Increasingly skinny women in video games?

[Lilani]

And although we may fill a role to explore this fantasy its important to remember it is impossible and its exactly what it is. Fantasy.

Or, more specifically, heterosexual male fantasy.

Guys in (most) video games are the guys that teenage males want to be. Girls in (most) video games are the girls that teenage males want to fuck.

In a nutshell:

I think its a bit strange to attack fantasies in a medium thats sole purpose is the living of fantasies.

It's not the fantasies themselves he's attacking. It's whose fantasies are being focused on that he's taking umbrage with. As a female, I would much rather be a badass character that looks like this:

Spoiler

Than a badass character that looks like this:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure when most men are fulfilling a power fantasy as a badass who slices dragons in half just for fun, they aren't imagining themselves doing it in nothing but a golden thong.

 

[Stu35]

Or, more specifically, heterosexual male fantasy.

The majority of games which seem to be the target of this 'games are sexist for their portrayal of women' are made by heterosexual males, aimed at a heterosexual male audience.


... So, why shouldn't they pander to the fantasies of their target audience? I don't whinge about every romantic comedy ever for the way they portray the male role in a relationship.



People of both genders are objectified by the various media types out there - Books, Magazines, Films, TV Shows, Advertisements, Talk Radio, Music, Video Games, Board Games... I could go on and on, for each of these I could find examples of sexism/objectification for both genders - I would argue that for every example of a busty, slim woman wearing bikini-armour in a video game, there's a picture of Robert Patinson/One Direction/Whoever in the back of heat magazine with their shirts off.

Now, in video games specifically, I would say there probably is more objectification of women than men, so the question then becomes - Do I think there could (possibly should?) be more games not aimed at this straight male audience? Maybe make more games aimed at entertaining people outside that audience? Sure, after all that could only be good for the industry right? I mean, you get explosive action films, and romantic comedy films, each as dumb as each other but pandering to a different audience so why not do something similar in games?

The question following on from that is - why aren't these games being made?

I dunno, you tell me female game makers/gamers/people(of any gender) who want these games made...

Seriously, rather than looking at trying to stop boys from making boy games, why can't we just encourage girls to make girl games? I often worry that in a desperate attempt to make everything neutral, and avoid any kind of stereotyping, objectification, or acknowledgement that men and women, by and large, have a lot of fundamental differences in what they enjoy out of life, we ignore the simplest solution of just making a wider variety of things.

Finally - I accept that there is PLENTY of crossover between the enjoyments of men and women(and any other genders for that matter), between what gays, straights (and everybody else) wants. I'm well aware that when I say 'boys like Y(X), girls like X(X - see what I did there? )', that I'm making generalisations that will probably offend or upset someone, who will then go on to try and point out my ignorance and foolishness... Save yourselves the time, and don't bother - I still live in the real world, where I can see that there is still a marked difference in the habits of the MAJORITY of Males and Females, and that many of those differences are exploited by companies in order to turn a profit.



...However, my opinion in all this will undoubtedly not count, because I'm a white, mid-20s, male.

 

[Kahunaburger]

That said I think a real issue is the mediums inability to cater to everyone. I personally am NOT uncomfortable with that portrayal of batman. I think if women want to play games where every character is perfectly orientated and designed to fill their every fantasy (for some this is twilight) more power to them. They can have that. I more games should try and do this. Let everyone playout their whims and desires in games.

I hear a lot of people say stuff like this in defense of objectification of female characters. Then, when a game rolls around that features something like gay people or female protagonists, tears [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6661775&lf=8] are shed [http://www.destructoid.com/-wtf-is-with-empowered-women-in-video-games-now--219511.phtml]. So, no, your average dudebro gamer generally only supports games as ways to act out fantasies when said fantasies are heterosexual male fantasies.

Also, what if my fantasy is to play a bunch of AAA games that feature prominent characters of multiple sexes/races/sexualities and do not feature sexism/racism/homophobia in aesthetic and/or writing? Guess I'm SOL.

The only issue i raise is that it should be for everyone and no one should have the right to rain on another persons parade.

Nobody's advocating censorship, here. If hearing reasonable objections to a thing you enjoy causes you to enjoy that thing less, it's an indication that your enjoyment of that thing is not something that you are entirely comfortable with. And this is okay - it's perfectly normal to value a design choice that does not perpetuate sexism over a design choice that does.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

It's not the fantasies themselves he's attacking. It's whose fantasies are being focused on that he's taking umbrage with. As a female, I would much rather be a badass character that looks like this:

Spoiler

Than a badass character that looks like this:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure when most men are fulfilling a power fantasy as a badass who slices dragons in half just for fun, they aren't imagining themselves doing it in nothing but a golden thong.

What im trying to say is that if the game industry had sense, and we should be encouraging them to do so, they would make games aimed at you and people like you to play as a badass character than looks like this:

Spoiler

While at the same time ANOTHER part of the medium should be making games for a target audience that wants this:

Spoiler

If a niche of people is large enough to demand a game its nonsensical that the industry wouldnt find a way of using this to make money. We should put pressur on publishers to experiement and take the plunge in making games NOT centered at this current audience. But at the same time let them continue making games for this target audience.

I hear a lot of people say stuff like this in defense of objectification of female characters. Then, when a game rolls around that features something like gay people or female protagonists, tears [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6661775&lf=8] are shed [http://www.destructoid.com/-wtf-is-with-empowered-women-in-video-games-now--219511.phtml].

Also, what if my fantasy is to play a bunch of AAA games that feature prominent characters of multiple sexes/races/sexualities and does not feature sexism/racism/homophobia in aesthetic and/or writing? Guess I'm SOL.

The only issue i raise is that it should be for everyone and no one should have the right to rain on another persons parade.

Nobody's advocating censorship, here. If hearing reasonable objections to a thing you enjoy causes you to enjoy that thing less, it's an indication that your enjoyment of that thing is not something that you are entirely comfortable with. And this is okay - it's perfectly normal to value a design choice that does not perpetuate sexism over a design choice that does.

"what if my fantasy is to play a bunch of AAA games that feature prominent characters of multiple sexes/races/sexualities and does not feature sexism/racism/homophobia in aesthetic and/or writing? Guess I'm SOL."

Then let your voice be heard. By these games. Encourage studeos to invest. What makes you think I dont enjoy these games? Personally ive been big on darksouls and starcraft recently and not much else. Its valid for me to defend a medium of games i dont personally enjoy. You assume because i defend something i have an invested interest. I do not. This is a false assumption.

First of all id NEVER respond with tears to the intoduction of these characters. My outlook is not so hypocritical. The key underpinning of my arguement is:

Every niche thats large enough to merit attention should have something to play with for the sake of sensibile business. The heterosexual male fantasy is a valid and popular one. So games aimed at this can and will exist. This is why i defend them. With THAT SAID, (important bit here) your particular whims are equally as valid considering how popular they are. I will fight tooth and nail to see these games i would also enjoy. I want to be able to enjoy a variety of experiences. If it means making LESS games full of male heterosexual fantasies so be it. What i dont like the sound of is the idea we should prohibit or on some way discourage their existance at all.

Where did i ever indicate i enjoy the things i like less because others dont like them? Its moot anyway since i dont tend to enjoy these games in the first place. Im just happy for those that do.

 

[Lilani]

I dunno, you tell me female game makers/gamers/people(of any gender) who want these games made...

I'm sure they are trying, as much as filmmakers had to try for decades upon decades to get women to be portrayed as anything in films and television other than the main cause of trouble and the reward for the leading man just before the credits roll. But the problem, as you've said, is a lack of knowledge for the market. So it causes a deadly spiral: Developers don't want to risk a lot of money in an unexplored market so they don't, which causes the market to be constricted and negatively viewed by those excluded.

The lack of female games being made isn't their fault. It's a male dominated market, both in leadership and in customer base. To be able to make the games developers want to make, you HAVE to be able to appeal to that male audience, whether you're male or female. But since knowing how to appeal to females isn't a requirement, you've got an industry filled with a majority of people who have not the slightest clue as to how to appeal to anyone who isn't in that limited market.

What I think they should do is just get their heads out of their asses and take the risk. It's not the responsibility of one gender or the other to get it done. It's the responsibility of the businesses as a whole to get the people they need if they want to be relevant to the largest possible market. I'm not going to say it's totally their fault or that they intentionally made the market favor males. That's just sort of how things go. But I think it's pretty arrogant to say the lack of a female market is our fault for not trying hard enough. Excuse the fuck out of me, I didn't realize men were so creatively constipated they could manage to fill up an entire industry with a bunch of one-trick ponies who only know how to appeal to one market.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Seriously, rather than looking at trying to stop boys from making boy games, why can't we just encourage girls to make girl games? I often worry that in a desperate attempt to make everything neutral, and avoid any kind of stereotyping, objectification, or acknowledgement that men and women, by and large, have a lot of fundamental differences in what they enjoy out of life, we ignore the simplest solution of just making a wider variety of things.

Here's a good analogy:



The video game gender gap occurs for similar reasons, and is problematic for similar reasons.

Also, some developers *do* try to make more gender-neutral games. For instance, this is the viewpoint a good chunk of Valve's lineup comes from, and that is at the source of a variety of design choices behind the Sid Meier games. There's even some of this in more recent Halo titles. I don't think it would be controversial to say that these are very good, very popular games.

 

[Lilani]

What im trying to say is that if the game industry had sense, and we should be encouraging them to do so, they would make games aimed at you and people like you to play as a badass character than looks like this:

Spoiler

While at the same time ANOTHER part of the medium should be making games for a target audience that wants this:

Spoiler

If a niche of people is large enough to demand a game its nonsensical that the industry wouldnt find a way of using this to make money. We should put pressur on publishers to experiement and take the plunge in making games NOT centered at this current audience. But at the same time let them continue making games for this target audience.

That I can agree with. I just wanted to make it clear that the markets DO NOT always intersect, as much as people claim they do. Yes, Lara Croft is fierce and independent (if a bit of a psycho and klepto), but she's also walking eye candy and is never allowed to go anywhere without at least 60% of her skin uncovered. Just because you've got a strong female character doesn't mean she's automatically going to be a hit with the female market, and that doesn't mean the female market should be expected to like her. You can't just throw a bunch of female leads who know how to use a gun at the market and expect women to bite.

I'm not saying you personally believe that, but that's a common sentiment I see expressed in discussions like this. "You've got Lara Croft and she's a badass, what do you mean she's not an appealing character to women?"

 

[Smeatza]

You not liking something is nobodies problem but your own. You can say that something is not to your personal tastes, but to say that all media should uniform itself to suit your particular tastes, and presenting it as a moral issue is silly.

Despite what TvTropes would have you believe, someone calling out racism/sexism/homophobia/etc. in media is neither advocating censorship, nor required to keep their objections to themselves so that people who would rather not think critically about media can continue to do so in peace and quiet.

Yeah I don't frequent that web site.
However you are missing my point entirely.
As I have said, you are free to critisize all you want. The same way that people are free to have personal beliefs about other races, genders and sexual preferences.
The same way that people are free create fictional works representing or depicting those beliefs.

But this isn't even on that level, this isn't somebody actively trying to get across a message of chauvinism, or a deliberate attempt to antagonise femininsts. It's putting pretty things in your product because people tend to prefer pretty things to ugly things.

Plus, on top of all this, it's not your artistic vision (note the word artisTIC, lets save the "are videogames art" debate for another thread). Who are you to say that somone else piece of fiction is wrong because it does not fit your pre-approved ideals?

But I digress. The bottom line is that people like things that are aesthetically pleasing and so people are going to carry on including those things in video games.
Should I be offended by a car if the designer based it's curves on the female form?
Should I be offended by the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" advertisments?
No, because all they're trying to do is make something aesthetically pleasing (to sell cars and get an advertisment noticed respectively).

 

[Kahunaburger]

I hear a lot of people say stuff like this in defense of objectification of female characters. Then, when a game rolls around that features something like gay people or female protagonists, tears [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6661775&lf=8] are shed [http://www.destructoid.com/-wtf-is-with-empowered-women-in-video-games-now--219511.phtml].

Also, what if my fantasy is to play a bunch of AAA games that feature prominent characters of multiple sexes/races/sexualities and does not feature sexism/racism/homophobia in aesthetic and/or writing? Guess I'm SOL.

The only issue i raise is that it should be for everyone and no one should have the right to rain on another persons parade.

Nobody's advocating censorship, here. If hearing reasonable objections to a thing you enjoy causes you to enjoy that thing less, it's an indication that your enjoyment of that thing is not something that you are entirely comfortable with. And this is okay - it's perfectly normal to value a design choice that does not perpetuate sexism over a design choice that does.

"what if my fantasy is to play a bunch of AAA games that feature prominent characters of multiple sexes/races/sexualities and does not feature sexism/racism/homophobia in aesthetic and/or writing? Guess I'm SOL."

Then let your voice be heard. By these games.

Way ahead of you there

First of all id NEVER respond with tears to the intoduction of these characters. My outlook is not so hypocritical.

Well, I'm glad you don't. However, by and large the majority of people defending objectification in video games are absolutely hypocritical about the issue.

What i dont like the sound of is the idea we should prohibit or on some way discourage their existance at all.

Nobody's saying that we should prohibit these games. But I think that a responsible designer should try not to unthinkingly (or worse, knowingly) perpetuate sexist imagery.

Im just happy for those that do.

Whereas I think that people who enjoy sexist/racist/homophobic things uncritically should stop being uncritical about the things they enjoy. If awareness makes them enjoy problematic things less, so be it.

And, if awareness makes them recognize the problematic aspects of the things they enjoy (and less likely to unthinkingly replicate said probematic aspects in the future), that's fine, too. For example, many of the things I read (most recently The Odyssey and some Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) are demonstrate significant sexist content. I am aware of this content, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying the non-sexist aspects of the books. See also: me enjoying the Witcher games.

 

[Kahunaburger]

But I digress. The bottom line is that people like things that are aesthetically pleasing and so people are going to carry on including those things in video games.

We meet again, is-ought problem. Just because people do something does not mean they ought to do something.

Should I be offended by the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" advertisments?
No, because all they're trying to do is make something aesthetically pleasing (to sell cars and get an advertisment noticed respectively).

That is certainly their goal. But, despite what Orson Scott Card would have you believe, intentions are not all that matters.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Nobody's saying that we should prohibit these games. But I think that a responsible designer should try not to unthinkingly (or worse, knowingly) perpetuate sexist imagery.

Im just happy for those that do.

Whereas I think that people who enjoy sexist/racist/homophobic things uncritically should stop being uncritical about the things they enjoy. If awareness makes them enjoy problematic things less, so be it.

And, if awareness makes them recognize the problematic aspects of the things they enjoy (and less likely to unthinkingly replicate said probematic aspects in the future), that's fine, too. For example, many of the things I read (most recently The Odyssey and some Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories) are demonstrate significant sexist content. I am aware of this content, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying the non-sexist aspects of the books. See also: me enjoying the Witcher games.

"I am aware of this content, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying the non-sexist aspects of the books. See also: me enjoying the Witcher games." Pretty much summarises my feelings. Its a story. Its fake. I know that no matter how sexist the game is all it is doing is portraying sexism onto fictional characters to fully create the fantasy world in which im roleplaying. If it strays from "meaningfull to make a point" into "horribly offencive" i wont submerse myself again. If someone wants to roleplay like that i dont think ill get on with them but if they want to and theres a lot of them then sure they can.

As long as they remember the important distinction i made above. Fantasy is fantasy. NOT real life. You cannot imagry youve seen in some of these games and apply it in any way to real life. Or let it influence your behaviour. This is where many problems occur.

 

[trollnystan]

Not who you were asking, but as someone who has actually studied feminism, this is incredibly dishonest.

First of all, which feminism are you talking about? There are a lot of different subdivisions, and they believed a lot of different things. Your definition only really does a good job of summing up the main thrust of the first wave. Several second wave groups (including the groups that gave us most of the terminology currently used to discuss gender issues) were violently opposed to rights for gay men, describing male homosexuality as a patriarchal reaction to feminism. Many of the most prominent second wavers openly idealized Valerie Solanas, a mentally unhinged murderer who wrote a book advocating the systematic extermination of men, who she described as "walking dildos". Her admirers still hold an annual convention and perform dramatizations of her work to captive audiences of Swedish school children (their numbers have included prominent publishers, educators and lobbyists from throughout the post-industrial world). The third wave believes in a host of special legal protections, stemming from the work of MacKinnon, and continue to receive serious complaints about racism and transphobia. Obviously there are many positive things various branches of feminism have accomplished as well, but these are some examples of things which might make people hesitant to join their ranks. Personally, I parted ways with feminism because I found their major academic branches supporting incompetent and unprofessional academic practices which I find unforgivable in published work (countless formal logical fallacies, failure to conduct proper research, misuse of data, failure to cite proper sources, etc.).

Feminism is more than one idea and it is entirely possible to be in favor of equality without identifying as a feminist.

[bolded the pertinent bit]

Urm, do you have a source for that please? Cos I'm born, raised and live in Sweden and I have NO idea who this Valerie Solanas is. Then again I'm OLD (29). Maybe I should ask my nieces... She sounds crazy though.

 

[Smeatza]

But I digress. The bottom line is that people like things that are aesthetically pleasing and so people are going to carry on including those things in video games.

We meet again, is-ought problem. Just because people do something does not mean they ought to do something.

Should I be offended by the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" advertisments?
No, because all they're trying to do is make something aesthetically pleasing (to sell cars and get an advertisment noticed respectively).

That is certainly their goal. But, despite what Orson Scott Card would have you believe, intentions are not all that matters.

You're not so much addressing my points as you are just nay-saying.
I mean you have yet to even say how the depiction of pretty things in fiction has any effect on the real world or it's culture.
It just seems to me that developers and consumers are being demonised for enjoying something completely innocent.

 

[Kahunaburger]

As long as they remember the important distinction i made above. Fantasy is fantasy. NOT real life. You cannot imagry youve seen in some of these games and apply it in any way to real life. Or let it influence your behaviour. This is where many problems occur.

Yeah, the world would be a much better place if everyone was a critical media consumer. Sadly, not everyone is, and we're saturated with media with sexist/racist/homophobic content that many people will unthinkingly accept the explicit or implicit messages of.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I mean you have yet to even say how the depiction of pretty things in fiction has any effect on the real world or it's culture.
It just seems to me that developers and consumers are being demonised for enjoying something completely innocent.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2008-04614-005
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/162/6/837.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.10005/abstract

So no, not completely innocent.

 

[Skoosh]

Tired of hearing people say that men are portrayed just as poorly. Male figures are empowering and seen as desirable to male players. They make them feel suave or badass or whatever. Yes, Redfield has unrealistically large arms, but that's not a common female sexual fantasy. Whereas long legs and large breasts are common male sexual fantasies. The males in videogames are either a blank slate of badass or an actual character, where as the females are often depicted as object, with their body twisting into an impossible shape for the sake of arousal. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare. The overall trend is still very sexist. Yes, the males are unrealistic, but not sexualized. They aren't catering to females, they are unrealistic in the ways many males want.

err..they are not catering to any guys i know.

badassery is more an attitude thing than physical characteristics. Dante from the devil may cry series is a badass, but doesnt look like he can benchlift a bus (although he probably could due to demon powers). compare this to the gears of war or even the characters in starcraft 2 and they look RIDICULOUS.

so no, they are not conforming to the way males want.

is the guy in decent shape? check. thats the entire physical checklist.

everything else is attitude, aptitude, and acquisitions.

Just because you don't care doesn't mean others don't. You don't think the majority of the annoying 12-year-olds on xbox live aren't pumped by the fact that they are playing as a giant with a chainsaw-gun? And Dante is pretty damn cut, just not at the unreal level. He is also playing at the power fantasy, so I don't see how that goes against my point.

Those gigantic, ugly soldiers in Gears and Starcraft are definitely playing more to males feeling like a badass than anything else. It's primarily males buying the games. Yes, attitude matter a lot, but for realistic war games, looking like you can wrestle a grizzly bear helps instead of demon powers. It's also that there isn't a female equivalent. There's less than half a dozen examples of female warriors looking remotely like they could be powerful. They are almost always designed with sexuality in mind.

 

[Smeatza]

I mean you have yet to even say how the depiction of pretty things in fiction has any effect on the real world or it's culture.
It just seems to me that developers and consumers are being demonised for enjoying something completely innocent.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2008-04614-005
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/162/6/837.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.10005/abstract

So no, not completely innocent.

Unless you're prepared to pay for the studies and send them to me, I'm not going to agree with somone else's conclusion to a study.

And yes, completely innocent. Some people are allergic to peanuts, are we going to try and eradicate them from the planet because of that? No. Are the people who consume them bad people? No.
Millions of people die a year from smoking and drinking related diseases, are we going to ban those? No. Are the people who use them bad people? No.
Because nobody is forced to consume them, the same way you are not forced to play video games you dislike.

Anyway, issues with body image are still in debate with proffessional psychologists (here's a FULL study that shows the opposite of what you've posted: http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Who%20Is%20the%20Fairest.pdf).

Anyway, this leads me full circle to my original point. The body image argument has some kind of relevance when applied to media that is supposed to represent real life (eg. fashion magazines). However to say that a lump of polygons on a screen will effect somones body image is not only a massive jump from the conclusions in the studies YOU POSTED. But is an assumption plucked out of thin air.

So there's no evidence that there's a negative effect, and it's in debate whether there's even an issue in the first place.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

The reason this is still a problem is because men actually don?t give a shit about it. They couldn?t care less how impractically revealing Ivy's costume in Soul Calibur is, because they?re not women and they want to get their jollies off to some good old-fashioned fanservice (even though they could just Rule 34 it on the internet). To put it simply, they still hold the power in this industry and probably will do for sometime, and they're not speaking out because it's a non-issue to them. They'd rather moan about unoriginality, or unsatisfying endings to video games.

Well then guess how many men are in this thread right now, complaining about unrealistic body shapes of women.

I'm talking about the mass, the general public. If most guys actually cared about this kind of stuff, then it wouldn't be continuing. But they don't, because they don't care about female objectification, they're getting free fanservice (free as in, they still have to buy the game, but it's unnecessary "content" that still exists within) and itd be hilarious for a guy to write a complaint to Capcom saying, "So, uh, I'm getting a bit annoyed at the, erm, sexy girls in revealing costumes that you let us play as in your games. Could you think about both the men and the women that...probably play it, please?"

 

[Kahunaburger]

I mean you have yet to even say how the depiction of pretty things in fiction has any effect on the real world or it's culture.
It just seems to me that developers and consumers are being demonised for enjoying something completely innocent.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2008-04614-005
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/162/6/837.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.10005/abstract

So no, not completely innocent.

Unless you're prepared to pay for the studies and send them to me, I'm not going to agree with somone else's conclusion to a study.

Here's one that's available free online:

http://athena.uwindsor.ca/users/j/jarry/main.nsf/0/aa9ed943e56182bf85256abe005bc3f6/$FILE/Stice%20et%20al%20(1994).pdf

I found that in 20 seconds on Google scholar. There's really no excuse for ignoring the research in this day and age.

Millions of people die a year from smoking and drinking related diseases, are we going to ban those? No. Are the people who use them bad people? No.

Well, it's pretty uncontroversial that the manufacture and sale of tobacco as practiced by modern tobacco companies is deeply unethical. So probably not the best analogy choice on your part.

Who Is the Fairest One of All? How Evolution Guides Peer and Media
Influences on Female Body DissatisfactionAnyway, issues with body image are still in debate with proffessional psychologists (here's a FULL study that shows the opposite of what you've posted: http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Who%20Is%20the%20Fairest.pdf).

No, actually it's a highly selective article advancing discredited (and arguably pseudo-scientific) evolutionary psych hypotheses and has different findings from the vast majority of media/eating disorder studies and meta-analyses. And, if you had actually read it, you would note that it does still concede a link between media exposure and body image disorder. If you're going to link a study, make sure that you know enough about the field in question to know if you're linking a solid study or not.

 

[Smeatza]

And again, you miss the majority of my point.

Here's one that's available free online:

http://athena.uwindsor.ca/users/j/jarry/main.nsf/0/aa9ed943e56182bf85256abe005bc3f6/$FILE/Stice%20et%20al%20(1994).pdf

I found that in 20 seconds on Google scholar. There's really no excuse for ignoring the research in this day and age.

I quote this from the study "The subjects reported the number of health and fitness, beauty and fashion, and entertainment gossip and arts magazines. As well as the number of hours of comedy, drama and game shows watched."

This is all you need to read to see this study has little to no relavance to the issue being discussed in this thread. As like I have said in other posts the only links between negative body image and modern media is with that media which directly implies that you should adhere to it's unatainable standard.

Well, it's pretty uncontroversial that the manufacture and sale of tobacco as practiced by modern tobacco companies is deeply unethical. So probably not the best analogy choice on your part.

Or, the best. It is widely known that tobacco is bad for you and that is a fact that even the tobacco companies don't even try to hide anymore. A small minority of deaths have been due to smoking related illness'. And yet still millions of people want to smoke. And they are free to do so because we have no right to tell them what to do with their bodies.
To put it literally, a very small minority of people are truly affected by body image issues and observation of media is very rarely the main cause. So we will allow people to keep producing and consuming these "harmful" pieces of media.

No, actually it's a highly selective meta-analysis that rests on discredited (and arguably pseudo-scientific) evolutionary psych assumptions and has different findings from the vast majority of media/eating disorder studies and meta-analyses. And, if you had actually read it, you would note that it does still concede a link between media exposure and body image disorder. If you're going to link a study, make sure that you know enough about the field in question to know if you're linking a solid study or not.

Again, you've missed my point, I was highlighting how issues with body image and their severity are still debated on today. No I didn't read the study because my point lay in the fact it actually exists rather than what it said.
If you'll look back through my posts I've never said that negative body image isn't an issue in modern western culture, just that there is no reason to believe concerns over it are relevant in this situiation.

And everything you've posted thus far supports that.