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

[Augustine]

This is a non-issue thread. Until we agree on an objective standards of beauty this is nigh pointless.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

OP didn't do the research...

Methinks he/she was just trying to get a highly-commented topic... given that he/she hasn't posted since the topic was created...

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Every female in every Bethesda game.
Every Ellie from Borderlands 2.
Every female in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
The Asari. (eeeeewwwwww)
Every female in every western game, because they don't appeal to me in the slightest.

And is it just me, but aren't most men in games "'handsome' badass beefcake" and "badass mofucker who's pretty hot" too?
I think this is a non issue, honestly. Women are almost always portrayed as sexy eye candy toythings and men are almost always portrayed as badass, grunting meat tanks or badass motherfuckers who occasionally say "I've killed a lot of people and feel vaguely bad about it" with absolutely no emotion.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I present:



Wynne

There are quite a few women that aren't strictly sexy.

You don't think Wynne is sexy?

I'd totally hit that. over and over. Rarw.

OT: Eve and Ellie were already mentioned, so I don't have anything new to contribute.
I do think it's amusing that Faith, Chell and Alyx have been mentioned in this thread... I mean damn, I thought I had high standards of beauty.
So maybe this is what women are talking about when they say "Unrealistic standards"
Anyone who would say Faith isn't attractive or that Alyx looks "mediocre" is...is...uh...nuts.

I've been playing The Walking Dead and kept thinking that Carley looked way to pretty for the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Game developers (Maybe not Devs but Artists) don't seem to understand that taking a 10/10 and throwing a scar or some dirt on them doesn't make them more believable as a character model.
I'd take Lilly from The Walking Dead as a character who's face didn't look super model esque. she had a sort of unattractive Aquiline nose and Katjaa doesn't have a perfect body. There aren't many good examples of this but they're there.

 

[Hosker]

Wow, skimming through it seems people have very high standards.

 

[Batou667]

There's no need to put "ugly" girls in games. Hell, loading up the medium with "ugly" girls to appease the ones crying about over-sexualization is just as bad. Beauty is entirely subjective and while I agree we shouldn't have boobage flopping about everywhere, girls should still look like girls, not sub-human looking bags of flesh on bones.

Good post. Nobody has satisfactorily explained why having attractive women in games is a bad thing, or conversely why having more plain or ugly protagonists would be a god thing.

Realism? That's always a shaky argument. A truly "realistic" game would be utterly mundane - we play games for escapism, not to experience a simulation of somebody's boring life. Every game has elements of fantasy to it. Perhaps a better criteria would be believability, but that's subjective. Within the Final Fantasy world, some twink clown who carries a sword twice his own height is believable. Within the DOA universe, the idea that a master ninja can be a) a 17 year old girl with b) 32FF breasts who wears c) lingerie into battle is believable.

The idea that gamers will connect better with more average characters? Not necessarily. See the above point: we play games for escapism. It's my personal experience that although gamers like to have some kind of tokenistic representation - girls want to be able to play as a female protagonist, black people like non-white characters to choose from - we're more than happy to play as characters who are more attractive than us (or ones who are less attractive but still "cooler", like Marcus Fenix). Even in games where you can customise your avatar with many degrees of freedom, people tend to choose either a highly stylised "wish fulfillment" version of themselves or else a pure fantasy character (an alien, an elf, a member of the opposite sex, etc).

In short; as long as video games are flights of fancy, don't expect to see 100% accurate portrayals of men or women. And I can't see any problem with that.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

What about Ellie from Borderlands 2?

Saying that, I've since learned that if you type "borderlands 2 ellie" into Google images, you'll immediately be presented with the suggestion of "borderlands 2 ellie rule 34". What is wrong with people?

Edit: ninja'd.

A man isn't allowed like a larger woman?

That there's stopped being a woman and started being a Hutt.
Captcha: forget this
Huh, well said captcha

 

[00slash00]

wow, seems like a lot of people are really grasping at straws here. the fact that you dont find a character particularly attractive, does not make them an example of an prominent unattractive female in video games. i dont really find cameron diaz very attractive but she is still an example of a beautiful woman (or she was, i honestly havent seen her in years so i dont know how she has aged). its frankly absurd to say that alix from half life 2 or trip from enslaved are examples of non-beautiful characters just because there are features about them that you dont particularly find attractive. their body and face still fall well within what our society generally considers to be beautiful. that would be like saying nathan drake is an example of an ugly male character, because you dont like guys with short hair

 

[Tdoodle]

Does Jessica Chobot's ME3 NPC count? I'm pretty sure she's meant to be attractive but she looks pretty bloated and disgusting.

 

[Sansha]

Behold the stunning mediocrity that is Alyx Vance![br]

There are loads of non attractive females in games, maybe you should just have higher standards.

Exactly what I was going to say. Alyx is a total bro, and I certainly hope they don't shoehorn in a love story between her and Gordon.

So my opinion is you don't notice non-sexualized or attractive female NPC's in games because they blend in so well that you... yeah. Don't notice them. Characters in which their genders are completely incidental and don't define them as characters make for the most interesting ones, male or female.

 

[Therumancer]

I've been watching alot of videos and reading alot of forum posts on the escapist going on about female representation in video games and I have stumbled across a solution of sorts.

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.

If you want to represent anything fairly in a medium - show it in every light. For example (and this is another thing about video games) evil people do not have to be ugly nor do they have to be evil all the time, or REALLY evil, or powerful,intelligent or rich.

Women have varied roles in video games; from sex-symbols for some to lust over, protagonists like in metroid and support characters (i could go on but you get the point). So we can conclude that women have been represented fairly well up until now as far as professions go.

However I think the real leap forward could be made by simply having more (or any) average looking women and characters with real depth in video games.

I think it's lazy and sometimes even cowardly of developers to not take the time to create realistic characters with more than two dimensions or a single purpose (such as plot-device, fantasy projection or sex-symbol).

I know that my points probably don't apply to EVERY game, and im sure people with more knowledge of this medium can name them. But when both genders are consistently fairly represented we can all stop reading posts like this....

Actually both genders ARE consistantly represented... as heroic ideals. Ugly or unattractive people as protaganists are uncommon for either gender.

A lot of times this criticism comes up because a lot of guys don't get what makes a dude attractive. There is no real universal standard that all women will agree on, just as men won't agree with what makes women attractive universally. People tend to forget that a lot of these much criticized "ugly male protaganists, show creators who don't care how they look" are actually VERY attractive to women. Some time take a look at the muscle definition and those ripped 6 pack abs on some of those "ugly" warrior dudes, most of these guys are grade A hunks, for women it's a lot less about the face than the body. Not all women will admit to liking this, but trust me, the ripped out dude pumping iron on the beach usually doesn't have much trouble getting a date, some women might not care for it, but the vast majority do. Consider that Arnold Schwartzneggar was considered one of the sexiest men alive for a long time, and it was all about the body. Even as an old man there have been constant stories about his affairs (other than the ones he was caught at). Facially speaking Arnie is at best considered "average" though with his teeth showing a few have said he borders on the grotesque... the results kind of speak for themselves though.

A lot of people who bank on the whole "unfair objectification of women" in the media (games, movies, artwork, etc...) like to dismiss that it's universal or say that's irrelevent since they really don't have a leg to stand on, it's a non-issue contrived for attention, and the belief by some guys that championing such causes will make them more attractive to the opposite sex.

As far as the straightforward question about whether there have been any ugly or unattractive women, the answer to that is simply "yes". This ranges from the portrayal of witches and monsters (good and bad), to the use of actresses like "Rosie O' Donnel" in movies like "Exit To Eden" (as a detective). In video games we've had characters like "Fat Princess", and "Scary Girl", just to name a couple of fairly recent ones. As was pointed out there were also several very average looking girls present throughout the "Dragon Age" games as well.

In the end though you don't see unattractive women in escapist fantasy for the same reason you don't see unattractive men, people want to get away from reality and kind of vicariously experience being a physical ideal. Your normal IRL, and the point of escapism is to get away from that. The women tend to be hot, and the men tend to be hunks, execeptions for either gender tend to stand out. I just think people looking to make a point rarely bother to analyze what they are looking at, I mean even the old guy you play in Neir which some people talk about being so differant has arms like bloody pythons, he's like an aging Schwartzneggar not an actual old/middle aged guy.

 

[LHZA]

Behold the stunning mediocrity that is Alyx Vance![br]

There are loads of non attractive females in games, maybe you should just have higher standards.

Exactly what I was going to say. Alyx is a total bro, and I certainly hope they don't shoehorn in a love story between her and Gordon.

So my opinion is you don't notice non-sexualized or attractive female NPC's in games because they blend in so well that you... yeah. Don't notice them. Characters in which their genders are completely incidental and don't define them as characters make for the most interesting ones, male or female.

Off topic I know, but how would a love story be shoe horned in? Valve has already stated she's a love interest and if you pay attention, there are plenty of hints pointing out to an attraction on her side. Go to wikipedia of the halve life wiki page to see what I'm talking about.

 

[Cabamacadaf]

Helena Pierce.. looks like she head butted a belt sander..

The other half of her face is very attractive though.

 

[Guilherme Zoldan]

Im kind of astonished at the ammount of people here that dont seem to realize "attractive" is the most subjective thing ever.
As proof, Rule number 34.

 

[Someone Depressing]

What games have you been playing is sexy people everywhere ? I want to play them too .

Also this is ridiculous . Seriously . Charcters are too good looking? This is a thing? I swear people just like to complain .

Not graphically impressive, but making them look sterotypically sexy and over-the-top alot of the time.

Also, I think Rosella from the KQ games fits in that nicely. Not even in the animated 7 or the close-ups in 3 is she even slightly attractive. Infact, she looks to thin that she can't possibly have a liver, and thus, her blood would be full of toxins that would kill her, which makes her a zombie. (And zombies DO exist in the games) And zombies (and old witches) are not attractive - y'know, because one's dead and the other's wrinkly.

 

[Dark Prophet]

that woman from the first condemned, whatsherfaceagain. standard overweight middle aged white woman. x)

I think it's the most accurate answer thus far.

 

[TrevHead]

Someone might have already mentioned this but I've seen multiple Asian gamers mention that Faith's face is considered unattractive in their neck of the woods.

Since different cultures have differing ideas of beauty I wonder how different cultures view character stereotypes from other parts of the world. How about middle eastern muslims who wear the Hijab or even just the headscarf? Not that we see alot of games to come from that part of the world but i'm sure they do exist.

The Japanese have some pretty out there sexual perversions, not many of us would say this is attractive (atleast in public lol).

 

[krazykidd]

What games have you been playing is sexy people everywhere ? I want to play them too .

Also this is ridiculous . Seriously . Charcters are too good looking? This is a thing? I swear people just like to complain .

Not graphically impressive, but making them look sterotypically sexy and over-the-top alot of the time.

Also, I think Rosella from the KQ games fits in that nicely. Not even in the animated 7 or the close-ups in 3 is she even slightly attractive. Infact, she looks to thin that she can't possibly have a liver, and thus, her blood would be full of toxins that would kill her, which makes her a zombie. (And zombies DO exist in the games) And zombies (and old witches) are not attractive - y'know, because one's dead and the other's wrinkly.

I swear i saw a sexy zomby somewhere . But i can't for the life of me remember where . Dammit .

Also not all witches are old and wrinkly . Morrigan from Dragon age origins would like a word with you . Before she disembowls you and feed your corpse to crocs . ( Please don't say Morrigan isn't sexy ).