Insight into what "objectification" is & how to fix it

[likalaruku]

The past few ywars have taught me that if a male character is a flawed "Draco in Leather Pants" &/or "Woobie," that teen girls will simultaneously sexually objectify him & look upon him as sculpting clay; writing stories about how to change him into their ideal man through the power of love via Mary-Sue. Meanwhile men in the same age group will turn something into their ideal woman by giving it loose sexual morals & slapping a pair of tits on it. Seriously, teenagers are f**ked in the head.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

No.

You do not have any new insight into objectification. Neither does Jim Sterling, neither does Extra Credits, neither does anyone who writes about video games.

All the actual insight into objectification has been had by the people who began writing about it academically a good number of decades ago and by the people who have continued that academic dialog since. Everything that has ever been written about objectification in the context of games has been the watered-down, third-hand misinterpretations of people who read a few articles by people who skimmed a few actual papers on the subject in university. No one engaging in this debate has the knowledge necessary to ask the proper questions, let alone answer them, and any kind of well-crafted argument or study has always been completely alien to this entire community.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

For me it's not an issue of nakedness. It's an issue of how that nakedness is portrayed.

Spoiler: I mean here is a sketch by Renato Guedes. (Poss NSFW)

That's not objectified. It's a just a woman putting on her pants.

However a lot of portrayals of women in video games are flirting with the audience. They are breaking the fourth wall and instead of having a relationship with another character they are having a relationship with the audience. That's kind of problematic when part of your audience doesn't appreciate those 'advances'. It also somewhat cheapens the depth of the character (she's not a person in a story now she's an object to titillate the viewer).

A lot of guys say okay, what's wrong with that? It's a problem in some games because they are meant for a wider audience than just a guy reading Playboy or whatever. In others it's jarring and can ruin immersion. (Rachel in Ninja Gaiden) Imagine if Nathan Drake flirted with the female audience constantly. Is that a game straight male gamers would want to play? Probably not, it would make a lot of them feel uncomfortable. Women have learned to put up with this to an extent, (which explains why a good many of gamers are still women) but it's not very fair. If games want to start telling 'real' stories then they are going to have to stop doing it.

Of course it's probably excusable where this effect is used deliberately like Lollipop Chainsaw or Bayonetta. Also it doesn't include characters that are sexual within the narrative like Isabella. Fanart and other art of characters outside the narrative of the game is cool too. Just don't try and get me to accept it within game when I'm immersed in the story.

I don't know how FPS games would fit into this (Far Cry 3 for example) I'd just encourage developers to consider that not all of their audience is straight male. That's about as much as you can ask.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

From the consumer side:

How to fix it: Stop buying games that you feel objectify women.
Problem with this solution: People are weak-willed. This is why people turned to legal action to stop Wal-Mart from building in certain areas because, as much as people howl about preserving mom-and-pop shops, everyone knows that you won't care once the mega-chain drops a store in the neighborhood. (It has been somewhat amusing to me to watch Wal-Mart and the like howl about how the internet is doing to them what they did to mom-and-pop shops.)

From the business side:

Final solution a: Make consoles that nobody wants. (We're currently batting 2 out of 3 on that.) If possible, make games that are inoffensive to everyone as well.

Final solution b: Realize that people who discuss objectification on message boards don't really have an impact on your bottom line. Make Blood Boobs 27. Reap profit.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think, personally, that the fundamental problem is that the terms sexism, objectification, racism and other methods of categorical association are so broadly defined that it becomes largely impossible to avoid them. Worse still, given how human intelligence appears to work, this system of classification and categorical association is hardwired. Attempt to override such a thing with social constructs is a remarkably tricky challenge that, thus far, has only met with limited success.

 

[briankoontz]

Most see it as flesh and titillation....not connected to real woman/men. Now i agree some of the clothes/armour they have for woman characters is stupid and not needed. But this is not an issue, it comes under fantasy not reality. Other wise humanity would die cos woman would see men as muscle bound guys and men would see woman as sexy, thin with huge breasts. This is not the case. Lara in the new game was not portrayed sexually, but as a woman in a shitty situation. Movies, books and games all have fantasy elements, but no one has gone mental over movies and books.....just games. You know what, complain about porn and porn magazines and prostitution....those are what make woman look like sex objects...you know, real woman. After you deal with those, then look at games and the "unreal fake pixal woman" they portray.

Lara was very much portrayed sexually in the recent Tomb Raider game. The camera angles when she's squeezing through crevices were fairly blatant. But more to the point, compare the attractiveness of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (using common Western standards) with every real life female archaeologist in human history. Female archaeologists in real life get their job not from having tight, lithe bodies or ridiculous gymnastic abilities but from knowledge of history and ability to extract useful information from hidden places.

Lara Croft got her job in the video game franchise from having a tight, lithe body, originally with larger breasts. The recent Tomb Raider meticulously handles the complaint of Lara's breast size without touching the larger issue of objectification.

Her "skill" in the recent Tomb Raider largely amounts to destroying artifacts, not preserving them. She's a terrible archaeologist although an outstanding murderer and gymnast.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

*snip*

I completely agree with this, I was actually talking to a friend not too long ago about the same topic. She was doing a Soul Calibur cosplay and was making costumes for both Talim and Ivy.

Spoiler: The versions of each

Not shown is the thong she's wearing on the back

In those costumes Talim is showing far more skin than Ivy, but Talim doesn't come across as particularly sexualized at all. It's not just skin, but it's how they're presented. Ivy's costume practically has a hole in the chest for her cleavage to shoot out of. Talim's on the other side comes across as far more natural and plausible. It looks like something someone would wear without the intention of giving erections to the hapless 14 year olds who might be watching her.

As you said, it's all about how it's presented, and not about how much skin is being shown.

What I found amusing is in a thread I saw a little while ago about sexualized men in games, a couple of the examples that were brought up ended up getting responses from guys commenting how creepy and unsettling they were. And most of them weren't even sexualized, they were just characters whose appearance or personality appealed to some women. It gives some weight to your suggestion that some straight guys wouldn't want to play games with male characters designed to flirt with the audience.

OT: Context is important, but it doesn't solve everything. As was already mentioned somewhere in this thread, there needs to be diversity too. There's a pretty disproportionate amount of women in games who dress scantily clad and act seductively. Given the small amount of women in games, as well as the small amount of ones with important roles, even if a large portion of women in games happened to be strippers or dress in fetish outfits ironically, it'd still be nice to have more variety than that.

Also, I would love to see one of these threads go by without hearing multiple references to the "radical feminists and their crazy cult". It seems like any kind of feminism that isn't directed at foreign countries is automatically considered to be crazy radical feminism. Because we got gender equality perfect now, right?

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Her "skill" in the recent Tomb Raider largely amounts to destroying artifacts, not preserving them. She's a terrible archaeologist although an outstanding murderer and gymnast.

To be fair, games about average run of the mill archaeologists probably wouldn't sell as well as those featuring action heroes. Indiana Jones wasn't exactly your typical archaeologist either

I haven't played the game so I can't really comment on the angles or how she was presented, but I don't think the athleticism is a gender specific issue rather than people just finding action heroes more interesting to watch/play as than archaeologists

 

[Lightknight]

An interesting thing for people to ask themselves is if they'd claim that women who dress in skimpy clothing or who get boob jobs are themselves objectifying women and if it's bad for them to do so. If they answer yes, it is bad and they are objectifying women and that's bad then they're being consistent in their argument against video games. If they answer no, that women have a right to do that, then they're being inconsistent. Women do dress and alter their bodies to emphasize the same features game developers do.

The difference is that real women are actual human beings and video game women are characters who have been designed by another person. Character design is political because imaginary women can't make choices about what they do with their bodies. Characters are designed for a specific effect and for specific reasons by people working in the industry, and those people are overwhelmingly men targeting men.

If your argument is against objectifying women, then that shouldn't matter. It'd be the objectification that's wrong rather than who does it. In this case, your inconsistency is that you believe developers are wrong for portraying women in a light that women actually do themselves which you are ok with women doing. Would it be less unethical if a woman designed the character to be that way?

Or are you actually trying to defend the rights of codes created to form the resemblance of the female form?

Are movies that cast women with breast augmentation also guilty of targeting men? I'd say yes. Please define the difference here. If movies can cast large breasted women who represent an aesthetic ideal of some kind, why should developer's hands be kept from doing so as well? What do you think regarding my comment about men and the lack of easily exaggeratable desireable characteristics? Do you disagree with my assessment that if we had any such feature that it'd likewise be exaggerated. But seeing how a giant penis can warrant an adult rating they can only go so far as muscle design and facial features. Women, by contrast, have breasts, hips, legs, butts, and other features that are very easy to exaggerate and are commonly desired attributes.

This, again, inevitably goes to the next question. If it's wrong to portray women in certain ways (that some women even portray themselves), then what dimensions and skin to clothes ratios are appropriate. Who gets to decide that? Isn't it even a bit evil to put some kind of constraints on that? Like saying that one type of woman is acceptable and any big breasted bimbo with skimpy clothes is worth less?

Again, my personal complaint is with the role female characters are given in games. The aesthetic objectification doesn't magically make women in real life dress that way. That choice is still theirs. But making women dumb or helpless or sexually over-drived in most games is a problem. While you can easily look at a woman and see how she's dressed and how she presents herself, portraying them as stereotypically weak or cowardly every time is a problem that doesn't self-resolve.

 

[Lightknight]

Like I said, I wouldn't say titillation is the same as objectification. And objectification is definetly bad, you can enjoy your own sexuality without completly depriving characters of an agenda or a purpose other than to titilate.

Exactly, this comes down to what I meant by the sexualisation of the character not being the issue so much as the roles they're given. Most commonly, their role is to be that object.

However, human history has also given them that role. Wars have been waged over winning one woman or another. But that's besides the point I suppose.

 

[nonhoration]

An interesting thing for people to ask themselves is if they'd claim that women who dress in skimpy clothing or who get boob jobs are themselves objectifying women and if it's bad for them to do so. If they answer yes, it is bad and they are objectifying women and that's bad then they're being consistent in their argument against video games. If they answer no, that women have a right to do that, then they're being inconsistent. Women do dress and alter their bodies to emphasize the same features game developers do.

The difference is that real women are actual human beings and video game women are characters who have been designed by another person. Character design is political because imaginary women can't make choices about what they do with their bodies. Characters are designed for a specific effect and for specific reasons by people working in the industry, and those people are overwhelmingly men targeting men.

If your argument is against objectifying women, then that shouldn't matter. It'd be the objectification that's wrong rather than who does it. In this case, your inconsistency is that you believe developers are wrong for portraying women in a light that women actually do themselves which you are ok with women doing. Would it be less unethical if a woman designed the character to be that way?

Or are you actually trying to defend the rights of codes created to form the resemblance of the female form?

Are movies that cast women with breast augmentation also guilty of targeting men? I'd say yes. Please define the difference here. If movies can cast large breasted women who represent an aesthetic ideal of some kind, why should developer's hands be kept from doing so as well? What do you think regarding my comment about men and the lack of easily exaggeratable desireable characteristics? Do you disagree with my assessment that if we had any such feature that it'd likewise be exaggerated. But seeing how a giant penis can warrant an adult rating they can only go so far as muscle design and facial features. Women, by contrast, have breasts, hips, legs, butts, and other features that are very easy to exaggerate and are commonly desired attributes.

This, again, inevitably goes to the next question. If it's wrong to portray women in certain ways (that some women even portray themselves), then what dimensions and skin to clothes ratios are appropriate. Who gets to decide that? Isn't it even a bit evil to put some kind of constraints on that? Like saying that one type of woman is acceptable and any big breasted bimbo with skimpy clothes is worth less?

Again, my personal complaint is with the role female characters are given in games. The aesthetic objectification doesn't magically make women in real life dress that way. That choice is still theirs. But making women dumb or helpless or sexually over-drived in most games is a problem. While you can easily look at a woman and see how she's dressed and how she presents herself, portraying them as stereotypically weak or cowardly every time is a problem that doesn't self-resolve.

I don't see why it would be hypocritical to say that a real woman is allowed to make whatever choices she wants to make about her body (though she is definitely influenced by the culture around her, since we all are), while a made-up character can be objectified by being dressed/portrayed in a similar way because outside people are purposefully making decisions in order to market her body to men. In real life there are no camera angles framing a woman's body so that her head is missing, or ass-focused cameras during conversations. In real life you don't see line-ups of men standing in powerful poses and then one woman twisted up like a piece of licorice. I believe that characters should be held to different standards than real people, because even if a woman is dressing/altering herself to be attractive to men, it's her own decision and not a corporate marketing one. Individual real women are not the entire portrayal of women in our culture the way objectified female characters seem to be.

There is also a difference between casting a 'sexy' woman (though it has always bothered me that there are so many looks in movies for men and only one or two for women who are meant to be taken at all seriously) and objectifying a 'sexy' woman in a film. There is so much in the camera angles, dialogue and plotlines, and even marketing materials that show that these characters are not meant to be taken seriously, that they are just 'eye candy'. It is really alienating as a woman to see portrayals like that in the media that I otherwise enjoy. There is also a conflation of sex and violence a lot of the time with objectified characters, where they need to look attractive even are they are dying (or after they are dead!) which is pretty disturbing and not something that happens in real life.

In regards to your example earlier regarding if it was attractive to women for men to have a large right arm: I think that it depends on how said large right arm would be perceived socially. Men are designed in media to be attractive in a way that makes men want to be like them, not to be marketed as attractive to women. This is why generally you don't see bulked-up action movie types in romcoms. If a giant right arm was something that made men feel powerful, then I think that you're right that Kratos would have one. The leads in every big blockbuster would have one unless it was some kind of sad story where the dude had a big left arm instead and felt like he didn't fit in. However, if the right arm situation was only attractive to women, I think that a lot of movies and games (especially something as bro-focused as God of War) would drop the arm because your average guy would be worried about getting 'gay cooties' from all the huge right arms running around. Even attractive men in most media aren't designed to specifically attract women. There still would likely not be camera framing focusing solely on the large right arm, or panning up and down the arm while the man was talking (or being eviscerated!). Incidentally, there are plenty of body parts that women find attractive in men, but they are generally not played up in media because we are never the target audience.

I don't think anyone (or at least most people) is saying that there should be some kind of 'Comics Code' sort of thing to say how much skin is appropriate, or what size breasts are 'correct' or whatever, because not only is it unenforceable but it's really limiting the diversity of character models. However, there is a respectful and disrespectful way to present characters, and having an almost-naked woman in a situation where she is comically underdressed compared to all the men, or done in a completely different art style because the men's art style didn't allow for sexy enough ladies, or watching cameras pan all over her body like the cheesy porn synth is about to start any second is not respectful of a character.

I once read a review of some second-rate horror movie that spent a paragraph talking about how beautifully the lead actress bleeds, and you'd never see an article like that about a male character because men in a similar situation would be framed as heroic or pained rather than sexy to the detriment of anything else.

Sorry about all the teal deer running through the post, but objectification is something that I feel really strongly about because it's really frustrating to have to enjoy something in spite of all the characters who are like you instead of at least partially because of them.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

I say we treat female characters like female characters, as in, actual human beings with personalities, motivations, and maybe not completely helpless, either.

Instead of portraying them as walking sex objects without personalities. In ways in which games wouldn't even dare to portray guys.

Spoiler

I'm putting a spoiler tag on this because it's basically porn. You have been warned, even the thumbnail looks like porn.

This game is PATHETIC. It is porn with an MMORPG slapped on top. You NEVER see male characters depicted like this in games. The problem in games is twofold. There's hardly any female characters in video games. But how are a lot of the few female characters who do exist treated? Often, like this.

People thought Tera Online was creepy. And definitely it oversexualizes its female characters. But it isn't alone. And worse yet, it gets worse. How many games are out there this sad and pathetic? I don't think I even want to know.

People keep saying that male characters are sexualized. Oh so sexualized. And even as sexualized as female characters. Watch that video. Watch that disgraceful little porn MMORPG review and tell me that male characters are as objectified and sexualized as male characters. Try it. Better yet, try making a youtube video, with your face plastered on it, with a straight face, talk about Scarlet Blade and compare it to depictions of male characters in video games and say that it is the same as male characters. I dare you.

Oh yes, and this is supposed to be this one off case pandering piece of garbage niche game and does not say anything about the video game industry. Obviously there MMORPGs about all naked dudes somewhere out there, right? And if this is so unique and special, why all the jiggle physics in Tera Online? Why all the jiggle physics in Skullgirls? What about games like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball?
And Final Fantasy X-2 totally doesn't have Yuna in booty shorts. And how many examples do I have to go into to prove this is a problem. Make is stahp!

This is... I just.... AUURRRGH. I can't believe people don't think this isn't a double standard and isn't a problem.

 

[Smeatza]

Conservative people will always find an excuse to get pissed off at nudity and the like.

Fictional characters are effectively objects, so do what you want with them.

Obviously we should be careful of children being exposed to objectification, but adults should be mature enough to realise the difference between fantasy and reality. And what is acceptable in fiction and the real world.

Obviously objectification in factual and real-life media is another story.

If you were to go off some people's definitions of "objectification" then every fictional character is automatically objectified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Conservative people will always find an excuse to get pissed off at nudity and the like.

It's not about conservative values. It is about the fact that female characters aren't given the same respective characterization as male characters.

Fictional characters are effectively objects, so do what you want with them.

Fictional characters have this little thing called characterization. Of which female characterization is usually comparatively poor. No, fictional characters aren't really objects in the most senses of the word. They are concepts. Concepts oft brought about through characterization. Except when female characters don't have any kind or real or decent characterization, and then really are treated as objects, which is often the case.

This is a non-issue, stop being so touchy about a bit of flesh.

Let me ask, how would you like it if the majority of video games looked like this?

I'm sure people would be less whiny about Squall from Final Fantasy VIII if 1/2 of the game was about him accidentally breaking tapioca pudding containers and getting it all over his chest.

"Ah, I spilled it again."

 

[Ryan Minns]

Let me ask, how would you like it if the majority of video games looked like this?

I'm sure people would be less whiny about Squall from Final Fantasy VIII if 1/2 of the game was about him accidentally breaking tapioca pudding containers and getting it all over his chest.

"Ah, I spilled it again."

I... I am now reliving most of my gaming life in my head adding this to all of it and IT'S BLOODY AWESOME! If an FF8 remake EVER happens Squall MUST do that! Kinda reminds me of Teddy from Persona 4 actually.

 

[Legion]

This is... I just.... AUURRRGH. I can't believe people don't think this isn't a double standard and isn't a problem.

Because it isn't.

If people are happy for women to be how they are in games, but complain if guys are the same, then yes, that is a double standard. The fact that guys are not portrayed the same is not a double standard in itself, as no "point" is being made. There is no hypocrisy, there just happens to be no equivalent.

And it is a issue because women in video games are treated like pieces of meat that are only meant to help men get off while looking at them.

If that is how you view them then I'd say it says more about you than the characters themselves.

Spoiler: For example when I see her:

I see a woman who is stubborn, rude, snarky, sarcastic. But also powerful, intelligent, cunning and resourceful.

But apparently you see a piece of meat that is meant for you to get off to.

I find it strange how people think it is not possible for a woman to be both sexy, as well as being an interesting character or person.

I have also never had anybody give me a reason as to why such characters are considered to be so bad for women (as if women are some kind of hive mind), when so many women also clearly enjoy them.

Spoiler: Morrigan

If these characters were just for getting off to and were a bad thing, I don't think we'd see the thousands upon thousands of people who happily spend the time and money in order to dress up as them. Unless people are seriously going to claim that most people do it for "empowerment", as opposed to simply liking the damn characters.

Not forgetting the women who provide the voices for these characters, and in many cases write, design and animate them.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

But does a game have to explicitly justify having a squad of assassins dressed as nuns in the Hitman universe? I don't think that's too much of a break of immersion. But yes, if the sexualised nature of something is consistent with the game universe it isn't a problem.

Also, objectification often more a product of laziness/convenience, also prevalent in male characters, also occurs in real life, also not really a problem beyond the character being bland and me not appreciating blatant fanservice. Not every NPC is going to get a high level of characterisation. Some are just there as a goal or signpost and that's what they do.

Lastly, yes, if we're really serious about having female characters equally represented, which I don't think they should be in fighting or shooting games for the reason that males are better suited to it (although if they're cyborgs or the universe justifies it that's fine), we're going to have to not get uppity when the breasts have their own shot bonuses and cringe-worthy juvenile skill shot names.