MikhailGH said:
Ok I have not played the game so I can't say much, but from hear-say I gather that Bayonetta and the game itself isn't only about fanservice, which first surprises me and secondly I am proud that at least some gamedesigners are trying to get out of the classic "sex sales" model. Only problem is, don't lose sight that some people did play this game to watch a sexy woman kill dudes halfnaked. Is this bad? I'd say not really, as long as the character offers something else, more deep for players who are looking for it.
EXACTLY. Fair enough, every gamer is entitled to see her as one thing or another. I formed my opinion of her during the several playthroughs I've completed, and find something new that surprises me every time.
How annoyed would people be if I said, "Dante is nothing more than fan service for women, there is nothing deeper in his personality, he's an empty shell of a character"?
Just because one person sees something else in Bay, that doesn't mean everyone else sees it, and vice versa.
Labyrinth said:
However, I consider her something I'd associate more closely with my own morality than say, Lara Croft.
Lara is very conflicted. She murders people who might get to the treasures first, then wonders how good a person she is. Bayonetta doesn't pretend to be anything other than a cool, intelligent, highly sexually charged woman who kills things for a living. You never wonder whether she's evil or good, because she helps to maintain the balance of the world. But that's the thing, there aren't contradictory sides to her character, in the sense that Croft has.
I'm exactly like you, I have much more in common with Bayonetta than a lot of other female characters, and I think this is because developers seem to be not shying away from presenting a sexually open woman. Sexuality, in a way, DOES help to define a person, or at least a gender. This shouldn't be taboo, and it shouldn't be ignored.
I appreciate Bayonetta's outward, even overpowering sexuality. She's a domineering woman which is so rare to see in a global culture which muffles female power with cuteness or deadens sexuality with chastity and ice-queen syndrome. She knows that sex is good, she behaves in a manner which invites it, but there's also a challenge here, the undertones of "Please, you couldn't handle this." It's an arrogance, a superiority which I find a lot of non-desexualised female characters lack, again to make them more 'acceptable' to a male audience which is perceived to be unwelcoming of challenge.
This sums it up pretty well. If Bayonetta was a real woman, many guys would rather label her a "slut" because they know they could never have her, than risk getting shot down. Why is it so wrong that a character should acknowledge that sex is good, and that she loves it? The act of sex doesn't dominate the game, nor Bayonetta as a character, only references and suggestions.
My issue with her overt physicality comes through in its incessantly titillating efforts. This I relate to an endemic problem where only the male gaze is catered for in popular media. Where's the male version of this character for heterosexual women? Or the lesbian version where instead of felating amusingly small lollipops, she munches candied flowers with vigour to get stat bonuses.
I assume this is because males still dominate the gaming market, and people don't seem to realise that women are just as sexually charged as men, they just either don't want you to know it or, after years and years of oppression and suppression, some people may still find it slightly taboo to acknowledge they have ANY sexual desires.
Perhaps a REAL revolution is on the horizon?
I wouldn't have any problems with this kind of media if there was an equivalent for women, or anyone who doesn't identify as heterosexual male. Alas, our medium is so steeped in the obsession with male sexuality and pandering to it that such things are unlikely to occur for a while. Probably because no-one is willing to risk marketing to chast, delicate women, defenders of pristine morality.
I have nothing to add to this. If every male assumes that women only do things or are presented in a certain way for the males' gratification and pleasure, then we haven't really moved on at all from the era before the Suffragettes.
