Am I the only one not put-off by the Dead Island statue?

[Mylinkay Asdara]

It's tasteless. I'm not offended by it. I'm not going to get up in arms about it - not caring about the title at all has a good deal to do with that too I suppose, because if a group I associated myself with wanted something from a game we mutually play that was as tasteless as this I would have to look around and start asking some questions - since I don't count myself in this group of players though, that's not relevant.

If I knew someone who bought this I would point out to them the reasons I thought less of their level of sensitivity and good taste. Since I don't know anyone who will, I care considerably less about the whole issue.

What does it for me, if you're wondering, is the thin visibility of the bottom portion of the bikini. Sure the breasts are breasts, it's a female torso, it ought to have breasts. They need not be so full and perky, but they need not be small or saggy either so that's fairly moot. No, it's that little - what seems like a tease - of the lower part, ensuring that both female sex bits have been represented even if one is only hinted hat, that makes me think that this was a "made for men by men" idea, and that's always a little annoying to see in an area where women are already facing serious representation and respect barriers.

It doesn't register as loudly for me as some of the other things lately.

 

[WWmelb]

The fact of the matter is this about it being "sexualised".

The game is based from my understanding in a resort. Where women sexualise themselves. So do men. People in resorts sexualise themselves to try and be appealing to their preferred sex. It happens.

A woman at this resort got eaten.

Now is a statue.

The violence inflicted upon this woman was in NO WAY sexual in nature. The pre-death sexualised woman was part eaten and dismembered by a zombie. Would it have been okay if the torso was a fat woman's torso instead of a fit attractive torso? Would it have been okay if it had a t-shirt on? Would it have been okay if it had smaller breasts? or no breasts? or was a child?

Fucking hell, it's a bad taste statue because slasher horror is bad taste.

Here we fuckin go, lets go retroactively ban every fucking 80's slasher film because someone might be offended by a bare chested girl getting cut up by jason vorhees.

Hell we can even ban Cabin in the Woods. Girl got decapitated while topless and Thor didn't even get his kit off!!! ZOMG misogyny.

Seriously, i can see why people want to try and make this into an issue, and their REASONS are good ones, but THIS STATUE IS NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Said my bit.

for the record, as a fan of the slasher film genre, i love this statue lol

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

They tried to sell their game in the exact same way that most slasher/zombie films are advertised. People complained because there was breasts. If people are going to get mad at this then they should have gotten mad at almost every slasher film since the 80s.

Sounds to me like another event where people choose to get angry at one person for doing what everyone does. You could say that the statues was sexualized to sell, but to be honest, there's nothing sexy about dismembered torsos. Anyone being offended by the sexual aspect of this is reaching a Sarkeesian level of just looking for stuff to call sexist. I had hoped that we learned from her failure to be taken seriously and the indecent where an writer from Gameranx flat out falsely accused KSI of sexual assault and had that backfire severely.

Guess not.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

For me it's not that it depicts violence against women it's that they have tried to make the dismembered torso sexy. That just makes me feel a bit ill. It's that combination of titillation and violence that makes it offensive for me like the hitman trailer.

On a lesser note it also kind of suggests that Dead Island fans are all of the male or lesbian persuasion. Out of me and the OP I've played Dead Island and I'm female so....yeah.

I too sometimes get the odd feeling that most hardcore gamers are male. I have no idea why, it's just this really strange feeling I get sometimes y'know?
It must be something to do with playing WoW for 6 years and only encountering ~10 females on ventrillo (in total) compared to 500+ guys. But surely that can't be right, seeing as half the world's population is female so half of hardcore gamers must be female too.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Another thing. Isn't Dead Island placed on a resort island? I'm pretty sure that if it is, there would be scantily clad bikini wearing women on the island vacationing. If it were this statue being sold for an edition of Resident Evil then the poo-pooping would make sense. Instead people are taking things a bit to seriously and ignoring context, something I've noticed on these threads when social issues like this show up.

 

[XX Y XY]

It's an M rated game and not marketed at children. It's advertised to be in the box so there's no surprise or deceptive advertising. So I fail to see why this whole thing is even an issue. If it's not something you like or wouldn't want to be seen by the people that you tend to have around your house then don't buy it. Getting offended by a product that you're in no way being forced to be around is just sad and childish. Srsly people, grow up.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Well, I suppose the guro people deserve to have little knick-nacks as much as anyone else...

Honestly, when I first saw it it just struck me as a jokey little homage to schlocky old zombie movies: Not an appeal to sex and violence, but a parody of the genre's history with that combination deliberately made so ridiculously blatant that it lost all impact and couldn't be taken seriously.

...Then I remembered that Dead Island took itself way too seriously and I only remember the first one as a comedy because of all the stupid glitches and poor design.

 

[shrekfan246]

Honestly, my biggest issue with it is just that it's ugly.

Not, "Oh, those curves aren't perfect!", but "That is a really low-quality piece of work." The chest in particular looks even more fake than fake breasts usually do, and while I know there's a perfectly good explanation for that (what with them, you know, being fake) they could've at least put more effort into it.

Controversy, ho!

It's tacky, it's gaudy, it's ugly, and quite frankly I probably would be happier if one arm and the head were still there, as it would be a little more to distract from the ridiculous bust and I'm not a huge fan of over-the-top gore in the first place. I think it's stupid to call it misogynistic or anything though, because quite frankly, I'd have to question how many other things in media are "misogynistic", like, say, any video game with a female protagonist because protagonists typically get heavily beaten up over the course of an average game.

 

[anthony87]

Why do you think they decided to make it like that?

Because it's sexy as hell. Now tell me, what the fuck is wrong with that?

Didn't you know? Things aren't allowed to be sexy anymore because it might offend someone.

Not that I think it's sexy though but hey, I don't judge people for what they like within reason.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

On a lesser note it also kind of suggests that Dead Island fans are all of the male or lesbian persuasion. Out of me and the OP I've played Dead Island and I'm female so....yeah.

Except it doesn't suggest that. It states that the target market is guys, which it is. You can't really get pissed off at smart marketing just because it doesn't cater to your particular gender and preference. I have a hard time seeing anyone getting pissed off if it was a chiseled man's chest.

Actually I can be annoyed at the presumption that my favourite hobby is just for men.

Also I would still find it squicky if it's was some chiseled abs. It's just wrong dude.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

The fact of the matter is this about it being "sexualised".

The game is based from my understanding in a resort. Where women sexualise themselves. So do men. People in resorts sexualise themselves to try and be appealing to their preferred sex. It happens.

A woman at this resort got eaten.

Now is a statue.

The violence inflicted upon this woman was in NO WAY sexual in nature. The pre-death sexualised woman was part eaten and dismembered by a zombie. Would it have been okay if the torso was a fat woman's torso instead of a fit attractive torso? Would it have been okay if it had a t-shirt on? Would it have been okay if it had smaller breasts? or no breasts? or was a child?

Fucking hell, it's a bad taste statue because slasher horror is bad taste.

Here we fuckin go, lets go retroactively ban every fucking 80's slasher film because someone might be offended by a bare chested girl getting cut up by jason vorhees.

Hell we can even ban Cabin in the Woods. Girl got decapitated while topless and Thor didn't even get his kit off!!! ZOMG misogyny.

Seriously, i can see why people want to try and make this into an issue, and their REASONS are good ones, but THIS STATUE IS NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Said my bit.

for the record, as a fan of the slasher film genre, i love this statue lol

If we meet you're getting a beer.

Furthermore I think that anyone being offended by this should have said the same thing about Magic Mike when it came out for equal measure. And for the record very little people did. I know for a fact no one would have said anything even if it was a chiseled chest modeled after Ryan Gosling for crying out loud.

 

[AngloDoom]

I'm not offended by this, I just feel a little patronised in the same way I would if someone tried to lead me into the back of a van with tits on a stick.

The thing is bad taste but, hey, it worked. I didn't even know Dead Island had a sequel until people started discussing the damn statue.

I don't think that this cover encourages violence against women (or, indeed, that any cover could) but it's pretty much grade-A objectification. Objectification in itself isn't bad - boobs/six-packs are good to look at - but they're crass. If this game doesn't want to be seen as anything but a zombie beat-em-up and people want just that then I'm not going to ruin the party. I'll just go elsewhere and do something else.

 

[m19]

A bikini babe is a perfect symbol of a beach holiday. It's been twisted to symbolize the horror. Because the game itself is a fantasy holiday that's been twisted. If you honestly think that it's made like this because men like to jerk off to that, then maybe you are the sick one.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Not bothered at all. And to the extent that I think everyone upset about this is a fucking idiot. It's zombies for chrissakes.

Is it in poor taste to have a busty almost naked bloody stump of a torso as a collectors edition gift? Yes, so much yes. And that is the whole point. Has anyone bitching about this seen a zombie movie in the last, what, 5 decades? The zombie genre is replete with undead hotties. Nevermind that the living hotty, especially the dumb slutty one(s), are without equal as the most celebrated victim in the entire horror genre, not just zombies.

You could write a dissertation, and I am sure many have, on the hows and whys that this type of content exists in the genre, but the point is that its the norm. Status quo. Its to be expected.

Now if you want to complain about the genre itself, go ahead. But to get bent out of shape that a game that does nothing but celebrate the genre pulls out a crass example of exactly what the genre is about... yeah well I said it in the opening line... fucking idiot.

And if you don't believe me, just try and think back to Zombieland and the trope montage during the opening credits. I bet you 99% of people who can remember any of those clips remember the zombie stripper.

EditL And since its been pointed out before, I am not blind to the fact that they probably did this purely for publicity, which they got. It still doesn't make the people who got bent out of shape about it any less idiots, it just makes them unknowing shills as well.

Way to go dude, calling everyone who thinks differently on this matter a "fucking idiot". Oh internet...

COnsider the fact that they included the torso as a special edition bonus, i.e a factor they thought might make customers want to buy the special edition instead of the standard version. A mutilated, headless torso with notably large breasts wearing a bikini. To what kind of person over 18 years of age does that kind of thing appeal to enough to make them want to buy the special edition?

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I'm not exactly offended by it - I just think it's dumb and a bit ugly. I wouldn't buy it. Then again, I was pretty damn disappointed in Dead Island so I probably wouldn't buy anything having to do with that game again.

 

[Venom 3135]

I think people are over reactingway too much about it. Yes, it's a girl in a bikini. Where is the game set? A holiday island. What do you often see in places like these? Girls in bikinis. What is the game about? Zombies. What kind of torso is this? A zombie torso.

So no, it doesn't bother me in any way, shape or form and I definitely don't think it's sexist.

Edit: I wouldn't buy it, because honestly I hated the first Dead Island game due to how disappointing it was and I also think the statue's a waste of money.

 

[AngloDoom]

A bikini babe is a perfect symbol of a beach holiday. It's been twisted to symbolize the horror. Because the game itself is a fantasy holiday that's been twisted. If you honestly think that it's made like this because men like to jerk off to that, then maybe you are the sick one.

Then why are the boobs intact?

Seriously, it'd be a lot more effective if one of the boobs were torn off. It just wouldn't be as sexually appealing.

 

[Sylveria]

Did you seriously miss the thousands of other dudes going `Well I DONT SEE ANYTHING WRONG`.
We get it.

For me it's not that it depicts violence against women it's that they have tried to make the dismembered torso sexy. That just makes me feel a bit ill. It's that combination of titillation and violence that makes it offensive for me like the hitman trailer.

On a lesser note it also kind of suggests that Dead Island fans are all of the male or lesbian persuasion. Out of me and the OP I've played Dead Island and I'm female so....yeah.

Also pretty much this.

Count me in this camp. Not to mention I've got a special aversion to decapitation: if they gave that thing a well-sculpted zombie head it would've been a bit more in better taste: a zombified play on busts, like the ones of various historical figures of the Roman Empire. If it was a male torso I would still be barfing my guts out. For example, here's the Rigor Mortis edition, which includes a zombiefied hula girl figurine. I've got no problem with that, since it's generally more clever and it fits the setting well, while doing so with 100% less decapitation.

I'm kinda in this camp also. I don't find it particularly offensive or sickening, but the first thing I thought when I saw it was, "What were you thinking?" I don't think it's meant to be misogynistic as many gamers who have decided that any depiction of female partial nudity now is, but I do think it is incredibly stupid and in poor taste. I'm sure there's some people out there who are in to this sort of thing and they have every right to be, but putting out something like this bust is just throwing chum in to shark infested waters, especially in the current social climate.

 

[Sylveria]

A bikini babe is a perfect symbol of a beach holiday. It's been twisted to symbolize the horror. Because the game itself is a fantasy holiday that's been twisted. If you honestly think that it's made like this because men like to jerk off to that, then maybe you are the sick one.

Then why are the boobs intact?

Seriously, it'd be a lot more effective if one of the boobs were torn off. It just wouldn't be as sexually appealing.

I don't think anyone who would find a dismembered torso sexy would find it any less sexy if it was missing the breasts. But, I guarantee this thing would be getting WAY more cries of it being misogynistic if it was detailed in a fashion that shows the breasts torn away.

Think about what you're saying before you say it.