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

[Legion]

I don't see women video game characters as pieces of meat and I don't get off at looking at them so stop trying to put words into my mouth,what I said was women in video games are created to be pieces of meat that is meant to be oogled at because that is how developers market them. I happen to like Morrigan and other female characters like her because even though they dress in sexy clothes they are strong women who don't let their sexuality define who they are.

I was putting words in your mouth as much as you were with the developers.

How do you know that's why they do it?

Yes, with games such as Dead or Alive Volleyball, that is quite clearly the case, but the vast majority of games with attractive women are more like Morrigan than those characters. This idea that women are nothing more than sexual objects does say more about the people who describe them that way, because they are ignoring the countless examples that defy that belief, or else look at characters who defy that convention and still describe them as nothing more than objects.

The games where women exist purely for their sexual attributes are as representative of gaming as Twilight is of books, and American Pie is of movies.

Yet I have seen people complain about Jill Valentine becoming "sexier", as if that somehow negates her character and personality. On the page before this somebody complains about the Skullgirls cast having "jiggle physics" (when what they really mean is that their chests move when they are jumping, which they would anyway, breasts are not made out of bone for crying out loud), even though those characters also don't have their sexuality defining them.

You say that you don't see them as meat, but I doubt the developers do either considering if it was really that bad, I sincerely doubt they'd manage to convince women to be a part of the team working on them. Be it through character creation, writing or voice acting.

I believe this perspective says a lot more about people than it does about character design. Take Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider for instance. Somebody claimed in a thread recently that she is still really sexualised because of the camera angles used for when she squeezes through crevices.

But here is the thing. If Lara Croft had been Barry Croft, and they'd kept those angles in, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Nobody would be complaining about the sexualisation, or how those camera angles were "clearly" meant to show off his body. It's because their own eyes are drawn to that part of Lara by themselves because of their own perception.

It says more about them than the developers that they see it as sexual, when to most people it quite clearly is not. Or when it is sexual, that it doesn't negate their ability to still see them as a decent character.

 

[Smeatza]

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

For the vast majority of incidences. Not all of them.

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.[/quote]
Yes yes yes I get all that, but when it comes down to it all fictional characters are objects. They cannot do or be anything the writer doesn't permit, they can't think, they can't feel, they aren't sentient, they don't exist.
All fictional characters are inherently objectified. The problem isn't with objectification, but with the trends that it follows.

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

I?m not sure how relevant that question is considering the opposite isn?t true.

 

[Lightknight]

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.

It's not hypocritical. It's inconsistent ideology. It would be hypocritical to then go and develop a game or any form of media that objectifies women.

The inconsistent ideology comes into play here when you say objectification is wrong but then say it's only wrong when certain people do it in certain ways. If a woman is fine doing it because she has a choice to do whatever she wants with her own body then it is inconsistent to then say that developers don't have a right to do whatever they want to with their own lines of code. Without getting into any details, what is your opinion of porn? Something that objectifies women far more than men but that the women have a choice in the matter of (or they better have a choice in)? If I were pressed to answer honestly, I'd have to say that the porn industry does more to encourage objectification of women than anything else has ever done. I can't think of a single more objectifying industry and yet women are often willing participants and not always for money.

Spoilered to avoid that wall of text effect:

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.

So then, your problem is that the roles that they're given aren't serious or is it that they're eye candy (the combination being the worst case scenario)? You and I can certainly agree on the role issue. That is the form of objectification that I find completely unnecessary. Eye candy I understand, women dress in certain ways and even undergo surgeries to look attractive. But poor character development and limited involvement? That's unnacceptable and frankly, lazy writing. I don't want a helpless woman who wants nothing but sex. I'm a married man, sex is over-played. I can't express how valuable it is to have a woman by my side who is capable that I can rely on. The common woman in video games is not that woman and so are less attractive in my mind. I also have a problem with chainmail bikinis. *sigh* Maybe once for a joke. If the woman immediately got an arrow to the mid-section and then died slowly, saying: "If only the developers had given me real armor...". But not every game is that kind of game and sometimes it's just as appropriate for the woman to be underdressed as they would be in real life. Haven't you ever been surprised to see a woman in winter with booty shorts, bare legs, uggs, and a winter jacket and thought... "why?"? That's the equivalent of real world bikni armor in my book. haha. It isn't attractive, it's dumb (my apologies if you're one of those girls).

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.

RomComs, which I actually love, don't have bulked-up action movie types because they aren't action movies. You would find the bulked up types in romantic action movies. You also find them on the cover of many romance novels in nearly any book store that carries them. You know the one, the Fabio clones. I've never read one but they're so numerous you can't help but look in their direction without seeing it.

I'd say women in general prefer the toned and capable man rather than the bulked muscular man that has to turn his whole body if he wants to look left. I'd also say a lot of men would prefer to be toned like batman than be grotesquely ripped. I mean, does anyone honestly find Marcus Phoenix attractive or want to physically look like him in real life? Probably not really. But characters like Nathan Drake (whom I'm pretty sure also piloted the Serenity ) are more commonly the norm. If they flex or have their shirt off, you can see muscle clearly defined but they still have a neck and some degree of agility. Take a good look at Kratos. He's actually not insanely bulked most of the time. He's incredibly toned with very well defined musculature. He's what you see in RomComs that ever have the male take off their shirt. But then other times they bulk him up according to the occasion. He's on some kind of tightrope act in which he leans either way when needed. If you run a basic search on him for images you'll note that some times he looks like a very in-shape frat boy and other times he's the exaggerated Fabio persona. Sometimes he has a normal neck and then the next moment he doesn't. In any event, are you telling me that women would find that body type unattractive on a normal person? This has not been true in my experience.

Do you disagree that women generally desire a thin waist, tight ass, reasonably large breasts, nice legs and a pretty face? I think they see those things as being pretty and do a lot to fit those molds, however unreasonable they may be. I don't think characters looking like that would be a problem if they had legitimate roles in the game rather than swooning or fitting the ol' screaming at a mouse from the top of a stool stereotypes.

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.

Then who are they generally handsome for? Gay cooties? Maybe if it was a giant naked man with a third leg flopping around. Do you think women would have a case of the gay cooties if they played as a woman that was proportionately attractive?

It's a little bit different in games because, for awhile, it's YOUR avatar. If he's handsome, then you're handsome. If he's muscular and strong, then you're muscular and strong. It isn't just a power fantasy, it's an ideal-self fantasy in many cases. Brave and strong and capable and handsome/attractive. Things that no rational human being should ever not want. So a larger right arm would mean those things.

Please don't forget that strength and attractive are by no means mutually exclusive. They often go hand in hand. The point of the whole thing is that there's no breast equivalent for male body types. Judging from your responses, you don't necessarily disagree that men lack those components. Do you honestly believe that if women found a specific component of men attractive that men wouldn't desire having that component in the most desireable size range? That's almost laughably wrong. I'd say the one area that is the topic of most conversations (length/circumference of penis) is so over-focused on by men that entire pyschological issues pop out of it. For that reason, I earnestly believe that if that right-arm bit was desireable that men would dislike an avatar with a small one. I would want my avatar to be that way.

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.

Again, this is the difference of there being features to emphasize. That's what the camera is doing, emphasizing. Though this happens a lot less in today's games than it did in the late 90's/early 2000's. Women have physical attributes that easily fall into those categories whereas women's desirable traits for males to have are a lot more regarding actions and words by the man. That's not to say they don't also appreciate a nice body and a handsome face. That's certainly part of it and sometimes rules out the man if they don't have them. But that's a blanket feature and not particular features that you can exaggerate in normal or easy ways.

Here's a question for you. In a video game, what do you think the ideal attractive man (for women) would look like? How does that compare to most of the male protagonists out there (rather than just the blantant examples). Keep in mind that women have different tastes and there's a reason why women flock around men like Fabio or Kevin Sorbo (Hercules TV show)

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.

It should be noted that there are real differences between men and women. Physical or aesthetic differences are obviously true. But in aggregate, there are also real differences in behavior to the point that it's almost like men and women have a distinct culture. Whether biologically or socialogically (or more likely some combination thereof) based, the effect is still the same. As such, different adjectives and different emphasis will be placed on similar actions performed by different sexes. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing comes in where the action is negative if one sex does it but positive if another does. That would also be inconsistent ideology.

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.

I completely understand and really appreciate your responses. Please believe that I'm really asking questions here to hear your response and my points are genuinely meant to be up for counterpointing. If I sound rude at any point, I apologize. I can be blunt sometimes.

 

[CaptainChip]

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 would totally play games with characters like those.

 

[Lightknight]

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.

+1 Agree completely. It's lazy writing to make such one dimensional characters.

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.

Yes, just like there are porn movies, so will there be porn games. I imagine in the future it will be a legitimate enterprise even. Perhaps with AAA publishers and everything. Pointing out that there are several like that isn't really proving a point other than that it exists.

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.

Whoever says that males are sexualized in anything close to the level that women are, are just lying to themselves. I will point out though, that men don't have sexualized body components that are appropriate to expose in video games. Where women have breasts, ass, legs, and hip/waist ratios, men don't have an equivalent besides perhaps muscles and that's difficult to exaggerate when toned muscles are preferable to hugely bulked ones. You'll note that even the most popular strong characters aren't usually bullked like Arnold schwarzenegger but somewhere well below that.

I would posit that if men had equivalent attractive features that were equally exagerrateable that those would be done as well. This doesn't get developers off the hook for bad character development but it does shed some light on body proportions and clothing options.

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?

If there was a market for that, there absolutely would be. There's not a market for that, so it does not exist. Pray tell, what part of the male anatomy would you want to see jiggle in a mainstream game?

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

The role and writting of women, totally a double standard. The difference in bodies? Not devs fault. Biology can be a *****.

 

[Lightknight]

I would totally play games with characters like those.

I don't particularly have a problem with it either. Depends on how the rest of the game goes. The looks are perfectly acceptable but if they give them the same roles they give girl characters then I'd have the same problem.

I think the physical appearance just emphasizes the issue.

 

[Legion]

It's because of marketing that's why some developers believe a strong female game character won't sell as a protoganist because their marketing stats tell them that.

I am not going to say that this doesn't happen, as it is quite believable, but there has been no verification on this at all.

A developer who is making a game with a strong female character, in an industry that is lacking them, claims that an unnamed publisher said that games with female protagonists don't sell, but they wanted to do it anyway. That and the claim that they demanded female game testers for the game.

As I said, I am not saying it didn't happen, but that's fantastic marketing don't you think?

Spoiler: Especially considering it gets comments such as this:

Developers of the year, all years. Three cheers for Naughty Dog!

I love and respect you greatly for this Naughty Dog. In fact my love for you is unconditional and as strong as the love between two men. Two very gay men. What I'm saying here is that all over game devs should take a leaf out of your book... and learn to love.

Cheers for ND!

Also, the whole "let's only put the male lead character on the front of the box" concept is getting pretty annoying, so I'm glad Naughty Dog is fighting that as well as trying to get the female testers.

Good on Naughty Dog on fighting these things.

Respect points to Naughty Dog for standing their ground and not giving a fuck. I'm glad that they didn't roll over, and I know it's really easy to.

This makes me glad I preordered it. I loved the Jak series and the Uncharted series and am glad to support such a positive dev group

This is the second time i've heard news of naughty dog having to fight for women, it's getting ridiculaous. I feel i'll have to buy the game multiple times so that naughty dog can make such a profit that people realise women exist. Shouldn't be this hard to get female leads, we live in the future damnit!

I really, really need to buy a PS3 just to buy this game (and some more), I always respected Naughty Dog ever since the Crash Bandicoot days, but now, I feel like I owe it to myself to support them for having such balls to do this.

Way to go Naughty Dog! Screw these publishers and research firms that still cater to the "girls have cooties, gaming is just for boyz" mentality. What are we in 4th grade? I can't wait for this game and it'll more than likely be my last console game so I hope and expect it to be damn good.

Perhaps I am being too cynical, but considering that these are all genuine comments made in the articles about The Last of Us, it does make me wonder.

And whether you believe it or not but many male gamers refuse to play games with a female protagonist unless she is eye candy.

It's a pretty sad thing, but it's true nonetheless. But then again, I also doubt this applies to the vast majority of gamers. I'd tentatively suggest that the kind of people with this attitude tend to also be the kind of person who don't have much respect for women in the first place.

Sadly that's not going to change until developers wake up and see that there are women who hate that sort of thing because it makes them feel like objects.

It depends on the game. The problem I see is that there are a lot of reasonable people, who are unhappy with the fact that so many games seem to feature women whose primary purpose is to be "sexy", but then there are those who put any female character who is "sexy" into the same group and complain about them all equally.

You gave reasons for liking Morrigan, and I agree with them, but some people don't. Some people feel even that level of "sexiness" is a "problem". Those kinds of people also tend to be the most vocal, and that is my issue. That game developers might start listening to the people who are merely trying to change games to suit their own tastes, rather than those who simply want developers to expand their character variety and design characters that appeal to more people.

Especially when some of those people try and claim that they speak for the entire female sex, rather than their own personal views.

 

[briankoontz]

But here is the thing. If Lara Croft had been Barry Croft, and they'd kept those angles in, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Nobody would be complaining about the sexualisation, or how those camera angles were "clearly" meant to show off his body. It's because their own eyes are drawn to that part of Lara by themselves because of their own perception.

No. I critique games, and analyzing all aspects of a game, including the sexualization of the most sexed-up female video game character in history, is my motivation for studying the camera work of her body. I also study the portrayal of male bodies in games and other media, and previously noted how superheroes look as if they spend 8 hours a day at the gym instead of doing what they are supposed to do and help people. Despite what comic book creators seem to believe, one can do good in the world without having a ridiculous physique, and if one takes the time to maintain such a physique one becomes useless.

Male characters in video games don't get the same camera work. I've seen some recent anime as well as recent television shows which exploit male bodies, but we should be getting rid of all exploitation, not having "equal opportunity" exploitation of everyone. Two wrongs don't make a right.

It says more about them than the developers that they see it as sexual, when to most people it quite clearly is not. Or when it is sexual, that it doesn't negate their ability to still see them as a decent character.

There's no purpose in pretending to seduce the audience. No person with any seriousness is sexually attracted to a digital image, although developers continue to believe that this makes up at the very least a considerable subset of their audience. It's an insult to gamers.

It's a myth that digital images can be sexually attractive, and like any myth can either be accepted or rejected. Accepting a myth that demeans one is really not a good idea.

There's nothing wrong with a video game character with a good body. The problem lies in the *purpose* of so very many video game characters having very specific bodies that adhere to objective criteria of sexual beauty. It's as if these images are meant to seduce the audience.

 

[Lightknight]

Male characters in video games don't get the same camera work.

It's almost as if different sexes have different proportions and angles that flatter them (tongue in cheek).

 

[Angelblaze]

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."

Thank you for posting this, I will watch the living hell out of this show and buy everything I can on it just to spite half of the people in this thread constantly saying this isn't an issue, refusing to actually sit down and discuss it and instead ignorantly put their heads in the sand because they are so afraid that their delicious pixel boobies are going to be taken away.


The entirety of all of the arguments on the first page can be resolved like this:

There is a point where too much skin makes no sense - it is FINE to have sexualization but it there is a point to stop. A female character can be 'sexy' and wearing skin tight leather straps and nothing else, but having them all run around in sexy clothing is a little ridiculous. The comic book Witchblade's sexuality for example, are perfectly fine because its obvious that that is actually a major part of the series or at least what it's based on with the swords power to basically make women horny and eventually destroy them being the premise and perhaps may be the most surprisingly mature way to both tell a story and really handle it well if you get past the fan service (Witchblade the anime is a good example of how you can balance out fan service and plot.) but not EVERY female needs to look/act/dress like a Witchblade character.

TL;dr, Plate mail that only covers her nipples is not logically acceptable if the show/game/comic/etc is actually not using her character's sexuality as a major point/part of a major point in the series/game that actually either reflects on her story or builds her as a character. Witchblade makes SENSE, Catwoman's makes SENSE, Ivy's outfit in SC4 DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

And using the counter argument that there are women who actually dress like that is ridiculous because those women WANT to be objectified, they WANT the attention and objectification that looking like that can bring. But any other person who can see the forest for the trees knows not every woman dresses like that or wants to. I would really really like to actually play a fully dressed female character....I know surprising right!

Further more, I'm not even saying you can't have sexy female characters but give them personality, give them LIFE, give them something gripping that makes us like the character (Witchblade, again, good example.)

However I'm guessing that a majority of the posters that may see this post will immediately either ignore it, try to start an argument, or post next to no logical discussion.

But hey, if you feel that female objectification is alright, I will keep on buying all the Final Fantasies and http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NqRG88E-s8 that I can get my hands on just to endorse the other side.

 

[generals3]

TL;dr, Plate mail that only covers her nipples is not logically acceptable if the show/game/comic/etc is actually not using her character's sexuality as a major point/part of a major point in the series/game that actually either reflects on her story or builds her as a character. Witchblade makes SENSE, Catwoman's makes SENSE, Ivy's outfit in SC4 DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

And since when is "making" sense one of those criteria most gamers demand in games? You know i've heard people say "CoH 2 sucks, it's too realistic". Just like i don't like Arma because i believe it's attempt at being realistic is sucking the fun out of it. For some/many making sense is not only not a necessity but can even be a turn off. So while the point "it doesn't make sense" may be valid, the question whether that actually matters is also very important.

And using the counter argument that there are women who actually dress like that is ridiculous because those women WANT to be objectified, they WANT the attention and objectification that looking like that can bring. But any other person who can see the forest for the trees knows not every woman dresses like that or wants to. I would really really like to actually play a fully dressed female character....I know surprising right!

Considering a character does not have the possibility to want anything how can the idea women in RL want to do it be relevant? One could also point out that making them all have less revealing attires is objectifying them in a sex-negative way.

Further more, I'm not even saying you can't have sexy female characters but give them personality, give them LIFE, give them something gripping that makes us like the character (Witchblade, again, good example.)

However sometimes people complain about the mere fact they're being sexualized, whether or not they actually have a personality. The problem in these discussions is quite obvious: people hate sexualization for the sake of it being sexualization. Note i'm not saying you do that but that's usually how it goes. They see cleavage and go berserk: "OB-JEC-TI-FI-CA-TIUN!!!111"

But hey, if you feel that female objectification is alright, I will keep on buying all the Final Fantasies and http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NqRG88E-s8 that I can get my hands on just to endorse the other side.

Sexualization is fine, objectification to certain degrees is fine too, what isn't fine is presenting people as being solely objects due to arbitrary reasons (such as gender). Luckily the latter isn't done.

 

[Legion]

Thank you for posting this, I will watch the living hell out of this show and buy everything I can on it just to spite half of the people in this thread constantly saying this isn't an issue, refusing to actually sit down and discuss it and instead ignorantly put their heads in the sand because they are so afraid that their delicious pixel boobies are going to be taken away.

Because belittling anybody who isn't offended by fictional breasts is clearly the way to have a rational discussion, isn't it? If you wish to take the moral or mature high ground, then it's best not to take the stance that you are talking to imbeciles, just because they don't see things your way.

The entirety of all of the arguments on the first page can be resolved like this:

There is a point where too much skin makes no sense - it is FINE to have sexualization but it there is a point to stop. A female character can be 'sexy' and wearing skin tight leather straps and nothing else, but having them all run around in sexy clothing is a little ridiculous.

This is true, very true. But it's also making an assumption. That they are all wearing that type of clothing. There are plenty of examples where this is the case, but there are countless more where it is not. Acting like it is much more common than it really is, is what is getting most people dismissing it. Because exaggerations cause more damage to an argument than a lot of other things.

The comic book Witchblade's sexuality for example, are perfectly fine because its obvious that that is actually a major part of the series or at least what it's based on with the swords power to basically make women horny and eventually destroy them being the premise and perhaps may be the most surprisingly mature way to both tell a story and really handle it well if you get past the fan service (Witchblade the anime is a good example of how you can balance out fan service and plot.) but not EVERY female needs to look/act/dress like a Witchblade character.

But most people who are against the way women are portrayed would disagree with you.

Most of them would ask why she needs to be dressed like that at all. You say it's because of an in-story reason, but who wrote that story? She is a fictional character, written by a man. Therefore a man decided to stick her in that clothing. So yes it works in regards to the fiction, but it's not like she has a real reason for that clothing, it was made up by a guy who chose to try justifying it. He could have quite easily given her sensible clothing if he had wanted to, but he chose to sexualise her.

TL;dr, Plate mail that only covers her nipples is not logically acceptable if the show/game/comic/etc is actually not using her character's sexuality as a major point/part of a major point in the series/game that actually either reflects on her story or builds her as a character. Witchblade makes SENSE, Catwoman's makes SENSE, Ivy's outfit in SC4 DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

I genuinely do not understand the logic in this argument.

It's actually quite insulting. It's saying that women shouldn't be sexy unless it's for a reason. That if a woman is tough, smart, independent and capable, that it is wrong for her to also be sexy, unless there is a reason for it.

Or in other words, you are saying sexiness is only okay if it helps define the woman.

See the problem with that line of thinking? It actually puts considerably more emphasis on a woman's appearance than if they simply "happened" to be sexy as well as other things.

There is also the argument that when it comes down to it, in terms of "making sense" and "realism" you can quite easily rip any work of fiction to shreds in regards to how well they do it. Fiction only needs to make sense as far as it allows you to suspend your disbelief.

Personally I find a woman wearing skimpy clothing while fighting to be significantly more believable than a man who can shoot fireballs from his fists, but perhaps that's just me.

And using the counter argument that there are women who actually dress like that is ridiculous because those women WANT to be objectified, they WANT the attention and objectification that looking like that can bring.

Oh boy, prepare for some angry responses if certain people see this one. You are now saying that women only dress sexily for other people to notice and for attention. Not that they do it out of their own desire to feel sexy or because they find it empowering, but that they want to be treated like objects.

This could get painful.

But any other person who can see the forest for the trees knows not every woman dresses like that or wants to. I would really really like to actually play a fully dressed female character....I know surprising right!

Agreed, not all women do and not all guys do either. That is something developers are slowly starting to figure out.

But to be honest the ratio in regards to women being objectified compared to the issue people are making of it is backwards. Things are getting better and better, but the arguments are getting worse and worse. Only a year ago the new Tomb Raider game didn't exist, nor did Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite and Remember Me was just an advertisement. Compared to the era that had the original Lara Croft, gaming is considerably better than it was back when nobody seemed to think there was anything to complain about.

Further more, I'm not even saying you can't have sexy female characters but give them personality, give them LIFE, give them something gripping that makes us like the character (Witchblade, again, good example.)

Indeed, although while I personally don't mind Witchblade either way, I genuinely do not consider it to be a very good example of the point you are trying to make, for the reasons given above.

However I'm guessing that a majority of the posters that may see this post will immediately either ignore it, try to start an argument, or post next to no logical discussion.

Well I haven't done the first, I have tried to avoid the second, but I can be a little blunt with my manner of speaking, so it may come across as argumentative, and I certainly don't think my post is illogical, even if others may disagree with it.

But hey, if you feel that female objectification is alright, I will keep on buying all the Final Fantasies and http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NqRG88E-s8 that I can get my hands on just to endorse the other side.

Which is an interesting point, because on the first page somebody is complaining about the clothing in Final Fantasy X-2, so it really does show that you can't please everybody.

 

[Autotelic]

something didn't quite sit with me, the exact reason why mostly naked women in games are offensive, after all as anyone who has been a teenage boy knows gossip magazines have just as much, if not more fap material than your average gaming publication.

Why assume that 'fap material' in gossip magazines isn't offensive? Yes, there's a much larger issue with objectification in gossip magazines than there is in video games - and yes, it can be seen as offensive. I steer clear of smut in newspapers and social media sites, and I would like to be able to stay away from it in gaming.

Just because you also have objectification in more mainstream forms of media doesn't make objectification in video games any less of an issue.

 

[Savagezion]

You know when people complain about some so-called PC agenda I get the feeling they just want to act like a bigoted sexist asshole without getting flak for it.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.

Honestly, most of us don't care about the flak for being called that anymore because you learn quick that the other side just want to villain-ize others. Are there problems with objectification in games? Yeah, games are no worse off than other media. But the ACTUAL accounts of it are small. We have Tera, Dead or Alive, and... I know there are a couple more more. However, the problem is, let Lara Croft wear a spaghetti string tank top in a game that is in line with the fashion of today (Not a halter top, a sports bra, or string bikini top - but instead something conservative women wear casually) and not pick a coat up off a corpse and it people cry out OBJECTIFICATION! This makes me get the feeling that people are trying to make shit up just so they can have something to ***** about. And cases like Lara happen way more freqwuently than ACTUAL cases of objectification.

I won't deny there is a pretty glaring problem with females being pushed aside for males in the spotlight but that isn't objectification. That is exclusion and those aren't the same thing. It is important to note that sales figures do back why females get excluded a lot. I understand that marketing plays a role as is the constant counter to that. However, if people are willing to spend the money to change those numbers, problem solved. Bitching about it on a forum won't change anything. Looking at Bayonetta, which actually had a good marketing campaign, it only sold ~2m copies. This puts it in the same company as Demon's Souls (poor marketing), Shadow of the Colossus (moderate marketing), and Tomb Raider 2013 that had a big marketing campaign. All fell at about 2m sales on consoles.
Now if we look at Red Dead Redemption (strong marketing) comes into 10m, Uncharted as an exclusive new IP (moderate marketing) hit 5m on one console, Far Cry 3 recently had big marketing and came in at 4m. Now, most games usually get weak to moderate marketing and fall in with around 2m sales. But those ones that have went above and beyond those numbers are either "pick your gender to play" or are simply male roles. Tomb Raider 2013 has a female with a big marketing campaign and is currently sitting at 2m sales on consoles. It is only a couple months old and has room for that to grow, but the odds of it hitting over 5m are small. SO far investing money in a female lead just hasn't paid off in gaming. You can argue other reasons but the fact is that games with a locked in female leads have yet to have a true hit and having high marketing campaigns like Bayonetta or Tomb Raider has proven to be a money sink so far.

The fact is, characters in games tend to be shallow, men and women alike. Women aren't truly objectified in 'most games', they are objectified in a very small percentage. Having a shallow character doesn't make them objectified though. I honestly think many of the blowhards crying sexism don't even understand the words they use half the time. I ain't sexist and I'll never be able to convince you of that.

Someone could easily say "You know when people complain about some so-called PC agenda sexism dominating the industry I get the feeling they just want to act like a bigoted sexist asshole a white knight who "gets" women without getting flak for it (because giving them flak makes you a sexist)

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.

Then prove it. Don't be all "just look around". Because I have seen what your side has to offer and a good 70-80% of it isn't sexism. It damn sure isn't objectification, sexism is more prevalent than that. I don't see it. What I do see is people making shit up to complain about. I see people telling companies to invest millions of dollars in an idea I am OK with morally - but think it is monumentally stupid financially.

 

[Angelblaze]

But hey, if you feel that female objectification is alright, I will keep on buying all the Final Fantasies and http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NqRG88E-s8 that I can get my hands on just to endorse the other side.

This is the right attitude. Go watch hunky swimmers. Seriously, I wish all the feminists were like this instead. Instead of throwing a tantrum that DoA Beach Volleyball exists, how about a requesting fan service of your own. I can't help that God made me like looking at the female body. I am not ashamed of that and never will be. If you like looking at the male body, be proud of that fact - it is part of who you are. PLease, endorse the hell out of the other side. They are a bunch of whiny prudes. They probably need something to relieve all the sexual tension they have. (Just a guess.)

Fun fact: Female/Gay/Opposite fanservice supportive LoL players have been asking for Unprepared Garen for years. We still haven't gotten it.


So I play Dota 2 now. :3 Seriously, I should get more people on this.

 

[nonhoration]

The inconsistent ideology comes into play here when you say objectification is wrong but then say it's only wrong when certain people do it in certain ways. If a woman is fine doing it because she has a choice to do whatever she wants with her own body then it is inconsistent to then say that developers don't have a right to do whatever they want to with their own lines of code.

That's actually the part that doesn't make sense to me. I don't find a woman making her own decisions about her own body in real life to be equivalent to a team of artists deciding what a fictional woman is going to look like (though they do clearly have the right to do whatever they want, there's no game breast censor committee). For example, if I choose to wear one of those silly 'sexy [x]' costumes on Halloween, that's a decision made by one person who wants to look cute, not a large corporation trying to market my body to dudes. But like, the developers of Mass Effect noting in the artbook that they met to decide how much skin it was "reasonable" for Samara, essentially a warrior monk, to show in Mass Effect 2? Especially since the response was "silly cleavage armor is okay because she has a biotic shield"? She looks goofy.

Spoilered for novel-length response:

Without getting into any details, what is your opinion of porn? Something that objectifies women far more than men but that the women have a choice in the matter of (or they better have a choice in)? If I were pressed to answer honestly, I'd have to say that the porn industry does more to encourage objectification of women than anything else has ever done. I can't think of a single more objectifying industry and yet women are often willing participants and not always for money.

So, this might be getting into details, but oh well.

My two major issues with the porn industry are a bit similar to the issues I talked about in my other post actually: consent and violence. It is really difficult to define consent in any porn, but especially internet porn. Once money is in the equation and can be theoretically withdrawn at any time, if a woman is desperate does she really have an option to say no if a scene is changed from what she agreed to once she's arrived on set? How much amateur porn is "revenge porn" of someone's ex-girlfriend? It'd be a different sort of thing if you could guarantee that the performers that you were watching were consenting to both the acts presented and the publication of said acts, but right now as it stands, aside from a few companies who market themselves on being 'ethical', you really can't.

The violence aspect is a bit harder to quantify because some performers do consent to that stuff and everyone has their fetishes or whatever, but as a woman it kind of icks me how much of (especially straight) porn is about 'dominating' women or 'destroying' them or whatever buzz word they're using and being deliberately degrading.

Obviously women are objectified (sometimes literally treated as objects!) in the porn industry, but in a way it's almost less insidious than in our culture at large because viewers know going into it that they're watching men and women who are doing this for money. I may be wrong, but I don't see as much of an expectation that women in porn are just how 'average' women should/do look or act as I do for women in other forms of entertainment.

So then, your problem is that the roles that they're given aren't serious or is it that they're eye candy (the combination being the worst case scenario)?

I have two problems, I guess, because it's both of those. Obviously, female characters are getting more 'serious' roles now than they were when I was first getting into gaming as a kid, but there are still a lot of women in refrigerators and damsels in distress and 'two women are working near one another therefore they must fight' happening in the industry as a whole. However, a lot of 'serious' roles are rendered more difficult to take seriously by the need for sexual attractiveness of the body shape and/or costume. See Wynne in Dragon Age: Origins talking about how old she is every 10 minutes and having the exact same body as Morrigan. See Miranda in Mass Effect 2 talking about the atrocities committed by her father as the camera pans up her backside to reveal her space wedgie. See Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite doing anything in public in underwear and a skirt, because apparently her period-accurate shirt didn't show enough cleavage. See the Commander Shepard beauty contest for the new default for Mass Effect 3. Even after two rounds of that nonsense, we wind up with a character who looks like an alien compared to her male counterpart because he has a human face model and she is just a copy/paste of facial features someone thought looked attractive. On the topic of Commander Shepard: check out the differences in the scar options for male and female Shepards in the first Mass Effect. Men can have a scar that basically rips their entire face in half, while women can have a bisected eyebrow. In order to keep female characters 'attractive', aesthetic choices are made that make even well-made and well-written characters difficult to take seriously.

But not every game is that kind of game and sometimes it's just as appropriate for the woman to be underdressed as they would be in real life.

Sometimes it is, yes, and sometimes it fits the way that a character has been written for her to look that way (Isabela in Dragon Age 2, for example, would probably just laugh in the face of anyone suggesting she put on some pants) but not all the time. Since I was using a ton of Mass Effect examples earlier, Jack's relative toplessness fits her character really well and doesn't feel like pandering or objectification to me. When the in-game camera is focusing on her skin, it's highlighting her scars and tattoos - a huge part of who she is as a character - so it doesn't feel as much like someone panicked because it had been at least 30 seconds since we'd seen some side-boob and gamers need a fix.

RomComs, which I actually love, don't have bulked-up action movie types because they aren't action movies. You would find the bulked up types in romantic action movies. You also find them on the cover of many romance novels in nearly any book store that carries them. You know the one, the Fabio clones. I've never read one but they're so numerous you can't help but look in their direction without seeing it.

I don't think many men would be comfortable with a Fabio clone as the lead in their video game either. Can you imagine a poster of even a less 'manly' man like Nathan Drake running around with his shirt billowing open, hair blowing in wind that seems to only affect him? Though I'm not sure whether that would come across to most women as attractive or hilarious, haha.

Take a good look at Kratos. He's actually not insanely bulked most of the time. He's incredibly toned with very well defined musculature. He's what you see in RomComs that ever have the male take off their shirt. But then other times they bulk him up according to the occasion. He's on some kind of tightrope act in which he leans either way when needed. If you run a basic search on him for images you'll note that some times he looks like a very in-shape frat boy and other times he's the exaggerated Fabio persona. Sometimes he has a normal neck and then the next moment he doesn't. In any event, are you telling me that women would find that body type unattractive on a normal person? This has not been true in my experience.

I will be honest: my God of War career consists entirely of trying to play it once at a party and accidentally super dramatically stabbing a peasant in the face because the monster moved. So pretty much everything I know about the series comes from promo art and that one hilarious sex scene (I think it's from GoW 3) where you have to mash the thumbsticks all around.

I don't think we're defining bulked up in the same way though if this doesn't fit your definition. I don't know any women who would swoon over a dude with no neck and an arm as big as her thigh, though I'm sure there are some. Even the bulkier Fabio covers I could find don't really reach those kind of heights (though maybe this one comes close!).

In terms of my own experience and talking to female friends who are attracted to men: look at characters like those dudes in the swimming anime someone linked, or Fenris from Dragon Age 2, or Ryan Gosling in basically every film he's done since like 2004, or even Edward Cullen in the Twilight film. This might be a bit TMI, but I would personally not really find anyone significantly bulkier than, say, Rain in Ninja Assassin very attractive. As you said, many game characters are bulky to the point of being grotesque.

Do you disagree that women generally desire a thin waist, tight ass, reasonably large breasts, nice legs and a pretty face? I think they see those things as being pretty and do a lot to fit those molds, however unreasonable they may be. I don't think characters looking like that would be a problem if they had legitimate roles in the game rather than swooning or fitting the ol' screaming at a mouse from the top of a stool stereotypes.

A thing to remember as well is that beauty standards and desired body shapes have changed over time. This applies more-so when games (or other media) are trying to represent a specific time period in the past and all of the female characters still look like they got lost on their way to the CW casting offices. There is also the problem of looking realistic doing whatever the character's job is. A character with really skinny legs who is meant to be a hand-to-hand fighter who is kicking people all the time is going to look silly. Even skinny dancers tend to have really muscular legs for obvious reasons. A character who looks like a stiff wind might blow her over could be believable as a rogue, for example, but is going to look goofy if you try and call her a paladin.

Conventionally attractive women can also be completely non-objectified if they're designed/costumed like actual human beings. One thing that appears a lot in comics for example is that men are posed heroically and women are posed 'attractively' even while fighting. So you end up with these ridiculous impossible poses (or poses traced from porn, in a few cases, which is really disconcerting) but only for women. It's as if some artists think that if we can't see both breasts and a butt at the same time we might forget one exists! A woman with every feature you've described who is dressed as if she is about to do whatever her character's job actually is and is standing in a pose that conveys power and action is definitely possible, but it is rare to see it.

Then who are they generally handsome for? Gay cooties? Maybe if it was a giant naked man with a third leg flopping around. Do you think women would have a case of the gay cooties if they played as a woman that was proportionately attractive?

It's a little bit different in games because, for awhile, it's YOUR avatar. If he's handsome, then you're handsome. If he's muscular and strong, then you're muscular and strong. It isn't just a power fantasy, it's an ideal-self fantasy in many cases. Brave and strong and capable and handsome/attractive. Things that no rational human being should ever not want. So a larger right arm would mean those things.

As you said, male characters tend to be handsome in a way that men want to look. The face-model for the male Commander Shepard, for example, is a model who does a lot of this sort of thing, but you don't see anything like that from the in-game character model because that is not how companies think that male gamers want to see their character.

Re: 'gay cooties' and women: I think that women are more . . . inured, I guess, than men are to seeing images of ourselves sexually objectified and are also less afraid of possibly if you squint accidentally possibly to someone appearing gay. I have seen the argument, for example (I believe it's mentioned in a Jimquisition video?) that companies believe that male gamers don't want to play female avatars who are in romantic relationships with men because they don't want to 'feel gay' or whatever. Men tend to be uncomfortable with depictions of men as in that "reverse objectification" welder image that was going around a while ago, whereas I think women might sigh at seeing the female version dressed that way, there's not that deep discomfort with it that men seem to have. I have a friend whose husband refused to watch the episode of Castle that had the male strippers in it because it made him feel uncomfortable to see it, and it's just like "welcome to every time I try and watch anything ever."

The point of the whole thing is that there's no breast equivalent for male body types. Judging from your responses, you don't necessarily disagree that men lack those components. Do you honestly believe that if women found a specific component of men attractive that men wouldn't desire having that component in the most desireable size range? That's almost laughably wrong. I'd say the one area that is the topic of most conversations (length/circumference of penis) is so over-focused on by men that entire pyschological issues pop out of it. For that reason, I earnestly believe that if that right-arm bit was desireable that men would dislike an avatar with a small one. I would want my avatar to be that way.

My impression overall on issues regarding the penis is that men tend to think/talk about this more than women do. Obviously for a heterosexual woman it is important for a penis to be present, but on the other hand, huge monster dongs are not exactly comfortable for most women and some women don't particularly even care about penetration and orgasm easier through other methods (this got kind of lurid for a costume design post sorry). Like, if I met a dude and his penis was dragging on the ground, my first thought would be 'omg that's freaky' and not 'huge dick must bang' you know?

In some ways it is hard to ridiculously emphasize parts of the male body that women find attractive. For example, if you overdo it on abs or arms you start getting Marcus Feenix and as you said, no one wants that. But at the same time you don't see a whole lot of heroic male characters with lean bodies and high cheekbones running around with their shirts open even when it would probably be more practical to wear some kind of body armor, you know? You're not seeing Carth Onasi crying about his dead wife while the camera focuses on his tight butt.

Here's a question for you. In a video game, what do you think the ideal attractive man (for women) would look like? How does that compare to most of the male protagonists out there (rather than just the blantant examples). Keep in mind that women have different tastes and there's a reason why women flock around men like Fabio or Kevin Sorbo (Hercules TV show)

There are few characters that I can think of who were designed to be specifically attractive to women, though I know that Thane from Mass Effect was, and he's a more lithe character with a chest-window. I'm not super familiar with the Final Fantasy series myself, but when I was in university a lot of girls I knew were super into Sephiroth, a kind of skinny dude with flowing hair and a broodiness meter that goes to eleven. Fenris from Dragon Age 2 is another character I know a lot of people swoon over, and the first of the linked characters without a chest window. Ezio here has a bit of a reputation as a ladies man and a lot of women that I know really like him, and he's not particularly oddly proportioned. Nathan Drake is obviously fit and a bit on the scruffy side, but he also looks like a guy you could meet in real life. Also a lot of people I know are into Alistair from Dragon Age, though I'm not sure how much of that is physical attractiveness and how much of that is that he's a huge dork.

It should be noted that there are real differences between men and women. Physical or aesthetic differences are obviously true. But in aggregate, there are also real differences in behavior to the point that it's almost like men and women have a distinct culture. Whether biologically or socialogically (or more likely some combination thereof) based, the effect is still the same.

Innate gender differences may be at least partially socially constructed. Studies have shown that adults treat babies differently based on their perceived gender, and that they even interpret babies' behaviour in different manners depending on whether they believe the baby to be a boy or a girl. So even though differences may be present in our current society, it does not mean that the differences are inherent to women and men. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't endeavor to change things that are actively harmful to one gender or the other (for example, suppression of emotional response in men because emotion is read as inherently feminine in nature and thus undesirable) and it doesn't mean that every fictional society needs to replicate these differences.

As such, different adjectives and different emphasis will be placed on similar actions performed by different sexes. It isn't necessarily a bad thing.

You're not actually saying that it's natural to use to the word "beautiful" to describe the way a woman dies, are you?

I completely understand and really appreciate your responses. Please believe that I'm really asking questions here to hear your response and my points are genuinely meant to be up for counterpointing. If I sound rude at any point, I apologize. I can be blunt sometimes.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to appreciate how refreshing it is to meet a man on the internet who is actually willing to engage this issue and not just being angry and defensive all over the place. Thank you.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

It?s not hard (pardon the pun). What the gaming industry would be fine with sexualisation backed up by tangible character dimension and/or reason for doing so (e.g. Tifa in FFVII, Bayonetta) and more diversity (so, we can have our cheesecake and eat it, as long as there?s an equal amount of actual human female characters to play as too).

People are fine with objectification, as long as both the audience and the character acknowledge that. That?s probably why people who watch porn can watch it and not act sexist towards woman in their personal life at the same time. Heck, with the advent of social media, even known porn stars have blogs and Twitter profiles to show the other sides of their lives, not to mention even some of the interviews that nude models like Lucy Pinder get in ?lads? mags? like Nuts and Zoo.

As Bob Dylan once said, the times they are a-changing.