The Random One said:
I don't think about this very much because I by and large agree with the 'feminist' viewpoint, and I am personally offended that devs think I'll look into/buy/enjoy their game more because there is a girl with big boobs in them. But this is a very nice look into the underlying mechanisms of the thing.
I realize that every time an almost normal girl (or just competent in combat girl) shows up as an important character in a game, even if she's not drop dead-gorgeous, she has to have
some feature that's über hot, usually a gigantic rack. Like Elizabeth in the upcoming Bioshock Infinite, or the bodyguard lady in Dead Island. I think this shows some people are trying to change this and some people are pushing not to.
I'll also add that Ivy is probably one of the girls who gets a pass on this stuff, since she also uses her sexuality as a weapon - which is why one of her alterative outfits is usually some sort of military uniform that shows nothing but her head, as if she was saying 'I can beat you by distracting you with my boobies, but I don't
need to. It's just more fun this way.' The rest of the SC roster is guilty though.
Also when you showed Bowser's second pose I was sure you were going to say it communicates U GONNA GET RAPED.
Therumancer said:
No. There is a difference. Look at the roster of any random fighting game.
There will be a lot of fine looking man with muscular arms and big biceps and revealing clothing.
There will be a lot of fine looking women with big boobs and huge legs and revealing clothes.
There will be a bunch of weird looking man who are mutated or on fire or skeletons or maybe just fat, depending on the setting.
And there might be a robot.
See the problem?
Just about ALL characters wind up with some feature that would be considered attractive though, that includes the male ones. In general heroic games feature characters who represent a heroic ideal. In general you don't see a lot of normal looking guys involved in heroic fantasy of any time, and in games like fighting games where the fantasy revolves around world class fighters, your not going to generally see a bunch of normal looking people.
As I pointed out, the more varied look of male characters is because men are more physically variable at the high end, we can put on and develop muscle mass a lot more efficiently and in all kinds of shapes. Women tend not to have as many options, there is a limit to how far a girl can really "bulk up". This is why men max out much higher in terms of physical capabilities, and also why feminists complain about a lot of jobs having requirements that are very difficult, if not imposisble, for women to meet in certain jobs.
A dude can be a wiry whip of muscle, or some hulking mountain and be viable and show improvement from it. Beyond a certain point women are not going to be able to put on any bulk and muscle and have it actually be an advantage. Women who reach an idea "fighting weight" tend to come out looking a lot more similar than guys do, not identical, but within certain dimensions. This is why you don't have any lady pro-wrestlers built like "Hulk Hogan" or whatever, women just can't develop themselves that way. Even female body builders wind up
in a totally differant catagory from men, and are judged by differant merits.
This is to say nothing of the simple fact that women who do fantasy artwork wind up producing the same basic stuff... a physical ideal, as men do.
When it comes to what's attractive, I will also say that guys are generally putting their best features out first for the cheesecake factor. You look at something like the cover art for "Resident Evil 5" and the sheer size of the bicep Chris is flexing and it's pretty over the top, this being in exactly the same vein as those "magical wolfboys" people make fun of in Twilight.
See, the problem is that this issue exists in the mind of feminists (and for a lot of them probably only as a political point), and guys that think that by taking a position like this it will make them more likable to girls. Overall we just don't pay attention because society has not made "oh my gawd, look at the exploitation of men" a viable attention getting/political strategy.
Finally, for those that made it this far through my post, the mosrt important point:
If you stop and think about it there are just as many "exploitive" images of guys out there, it's just that are invisible on the political spectrum. These images ARE directed heavily at women, who are just as swayed physically as guys are whether they want to admit it or not. The career of guys like Fabio or Justin Beiber should make this pretty obvious for those who have been paying attention. If you bother to look at the statistics about gaming there are TONS of women gamers out there, and that's hardly something that has happened by accident. A lot of women might not admit that they bought a product because it's got a picture of some strapping male sex god plastered on it, no more than most guys will admit artwork with attractive women helps their tales, but it remains true.
One funny thing I've mentioned before is that for all the mockery of Duke Nukem and how offensive he is towards women, and so on and so forth, that character does seem to be pretty popular WITH women. I've run into TONS of girls who have played that game, even if many claim "well I just borrowed it" and seen far less of them go out of their way to knock it than guys. To be honest Duke is by all accounts the perfect man for your average girl, he's got the big muscles, the chipped good looks, and the macho attitude. While he's an egomaniac he stands up for his women. To your typical nerdboy who worships movies about how the intellectual, sensitive guy, gets the girl by demonstrating how much better he is for the girl in question than the macho jerks she usually dates, it's kind of crushing to see it come into gaming that this is the kind of guy girls REALLY tend to go for. I don't think that many nerds really get that their macho-empowerment fantasy space marine characters and such are the kinds of dudes that are the opposite of what the players are in real life, and arguably fit the mould of those skimpily dressed babes for the women. That dude showing off a huge bicep with muscle definition that would only pop out with at least a gallon of professionally applied body oil? Yeah... that's not really aimed at the dudes. Just like not all men like girls with massive boobs, not all girls like guys that are buffed out into uber-musclemen, but we have other examples as well. There are plenty of pretty-boys out there in gaming like say... Sepiroth... he's not just enduringly popular because he was an epic villain, but because he's sort of a sex symbol to women. Don't believe me? Login to Encyclopedia Dramatica and look up people like "Sepiroth's Slave" (if they still have the page) and so on for some pretty extreme examples, and then understand that this is simply the lunatic fringe of a kind of fanbase most guys have never noticed because they don't really notice the sex appeal of their own gender since it's not aimed at them.
Seriously, consider the above. There isn't an issue here. The issue only exists due to politics and people wanting to make one. Honestly I also suspect that a lot of the problem has to do with the whole "Scott Pilgrim" generation of male nerds being convinced that the gender dynamitcs there are anything other than an empowerment fantasy. They sit there and wonder "why aren't these gamer girls interested in me" and use the artwork and such as a scapegoat, when in really the simple truth is that when it comes to fun girls really don't
go for nerds which are called nerds for a reason. It can be shattering to realize it, and the very same empowerment fantasies present in games tend to cause a lot of guys not to notice that their video game protaganist is the guy who would be kicking sand in their face and walking off with the girl, and that guy is helping to bring the girls that are in the audience into gaming. Girls being just as shallow in their own way as guys are in theirs. A nice rack has sold tons of products to guys, just as Fabio's hair blowing in the wind has sold tankers full of substitute butter to housewives... and well, the amount of money made by Justin Beiber (away from the muscle-dude stereotype) from not only music but merch with his image on it, says a lot as well. Girls aren't flocking to The Beeb because of his musical talent, the posters being hawked at Wallmart with him standing there in a hoodie with hearts all around him (or something similar) kind of says it all.
) isn't the one I expected to have a good grasp of female character design!
