Dead Island Torso Statue: Misogynistic? Stupid? Both? Neither?

[maninahat]

It's objectifying taken to it's most extreme

That's actually basically the opposite of what it's doing. It's obviously not meant to titillate, it's meant to shock and disgust. Which it does, hence why people are getting so het up about it. It's taking your usual sexy imagery and parodying it by making it er... un-sexy.

The whole anti-sexism thing was against female characters all being cardboard stereotypes or pure eye candy. This thing doesn't work as eye candy and it has no personality on account of being dead, so it isn't a cardboard stereotype either.

That's an interesting argument, but I don't think it works. If it were meant to disgust instead of titillate, they probably would have not left the breasts in impeccable condition. The boobs are the only part of the body that isn't either scarred or severed. If the purpose is to disgust, why leave the most prominent part of the statue unharmed? If you want to titillate an audience, it makes sense to have a big pair of boobs as the focal point.

People aren't particularly disgusted by the sight of a plastic torso, male or female. They are disgusted by the designer's choice to promote a game to a mainstream audience by symbolically (and literally) reducing a woman to a pair of tits. Sexual objectification in advertising is as old as the hills, and has long drawn criticism in gaming. Whether meant ironically or not, the devs have taken it as far as it can go, literally turning a woman into a piece of meat.

 

[maninahat]

It's low quality, tacky, puerile crap. Just like the vast majority of "Collector's" Editions out there.

Also:

http://laughingsquid.com/wesker-son-a-resident-evil-6-butcher-shop-featuring-edible-humans/

Yeah, that's plate of severed rubber dicks right there. But there's no titties, so of course nobody's offended.

Holly freaking hell! I can only imagine the monumental rage if there were woman parts in there.

They aren't quite the same. In the RE6 promotion, all the other body parts are present - hands, feet, tongues etc, get as much a showing as the cocks. Secondly, flaccid cocks aren't exactly titillating when they are severed from the body and placed alongside the tongues and eyes. It produces quite a different effect from an immaculate cleavage that is still attached to a body. If the breasts had been sliced clean from a woman and placed alongside the rest of her bits, there wouldn't have been a sense of sexualisation. It would be at least as unpleasant to look at as the butchered male, but at least it wouldn't be leaning towards the lurid advertising tradition of incongruous, sexually objectified women.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

It's objectifying taken to it's most extreme

That's actually basically the opposite of what it's doing. It's obviously not meant to titillate, it's meant to shock and disgust. Which it does, hence why people are getting so het up about it. It's taking your usual sexy imagery and parodying it by making it er... un-sexy.

The whole anti-sexism thing was against female characters all being cardboard stereotypes or pure eye candy. This thing doesn't work as eye candy and it has no personality on account of being dead, so it isn't a cardboard stereotype either.

That's an interesting argument, but I don't think it works. If it were meant to disgust instead of titillate, they probably would have not left the breasts in impeccable condition. The boobs are the only part of the body that isn't either scarred or severed. If the purpose is to disgust, why leave the most prominent part of the statue unharmed? If you want to titillate an audience, it makes sense to have a big pair of boobs as the focal point.

People aren't particularly disgusted by the sight of a plastic torso, male or female. They are disgusted by the designer's choice to promote a game to a mainstream audience by symbolically (and literally) reducing a woman to a pair of tits. Sexual objectification in advertising is as old as the hills, and has long drawn criticism in gaming. Whether meant ironically or not, the devs have taken it as far as it can go, literally turning a woman into a piece of meat.

You're missing the point. If you take a sexual image and juxtapose it with a disgusting one you get something far more creepy and disturbing than if you just had the disgusting thing alone. H.R.Giger does it all the time, look him up. Anyway, that effect would lost if you made the sexual characteristics just as mutilated as everything else, because the sexual characteristics serve to emphasise the horror.
The second bit I agree with, but I actually think that it works really well in the context of the game. You've literally and symbolically turned women into just meat- and to zombies, women are... ?

Of course, this could all just be me reading too much into it, but the fact that they compared it to the statue of Venus tells me that they were deliberately doing a send-up of sexy ads, even if all of the nuance wasn't intentional.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a huge outcry over this similar to the one over the Hitman Absolution trailer.

 

[m19]

They aren't quite the same. In the RE6 promotion, all the other body parts are present - hands, feet, tongues etc, get as much a showing as the cocks. Secondly, flaccid cocks aren't exactly titillating when they are severed from the body and placed alongside the tongues and eyes. It produces quite a different effect from an immaculate cleavage that is still attached to a body. If the breasts had been sliced clean from a woman and placed alongside the rest of her bits, there wouldn't have been a sense of sexualisation. It would be at least as unpleasant to look at as the butchered male, but at least it wouldn't be leaning towards the lurid advertising tradition of incongruous, sexually objectified women.

It's not exactly the same. But I still don't buy that it's too different. Replace the men parts with women parts and all the same people would be screaming bloody murder. And they would find a way to say how breasts are a sexual symbol no matter how you portray them.

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

Offensive? Nah.

Kind of stupid? Yes.

 

[maninahat]

They aren't quite the same. In the RE6 promotion, all the other body parts are present - hands, feet, tongues etc, get as much a showing as the cocks. Secondly, flaccid cocks aren't exactly titillating when they are severed from the body and placed alongside the tongues and eyes. It produces quite a different effect from an immaculate cleavage that is still attached to a body. If the breasts had been sliced clean from a woman and placed alongside the rest of her bits, there wouldn't have been a sense of sexualisation. It would be at least as unpleasant to look at as the butchered male, but at least it wouldn't be leaning towards the lurid advertising tradition of incongruous, sexually objectified women.

It's not exactly the same. But I still don't buy that it's too different. Replace the men parts with women parts and all the same people would be screaming bloody murder. And they would find a way to say how breasts are a sexual symbol no matter how you portray them.

The thing is, it didn't happen. It was a man who was butchered into bits, whilst it was a woman who was turned into a sexy bust. You wouldn't get the reverse because a desexualised, butchered woman is too horrific for a heterosexual male audience to look at, and a titillating statue of a male's briefs would be too gay for a heterosexual male audience to tolerate. The game designers didn't factor female gamers into consideration when designing either game, and were only interested in serving the majority at the expense of everyone else. As with all these misogyny issues, its as much a problem with the culture as the object in question.

Basically whenever people say "it wouldn't be a problem if it happened to a man", note that they are being hypothetical - because it doesn't happen to men, or at least, not as often, not in the same way, and not possessing the same cultural context behind it.

 

[Sansha]

I wish people would look up misogyny in a dictionary before throwing it around on anything they find distasteful.

Yup.

I really don't see what's wrong with this.

It's a piece relevant to the game itself, albeit you'd have to be a pretty hardcore fan of the game to 'proudly display it on your mantle'.
There's a very minute group of people who would want this piece for the purpose of being 'misogynistic'. You've got the people who are into gore, and the people of those who are into silly gore, and the people of THOSE who hate women, and of THOSE the people who are turned on by the sight of a scantily-clad butchered torso.

I want this piece, because I think it's fascinating. I wouldn't display it in public, god no, but if anyone wants the Dead Island 2 collector's edition but will immediately throw this out, I'll pay you to mail it to me.

The game designers didn't factor female gamers into consideration when designing either game, and were only interested in serving the majority at the expense of everyone else.

Welcome to Business Marketing 401.

 

[Sansha]

double post derp

 

[maninahat]

It's objectifying taken to it's most extreme

That's actually basically the opposite of what it's doing. It's obviously not meant to titillate, it's meant to shock and disgust. Which it does, hence why people are getting so het up about it. It's taking your usual sexy imagery and parodying it by making it er... un-sexy.

The whole anti-sexism thing was against female characters all being cardboard stereotypes or pure eye candy. This thing doesn't work as eye candy and it has no personality on account of being dead, so it isn't a cardboard stereotype either.

That's an interesting argument, but I don't think it works. If it were meant to disgust instead of titillate, they probably would have not left the breasts in impeccable condition. The boobs are the only part of the body that isn't either scarred or severed. If the purpose is to disgust, why leave the most prominent part of the statue unharmed? If you want to titillate an audience, it makes sense to have a big pair of boobs as the focal point.

People aren't particularly disgusted by the sight of a plastic torso, male or female. They are disgusted by the designer's choice to promote a game to a mainstream audience by symbolically (and literally) reducing a woman to a pair of tits. Sexual objectification in advertising is as old as the hills, and has long drawn criticism in gaming. Whether meant ironically or not, the devs have taken it as far as it can go, literally turning a woman into a piece of meat.

You're missing the point. If you take a sexual image and juxtapose it with a disgusting one you get something far more creepy and disturbing than if you just had the disgusting thing alone. H.R.Giger does it all the time, look him up. Anyway, that effect would lost if you made the sexual characteristics just as mutilated as everything else, because the sexual characteristics serve to emphasise the horror.
The second bit I agree with, but I actually think that it works really well in the context of the game. You've literally and symbolically turned women into just meat- and to zombies, women are... ?

Of course, this could all just be me reading too much into it, but the fact that they compared it to the statue of Venus tells me that they were deliberately doing a send-up of sexy ads, even if all of the nuance wasn't intentional.

I think that juxtaposition of sex and horror is different in Giger's works. Even though there are tons of cocks and vaginas in Giger's stuff, I don't think anyone could find them sexy. Even if all the scary parts of the image were cropped out and all you were left with was a nob or a boob to look at, it would still look unappealing. That's because the horror and the sex are blended so well together, you can't see one without the other. Meanwhile, the tits on the Dead Island bust could easily be sexy if one were to apply the cropping tool to the rest of the body - that's because the elements of gore and horror aren't blended, and there is a clear definition between the sexy parts and the gory parts. If it was a gruesome sex horror effect they were going for, they failed to pull it off.

The claim that it is based off of the Venus statue is interesting though. I'm assuming they mean the Venus de Milo. It potentially adds a satirical perspective to it, but rather tellingly, the original Venus de Milo has a head and legs. This may all be a case of them accidentally creating the wrong impression whilst attempting a loftier goal.

"The second bit I agree with, but I actually think that it works really well in the context of the game. You've literally and symbolically turned women into just meat- and to zombies, women are... ?"

That's what they are going for with the term "zombie bait". But this isn't an attempt to appeal to actual zombies - Its purpose is to appeal to gamers; presumably, heterosexual, male gamers (the biggest demographic).

 

[maninahat]

The game designers didn't factor female gamers into consideration when designing either game, and were only interested in serving the majority at the expense of everyone else.

Welcome to Business Marketing 401.

I'm well aware of the financial reasons to do it, but that doesn't make it okay. The industry has been gradually trying to distance itself from sexual advertising, and attempting to show a greater awareness of the increasing number of female gamers. "Sex sells" is still a predominant marketing trick, but there is a trend to see overt, gratuitous sex as tacky and dated. The Lynx/Axe deodorant adverts, for instance, feel very 90s.

 

[Sansha]

The game designers didn't factor female gamers into consideration when designing either game, and were only interested in serving the majority at the expense of everyone else.

Welcome to Business Marketing 401.

I'm well aware of the financial reasons to do it, but that doesn't make it okay. The industry has been gradually trying to distance itself from sexual advertising, and attempting to show a greater awareness of the increasing number of female gamers. "Sex sells" is still a predominant marketing trick, but there is a trend to see overt, gratuitous sex as tacky and dated. The Lynx/Axe deodorant adverts, for instance, feel very 90s.

It does make it okay because they're a business. They're not here to make everyone happy. It's in their best interest to stand out and appeal to their majority audience because that's how the system works. Dead Island had a small fanbase and was mediocre at best, but popular enough to warrant a sequel, so they had to do something to garner attention, and you're more than doing their job for them. Even if they don't ship it with the torso, they've all the free press from the internet they need.

I'm all for the decline of sexism and the greater appeal to female gamers. I like how female characters are being de-sexualized and the industry is generally becoming less sexist.

But I don't see how this figurine is sexist, I really truly don't. It's not sexually appealing in any logical manner and I think people are over-blowing the whole 'violence against women' thing, because the game's content features all kinds of folks getting fucking butchered.

It's what violence is.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

It looks like crap anyway. I wouldn't want to own that. Doesn't help that Dead Island was a pretty rubbish game anyway.

 

[Souleks]

Misogynistic? its a fucking torso! that is terrifying not sexy I don't think the Dead Island crew were trying to appeal to the gore/vore crowd though.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

It's not misogynistic, don't think that's even arguable to be honest. Go look up what misogyny is if you think it is.

Misogyny (pron.: /mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.

There's obviously a cogent argument that can be made that this was misogynistic.

Ok, so lets go through all of these. Although I would make the case that sexual objectification doesn't constitute misogyny, but anyway.
Sexual discrimination: Nope, this doesn't affect who can play or buy this product, there is no sexual discrimination.

Denigration of women: This doesn't make a statement about women one way or the other, it's fairly difficult to argue that there are real sexual connotations to this as opposed to satirical ones, because the torso itself is dismembered, and I'm assuming the vast majority of Dead Island's target audience isn't into whatever fetish they'd have to be to find this sexually appealing.

Violence against women: This obviously doesn't constitute violence towards women because it is a bust, as opposed to a woman. A representation of violence against women among countless representations of violence against men in games does not constitute misogyny whatsoever.

Sexual objectification of women: Probably the strongest case one could make if one were to take that definition of misogyny as being fair (once again, arguable) but as I said under the Denigration of Women section, it seems unlikely that this is a way that they'd sexually objectify women considering all the offputting blood and gore.

Most likely explanation in my mind is that it was basically for shock tactics and the taboo value of boobs and gore all in one package. It's pretty damn gross, and it feels more like marketing than art to me, but I support their right to market in that way if they want.


Ah. And I told myself I would stay out of gender threads.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Because it's a womans torso?

No.

Would it be misandristic if it were a male torso?

No, misandry manifests itself in different ways.

I'm getting really fucking sick of shit like this...

Obviously. If memory serves, you were "really fucking sick" of this kind of discussion two years ago, it stands to reason you'd be even angrier about it now. Why on earth would we even have a discussion about it? If you're emotionally charged, what kind of discourse are we going to have? You're going to sneer at anything I might say, and I'm going to get annoyed, and we're going to be wasting one another's time.

So, you are on record as being angry and disagreeing. I hear you.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I wrote out a few responses before finally settling on "We don't know their intent as they designed it, so maybe, maybe not, but in any case it's hardly an issue at all."

 

[dfphetteplace]

I think it is a bit anti-woman, but I also think it had some really really bad timing. I wouldn't want to own it, personally. I could see how a horror movie collector might like it, but other than that I don't see the appeal. Mainly, I just think it is stupid.