When will we see a NON-attractive woman in a video-game?

[Mr Binary]

Ah, I should have known people would have linked Ellie from Broderlands 2 already. Silly me. Now, I'm not saying some characters are or are not attractive, but a lot of it is personal preference right? A lot of characters people find attractive, I just don't. Cortana from the Halo franchise for instance. Though, I do agree the industry could be a little more inclusive.

 

[FireDr@gon]

This thread is so dreary dearie.

I never promised you a rose garden hun.

Sometimes discussing issues is not entertaining, but it can benefit people.

Don't like it? Dont read it - definately dont attempt thread assasination because of your opinion.

 

[SpaceBat]

Why not include women in video games that aren't conventionally physically appealing but are not over-the-top gross or outlandish. You see unattractive men all the time, you can't see the same for women.

There are plenty of attractive and unattractive men and women to be found in games, both in terms of important and unimportant NPC's. While finding a truly unattractive female lead characters isn't easy, neither is finding a truly unattractive male character (besides Nier).

 

[AgDr_ODST]

Kaidan Alenko. Such an ugly woman that she had to die every time I played the virmire mission.

you raise an excellent point bringing her up I can't even begin to describe how hideous she is but that adept Ashley.....my shepard went gay for him on every play through
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OT: in Halo Combat Evolved, Cortana was not attractive in the least

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nor was she in any way visual appealing in Halo 2

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but in my mind that trend stopped in Halo 3

In the first game she looked like a 12 year old girl

I like her halo 2 look since she looks somewhat normal, but now they just made her into a complete nudist

i hope this doesn't appear to contradict my prior statement but I'm in roughly the same boat...though she wasn't visually appealing I liked her Halo 2 look. As far as 3 goes i found nothing overly wrong with the changes/additions to her model...I feel that if 1 had been originally made for the 360 her look would be the about or exactly the same without. And its kinda hard not to think about and agree with the nudist comment now that you've mentioned it

 

[neo125899]

I agree that video games do tend to skew the visions of what men and women should look like pretty equally. Guys are pretty much are either thin fit ripped guys or crazy tank like. same goes for women shown. (not the thin ripped and crazy tank like but you get what i'm saying). I think that Dead Rising 2 Off the Record does the best job of portraying a normal average kinda guy. mind you the fact that Mr Frank West is a champion zombie killer puts him up much higher, at first glance he just looks like a portly middle aged man. I think that OP is looking for something like that for the women side of things. almost all the examples shown may not have very attractive facial features (some of the marine chicks are down right mannish) they still have the almost perfectly fit figure. they may not have huge boobs but when it comes down to it none of them look like they are sporting an extra 10 pounds or more like our good friend Mr West.
http://howlongtobeat.com/gameimages/deadrising2oftherecord.jpg

 

[MrGalactus]

I'D TAP DEM ALL #YOLO

 

[evilmongerofdoom666]

Saints Row: The Third.
The protagonist can be a morbidly obese, disfigured, Man/Woman/Shemale, of any race.
/thread

 

[kickyourass]

There are quite a few, Lucy from Assassin's Creed for one. These guys had Kristin-freaking-Bell to work with and made her look like some sort of fish lady. It's a good thing you almost never see her in close up

Most of Valve's women are average at best.

I doubt anyone was all that attracted to any of the Borderlands girls.

And if you're going for just "Not traditionally attractive" just look through the Bioware Games every game has at least one female character that is far from "Hot" but is still very attractive in their own ways. I mean, Aveline in DA2, she's built like an ox, and wears some of the worst looking armor in the game, but would you say no to her? Wynne is easily old enough to be a grandmother but she's aged wonderfully. Same goes for Dr Chakwas from Mass Effect, probably not that much older then Shepard is, but she's got a very handsome sort of beauty.

 

[Teshi]

Abigail Marston is a fairly unattractive woman in my opinion. A pleasant surprise actually as she is John Marston's wife which makes her the players wife really in a way.

It helped make her a believable character as she looks more like a regular woman rather than some super hot babe designed to please the player.

Yeah, she looked worn down, which fit the character. Plus Marston wasn't much of a looker himself, and romantic partners tend to be of a similar level of attractiveness, the whole homely-schlub-married-to-a-hot-chick trope in sitcoms notwithstanding. It was a nice realistic touch.

Also, some people in this thread are doing a bad job of differentiating between video game characters who are homely because the graphics are homely, and video game characters who are homely because they were designed to be homely. They're clearly different things.

 

[Amnesiac Pigeon]

So games like Dishonored may be about as close as we get. The women's features aren't all 'the golden ratio', and people aren't overly sexualized (besides, you know, the prostitutes).

The prostitutes in Dishonored are some of the least sexualised in video games. Especially when you find out that most of them are carriers of the plague.

Plague, as it turns out, is a real turn off.

 

[amadhatter]

There was a really dumpy-looking chick in the last Walking Dead game, but she died pretty quickly. I think it was for the best.

 

[AlphaLackey]

Men aren't "fairly" represented either. Most games it's typical macho marine. So in that respect, they are kinda equally represented, as stereotypes.

^^boom

I don't get why some people take every opportunity to jump onto this train. It works both ways. As far as protagonists go anyway.

because people won't be happy without something to whine about. In this case people looove to whine about how underrepresented X is in Y

And because men being represented as macho, powerful, strong defenders of Earth and all its colonies is just a slightly different picture than women being represented as vapid, vain, stupid and incessantly whining cumbuckets who need to be saved by aforementioned men at every turn. Also wearing outfits that cover about one quarter of their bodies while men walk around in full body suits and helmets; one gender represented as heroes, the other as whores.

Just a hunch.

Translation: "Yes, it works both ways, but I have a predefined belief that it's just worse when it happens to women, so here's some pseudoscience in an attempt to justify my prejudices."

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Men aren't "fairly" represented either. Most games it's typical macho marine. So in that respect, they are kinda equally represented, as stereotypes.

^^boom

I don't get why some people take every opportunity to jump onto this train. It works both ways. As far as protagonists go anyway.

because people won't be happy without something to whine about. In this case people looove to whine about how underrepresented X is in Y

And because men being represented as macho, powerful, strong defenders of Earth and all its colonies is just a slightly different picture than women being represented as vapid, vain, stupid and incessantly whining cumbuckets who need to be saved by aforementioned men at every turn. Also wearing outfits that cover about one quarter of their bodies while men walk around in full body suits and helmets; one gender represented as heroes, the other as whores.

Just a hunch.

Translation: "Yes, it works both ways, but I have a predefined belief that it's just worse when it happens to women, so here's some pseudoscience in an attempt to justify my prejudices."

Wait, what? Do I believe that it's worse that men are represented as the heroes saving damsels in distress, and women are represented... as damsels in distress? ...yeah, I suppose I do. I don't have any idea why I would think that. Why I would think it worse that women are represented from the viewpoint of men than men being represented from the viewpoint of men. I have no idea how I came to that conclusion.

...and you did not just pull the "prejudiced" card on me.

Look, if you want to continue to defend sexism, y'know what, that's fine. That's your choice and I'm sure you stand by it. But you're still wrong for doing so. Videogames are typically made by men, for men, and as such women have received the short end of the stick. That is my predefined belief, yes, but it's also a truth. And it IS worse that women are represented as vapid objects while men are represented as valiant heroes. I'm surprised you would argue against that. You could argue its not true - I'm sure there are examples since the beginning of gaming you could have pulled out to explain to me that my belief is exaggerated, or misplaced. But no, you said it was "pseudoscience" and a "prejudice". ...a prejudice against what? Against women being represented worse than men? Yes. I think I do have that prejudice. I'm glad I do.

I've learned a lot recently, about feminism, about sexism, about homophobia and "prejudice". I've learned that the worst kind of people are the kind that, when confronted with it, make no effort to change, or self-analyse. I used to be one of those people! But I learned that the worst kind of people are those who defend themselves, who try to justify it, when they're accused of or told that what they're doing is sexist, or phobic. People who make no attempt to change their actions, or understand why they're being told what they have been. People like you, who defend misogynous practices like they deserve to be there, when they don't.

Do some inward thinking, will you? Maybe try to understand this topic for what it is, instead of what you're defiantly insisting it to be.

 

[AlphaLackey]

Men aren't "fairly" represented either. Most games it's typical macho marine. So in that respect, they are kinda equally represented, as stereotypes.

^^boom

I don't get why some people take every opportunity to jump onto this train. It works both ways. As far as protagonists go anyway.

because people won't be happy without something to whine about. In this case people looove to whine about how underrepresented X is in Y

And because men being represented as macho, powerful, strong defenders of Earth and all its colonies is just a slightly different picture than women being represented as vapid, vain, stupid and incessantly whining cumbuckets who need to be saved by aforementioned men at every turn. Also wearing outfits that cover about one quarter of their bodies while men walk around in full body suits and helmets; one gender represented as heroes, the other as whores.

Just a hunch.

Translation: "Yes, it works both ways, but I have a predefined belief that it's just worse when it happens to women, so here's some pseudoscience in an attempt to justify my prejudices."

Wait, what? Do I believe that it's worse that men are represented as the heroes saving damsels in distress, and women are represented... as damsels in distress? ...yeah, I suppose I do. I don't have any idea why I would think that. Why I would think it worse that women are represented from the viewpoint of men than men being represented from the viewpoint of men. I have no idea how I came to that conclusion.

...and you did not just pull the "prejudiced" card on me.

Then your reading comprehension is as weak as your justifications for establishing a victimization scoring system while simultaneously accusing others as bigoted. They're both apparently as weak as your grasp on the modern video game world. Less than 100% of the video games in the world are Duke Nukem, you know.

Just going down my recently played list:

NHL 13: Female hockey players portrayed as being more physically capable than they are in real life. No sexualization.

Resident Evil 6: Female PCs portrayed as equally capable killing machines, even non-military bureaucrats (Sherry Birkin). Virtually no sexualization (arguably counting Ada Wong's stylized gown and shoes)

Arkham City: One damsel in distress (Vicki Vale), versus three strong female story participants (Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, Harley Quinn) and scores of female killing machines (al Ghul's Elite Guard). Catwoman and Harley Quinn are undoubtedly sexualized, to be fair.

Torchlight II: All female toons 100% as capable as male equivalents.

XCom: UFO Defense; female soldiers are fully capable and non-sexualized. But hey, there's that female civilian you have to rescue in the tutorial, I guess that's a problem.

.. and this is just off the top of my head from what I've played in this week alone. Games like Duke Nukem are an egregious minority.

As for your ridiculous assertions: I defend no misogyny, I only question your use of the term to a degree that would make a hypochondriac blush, and the way you start with the conclusion "video games are misogynistic" and grasp at any straw as you work your way backwards. It's how a video game can portray a woman killing men by the hundreds while you complain about her hemline while doing so. It's how someone can (with a straight face) claim that the portrayal of Bonnie Macfarlane (one of the least stereotypically feminine characters in video game history) is misogynistic because her quests are boring. Pseudoscience. Fallacy of selective enumeration. You are right up there, neck and neck, with blackjack players who believe the 3rd base player can "screw up the hand" by "stealing the dealer's bust card" simply by years of convincing themselves via only observing what fits their preconceived notions. Only difference is, they probably lost less money gambling to reach that conclusion than you paid in higher education to be taught how to see what you want to see.

And yes, I've been doing this "inward thinking" since I knew what it was. It's enabled me to understand the nature of treating people in a demographic-blind meritocratic fashion. And, after a lifetime of doing so, I've learned that the worst kind of people are the oikophobic chivalrists who think equality is some sick combination of white-knighting and pedestal worship.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

When heterosexual men stop being heterosexual?

Or when Homosexual women stop being homosexual?

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

snippy snippy snip like a crab on a beach

Okay, I have to apologize. I should have elaborated on my own point instead of leaping down your throat.

My point was that the stereotypical representation of women and men is misogynistic and sexist. That the seemingly, at least from the outset, de facto stance on gender politics is to cater to men by making men as manly as possible and women trophies. THAT was my point. I thought that's what you were trying to defend. I wasn't listing any specific examples - I had Gears of War in my head, though, despite that series being VERY good with their representation of women - I was simply saying that, thinking about "neutral" titles like Super Mario Bros., oftentimes men are represented as characters and women was rewards. And that seems a perfectly good jumping off point for people to get angry about sexism in videogames, at least where it still exists.

It was when you said "not 100% of games are Duke Nukem" to me that I realized I was coming across improperly. I don't think we should accept the misogynous practices used by videogames that use them. I didn't wish to imply that all videogames are misogynistic. That's a blatant untruth if ever there was. And besides, I still play those "misogynistic" games like Duke Nukem. I don't think we should abide by the things they do that are sexist, but certainly they have a right to exist as media, and if we have fun with them we should accept them at least on those grounds. Not everything will pass the Bechdel test, and it's silly to exclude what we watch and play just because it doesn't 100% conform to the ideals of pure equality. That would be downright stupid.

So, yeah, look, man. It was around the time I started nodding with you in agreement that I realized that my point was coming across improperly. If you still disagree with me then, y'know, I'll happily continue a debate, but I'm not so good with the human words and getting people to understand what it is I'm saying. So I apologize for that. Sorry! :3

 

[hazabaza1]

Just jumping in to say, if someone wants to see and example of an entire cast of unattractive yet well characterized characters containing both men and women, and play one of the best games this year, go play The Walking Dead video game. NOW.
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