're right, people don't like being portrayed this way. Once you lessen the value of one group of people, you also cheapen the value of people in general, because you've declared that the inherit value of a human being is subject to change. In other words, if you've declared that one group has lesser value, consciously or otherwise, you've made it possible for the value of any and all other groups to be changed as well.

Negative stereotypes are a similar problem, typically born of ignorance. They also portray certain groups in a negative fashion, and tend to suggest that said trait is shared by a majority or the whole of the group. In the early 19th century a common stereotype was the the idea that African American men were genetically predisposed to violence and rape, something that was obviously untrue. This was then used as an excuse to abuse African Americans. Birth of a Nation infamously played on this trope, with president Wilson stating that it was frightening because it was so true. Art affects the way a society thinks, and can potentially deconstruct or reinforce stereotypes. Negative stereotypes thus helped justify the abuse of human rights, because it portrayed African American as less than human, and thus they were portrayed as not deserving the same inalienable rights as a normal person. Again, this cheapens the inherent value of people in general. There were also racist caricatures at that time. They were supposed to be funny, and many individuals at the time saw them as not being a big deal. Most people today would see those, and know they reinforced negative stereotypes, which then proceeded to reinforce prejudice, which in turn is bad for society.

But why is this bad for society as a whole, and not just the group in question? As said before, cheapening the inherent value of one group of people potentially harms the value of all people. It also tends to fracture society into completely separate entities, instead of forming a cohesive whole that also happens to have several subgroups that all still consider themselves part of a greater whole. This hampers the success of the whole society, which is bad by itself, even if you lack the empathy to understand the inherent wrong in demeaning another group of people.

Obviously I don't think Dragons Crown is going to destroy human rights or something, and by itself it's not a huge threat to the rights of anyone, including women. However, when the fastest growing entertainment medium in the world has a generally negative or shallow portrayal of women, it is something that deserves to be discussed. The reason this is an issue is because Dragons Crown is representative of a trend. Dragons Crown itself is not necessarily what is being criticized. Rather it's the entirety of the trend it represents. Developers have to fight to even get female characters on the covers of their games because of some absurd idea that it will hurt sales, even though Tomb Raider and The Last of Us both usurped this idea within the course of roughly a year. These things matter because it will affect how our society as a whole views certain issues.

To answer your question in the absolute simplest way possible, Dragons Crown, and many other games, portray women as objects. I don't like seeing any human being treated as an object. I find it disturbing. Thus I find games like Dragons Claw mildly disturbing.

I'm not saying these games can't be made. I would never take away the right of an artist to make what they want. I'm a firm believer in free speech, and that all people have a right to express themselves. I do, however, believe that actions have consequences, and when an artist presents their art to the public, it is then open to criticism. That is all I am doing. Criticizing a piece of work.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I gotta wonder if the role of "the girl" in the Avengers movie could have been filled better by Ms. Marvel, or Spider-woman, or someone with super powers.
... Man, that makes me realize there hasn't been a really good movie with a female super hero. Another can of worms, that, though. lol

Ms. Marvel hadn't been introduced yet. They literally introduced "The Big 4" (Cap, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk) and snuck Black Widow and Hawkeye into their movies. They mades sense in the context of being SHIELD agents. That's why Black Widow got the part.

There's currently a Ms. Marvel movie in the works to introduce her for Avengers 3.

Scarlet Witch (and her brother, Quicksilver) are both going to be in Avengers 2.

The Wasp will most likely be introduced alongside her boyfriend/husband Hank Pym, in the Ant-Man movie, which is the movie that comes right after Avengers 2.

Gamora "The Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe" is part of The Guardians Of The Galaxy team in next year's Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Nova Prime will be played by Glenn Close, and the movie's villain appears to be Nebula.

So yea, give it a year or two. Marvel is about to add a truckload of women to the mix.

Wow, I gotta admit that this is pretty amazing news! I thank you for bringing this to my attention!

I had no idea that the marvel universe was going to be hitting the big screen this hard. A few years isn't a big wait for me. I look forward to these movies, and really hope they're not terrible.

 

[Ieyke]

I gotta wonder if the role of "the girl" in the Avengers movie could have been filled better by Ms. Marvel, or Spider-woman, or someone with super powers.
... Man, that makes me realize there hasn't been a really good movie with a female super hero. Another can of worms, that, though. lol

Ms. Marvel hadn't been introduced yet. They literally introduced "The Big 4" (Cap, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk) and snuck Black Widow and Hawkeye into their movies. They mades sense in the context of being SHIELD agents. That's why Black Widow got the part.

There's currently a Ms. Marvel movie in the works to introduce her for Avengers 3.

Scarlet Witch (and her brother, Quicksilver) are both going to be in Avengers 2.

The Wasp will most likely be introduced alongside her boyfriend/husband Hank Pym, in the Ant-Man movie, which is the movie that comes right after Avengers 2.

Gamora "The Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe" is part of The Guardians Of The Galaxy team in next year's Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Nova Prime will be played by Glenn Close, and the movie's villain appears to be Nebula.

So yea, give it a year or two. Marvel is about to add a truckload of women to the mix.

Wow, I gotta admit that this is pretty amazing news! I thank you for bringing this to my attention!

I had no idea that the marvel universe was going to be hitting the big screen this hard. A few years isn't a big wait for me. I look forward to these movies, and really hope they're not terrible.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Timeline:
================PHASE 1================
2008:
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk

2010:
Iron Man 2

2011:
Thor
Captain America:The First Avenger

2012:
The Avengers
================PHASE 2================
2013:
Iron Man 3 (earlier this year)
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (SHIELD TV show that runs parallel and crosses over with the movieverse) - September 24, 2013
Thor:The Dark World (Sif will seemingly have a bigger role since it actually takes place in Asgard) - November 8, 2013

2014:
Captain America:The Winter Soldier (apparently Black Widow will have a large part) - April 4, 2014
Guardians Of The Galaxy - August 1, 2014

2015:
The Avengers 2:Age Of Ultron - May 1, 2015
================PHASE 3================
Ant-Man - November 6, 2015

In The Works:
Doctor Strange (script complete, villains announced[Dormammu, Baron Mordo, Giant Mindless One], pre-production phase)
Ms. Marvel (script complete)
Black Panther (script complete)

Early Stages (not yet green lit):
Heroes For Hire (Luke Cage & Iron Fist)
Blade
Hulk sequel
Avengers 3

(Marvel recently reacquired the rights to Daredevil, Blade, The Punisher, and Ghost Rider. Marvel feels no urge to rush into rebooting them unless they have a grand vision of how to do it. Apparently Blade is currently the one that qualifies.)

 

[Abomination]

Spoiler: Snip.

Having individuals sexually exploited or degraded in games is bad because it portrays them as being objects, instead of people. Depicting a human being as an object instead of a person is bad because it strips them of their dignity, and because it is the first step to stripping them of their human rights. Once an individual is no longer portrayed as a person it is easier to treat them as an inferior being. In essence, when a female characters primary trait is her sexuality, it is saying that women exist to be attractive, or that the female characters in question receive all their value from their sexuality. This is as opposed to men, who typically have multiple traits giving them value. The value of the first is also measured in how capable it is at pleasing the second. As a result one group is portrayed as having more value than another. You're right, people don't like being portrayed this way. Once you lessen the value of one group of people, you also cheapen the value of people in general, because you've declared that the inherit value of a human being is subject to change. In other words, if you've declared that one group has lesser value, consciously or otherwise, you've made it possible for the value of any and all other groups to be changed as well.

Negative stereotypes are a similar problem, typically born of ignorance. They also portray certain groups in a negative fashion, and tend to suggest that said trait is shared by a majority or the whole of the group. In the early 19th century a common stereotype was the the idea that African American men were genetically predisposed to violence and rape, something that was obviously untrue. This was then used as an excuse to abuse African Americans. Birth of a Nation infamously played on this trope, with president Wilson stating that it was frightening because it was so true. Art affects the way a society thinks, and can potentially deconstruct or reinforce stereotypes. Negative stereotypes thus helped justify the abuse of human rights, because it portrayed African American as less than human, and thus they were portrayed as not deserving the same inalienable rights as a normal person. Again, this cheapens the inherent value of people in general. There were also racist caricatures at that time. They were supposed to be funny, and many individuals at the time saw them as not being a big deal. Most people today would see those, and know they reinforced negative stereotypes, which then proceeded to reinforce prejudice, which in turn is bad for society.

But why is this bad for society as a whole, and not just the group in question? As said before, cheapening the inherent value of one group of people potentially harms the value of all people. It also tends to fracture society into completely separate entities, instead of forming a cohesive whole that also happens to have several subgroups that all still consider themselves part of a greater whole. This hampers the success of the whole society, which is bad by itself, even if you lack the empathy to understand the inherent wrong in demeaning another group of people.

Obviously I don't think Dragons Crown is going to destroy human rights or something, and by itself it's not a huge threat to the rights of anyone, including women. However, when the fastest growing entertainment medium in the world has a generally negative or shallow portrayal of women, it is something that deserves to be discussed. The reason this is an issue is because Dragons Crown is representative of a trend. Dragons Crown itself is not necessarily what is being criticized. Rather it's the entirety of the trend it represents. Developers have to fight to even get female characters on the covers of their games because of some absurd idea that it will hurt sales, even though Tomb Raider and The Last of Us both usurped this idea within the course of roughly a year. These things matter because it will affect how our society as a whole views certain issues.

To answer your question in the absolute simplest way possible, Dragons Crown, and many other games, portray women as objects. I don't like seeing any human being treated as an object. I find it disturbing. Thus I find games like Dragons Claw mildly disturbing.

I'm not saying these games can't be made. I would never take away the right of an artist to make what they want. I'm a firm believer in free speech, and that all people have a right to express themselves. I do, however, believe that actions have consequences, and when an artist presents their art to the public, it is then open to criticism. That is all I am doing. Criticizing a piece of work.

But everyone is objectified in games in some way or another. Men are usually just fodder, a number you can kill for a high score. Women at least are given some value, if little/no agency. SOME men are given agency but every other man has next to zero value.

Everyone is projected in a crazy manner, with the dial turned up to 11 in Dragons Crown. I think only the Wizard and the Elf are able to consider themselves "unscathed" by the art style. When almost everything is drawn to ridiculous proportions how can you rationally just cherry-pick one aspect of the thing?

Look at the fighter's head. Look at it! If you're going for symbolism he's all brawn, no brains. The dwarf is a bare-chested savage.

Every man is drawn to look heroic, every woman is drawn to look attractive for those are the qualities that the majority of the people who will buy the product want to see those sexes appear as. It's art and it's commerce combined.

Women are not the only gender being portrayed in a negative manner. They are also portrayed in positive manners. The way they are portrayed is just different to men.

It is unfair to complain about the sexualization of women in video games without also highlighting the disposability of males in video games.

If it?s negative then the entire thing ? gaming - is negative? but it?s also a reflection of our society, not a contributor to it.

 

[General Vagueness]

Like so many things, I think it's down to the broader culture and the individual examples (individual games in this case). With other media this question or one like it might be meaningful and useful but I don't think gaming is cohesive enough for many generalizations to really apply to it (especially ones that don't involve violence). BTW I picked "Some, but not much"-- I might be way off, that's just going by what I've played (obviously)

 

[Yuuki]

Yeah, "the girl" is pretty common in Japanese media, and the PC 90s.

Offtopic - Regarding the Japanese, they are extremely accepting of ANYTHING related to fantasy/fiction and people are actually encouraged to get into it as a form of stress-relief (Japan is notorious for work-sleep routines). You will basically NEVER see anyone claiming to be offended by something in fiction, people are free to enjoy practically any kind of fantasy as long as they keep it to themselves or their respective clubs/groups - discussing the more "underground" stuff it in the open public is considered rude/impolite. Criticism of media/fiction is fine but you will rarely see someone pick a fight regarding sexism or gender-fights because Japanese understand the meaning to catering to all kinds of audiences - yes, even catering to female audience with oversexualized males (for those who're into that sorta thing). The west gets a pretty one-dimensional view of Japan.
However the country overall is still very female-unfriendly because it's exceptionally difficult for women to earn high salaries and climb corporate ladders (the REAL kind of sexism) and they are still very much stuck in an era that the West was experiencing during the mid-late 1900's in terms of how much power/influence women can wield.

With that out of the way, despite the metric shit-ton of pandering & fanservice going into Japanese media, I would STILL say they have some of the best media with female characters/leads and blow the western world away in terms of sheer character variance and personalities for female characters. It's just that a lot of that stuff only exists in anime realms. Black Lagoon has an entire arsenal of varied female characters/leads, Claymore is awesome, then there's shows like Toaru Majutsu No Railgun (80% female cast, all really fun characters), Lucky Star (hurrrr), Rin - Daughters of Mnemosyne, etc. All these shows have zero fanservice (unless you count Rin as torture-porn fanservice...?) and exist purely to represent an interesting show with great female characters. I'd also throw Fullmetal Alchemist in there due to being my #1 anime and having some of the best female characters to exist (hint: motherfucking Olivier Mira Armstrong!), Appleseed (not really well known) and of course where would we be without Ghost In the Shell.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Yeah, "the girl" is pretty common in Japanese media, and the PC 90s.

Offtopic - Regarding the Japanese, they are extremely accepting of ANYTHING related to fantasy/fiction and people are actually encouraged to get into it as a form of stress-relief (Japan is notorious for work-sleep routines). You will basically NEVER see anyone claiming to be offended by something in fiction, people are free to enjoy practically any kind of fantasy as long as they keep it to themselves or their respective clubs/groups - discussing the more "underground" stuff it in the open public is considered rude/impolite. Criticism of media/fiction is fine but you will rarely see someone pick a fight regarding sexism or gender-fights because Japanese understand the meaning to catering to all kinds of audiences - yes, even catering to female audience with oversexualized males (for those who're into that sorta thing). The west gets a pretty one-dimensional view of Japan.
However the country overall is still very female-unfriendly because it's exceptionally difficult for women to earn high salaries and climb corporate ladders (the REAL kind of sexism) and they are still very much stuck in an era that the West was experiencing during the mid-late 1900's in terms of how much power/influence women can wield.

With that out of the way, despite the metric shit-ton of pandering & fanservice going into Japanese media, I would STILL say they have some of the best media with female characters/leads and blow the western world away in terms of sheer character variance and personalities for female characters. It's just that a lot of that stuff only exists in anime realms. Black Lagoon has an entire arsenal of varied female characters/leads, Claymore is awesome, then there's shows like Toaru Majutsu No Railgun (80% female cast, all really fun characters), Lucky Star (hurrrr), Rin - Daughters of Mnemosyne, etc. All these shows have zero fanservice (unless you count Rin as torture-porn fanservice...?) and exist purely to represent an interesting show with great female characters. I'd also throw Fullmetal Alchemist in there due to being my #1 anime and having some of the best female characters to exist (hint: motherfucking Olivier Mira Armstrong!), Appleseed (not really well known) and of course where would we be without Ghost In the Shell.

I can't argue your points. Japan is likely the leading source of female protagonists, and gender select in the world with a wider diversity of games, some of which we'll never see state side without import, and will probably never get advertized.
I.E. straight up romance games of the Otome genre.

You can question the taste of how some media is, but there's tasteful media in Japan none the less.

Still, despite the variety, and how desireable their games can be, I can't say they're perfect, either.

Kinda weird that their media is so liberal, yet women get oppressed elsewhere in society. I hope they'll evolve past that. It'll take time, as it's something more of a generation issue that can get passed down to impressionable children than the amount of time people put into business where business/hiring approaches can change with the arrival of a new head honcho. An idealist could fix things easier in a business than in the nation, IMO. Less people to deal with to say the least.
Sexism aside there's a lot of social isues in japan.

As far as Anime goes, I recommend Gunsmith Cats, and Azumanga Daioh, and the Project A-ko series. Some of it's old, some are just kinda old. I don't keep up with a lot of anime, though. Life's busy and hectic as it is, so I don't have much to talk about. :/

FMA, I've seen, and I agree, Olivier is pretty epic. Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, and in general anything Masamune Shirow's great stuff! I'd like to add the Dominion tank Police series.

 

[Caiphus]

She's simply enjoying her religious freedoms. Why can't you understand that?

You're right. Lack of choice in the matter is freedom. What was I thinking?
I'll go ahead and let Websters know that one of their definitions is wrong. Because after all... Gender inequality's fixed! We have the cake to prove it.

When her husband delivers it, at least.

But that might take some time as he's getting married to his 4th bride - this one was betrothed to marry at 14 by her father in exchange for a more favorable salary.

Equality!
But you do see the folly of putting up "Mission Accomplished" banners just because it's better than it used to be I hope. I mean simply saying that this is as good as we can do is an insult to the progress those before us made. And the progress we owe those who come after.

One of the sacred duties of all human beings, in fact all living things for that matter, is to make life easier and better for those that come after. Through individual struggle or large actions.

And failing to do so just squanders all your potential.


Iunno... Just my thoughts on the whole thing I suppose.

I like that this was the point where you had to look at Abomination and go "We...we are joking about this stuff, right? Because we've said a lot of nasty things here if we were being serious."

 

[Stephen St.]

But everyone is objectified in games in some way or another. Men are usually just fodder, a number you can kill for a high score. Women at least are given some value, if little/no agency. SOME men are given agency but every other man has next to zero value.

Everyone is projected in a crazy manner, with the dial turned up to 11 in Dragons Crown. I think only the Wizard and the Elf are able to consider themselves "unscathed" by the art style. When almost everything is drawn to ridiculous proportions how can you rationally just cherry-pick one aspect of the thing?

Look at the fighter's head. Look at it! If you're going for symbolism he's all brawn, no brains. The dwarf is a bare-chested savage.

Every man is drawn to look heroic, every woman is drawn to look attractive for those are the qualities that the majority of the people who will buy the product want to see those sexes appear as. It's art and it's commerce combined.

Women are not the only gender being portrayed in a negative manner. They are also portrayed in positive manners. The way they are portrayed is just different to men.

It is unfair to complain about the sexualization of women in video games without also highlighting the disposability of males in video games.

If it?s negative then the entire thing ? gaming - is negative? but it?s also a reflection of our society, not a contributor to it.

All your points are valid, but I feel this is all the same stereotype. I don't think there is the "objectified woman", which is sexist, but luckily balanced out by a similar "objectified male". The two are part of the same picture, and reinforce the same stererotype. Men are valued for pyhsical strength, the capacity to endure and dish out violence, and being the active leader. Women are valued for being attractive, have soothing character traits (kind, honest, wise) and being the supporter (sidekick, "wise leader" etc.) of the active leader, or "Hero".

So that means that if you are an emptional, physically or mentally weak, or passive male, you are worth less (insultingly calling someone with those traits "gay" speaks volumes about that). Similarily, if you are an unattractive women, or you take on too much of a leading role, or have aggressive instead of soothing character traits, you may be valued less.

Whethe or not you consider this a bad thing is your own moral decision of course. We know shockingly little about how society interacts and what does and what doesn't influence how people think. So I think you are quite justified in taking the "null hypothesis" stance that there is no correlation between games and society. I find it likely that there is one, given that almost everyone in the younger generations is heavily exposed to games, but I am obviously no expert onthe matter.

 

[Vegosiux]

To be as polite as I possibly can, you're using an extremely biased sample then jumping on your high horse to proclaim how you've missed the point.

Extremely biased sample? Funny you should say that. I wasn't making any statistical analysis, just showing why a certain claim of yours is too absolute.

The claim being "Video game sexiness EQUALS trashy prostitute whore EQUALS shit". I have argued that is not the case.

Feel free to tell me how, when you said "video game sexiness" you didn't mean "sexiness in video games", you meant the particular subset of sexiness in video games, the subset that you take issue with. Then I will tell you that maybe you shouldn't have used an expression that blankets the entire concept of "video game sexiness" if you only meant the "trashy sexiness in videogames" subset, and that if you had established that's what you meant, you wouldn't even have to go out of your way to define trashy sexiness as trashy.

I don't have the time/patience to spell it out for you, but you seem like a smart guy so maybe you'll be able to go back and read my previous comments here and figure it out for yourself.

Oh, this one isn't common! Usually it's straw galore, no true Scotsmen, appeals to (dubious) authority, etc...

But the "Oh, you're smart, I'm sure you'll see the light and figure out why I'm right" fallacy is a really rare one around here.

And to come full circle, back to the bias of samples. If a statistical analysis was conducted on prevalence of sexist concepts in videogame design, just how prevalent do you think they would be, seeing as there's a crapload of strategies, simulations, racing games, Angry Birds and Bejeweled rip-offs, side-scrolling shooters, etc etc etc.? We can't say they don't count, seeing as they are videogames.

Now, if one would focus on only the high-profile AAA action/action-adventure games, that prevalence suddenly skyrockets, but you cannot infer anything about the videogames as a medium from such a focused sample.

Do I think AAA action/action-adventure titles have a sexist trope problem? Yes, they often do. But do videogames as a whole have that problem? Hell no. I might just be lucky, but I really, really don't have to look hard to find a game that doesn't flash boobs at me and expect me to like it just for that, as if I was some horny snot-nosed teenager.

Granted, the currently most played titles in my collection are stuff like SpaceChem, Civ5, Don't Starve, Mark of the Ninja, SPAZ(ABH), and on the other hand some titles that DO play with those tropes by taking them ridiculously over the top along with any other trope, such as Orcs Must Die (the female character is a scantily clad wench with kinky fetishes, the male character is the obliviously stupid childish moron), Tropico 4 (that has an overly sexual advisor along with a skinhead racist, and an American senator named Nick Richards who tells you how he is not a crook every three seconds), Overlord (that has both a skanky and a prissy romance option and is completely tongue-in-cheek about everything).

If I only played God of War and the many rip-offs thereof, naturally I'd be getting exasperated over the entire sexualization of everything.

 

[Lieju]

Of course it should be open to criticism. I'm pointing out how absurd it is for someone to actually be offended by this. If someone finds these cartoon characters in a video game offensive then I will laugh at how fucking ridiculous that notion is.

The word 'offensive' is thrown out a lot, though, especially to silence criticism and misrepresent it.
I have called the art of Dragon's crown 'dumb' and 'weird-looking', and people have then called me 'offended'.

Which I guess I'd be if the suggestion was that Sorceress's boobs are what female breasts look like. Because I have two of those and they look way better than what she has. (For one, they actually have nipples)

For the record, I can see what they were going for with the art-style, I just don't like it.