Jimquisition: Objectification And... Men?

[Bara_no_Hime]

Objectification And... Men?

Thank you Jim! And thank the gods for you, as always.

Now, when people use that awful argument, rather than needing to response, I can link to your video and say "What Jim Said".

It is incredibly frustrating when people claim that men are "objectified" in video games. The people who say that clearly proving that most people (or at least the people who say it) don't know what the word "objectify" actually means.

 

[Danny Ocean]

A common argument in the ongoing debate over gender and videogames is that women and men both are equally objectified. Is that really true?

I used to make the argument you're taking apart in the video.

I like this video- I thought it was really well done and the issue well handled. I actually did the whole "Aaaaah, I get it now," thing when you said that "Men aren't objectified, they're idealised."

Could it be the disturbing case that both sexes are indeed idealised equally, but that the ideal woman in popular culture is an object?

 

[Yuuki]

The industry won't change for internet whining so much as sales, so we might need to hold our nose and buy multiple copies of Remember Me. (and I truly dread this discussion if that game flops)

Thank you for summing up the solution to this whole shitstorm being caused by a tiny minority on the internet.

As much as people have the right to an opinion and the right to criticize, it seems futile to try and convince them that the beauty industry (specifically skin creams, hair products and make-up) is 90% driven by female consumers...why is it so? Because it's simply something women desire on a vastly bigger scale than males. If certain males have a problem with that and want more products and advertisements to cater for them then they need to start buying a LOT of beauty products en-masse and shift the entire market with the power of their wallets - this should've already happened a long time ago, but it hasn't, and there is a reason why.
Oh replace "beauty products" with "AAA games" btw

Now, when people use that awful argument, rather than needing to response, I can link to your video and say "What Jim Said".

It is incredibly frustrating when people claim that men are "objectified" in video games. The people who say that clearly proving that most people (or at least the people who say it) don't know what the word "objectify" actually means.

You've been around these forums for a lot longer and probably seen some pretty stupid people. In all my tours of more recent threads about these issues I haven't personally come across a single person who genuinely tried to use that argument as defense...at least not with the intent of being taken seriously.

I feel Jim made this video to respond to a group of people who are about as rare as virgins in maternity wards, but even worse that he's responding to a group of people who could be classified as retarded. I mean I've seen people use "but I like boobs" as a defense, lets see Jim make another video revolving entirely around those 4 words -_-

Men can be idealized without being objectified while women can not? hmmm... not sure if I totally agree with you jim. simply because I'd be willing to bet that if you asked 100 women to describe a character they would aspire to be like, 99.9999% of the time they'll mention beauty, sexiness, ect. in addition to all those "Non offensive" traits that people love like smarts and kindness.

If the fact that most women aspire to be beautiful and sexy in addition to whatever else they aspire to is a bad thing, it's not really something the gaming community can fix, as it doesn't stem soley from us. We need to take it up with the society at large.

People too often automatically mix sexual desirability with objectification. a lotta times the two coincide, but not always. at least not in the way most people seem to suggest, with sex crazed men lusting after some poor, helpless, innocent females who just wanna be left alone and curse their own beauty every day for this very reason.

Yes sexual objectification is a thing, yes it needs to be discussed, but the root of this problem stems from somewhere far deeper inside the human race than our little gamers club can hope to tackle all by ourselves.

Also I disagree with the idea that to say "Maybe this isn't as big an issue as everyone thinks?" is the same as saying "this isn't worth being talked about" discussion is always good, but people DO like to blow things out of proportion, because if you feel your point of view is under-discussed then that's a good strategy to give it some exposure. so while we should definitely NOT try to stop this discussion or say it isn't important, we should probably also not OVERSTATE it's importance, as if stuff like this is "killing gaming" or anything else overly dramatic. because that kinda over dramatization is what causes the discussion to devolve into flame wars and people attacking each other like was mentioned in a previous episode of the Jimquisition.

One step at a time people, the issue is still an issue, and it's still important, even if you don't attack every opposing view with the force of a freaking hurricane. You lose focus of the real heart of the matter when you blow shit up like that.

Thank god for Jim.

Amen.

 

[Joseph Cortinas]

Men can be idealized without being objectified while women can not? hmmm... not sure if I totally agree with you jim. simply because I'd be willing to bet that if you asked 100 women to describe a character they would aspire to be like, 99.9999% of the time they'll mention beauty, sexiness, ect. in addition to all those "Non offensive" traits that people love like smarts and kindness.

If the fact that most women aspire to be beautiful and sexy in addition to whatever else they aspire to is a bad thing, it's not really something the gaming community can fix, as it doesn't stem soley from us. We need to take it up with the society at large.

People too often automatically mix sexual desirability with objectification. a lotta times the two coincide, but not always. at least not in the way most people seem to suggest, with sex crazed men lusting after some poor, helpless, innocent females who just wanna be left alone and curse their own beauty every day for this very reason.

Yes sexual objectification is a thing, yes it needs to be discussed, but the root of this problem stems from somewhere far deeper inside the human race than our little gamers club can hope to tackle all by ourselves.

Also I disagree with the idea that to say "Maybe this isn't as big an issue as everyone thinks?" is the same as saying "this isn't worth being talked about" discussion is always good, but people DO like to blow things out of proportion, because if you feel your point of view is under-discussed then that's a good strategy to give it some exposure. so while we should definitely NOT try to stop this discussion or say it isn't important, we should probably also not OVERSTATE it's importance, as if stuff like this is "killing gaming" or anything else overly dramatic. because that kinda over dramatization is what causes the discussion to devolve into flame wars and people attacking each other like was mentioned in a previous episode of the Jimquisition.

One step at a time people, the issue is still an issue, and it's still important, even if you don't attack every opposing view with the force of a freaking hurricane. You lose focus of the real heart of the matter when you blow shit up like that.

Thank god for Jim.

 

[Ukomba]

You should do a episode about the way male characters are portrayed in video games.

...He just did. We're portrayed well.

Yup, amoral killing machines. Sorry, good looking, amoral killing machines.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9852-Uncharted-Drakes-Misdirected-Anger

 

[JenSeven]

Look at it this way.. ever read the web comic lfg which is a spin on wow?

The artist draws a female troll like a sex symbol.
A troll.

The artist draws a troll as sexy. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/DevinAustra/LFG/motivation2.jpg least for a troll. Now that's out of a web comic... a place where writers and artists tend to show more balls than typically game designers.

Now did he do this because he wanted to...
or simply put the character would appeal more that way.

it does.
Deal with it.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/257/0/7/my_lfg_wallpaper_by_emergencyuseonly-d49ua8g.jpg

and that draws me to my next point..
to fans take popular female characters and draw them as ugly on deviant art?

THEY DON'T? really? you mean they take overly objectified characters and try and make them more sexy..

Do tell.

I'm sorry, but that "troll" is what the whole argument is all about. It's a female character with over exaggerated female proportions. I have not read the comic so I have no idea how much of a personality this character has or how it is portrayed, but going by the look of the character alone, it basically looks like your average vapid eye candy side character, to which the artist added some green skin and pointy ears.

I would much rather use the example of Mileena from Mortal Kombat.
Sure her body looks overly sexualized but behind that veil there is an entirely different creature.

Or maybe I should just point to Recettear, an Item Shop's Tale and end the whole debate.
In that game they manage to create good female characters.

Yes, and I'm very much aware of my avatar and how strange it may look in comparison with this post, so in advance thank you very much for pointing that out.

 

[RA92]

On one side we have designs as diverse as Solid Snake at an advanced age, Mario, the entire cast of Team Fortress, Kratos, all those brute and effeminate and hulking characters from fighting games... and on the other end we have just that same slender, athletic, beautiful female build.

Go to Deviant Art, find someone who is a girl, and look at the images of girls/women they draw. Then repeat about a 100 times to ensure that you have a balanced picture of how women like to portray women. If the majority of the character drawn by women have the same slender, athletic, beautiful female build then it's clear that women don't want diversity; they want beautiful women.

These women don't exist in a vacuum. They've been conditioned to think like that by the mainstream media. For example, a Japanese youth is more likely to portray an idealized man as effeminate with an emo-hairdo, whereas someone who has been exposed to Western media will portray him as a grizzled 30-something with stubble, etc.

And honestly, my comment wasn't purely out of a concern for women's perspective, but also for my hunger for aesthetic diversity. I mean, doesn't it make you sad that something like Liliana's female Spy design will never be seen in mainstream games?

I'm not, by the way, against objectification. One of my favorite characters of all time was Jeanette from Vampires:Bloodlines - The Masquerade.

 

[commasplice]

I'm really glad this video is a thing. I've kinda wanted to see someone tackle this for a while now, not because I think there's too much discussion on the objectification of women and not enough on that of men (or the lack thereof), but because it's just . . . not a thing we actually talk about so much.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I think the discussion about male gaze and all of the things we do as a society to just kind of . . . generally fuck women (and others) over is very important, and I don't at all want that discussion to go away. I'd just like us to talk about this, too. It's another thing to think about.

Edit:

I mean, doesn't it make you sad that something like Liliana's female Spy design will never be seen in mainstream games?

I, for one, would play the hell out of that engineer. Hell, I'd roleplay Rosie the fucking Riveter every damn time I booted it up. That's possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

You know what bugs me about this argument? The complete lack of any academic process. It's just a lot of sweeping statements about what games are, without any research to back it up (anecdotes, yes, but the plural of an anecdote is not data), and no acknowledgment of diverse markets.

It is fairly disingenuous to simply state that women represent fifty percent of the gaming audience when the figures show that the distribution of genders across different markets and devices are not equal, and women represent far from an equal share of the owners of the home consoles that games like Gears of War run on (the exception was the Wii, and Nintendo held a presentation boasting that, at forty-something percent, they had a far greater percentage of female users than other consoles).

We know that Marcus Fenix and Nathan Drake were designed to appeal to a heterosexual male audience, but can you honestly sit there and tell me that no one is thinking of women when they design new characters for Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy? Do you think the large female fanbase sexually obsessing over those characters happened by accident? No, it was a result of the trend, beginning in the 1990s, of Japanese publishers of 'boys'' media becoming aware of their female audience through surveys and making executive and editorial decisions to appeal to that demographic, often through the inclusion or emphasizing of characters and dynamics that it found sexually appealing. We have director interviews stating that the entire reason games like Sengoku Basara exist are so that a female audience can drool over a variety of hot dudes in impractical armor. These articles always boil down to comparing the men from Gears of War to the women from Dead or Alive (or some equivalent), but that kind of comparison doesn't actually tell you anything because it is drawing a false equivalence between entirely different games with entirely different art styles produced by entirely different cultures. And of course none of our esteemed game journalists would ever have the guts to deal with an otome game in these discussions, despite the fact that several are now available in English.

Also, can we examine the degree to which some of these male characters can be said to be male fantasies? I'll give you characters like old Snake (who still has the best ass in gaming), but, given the choice, how many guys actually want to look like something like the dwarf from Dragon's Crown? Look on something like Second Life, that allows people to create their own ideal appearances. Do you see any men choosing to look like that? (You will, by the way, see a lot of actual, honest to goodness women paying additional money for enormous breasts; the item in question is designed and sold by yet another genuine female.)

That attempt to define objectification made me cringe. No mention of subjectivity? No attempt to include anything but a narrow segment of AAA action titles? I, for one, would like to have a serious discussion of the extent to which a playable character can lack subjectivity, regardless of their traits, but I doubt any of the people paid to write about games would even know where to start.

Honestly, this video is some of the most intellectually lazy cherry-picking I've ever seen. I'm disappointed, Jim; I had come to expect better from you.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I like how you brag even more after bringing up how you were criticized for it. XD

It would be cool with variety in general, for both male and female characters. I find the majority of male characters bland and boring, while the females are more fun to play, even if that's sometimes just because they're nice to look at.

 

[Nurb]

In video games, both are equally objectified in the sense male and female game characters are objects that do what we want for our entertainment and fantasies, whatever they may be because it's fictional escapism.

Women are pretty and nice to look at, and men are fodder for the player to wade through with any given weapon weilded by a perfect looking protagonist. Men are not evil for enjoying sexualized fictional characters, nor are we evil for enjoying laying waste to thousands of enemies that want to stop our character.

Now please, no more forced gender debates!

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Monxeroth, it is not everyone has seen all internet videos before. Even if it is a covered topic, that does not make it any less valid or relevant. I see people saying things like this all the time, as recent as the whole Dragon`s Crown issue.

A fair point.
As I said before, these things get repeated because they are still problems that are relevant, and the points are repeated so they aren't forgotten.

Also, as you said, not everyone on the internet has seen everything on the internet. Plus, we have new people coming to this site alone all the time.

 

[Chemical Alia]

It's stagnant progressive crap coming from lazy greedy individuals that want to do nothing but swindle you out of the cash in your pocket.

It I want to buy these games it's my choice and you have no right to tell me what to buy with my money.

From this moment forward, I will model all video game characters as 75-year-old female bodybuilders, just to ruin your fun. Even the male ones, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. I have convinced all other industry artists I know to do the same (way more than 15+). The plan has been set in motion. Watch out, I'm coming for your fun.

 

[Steve Waltz]

I was hoping this episode would be on the Wii U and how third-party developers aren't supporting it.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Isn't it kind of funny that I so seldom hear a female voice address these issues ?
Another thing that confuses me is how an industry has survived publishing "vile sexism" to women for so long and yet they still represent half the gaming audience.

I think people should stop adding casual gaming audiences to the AAA branch of gaming.
Even these forums being some of the most moderated and female friendly forums you can find only has an active female population of ~10%.
Why would a publisher cater to that 10% and not the 90%, you know where all the money is.
I'm sure that if they broke down the AAA numbers they'll find the same proportions.

It's fucking evil to actively troll the gaming community by making it female friendly when only 10% of the people who buy AAA games are women.
Your mom doesn't want to play call of duty, so why make it more to her liking ?

This whole sexism in video games BS is just a bunch of white knighting on behalf of an apathetic demographic.
Publishers want to make money and teenage males are where that money is being made.
With self publishing there really isn't an excuse for women not just making their own games but the ugly truth is that women like the same games men like.
Making a female soldier adds nothing to games like Call of Duty.

So in closing, check your privilege, the only people crying about this shit are a bunch of highbrow ivory tower white feminists men.

 

[DTWolfwood]

The intro and outro gave me a good laugh XD Still funny when peeps don't get its a skit.

Good points. Gj on this one Jim.

 

[PrarieDog_319]

I have listened to this debate for some time now and would like to clarify some facts that have gone amiss by members of my species.

When people say "Men aren't objectified" what they really mean is "men aren't objectified sexually".

Elucidation: Who is more objectified? The wind up soldier, or the wind up ballerina? I posit that men are now, have been, and always will be more objectified than females. We are BIOLOGICALLY PROGRAMMED to not see male pain and suffering even when it is in front of our eyes. With admittedly mounting frustration, I must point out that this is a biological imperative brought about by our own necessary but completely obsolete evolution. Throughout history, egalitarian tribes have always been small and backward, and usually overwhelmed the moment they encounter more traditional ones. Women can make strong backs to fight and build. Men are the strong backs who fight and build. A man will never be able to reproduce, women can. And it doesn't matter how mentally or physically competent either party is. Thus, women have always been given priority in almost every circumstance:

*Who gets to eat
*Who gets to go out to fight hostile tribes
*Who sleeps at the mouth of the cave and who sleeps at the back
*Who gets on the raft and who gets an icy fate on a shipwreck
*Who hunts and who stays at home

Women are expected by society and by themselves to take priority EVERY TIME. Men are expected and forced by society to put themselves in last every time. Social ostracism, jail time, and death (in the case of draft dodgers) if they don't comply. It HAD to be that way. If men didn't go out to hunt, fight, build, and take all the risks nature could throw, then civilization couldn't exist. The fact that women are at all being affected by something as trivial as the clothing of fictional game characters (which is still often more tasteful than real life in some areas downtown) can cause the entire game industry gets into a hot debate over it proves that the human biological response to the suffering and discomfort of women is so intrinsic that we don't realize its even there.

By this time the reader could be forgiven for being incredulous. But I point out that even the very title of this episode is laden with sarcasm: "Objectification And... Men?"

As if such a thing is impossible.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YmYGl0CgrVU/UDIJuBGDxJI/AAAAAAAAALA/ymSW0SXiCms/s1600/1343374285053.jpg

Obviously those soldiers are there not because they're being forced to be under threat of imprisonment and death. Its just a male power fantasy right? All those guns and uniforms are just to make them feel manly right?

Both men and women are objectified. The difference is that MALE OBJECTIFICATION AND SUFFERING IS INVISIBLE. Tell me, during the video, did you even notice the large numbers of people being killed or that they happened to be male? I can almost guarantee the idea that a woman is offended or in distress by the portrayal of another woman is more disturbing than the body count racked up in a less than 10 minute video. Its more disturbing to me deep down and I'm on the other side of the argument! It's just our obsolete biology. The alarms going but there's no fire. There's no barbarians over the hill, there isn't a herd of Mammoths stampeding the village, there isn't an avalanche about to wipe out anyone's family. The women are just fine. Like they've always been.

Who is it that is always exposed to danger? Who is it that is always expected to be killed? Who is it that is always getting shot, stabbed, blown up, tortured, punched, cut to ribbons and blasted to pieces? Yes females being sexualized is prevalent in videogames and could be sending the wrong message, but I argue that spending a few weekends in the clubs here in Miami would make you wonder whether art is following life or vice versa.

So if the sexualization of females is sending the wrong message to girls, what message does the endless parade of males being blown to pieces send to boys? The same message it has always been since the beginning of time: "man up, suck it up, and do your job".

A sarcastic statement: Of course it's that way because men want it that way. It isn't like men have ever been forced to adapt to certain roles imposed on them at gun/spearpoint by those more powerful than them be it nature, or the government. And if it is bad for them, then its obviously their fault and they need to adapt yet again.

Men

http://chrishecker.com/private/codmw2-headshot.jpg

Are

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/fileadmin/historyLearningSite/poison5.jpg

Disposable

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/GoombaStomp_9361.jpg

And they always will be. And if I am going to be objectified, (and I am) I would rather be considered something precious and valuable to be protected and prized rather than something to be used, abused, and thrown away. I understand how serious it is to make a charge of false consciousness, and that arguments like this are won months and years after the fact, but if you read this, do please self-examine to ask whether you really do think of males and females as equal. I leave you with some statistics:

http://rt.com/usa/us-suicides-crisis-cdc-report-761/

"Men were more likely to take their own lives than women. The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000."

*Most workplace deaths are men.
*Most military deaths are men.
*Most police deaths are men.
*Most victims of violent crimes are men (yet under-report incidents and report feeling less afraid of it).
*Most inmates are men.
*Most homeless are men.

Take a step back and realize that women are doing just fine. They live longer and have always been the most comfortable segment of society, including and especially children.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Edit:

I mean, doesn't it make you sad that something like Liliana's female Spy design will never be seen in mainstream games?

I, for one, would play the hell out of that engineer. Hell, I'd roleplay Rosie the fucking Riveter every damn time I booted it up. That's possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Aw gee whiz, thanks! The Engineer is the only one that doesn't still make me cringe from a technical execution standpoint, but that's probably cause it's the most recent one v: The spy, from what I heard, almost DID get in game. At least to the point where someone from Valve requested the files and they were tinkering with whether it would be technically feasible (which unfortunately, it was not, as the game wasn't really designed with such extensive customizations in mind). They've shown a lot of support for that project over the years, so that's definitely encouraging

 

[Elijah Newton]

holy carp, the intro alone, the intro alone was worth showing up for. I'm going to have to both watch it over and over and also burn the vision out of my brain.