Jimquisition: Objectification And... Men?

[Ikasury]

I have heard this argument before when people talk about comic book women being objectified. This is the best response I have seen.

Make of it what you will.

i just have this urge to comment on this: OH GOD!! MY EYES!! THEY BURN!! THEY BUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRN!! x.x

on a more productive note... *sigh* i get this has been going on a bit (600-something comments in like 2days? hmm?) and whilst skimming i found it funny the constant call backs to Mass Effect and Uncharted, i'm going to completely disregard Uncharted as i haven't played it, but as a female gamer i do not find whatshisname M!Laura Croft appealing... at all... i don't get why everyone's on him supposedly being 'hawt' when i haven't met a single straight woman or gay man that says so *shrugs* but oh MASS EFFECT!! but more importantly, THE ASARI!! these modern takes on the old school scifi nerdism of 'GREEN SKIN CHICKS!!' from Trek, and now brought into the 'new' world of scifi gaming for more nerdism of 'BLUE SKIN CHICKS!!' sigh... i always find the sheer concept of them hilarious, because women will get all huffy and be like 'no lesbianism, bleh!' while guys are like 'yay lesbianism, woo!' when the 'reality' of this fictional verse is they... aren't... female... really... 'female' requires a counterpoint 'male', and both words only really exist to explain the difference of the other, so with them being 'monogendered' and therefore having the 'features necessary for breeding/caretaking' Ie: boobs... if you REALLY want to think about it they 'aren't' female... so its funny to me for people to get all up on using them for any kind of 'gender' anything...

as a straight woman do i find Asari hot? yes, i will not deny that, i had my shep, male or female, hit on every Asari possible, they are awesome! do i find the 'female' characters the same level of 'hawt'? oddly... no... no i don't? *shrugs* the furthest i can get with the other 'female' cast is what would be the equivalent of 'bromance' or heterosexual-lifemate kind of deal... but i can comfortablly yell to the edges of the world 'i would totally hit that' in the case of an Asari... MAYBE its just that i recognize the whole 'they aren't really women' thing, but really that didn't 'click' to me till the end of ME2 and Samara rebuked me due to 'plot' *shrugs* but i find them a fascinating example of just gender-typing, many of the Asari actually display rather 'male-dominated' personalities, Tavos and Aria particularly, even Samara could be considered that 'old school samurai' type, while others are clearly more feminine, Liara, but the thing that i LIKE about them, is that well this is 'normal' to them, in context, they're like a great example in a main stream game of 'gender neutrality', ironic being that they are monogendered despite everyone considering them 'female' and that's all 'okay'?

but Mass Effect is also 'good' for this arguement with the whole differences of male/female shep... playing as F!Shepard, to be honest, the only person i WANTED to end up with was Liara... why? none of the 'guys' were all that 'interesting'... and for the sake of 'plot' they seemed better off as bromates... yet M!Shepard has this wide array of 'oh yea, i can totally hit that!' and i watched one of my girlfriends play it so her M!Shep was literally sleeping around with EVERYONE at once... then both me and her sat back and sighed deeply about how 'easy' that was, yet neither of us could say jack about the 'dudes' we could get as F!Shep... we both just ended up going for Liara as 'default' because out of the 'guys' available, REALLY 'she' was the best pick... looks, brains, empathy, life-expectancy, etc. my question to the 'writer-gods' is 'what does that tell you? when two straight woman agree to go for the psudo-woman instead of the plethora of dudes available?'

*shrugs* guys in games just aren't 'appealing' like 'chicks' in games are i guess... but it might just be an appeal thing, you can't really 'exagerate' guys anatomy like you can women, else it just gets really gross... and in order to 'understand' what would appeal to a female gamer we'd need more women actually involved in writing, i tried this once and got ignored and regaled to 'give me sidequests' -.- so maybe its just a need to drop everything and start over somewhere...

 

[Lightknight]

I'll repeat that society does not emphasize major components of men aside from the genitalia which the US shy away from displaying in readily available media. Society has historically and in modern times emphasized female beauty and as such, the female form. Breasts, Legs, Hips, Ass, and facial symmetry. These things are easy to exaggerate and often have desireable proportions that do not always align themselves with numbers that are physically possible. Manga exaggeration of the eyes is an easy and non-controversial example of such exaggeration (just talking about the eyes here).

I would posit that if we were crab people (bear with me) and crab women were more attracted to crab men with large right claws, that our video game male protagonists would have right claws of epic proportions. As is, all we've got is muscles toned or bulked, being tall, buns of steel if women are to be believed, a pretty or rugged face depending on tastes, and maybe a slightly telling bulge in the pants area but no more due to US policies on that region. These things are often exaggerated. But they can't be exaggerated in the same way and still be attractive.

This doesn't make objectification right by any means. This is just a perspective to understand. Women in videogames are objectified more for their role in games than their physical attributes. But come on, chainmail bikini? I think we do know exploitation and objectification when we see it. At least make the garments functional where relevant.

At the end of the day though, you have to answer these two questions. What qualifies as an appropriate female body in videogames and who gets to decide those proportions? I don't know that there can ever be a right answer to that. I don't think any of us know where the actual line is. We can't exactly spell it out but we know when we see it. That's kind of an interesting paradox. We don't know exactly what we don't want, but we know we don't want it when we see it. Jim, correctly showed DOA videos. These are obvious examples. But I assure you that many more blur the line and there are others out there, even women, who just see those examples and want to play as those characters.

 

[Sticky]

Polite Snip

Maybe that was one too many hits to put at Chemical Alia, but I also feel that this is one of the best post in the whole thread. I wish it could just be re-pasted every time we have this discussion

In fact, I almost feel that this is the conclusion most of these threads eventually arrive at. Good work to you.

 

[chadachada123]

I have heard this argument before when people talk about comic book women being objectified. This is the best response I have seen.

Make of it what you will.

I actually feel that this next image is a pretty good reply, since men and women are sexualized in pretty different manners (women for fertility, men for power):

 

[Lightknight]

I have heard this argument before when people talk about comic book women being objectified. This is the best response I have seen.

Make of it what you will.

I'm unsure of the intended point here. These are men dressed in drag versions of their regular costumes without changing any physical features.

How is that commentary on men being objectified as men and not just making them feminine?

It's difficult to exaggerate male features without quickly entering the realm of grotesque. Again, if men had a compontent that was particularly desireable (and viewable in non-mature/adult games), then the male protagonists would absolutely have the biggest/best/orangest or whatever adjective pushes it towards more attractive exaggeration of that component. And, I dare say men would want to play as that.

The problem of objectification of women in games is moreso their role than proportions. That picture does shed good like on how women likely feel when they see a female character wearing a chainmail bikini to battle.

Aha, @chadachada123 beat me to it. Darn.

 

[Chemical Alia]

snip

Those are some pretty cool facts that you kinda just...made up...

Lol, why are you even bringing this up? Are you really so offended that I happen to occasionally be opinionated about the art that I see on a daily basis? I never claimed to speak for all women, or all artists, thank you very much. ^_^

If a beautiful voluptuous woman walks down the street wearing the same outfit as the Sorceress would that mean she is being sexist? Or That she is a very confident woman that is not ashamed of her body? Some girls, dont like to show skin. Others do and some too much. But shouldn't one always be happy with their body appearance? Should one always cover up because another says that;s the way? No.

I wouldn't care either way. As long as no fedoras are involved, I couldn't care less about the fashion sense of other people. I see nothing wrong with choosing to dress sexy, conservatively, or anywhere in between, if that's what makes them happy. Video game characters don't choose what they wear, though. When I see a character, I look at the design and presentation choices the artist made, and how they fit in with the other character, the theme, etc.

In the case of Dragon whatever it's called, it's not even the outfits that put it over the edge for me. There's a time and a place for all that kind of stuff, and a game like that is honestly probably a perfect match. No, what got to me was actually the blank, child-like samefaces with no expression, combined with their poses in that drawing. If there was some emotion or sense of personality beyond the pose, it might have conveyed some more depth to the character beyond the ridiculous sexypose. And frankly, if you're going for something as outlandish as that, it feels like a huge missed opportunity to provide a more interesting character. Little things like that can make a huge difference in how your art is perceived, and that's what I hope more artists to become mindful of.

Also for the record, I'm educated in fine art, not whatever it was you assumed. Environment is what I do because that's the job I applied for, not because I was driven into it by outside forces or was specifically "trained" for it. I'm more of a generalist these days, but I've been getting a lot more into character art lately and I to get more into it in the future. I hope that doesn't upset you too much.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your neat opinions and your artistic interpretation of my own opinions. I hope we can still be friends.

 

[Gigano]

Well, I'm still stuck on grasping the whole "objectification of fictatious characters is bad" thing. Or real people, for that matter, since everyone seem to be perfectly fine viewing a cashier as an object used for payment, without taking any interest in the totality of his person.

Given how unremarkable and dull most people are, it seems quite spoiled to demand that everyone take interest in one's person, rather than one's uses. This whole objectification stick seems a combination of that arrogant cry for attention, and a negative attitude towards sex and sexuality.

 

[Yuuki]

In fact the only thing the complaining has so far achieved, is having studios cease to release products with female protagonists, because they can do without the next barrage of complaints from a group of self imposed PC police, hiding behind monitors specifically looking for something to complain about: ala, the NOT rape of Lara Croft for instance.

This is something I feel is one of the roots of the issue, I had said a while ago when Anita's crusade started that the safest thing a developer can do to steer clear of this bullshit controversy is to NOT have a female protagonist, preferably not even a single female character.

It's no wonder that games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Dead Space, Far Cry, Prototype, Infamous, Metro etc series have slipped past all of this nonsense and made untold millions without a single hint of gender controversy.

Hell if I were a developer I'm afraid I would simply avoid having female characters till this shitstorm blows over, it's just a huge risk and attracts nothing but bad press and politically-correct fuckwits who get "offended" even if you breathe in their direction.

If a food critic becomes particularly obnoxious the best thing to do is not give them any food

 

[Subscriptism]

Perhaps I might see it, however I can't personally nor do I know of any other male who can even remotely be described as constantly leering, nor do I personally know a single woman who has ever complained that they are being leered at 24/7. I just don't buy it.

I said neither of those things.

I didn't say that men were constantly leering, nor did I say that women get leered at 24/7. I just said that many women get leered at every day. It might be only for 5 minutes per day. And it doesn't mean that the man leers at everything he sees. But women are pretty consistently leered at. Men, not so much.

That seems quite trivial to me. Is that really something you find to be of great concern?

 

[Lightknight]

The gamer ratio being male/female as 53%/47%

I honestly do not believe that stat is right. I am always suspect of any stat that does not show its methedology, especially one that i think we can all agree appears to be so subjectively wrong. Is there any gamer out there, either male or female who can honestly state that they have actively observed that almost half of all gamers are female? Without adding in people who play exclusively angry birds, farmville, or bejewelled?

Because if this stat is as bullshit as it always appears, maybe we should stop using it to prove points that the stat does not prove. For example, Jims point in this very video that AAA games need to appeal more to women, because of this stat. At what point does this stat say that 50% of people buying AAA games are women?

Well, I wasn't say that the stat is wrong. How they define gaming has evolved to include more video gaming arenas and they're not 100% wrong for doing so. That stat is correct if you understand their definition, I was only saying that it does not necessarily correlate with trends in any particular game genre. For example, if 80% of female gamers are still primary Wii console owners (as they were in 2009), then the FPS market would be significantly skewed towards males as the other consoles traditionally get the big titles (before the WiiU).

Keep in mind that the study also states that 46% of gamers have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2012. That does kind of beg the question of how they defined gamers in the study but it does not call into question the actual numbers they pulled in. Unless the other 54% rely heavily on free-to-play games then I wouldn't call them gamers. Not if they can go years without owning a game.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf

It would be wonderful if we had a spreadsheet of the compiled data. They clearly collected data on gender and so it should not be hard to sort by gender to view any significant differences in gaming/system preferences. If I just read that PDF above, it looks like they asked some dumb questions and don't define questions quite so clearly.

The question at the end of the day is what it would mean if the numbers were really different. If the ratio of FPS gamers was something crazy like 90%/10%, would that justify objectifying women? It would certainly be a wise business decision on behalf of companies trying to make money. But also remember, I can't rightly say that exaggerating female proportions is actually objectifying them. I believe it can exacerbate objectification if combined with other factors. I do believe that if men had an equivalent to breasts that were appropriate to display in a videogame that it would also be exaggerated and that we do see this with muscles and chisled chins with regularity. I'd say that the role of the character is what objectifies them. If the character is capable and practical and has big breasts, who has a right to say that she's being objectified. Who has a right to say what dimensions a female character should have? Our society is to the point that women actually undergo surgery to obtain larger breasts and so we know that there is a desire for these kinds of exaggerations. Is that desire to be readily trivialized in lieu of ones who do not share said desire? Is it possible that in some small way, people seeing a beautiful game character with exposed skin and cry objectification are actually doing the same thing that people who call real-life scantily clad women sluts are doing? It's something to consider. Impossibly huge breasts? We have women that make that happen surgically. Rail thin? We have women who actively pursue those dimensions. Scantily clothed in public? Go to college much? There are extremes in gaming, of course, because actual physics do not apply.

All I know is that I enjoy playing a capable and ruggedly handsome man. Were I female, I would want to play as a beautiful and capable female. It's the capable part that I see getting left out in games as objectification. We see unrealistic portrayels of females in every form of media and in real life, so I'm not certain why video games make it worse or should be treated differently.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I only really wish to chime in regarding one regularly repeated piece of information that is misleading and will touch on some other concepts following it.

The gamer ratio being male/female as 53%/47% does not mean that the FPS ration is 53%/47% or that the gamers playing Uncharted or anything else would follow that ratio. The last study that actually broke up console ownership by sex actually put 80% of all female console gamers in the study as Wii gamers. This was 2008/2009 when the demographic divide was 60%/40% and it isn't entirely unlikely that the evening of the gaming ratio isn't related to the rapid integration of smart phones and iOS games at our fingertips over the past 5 or so years.

I'm not saying this makes objectification of women ok. They are clearly objectified in a ton of games as defined here by Jim and the men are not. This is only to point out that the real market audience of games like Gears of War may still be significantly more male than female. The question is, does that make it ok? Does that change anything here? If the ratio were as wildly out of whack as 90%/10% would that justify the kind of silliness we've seen in the DOA titles? Would making female friendly games encourage female participation or is there an actual different in gaming styles between the sexes (whether evolved or culturally based, doesn't functionally matter)? Are movies that objectify women wrong for doing so or are they justified for meeting a niche market?

I'd also posit that women have body parts that lend themselves to exaggeration. Breasts, ass, legs, hip ratios, these are easily demonstrated and easily exaggerated. There's not a ton you can exaggerate on a man that is desireable to people other than muscles, a toned ass and perhaps some kind of bulge in ye' ol' panteloons region. To that effect, I would like to believe that if men had things that were so easily exaggerated that they would be as well, and, guys would probably want it to be. In the same vein, I have known women who want to look the way the women look in these games and will actually surgically change themselves to exaggerate their own features in this way. It is merely an interesting concept that women physically do this to themselves as well. Just something to think about.

The source being the ESRB website, yeh.

Stats that just say "gamer" are sketchy. Any set of stats that sees my friend Kim, who only has Angry Birds and maybe bejewelled on her iphone, or, my aunt and uncle who have a wii and 2 games, as being 1:1 with someone who has a vast and ever extending library of games... is a bullshit set of stats, and is rightly ignored by anyone serious about pushing a game onto the market.

You could make a game with sexualised male characters and/or sensibly armoured/clothed female characters... you could make anything you want(provided it's not heading into overtly illegal territory). If the market doesn't want it, you fucked up. That's what all the moralising can't override.

If you want financial backing for anything you have to prove that there is a market for it. In this case, it's a little hard to prove. You can't do it with a questionable stat.

 

[Lightknight]

The source being the ESRB website, yeh.

Stats that just say "gamer" are sketchy. Any set of stats that sees my friend Kim, who only has Angry Birds and maybe bejewelled on her iphone, or, my aunt and uncle who have a wii and 2 games, as being 1:1 with someone who has a vast and ever extending library of games... is a bullshit set of stats, and is rightly ignored by anyone serious about pushing a game onto the market.

Exactly, unless other questions are asked the numbers aren't really applicable to specific games. It is really surprising to me to see people like Jim using the number like it applies to everything. Jim really pays attention to the things he says and will actually change his opinions when confronted with legitimate counterpoints. So I'm not sure why this misuse of the numbers is still being practiced. What's funny is that study probably has the answers. It looks like they asked the right questions but we don't have access to their raw data. If we did, we could extrapolate far more valuable data than the crap they gave us.

You could make a game with sexualised male characters and/or sensibly armoured/clothed female characters... you could make anything you want(provided it's not heading into overtly illegal territory). If the market doesn't want it, you fucked up. That's what all the moralising can't override.

If you want financial backing for anything you have to prove that there is a market for it. In this case, it's a little hard to prove. You can't do it with a questionable stat.

I also agree with this. At the end of the day, we can complain all we want but these companies are in the business of making money. That being said, I hardly think a scantily clad woman who swoons every time the man shows up is going to make or break a game sale. If that's the case, then the game isn't all that good, is it? I don't think a woman showing up to battle in bikini armor makes a game better. It really suspends belief even if sexy.

On the other hand, I disagree that men aren't already "sexualized" in games. Again, I must contend that males don't have the same kind of features that women have which are traditionally objectified. If we had the equivalent to breasts where attraction is concerned, I believe that that feature would be exaggerated as well.

 

[Lightknight]

Well, I wasn't say that the stat is wrong. How they define gaming has evolved to include more video gaming arenas and they're not 100% wrong for doing so. That stat is correct if you understand their definition, I was only saying that it does not necessarily correlate with trends in any particular game genre. For example, if 80% of female gamers are still primary Wii console owners (as they were in 2009), then the FPS market would be significantly skewed towards males as the other consoles traditionally get the big titles (before the WiiU).

Keep in mind that the study also states that 46% of gamers have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2012. That does kind of beg the question of how they defined gamers in the study but it does not call into question the actual numbers they pulled in. Unless the other 54% rely heavily on free-to-play games then I wouldn't call them gamers. Not if they can go years without owning a game.

Even free to play is better than the new game that those people are looking to purchase is this years new version of angry frut ninja birds.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said free to play. What I meant was a free game. For example, I downloaded the free version of Angry Birds back in the day. I played it quite regularly too and I'm not sure if that was my only gaming experience besides Solitaire and whatnot that this survey wouldn't have called me a "gamer". As is, of course I play a tremendous number of other games on pretty much every machine possible, but had that been it...

I was just trying to include games like farmville that are technically free to play. The point of the discussion though, was to apply it to traditional game types like the DOA that Jim shows or Halo or Gears of War or Call of Duty or any other such AAA mainstream games. This means that 54% of those responders are people who are NOT the target market of console games. This is a significant point to miss.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

The source being the ESRB website, yeh.

Stats that just say "gamer" are sketchy. Any set of stats that sees my friend Kim, who only has Angry Birds and maybe bejewelled on her iphone, or, my aunt and uncle who have a wii and 2 games, as being 1:1 with someone who has a vast and ever extending library of games... is a bullshit set of stats, and is rightly ignored by anyone serious about pushing a game onto the market.

Exactly, unless other questions are asked the numbers aren't really applicable to specific games. It is really surprising to me to see people like Jim using the number like it applies to everything. Jim really pays attention to the things he says and will actually change his opinions when confronted with legitimate counterpoints. So I'm not sure why this misuse of the numbers is still being practiced. What's funny is that study probably has the answers. It looks like they asked the right questions but we don't have access to their raw data. If we did, we could extrapolate far more valuable data than the crap they gave us.

You could make a game with sexualised male characters and/or sensibly armoured/clothed female characters... you could make anything you want(provided it's not heading into overtly illegal territory). If the market doesn't want it, you fucked up. That's what all the moralising can't override.

If you want financial backing for anything you have to prove that there is a market for it. In this case, it's a little hard to prove. You can't do it with a questionable stat.

I also agree with this. At the end of the day, we can complain all we want but these companies are in the business of making money. That being said, I hardly think a scantily clad woman who swoons every time the man shows up is going to make or break a game sale. If that's the case, then the game isn't all that good, is it? I don't think a woman showing up to battle in bikini armor makes a game better. It really suspends believe even if sexy.

On the other hand, I disagree that men aren't already "sexualized" in games. Again, I must contend that males don't have the same kind of features that women have which are traditionally objectified. If we had the equivalent to breasts where attraction is concerned, I believe that that feature would be exaggerated as well.

I agree on most points.

The male body really is more utilitarian in it's nature, I'm not convinced it's an apples to apples comparison.

I don't think it's for anyone to decide objective quality, is it? If you want to be powerful, save the day and be sexually charismatic in a game... I'm not of the opinion that that's wrong(hell, it's only parroting more films than you could possibly shake a stick at). It's a perfectly understandable fantasy to have. I roll my eyes everytime someone suggests it's weird. It's not weird, it's very easily understandable. If you don't understand it, you're probably not trying to.

I, like I think you do, tend to favour more realistic fantasy. Meaning, little-to-no-magical elements if possible, armour that makes sense and logical damage based on the power of a hit. I think it's stupid when you have to slash somebody 30 times to take them out. If you land a good hit, that person should be dead. But... there are people who like that stuff.

And, I'm not going to argue with anyone who thinks this is aesthetically pleasing.

Spoiler

Because it just is.

 

[Lightknight]

I agree on most points.

The male body really is more utilitarian in it's nature, I'm not convinced it's an apples to apples comparison.

I don't think it's for anyone to decide objective quality, is it? If you want to be powerful, save the day and be sexually charismatic in a game... I'm not of the opinion that that's wrong(hell, it's only parroting more films than you could possibly shake a stick at). It's a perfectly understandable fantasy to have. I roll my eyes everytime someone suggests it's weird. It's not weird, it's very easily understandable. If you don't understand it, you're probably not trying to.

I would take this a step further and say that this is likely a beneficial evolutionary trait that makes us more fit for survival as a species. It's why I go to the gym even though I'm already married or why I learned how to cook before.

I, like I think you do, tend to favour more realistic fantasy. Meaning, little-to-no-magical elements if possible, armour that makes sense and logical damage based on the power of a hit. I think it's stupid when you have to slash somebody 30 times to take them out. If you land a good hit, that person should be dead. But... there are people who like that stuff.

By any chance, did you ever play the Bushido Blade games? My absolute favorite fighting game of all time. Get a solid hit to the arm? You can't use it. Solid Hit in the leg? You limp. Solid strike to the torso/head, you're dead. Best fighting game ever. No health meter, no shield nonsense. Just your own blade and footwork between you and death. It was also a 3D environment when that was rare.

I do find myself consistently playing as warriors in most games where magic is the option. FPS games are also more pleasing to me if a shot to the face means game over. So you may have me pegged there though I hadn't considered it. I'll mention that I also worked my way through college as a professional blacksmith specializing in blades. So when I see bikini armor I do cringe as to who would have ever made that and why. I see a woman in breast patterned plate armor and I think... Ok, at least it's functionally armor albeit unnecessarily ornate. If they're wearing skin tight chainmail I generally just have to let go of the fact that chainmail is reinforced with a heavy inner garment that would make breast all but unnoticeable. But large swaths of exposed skin? They must be more afraid of losing a nipple than being gutted.

This isn't to say I can't also enjoy fantasy games. But my disbelief can only be suspended so far.

And, I'm not going to argue with anyone who thinks this is aesthetically pleasing.

Spoiler

Because it just is.

Definitely aesthetically pleasing.