Increasingly skinny women in video games?

[Ryotknife]

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.

Calling out someone on committing ad hominam is itself the fallacy of argumentum ad logicam. Nice.

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.

Then they are wrong. The definition of feminism is: The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
Therefor, if they aren't an advocate of equality, they aren't feminist.

I'll leave the rest to the person you actually replied to.

they might have been what feminism started as, but that is about as accurate as saying communism is about equality among all people.

People really do not care about equality anymore. They care about having all of the advantages that group X has WHILE keeping their own advantages.

equality is a two way street.

 

[redmoretrout]

Now I don't pretend to be a feminist but how is embracing sexuality or the female form somehow sexist? I can understand 100% if you are talking about a damsel in distress situation, that paints women as incompetent. But, most of the examples here are of competent independent women who take pride in their appearance.

I mean if you look at male heroes you'll find that they are an idealized male form. How many men do you know that actually look like Conan the barbarian or Superman? I honestly do not see the problem.

 

[Andy Shandy]

im going to leave this here..

Looks like Paul from LRR except with more and darker hair. Just wanted to say that .

Coincidentally, the guy in that video did actually have a series on here. He, along with Mikey Neumann, both made "Anthony Saves The World" and Lisa Foiles was also in a couple of episodes I believe. I remember it being reasonably good.

Another interesting little fact is they both work at Gearbox, I believe. Mikey is actually the one that recorded the "Heyo!" in Borderlands, if I recall correctly.

God knows how I remember this information.

Anyway, to be more on topic, both male and female characters tend to portray ideals. Yes, there are "ugly" main characters but then they are usually made to be strong and tough as all hell, which is still a appealing trait for a character to have.

 

[Negatempest]

Now I don't pretend to be a feminist but how is embracing sexuality or the female form somehow sexist? I can understand 100% if you are talking about a damsel in distress situation, that paints women as incompetent. But, most of the examples here are of competent independent women who take pride in their appearance.

I mean if you look at male heroes you'll find that they are an idealized male form. How many men do you know that actually look like Conan the barbarian or Superman? I honestly do not see the problem.

I like this comment, let me add more.

Quite a few manga tend to have a weak male lead who takes a good century to develop into a man and most of us hate to read a manga based on those type of characters. So why do we want females to look average at best in a video game? If I wanted to be sexist, I would say that Peach was the shining example of a true woman. But she isn't and I don't like her character myself. The fact that a woman can be both voluptuous and be completely independent is a huge plus for me. But some of us either want the female to either be ugly but independent or beautiful but dependent on a man.....why?

 

[TehCookie]

No one wants to play as ugly female characters.

No one wants to play as ugly male characters.

Therefore, the inverse is to sexualize everything.

Unfortunate fact that has to be accepted about ALL kinds of entertainment.

What about Kratos, Fenix and all the other steroidbeasts? Do you seriously think they're in there for the ladies? I'd have no problem if everything was sexualized for both genders but the issue is they're both sexualized for a male point of view.

 

[Reaper195]

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

In GTA4, a majority of women in the game (Character-wise, not random NPCs on the street....although now I think about it, them too) were, if not large, not the hour-glass shape that tends to fill the market. Granted, the lack of large women in games could simply be setting. If you're on the run from the cops, or in a military or a setting most games are in, most people that survive and do stuff are physically fit.

So people can complain about male characters in games always being muss as and such, but you're not going to have some fat dude in glasses with long hair spending hours running and gunning and climbing stuff. Although I do wonder about the fitness level of the soldiers in most FPS games, where you can only sprint for about twenty metres, if that.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Most characters in games both male and female are held up to idealized standards, not just women, get over it already.

That's the best attitude I've heard of. Find something bad, ignore it and move on! Let's accept ignore everything bad and never care about trying to change anything!

Live will be so much better.

Okay, if you think it's so ODD that games only have idealized men and women, why don't you watch a movie, TV drama, sitcom, or anime once in awhile? These are called "actors." They're MEANT to look perfect. It helps connect the audience to the characters. Why? How? Because people secretly see themselves as perfect if they're confident, or wish they were perfect if they're self-conscious.

What do you want? A girl to be the main character full of zits and a hairy mole coming off her face? Let's give her only one boob, too. It's way easier to design perfection and have everyone happy than to design imperfection (which would take longer, think about it), and have no one buy your product because the main character scares them.

The only time, in all mediums and genres, a character should look imperfect is horror, which can use the fear of imperfection to mess with somebody's head.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

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.

Calling out someone on committing ad hominam is itself the fallacy of argumentum ad logicam. Nice.

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.

Then they are wrong. The definition of feminism is: The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
Therefor, if they aren't an advocate of equality, they aren't feminist.

I'll leave the rest to the person you actually replied to.

they might have been what feminism started as, but that is about as accurate as saying communism is about equality among all people.

But that is what communism is about, it just doesn't end up that way because people are inherently bastards.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The only time, in all mediums and genres, a character should look imperfect is horror, which can use the fear of imperfection to mess with somebody's head.

Ahahahahahahahaha no. How about we design characters that make sense in the context of the work we put them in? How hard is that to do?

 

[Emperor Nat]

I think one thing that tends to be lost in these sort of conversations, is that realistically speaking you need to be in pretty good shape to do what most game protagonists do.

Now - here is the British swimming team for the 2012 olympics.

Spoiler: GB Swim Team

^That is what an accomplished female athlete looks like.

If you notice, she's fairly thin.

Now I agree, that even ^her body type isn't necessarily realistic, depending on the setting. I wouldn't expect her to be able to swing a warhammer as large as she is... but then, I wouldn't expect the other two guys to either.

In both cases, I think we'd be looking at a much broader body type - like Hammer from Fable2, for instance?

Spoiler: Even this might be slightly too thin for that weapon...

So essentially what I'm advocating here is not necessarily equal representation (as being larger isn't necessarily helpful for acrobatic combat and such), but more realistic representation overall.

Not that stylised characters are a bad thing. Just... unless your entire game has the same unrealistic proportions, try and keep the size 0 barbarians to a minimum.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

The only time, in all mediums and genres, a character should look imperfect is horror, which can use the fear of imperfection to mess with somebody's head.

Ahahahahahahahaha no. How about we design characters that make sense in the context of the work we put them in? How hard is that to do?

I don't even know what you mean by that. Just.... Seriously? Is it that hard to comprehend we've used tricks like this for almost a century now? It's psychological and relateable. I don't see how Heavy Rain would've been a better interactive narrative if it had a girl who clearly liked her Wendy's.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

I think one thing that tends to be lost in these sort of conversations, is that realistically speaking you need to be in pretty good shape to do what most game protagonists do.

Now - here is the British swimming team for the 2012 olympics.

Spoiler: GB Swim Team

^That is what an accomplished female athlete looks like.

If you notice, she's fairly thin.

Now I agree, that even ^her body type isn't necessarily realistic, depending on the setting. I wouldn't expect her to be able to swing a warhammer as large as she is... but then, I wouldn't expect the other two guys to either.

In both cases, I think we'd be looking at a much broader body type - like Hammer from Fable2, for instance?

Spoiler: Even this might be slightly too thin for that weapon...

So essentially what I'm advocating here is not necessarily equal representation (as being larger isn't necessarily helpful for acrobatic combat and such), but more realistic representation overall.

Not that stylised characters are a bad thing. Just... unless your entire game has the same unrealistic proportions, try and keep the size 0 barbarians to a minimum.

Just so ya know, not sure if you played Fable 2, but Hammer was huge. Amazonian even. It was the joke.

 

[Emperor Nat]

I think one thing that tends to be lost in these sort of conversations, is that realistically speaking you need to be in pretty good shape to do what most game protagonists do.

Now - here is the British swimming team for the 2012 olympics.

Spoiler: GB Swim Team

^That is what an accomplished female athlete looks like.

If you notice, she's fairly thin.

Now I agree, that even ^her body type isn't necessarily realistic, depending on the setting. I wouldn't expect her to be able to swing a warhammer as large as she is... but then, I wouldn't expect the other two guys to either.

In both cases, I think we'd be looking at a much broader body type - like Hammer from Fable2, for instance?

Spoiler: Even this might be slightly too thin for that weapon...

So essentially what I'm advocating here is not necessarily equal representation (as being larger isn't necessarily helpful for acrobatic combat and such), but more realistic representation overall.

Not that stylised characters are a bad thing. Just... unless your entire game has the same unrealistic proportions, try and keep the size 0 barbarians to a minimum.

Just so ya know, not sure if you played Fable 2, but Hammer was huge. Amazonian even. It was the joke.

I have, but not in a long time. So I admit, my memory might be a tad fuzzy.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The only time, in all mediums and genres, a character should look imperfect is horror, which can use the fear of imperfection to mess with somebody's head.

Ahahahahahahahaha no. How about we design characters that make sense in the context of the work we put them in? How hard is that to do?

I don't even know what you mean by that. Just.... Seriously? Is it that hard to comprehend we've used tricks like this for almost a century now?

You know who had visually "imperfect" major characters? Akira Kurosawa. You know who is arguably the greatest director of all time? Akira Kurosawa.

Or take Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who creates movies that are incredibly aesthetically pleasing while featuring many actors with strange or unusual faces. See also: the Coen brothers.

 

[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.

Calling out someone on committing ad hominam is itself the fallacy of argumentum ad logicam. Nice.

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.

Then they are wrong. The definition of feminism is: The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
Therefor, if they aren't an advocate of equality, they aren't feminist.

I'll leave the rest to the person you actually replied to.

You got me there. I'll have to be more careful with my rhetoric in the future.

As for your definition, where does it come from? Who wrote it and what authority did they have to define feminism, an ideological movement (or perhaps a series of ideological movements) with no hierarchical structure or central authority of any kind? The various factions of feminism have been arguing about the definition of feminism for decades, with no end in sight. Some of the most prominent third wave thinkers have even argued that any given woman is free to define their own feminism as they see fit. My own definition is just that: a working definition I arrived at to describe all the various groups of people which use or have used the name.

Feminism is a movement made up of many smaller movements and organizations spanning more than two centuries with no bar to admission and no one with the authority to kick people out. Does it really offend you so deeply that a movement like that ends up being to broad to define in terms as narrow as you would like?

You appear to argue in a later post that how feminism, or any other ideological movement, started is the definition of what it will always "really" be, but how many feminists alive today have even heard of Mary Wollstonecraft, let alone actually read "Vindication of the Rights of Woman"? Of those who have, how many would consider that the basis of their ideology or hold any appreciation for the context of the time in which it was produced (remember, universal rights for men was almost as radical an idea in 1792 and Wollstonecraft had written another "vindication" on that subject two years previously)? Would it really be fair to either party to hold that the definition of feminism cannot have changed? You referred to the socialism of Marx in that other post; don't you think the influx of Marxist ideas and terminology during the second wave could have radically altered the nature of the movement (this is only an example, of course, there have been other, equally significant shifts)?

 

[Grygor]

Honestly, I've been thinking about a fighting game concept lately where one of the characters would be a chubby/muscular woman. Why? Simply because I've never seen important female characters in games be anything but skinny, and thus it'd be somewhat original.

Well there's Helga in Clay Fighter...

More seriously, Bloody Roar has Mitsuko. There's also Angela Belti from Power Instinct - a franchise that also features several elderly women as playable characters.

And for what it's worth, the execrable Strip Fighter series has several muscular women in the cast - but the less said about these games, the better.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Eh, I find it hard to blame this on game developers. It is mostly the fault of lots of immature gamers. I mean, I look at all the mods on Skyrim to turn all the women into what they "should be" and it is this totally out of place hyper sexualized plastic sex doll, wearing hardly any clothes at all.
Not my cup of tea, but that is me. A woman can be very attractive, even in a game, without being designed for sex appeal. Most of my favorite female characters aren't hyper on sex appeal.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Haven't read the whole thread, so someone may have ninja'd this already, but in Dragon's Dogma, you can make female characters of just about any shape and size.

Spoiler: For Example

 

[Eamar]

Personally, I'd just like to see more female characters who look like they'd be able to support the weight of their weapons and armour (if they're lucky enough to get any). By which I don't mean fat or "chubby" or whatever (though more variety would of course be a good thing), but muscular, like the majority of their male equivalents. I want my badass warrior to look like the athlete she is, not some supermodel. That also happens to be the look I favour in real life, both for myself and for the women I admire physically, but putting that aside, it just makes more damn sense.

And on the subject of armour: please, for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to make heavy armour look "attractive". Just stop. I can understand showing off a woman's (or man's) figure in a mage's robes or something, but full plate armour is NOT figure-hugging. It's bulky, thick, HEAVY. You know, the way it looks on a male character?

This is all I'm asking for: http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/ (13 pages of fan-drawn goodness, linked to me by Kahunaburger, for which, thanks). Not difficult.

/rant

But yes, variety. Please, more variety. I accept that the majority of men in games all look the same as well, but the situation with women is just comedic. Just one example (though it is recent) and I've posted it before, but check out the (relative) variety in male body shapes and then compare it to the cookie cutter females: http://en.playpw.com/heroes.html

One look at that page alone killed any interest I had in the game.