Increasingly skinny women in video games?

[Casual Shinji]

Prepare to bash me for the male chauvinist pig that I am, but I don't mind women looking pretty in videogames. That doesn't mean I want them to look like uber sluts with tits the size of 12-pound hams, but yes, I like looking at pretty girls.

It really depends on what kind of game it is, but when it comes to your standard fantastical adventure I would rather not have my protagonist and side characters look like Mr. and Mrs. Bland. You can have beautiful women/men in a videogame and still have them stay classy and up to the task at hand.

 

[Worgen]

I'm effin sick of women in fantasy games looking like they couldn't hold the swords they have, why can't women have some more interesting body types then waif and waif with oddly big tits? Nothing against big tits but at least put them on a body that appears to be able to support them.

 

[Vault101]

They kind of tried this with morrigan in dragon age, but I mean who would want an anxious repressed butch woman on their party or as a character constantly complaining about why nobody wants to give her a good laying or pay attention to her?

Now Imoen of baldurs gate , now there is a character I can relate too

Morrigan was....a different thing altogether, she's not exactly what you call.."normal"

anyway the point I made with that character I made up (she'd be the main character) isn't like that, shes just out do to what she does, its some of the people around her who have the problem

think the boss from saint row 2/3 made to those specs, thats the closest thing and what I'm trying to get across here

anyway my [i/]point[/i] was is that the way she was is vital to her charachter, its what the game was going for,....its what makes characters interesting

 

[Tsaba]

the only fat women I can think of is when I played tojam and earl and you had to catch humans in jars..... that was on sega genesis.... so yea... lately.....

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Why aren't you a feminist? Feminism is believing that women should be given the same rights and opportunities as men. How can any modern thinking person not be a feminist?

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.

Then you just don't identify as one of the crazy groups of feminists? Self-description and identification is pretty damn easy.

More difficult than you might think. The third wave has largely rejected the second wave practice of identifying its major subgroups by cleat and agreed upon titles (the second wave included the "separatist feminists", "gender feminists", "liberal feminists", etc.). Most will simply identify themselves as "feminist" and all of them will say "but not one of the crazy ones you've heard about", regardless of their beliefs, because no one thinks their own position is crazy. Furthermore, as an aspiring academic, calling myself feminist, whatever qualifiers I added, would be seen as a sign of support for the practices of feminist academia, which I do not approve of. Additionally, I disagree with the methods currently being employed by all of the major organized feminist groups because they are rooted in out of date and/or disproved theories and I consider them to be, ultimately, counterproductive.

In any case, I prefer not to affiliate myself with any ideological group because doing so would place me in the position of potentially being seen to support the actions of other members of that group regardless of whether I agree with them or am even aware of them. I prefer to discuss these issues as an individual and to lend my active support to specific, clearly defined and temporary causes (like the passage of a particular law) rather than with ideologies. I also distrust professional activists, as they have enormous monetary and political incentives never to permanently solve the problems they deal with (the results of this have been well documented in regards to the problem of homelessness).

Ultimately, what does it matter to you whether I call myself a feminist or not? Is it not enough for me to support gender, racial and sexual equality in my own way and on my own terms? Do you intend to require that I do this only in the manner and through the channels of which you approve?

But being supportive of equality between the sexes is feminism, whether or not you affiliate with any particular group or not. Nor do you have to agree with their methods. Do you support equal rights for men and women? If yes, you are, in the colloquial sense (which is what I'm talking about), feminist. I'm not saying you have to call yourself feminist, it's just when someone (like the first person I replied to) says they aren't a feminist, most people will automatically assume they aren't for all of this. It's a simple matter of clarity, which is important on the internet.

I do not consider that to be the definition of feminism. It is not a definition at which it would be possible to arrive after an examination of the ideas and action of all major feminists and feminist organizations over time and it does not accurately describe all major feminist organizations active right now, so it is not a reasonable definition to employ (if you want specific examples, ask and I'll write up a brief list later). Your "colloquial" definition is, in any case, merely the contrived result of extensive propaganda campaigning when the liberal feminists (no, I'm not some crazy, that's what they called themselves) moved to become a major political lobby and retooled or repackaged the ideas of the other second wave groups to be more palatable to the general public. If people assume that being against feminism means being against equality or against women, that is their own problem for failing to educate themselves sufficiently and they will not be worth speaking to until they have rectified their mistake.

 

[Yopaz]

I find this woman to be the most attractive person to ever appear in a video game!

Spoiler: warning! image is too beautiful for those who are unworthy!

But she sets such an unrealistic standard of beauty that no woman can ever hope to achieve! I hate when women are objectified like this!

OK, so big boobs are hot. The only thing hotter than a big pair of knockers are several pairs of them. That picture contains enough boobs to blow up the hotness scale. It also seems to portray a healthy body type not being skinny. A lesson to be learned from this picture.

 

[Littaly]

It's a little out of place in the society that we are moving towards to have all girls in video games looking the way they do. To be completely fair, a part of this I think can be disconnected from the strict female beauty ideal, and simply be attributed to the fact that we want our protagonists pretty, regardless of whether or not they're male or female. But undeniably, a big part of it is the fact that female characters aren't allowed to look ugly (or even have reasonably proportioned bodies).

But for once, I'm actually kind of optimistic about the whole situation. This issue is being brought to light so much more these days than it was only half a decade ago. And with gamers becoming a more diverse group of people, more people are going to be bothered by it. There's a fair chance the change in attitude towards the games is going to lead to a change of the content of the games, or at the very least I think it's worth hoping for. With some luck we'll see the death of the metal bikini sometime in the not-too-distant future.

 

[zefiris]

But being supportive of equality between the sexes is feminism, whether or not you affiliate with any particular group or not. Nor do you have to agree with their methods. Do you support equal rights for men and women? If yes, you are, in the colloquial sense (which is what I'm talking about), feminist. I'm not saying you have to call yourself feminist, it's just when someone (like the first person I replied to) says they aren't a feminist, most people will automatically assume they aren't for all of this. It's a simple matter of clarity, which is important on the internet.

I do not consider that to be the definition of feminism.

That's nice, but it is the definition of feminism. You can similarly believe that the moon is made of cheese, but that doesn't make it so. Opinion =/= fact. Sorry.

it does not accurately describe all major feminist organizations active right now

It does, actually, describe them 100% accurately. Researching what "all major feminists and feminist organisations want" does not mean that you watch fox news for 5 minutes and conclude you know everything now. It would imply actually talking to and listening to said feminists.

In other words: You did not do your research. Complete and utter research failure right there.

If people assume that being against feminism means being against equality or against women, that is their own problem for failing to educate themselves sufficiently and they will not be worth speaking to until they have rectified their mistake.

No, the only one that isn't educated here is you. Again: Please stop watching foxnews for your education.
As many studies and examples like you prove, that drives your level of information down, not up. You are, indeed, not really worth speaking too until you start doing your research.


The way you are talking about feminists is, hilariously enough, the exact way whiny people claim feminists act:
Taking a few individuals out of context and pretending the whole is like that. Using your flawed logic, all men are clearly terrible. I can just copypaste your flawed arguments in there to support that. So go you, crusader for faulty logic and bad research

 

[verdant monkai]

Good I dont want to be looking at fat people in games, or at all for that matter.

 

[Lunar Templar]

actually ...

its the character models that annoy me more then the 'armor'.

is it to much to ask that that 'tanking' classes have male and female models that look like they can do the job? not like you can't make 'burly sexy'

Spoiler

I'm of two minds on that Barbarian design. On one hand, it's sorta nice to see attractiveness taking a back seat to sharing the front seat with badassery. (It would be even better to, you know, have a female version of an imposing warrior being designed as an imposing warrior first and foremost, though.) On the other hand, wtb armor that protects torso + femoral arteries, blizz.

I may be heading off topic, but it seems to me that most of the wounds she's sporting are because she attempted to fight/run/walk/breathe/fart in that super pointy armor. Seriously, how do you operate that crap without slicing your own appendages off?

well baby steps guy, baby steps.

gotta fix the 'tanking super model's' problem first, then we can start on the 'plate mail thongs' and 'armor that looks more dangerous then helpful' issues.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

But being supportive of equality between the sexes is feminism, whether or not you affiliate with any particular group or not. Nor do you have to agree with their methods. Do you support equal rights for men and women? If yes, you are, in the colloquial sense (which is what I'm talking about), feminist. I'm not saying you have to call yourself feminist, it's just when someone (like the first person I replied to) says they aren't a feminist, most people will automatically assume they aren't for all of this. It's a simple matter of clarity, which is important on the internet.

I do not consider that to be the definition of feminism.

That's nice, but it is the definition of feminism. You can similarly believe that the moon is made of cheese, but that doesn't make it so. Opinion =/= fact. Sorry.

it does not accurately describe all major feminist organizations active right now

It does, actually, describe them 100% accurately. Researching what "all major feminists and feminist organisations want" does not mean that you watch fox news for 5 minutes and conclude you know everything now. It would imply actually talking to and listening to said feminists.

In other words: You did not do your research. Complete and utter research failure right there.

If people assume that being against feminism means being against equality or against women, that is their own problem for failing to educate themselves sufficiently and they will not be worth speaking to until they have rectified their mistake.

No, the only one that isn't educated here is you. Again: Please stop watching foxnews for your education.
As many studies and examples like you prove, that drives your level of information down, not up. You are, indeed, not really worth speaking too until you start doing your research.


The way you are talking about feminists is, hilariously enough, the exact way whiny people claim feminists act:
Taking a few individuals out of context and pretending the whole is like that. Using your flawed logic, all men are clearly terrible. I can just copypaste your flawed arguments in there to support that. So go you, crusader for faulty logic and bad research

Ad hominem. How nice. That certainly shows you're arguing in good faith and it's certainly a great way to convince someone who was just complaining about formal logical fallacies.

I do not watch Fox News. I did not just happen to casually pick up my information on feminism from listening to people on the internet. I have spoken at length with feminist academics, I have read the works of many major feminist thinker from all three waves, I have taken women's studies classes, I read many of the papers published by feminist academics, I listen to the speeches given by major feminist figures and I frequent some of the major feminist websites and blogs. After formally studying the history of feminism as taught by feminist professors at one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, these are the conclusions I came to and I know, and am on good terms with, more than a few self-identified feminists who are in agreement with me.

It is certainly true that some, quite possibly even most feminists work for equality, but working for equality cannot be an inherent quality of feminism because there have been, and are still, groups which identify themselves as feminist and are not in favor of equality. I cited one specific example active today, I can provide others if you so desire. As feminists themselves are often forced to remind people, feminism is not a monolith, and it has grown so diverse that the only thing which can be said with certainty of all its disparate branches is that they promote the rights of women. This can be the same as equality, but it is not inherently so.

You specify "faulty logic" and "bad research" in your criticism of my position. Please identify where, specifically, I have made an error in logic and which specific facts I have cited are provably untrue. I promise you that I will endeavor to correct any error you are able to prove (if your research skills so far surpass my own, it should be no trouble at all for you to produce a few citations).

You appear to misunderstand my position on feminism. I am not opposed to its existence and I admire many of its accomplishments and significant thinkers. I also recognize that some of its various sects have, on occasion, been guilty of reprehensible acts and several hateful bigots of note have marched in their ranks. This is something that happens with every ideological movement because there is not real limit on who can or cannot join. I reiterate that I find many feminist academics engaging in and fostering academic practices which I feel to be unprofessional and occasionally dishonest and therefore refuse to count myself among their number, even if I support their actions on certain specific issues. The most common reason for these poor academic practices is that many feminist academics appear to consider themselves qualified experts in fields they have never studied, and as a result they produce amateurish and sloppy work which is the laughingstock of actual professionals in those fields (do you remember "the Principia Mathematica is a rape manual"? That was a rather extreme example, but that's the sort of bungling I'm talking about). This can only result in eroding people's trust in feminist academia, which is horribly unfair to the people actually doing good work in fields they have actually studied, as well as in academia as a whole. I do not want this to happen, so I refuse to identify myself with the faction I perceive to be promoting these practices.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

Alright, I guess there are many fine details about feminism as a movement that most people don't know and never will care enough about to find out. Perhaps people who just believe in equality should not bother using the term feminism..?

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Oh, you know what game didn't have the "chain mail bikini" problem? Demon's Souls (I assume Dark Souls follows suit, but I haven't played it yet because my consoles are on the other side of the planet). There were female-exclusive suits of armor, and none of them were impractical or reveling. In fact, the two most revealing outfits in the game (both still drab and practical) are male-exclusive and unisex, respectively. Even if you took all your character's armor off and ran around in your underpants, they still looked like the sort of practical underpants you would wear to a fight in the middle ages. The developers knew than fanservice would undermine the bleak, tense atmosphere they were going for and decided not to include any. Maybe if we praise that aspect of things enough, other developers will follow suit.

Another game that did things right was Monster Tale. It's a fun little metroidvania/pet raising sim on the DS. It has both a female protagonist and a female antagonist, neither of whom is sexualized at all. The game is primarily aimed at kids, so it might be a good choice if you ever need a game to recommend to young girls.

If you want to see the male equivalent of the chain mail bikini and only speak English, check out Sengoku Basara. It was, by the director's own admission, designed to appeal to female fans of Dante from Devil May Cry who liked the character but not the difficulty. The few female characters and one robot were added as token characters to appeal to males (it is a demonstrated fact, at least in Japan, that it is easier to attract a female audience with scantily clad pretty-boys than with strong, well rounded female characters. Take a look at Gundam post 1995 if you want further proof), but the game's fanbase is proof that they succeeded in appealing to a primarily female audience strongly enough to make quite a few sequels and a TV show. A lot of Western gamers will call the designs "gay" or "homoerotic", but that's because the English-speaking world is notoriously incapable of admitting to itself that female sexuality exists.

From a practical standpoint, I think we'll make more headway on issues like this by finding games that do things right and actively supporting them than we will just by complaining about games that do things wrong. If enough people start doing it, it will create a monetary incentive for publishers, which is all they really care about.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Don't think i'm a fat b*****d who rejects people who want to lose weight and thinks all skinny people are anorexics Thank you for your time.

I'll get to the topic in a sec, but what word is "B*****d" supposed to be? I know a lot of words that could stand some censorship but none of them start with a B, or end with a D.

I'm just interested, that's all.



I'm getting sick and tired of skinny chicks too.
You see the male Commander Shepard and he's this big beefy dude
but the Girl Shepard is skinny sexy. (I mean, I assume that women find guy Shepard sexy too, but I digress)
In the games context they've been through the exact same stuff, they should have very similar body builds.

I can't even think of the last female character I saw who didn't look like some sort of supermodel. (Dwarven women in Dragon Age Origins)

So, you're the best sword fighter your village has to offer. Why do you look like

Spoiler: this?

Are muscles, scars, or blemishes honestly too much to ask for in a female character?
Is the prospect of not being able to ring every possible ounce of sex appeal out of any given property that frightening?

I don't play WoW but I hear that female Orcs are skinny. I'm tired of it.

Emma Honeywell from The Last Remnant is a general with scars over her face (the only part of her body that is exposed as she is wearing full armor). she is also older (looks to be in her 40's). Also has an interesting fighting style and is a great character.

granted the experience is ruined by her daughter, who is obviously much younger, sexier, and has similiar armor/looks except that is contains a short skirt rather than the armored legs that her mother has. Thankfully the daughter doesnt talk much (or in the game until mostly the end)

I know, and I like The Last Remnant. But she's still fairly skinny, At least she's fully armored. I wouldn't call her part of the problem, but I also wouldn't go so far to call her part of the solution either.
To be honest there are a lot of characters in that classification.
Like Korra from the new Avatar series.

But I'm more talking about Undine from Claymore

Spoiler

At least until you find out she's faking it.
Those sort of visibly huge muscles.
Not to shift the standard or anything, but in the context of a female who, in context, should be buffed out. It would be nice to see.

 

[Legion]

Well... yeah. Don't fictional characters usually conform to ideals of physical appearance?

You'll notice that most guys in video games are tall and muscular.

That said, it would be cool to see some more chunky and/or chubby characters in games, if only for the sake of variety.

Well in fairness women do get it a tad worse.

In games perhaps, but that's due to perception.

With a handsome male character in a game, the target audience is normally a guy, and that guy is supposed to step into the fantasy of being the "strong muscular guy". The "hot babe" he sees wandering around is supposed to be his fantasy girl. The fantasy is all done from the "typical" male perspective.

Tell me, how many games involving muscular handsome men are played from the perspective of the female? Not many. In films, books, and television programmes, sure, but not really games. That's why it seems so much worse, because of the target audience of said games.

Not saying that's a good thing, but when more games start getting aimed at young women, I won't be too surprised to see a lot more chiselled abs in games.

In other mediums it is not so noticeable. Think of Jacob Taylor in Twilight, what possible reason does he have to get his top off every few minutes? He doesn't but hear all the teenage girls screaming about it. Ka-Ching for the Director much?

 

[LookAtYouHacker]

"Good I dont want to be looking at fat people in games, or at all for that matter."


People like you are exactly what I'm talking about. There's a difference between being morbidly obese and having healthy amounts of fat. Don't forget that you can be underweight, as well.

 

[LookAtYouHacker]

what a stupid thread. I love skinny women and games are an escape from reality. If I want to see obese bush pigs I need only walk down the street to see some hairy de-evolved women.

Oh and get real from the feminism crap from that picture, really half the ISM's in this world are the source of problems.

Who ever said anything about obese bush pigs? I'm talking about the considerable degradation of athletic, muscular women in video games. There's a difference!

 

[Valdus]

I personally don't have a problem with their being no fat female characters etc...because well..in media you rarely see larger female characters get taken seriously anyway, so I'm kinda used to it.

Though it bugs me when it goes too much in the other direction, where the only female character in a game could be mistaken for a stripper. It can actually put me off sometimes, since it makes me feel like the developers put no effort in whatsover.
"Hey guys, should we make this character interesting?"
"Nah, add some huge tits, that'll get the fans to like her"

 

[Cheesepower5]

I find this woman to be the most attractive person to ever appear in a video game!

Spoiler: warning! image is too beautiful for those who are unworthy!

But she sets such an unrealistic standard of beauty that no woman can ever hope to achieve! I hate when women are objectified like this!

Caption this with "Oh stop it, you."

 

[Frostbite3789]

Snip

And in classical art women were portrayed as bigger, because having fat on you was a status symbol and that was seen as more beautiful.

It's almost like our ideas of beauty through time change and our art portrays predominantly what is seen as more beautiful at that time!

Gasp!

I mean...really this is a non-discussion.