Objectification? Sexualization? What do the ladies think?

[Legion]

When playing the beginning of Mass Effect 2 my reaction to Miranda's ass constantly in the camera was something like this:

I still cannot understand at all why they decided to stick those angles in. They don't seem to do it with other characters or games, so to me it felt even more jarring because it was Bioware doing it. Even with Isabela in Dragon Age 2 and her lack of proper clothing, they kept the camera angles reasonable.

Did they have a meeting and decided that cheap fan service was the way to go? Or did focus testers complain about the lack of it?

It's just strange, they are normally better than that.

 

[JazzJack2]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

I think MovieBob had something to say about this. Something to the effective of: "We objectify women because it is a male fantasy, a desired archetype for males, created by males. 'Objectifying' males represents the same issue. Creating hunky, half naked, Conan-the-Barbarian-like studs still caters to a desired archetype of men, expressing any venue of a male fantasy." In otherwords, you can't objectify men in such away.

To claim that sexy female characters pander to men but sexy male characters don't pander to women is nothing but double standards.

Not exactly.

The idea is that sexy female characters are designed to turn men on, whereas muscular/hunky male characters are supposed to be representing the male player. As far as the fantasy goes the man is pretending to be the hunky man, while lusting after the sexy woman.

The logic is that both character designs are meant to cater towards men, but for differing reasons.

But of course following the same logic you could argue that both character designs cater to women, with sexy female characters they can project themselves into and sexy men as eye candy. Your argument that they are both designed to cater to men is just your bias really, you want that to be the case because it supports your pre-conceived beliefs, but logically speaking there is no reason for it to be anymore true than saying they both cater to women.

 

[Pulse]

Since this thread seems fairly reasonable I'll weigh in on this topic just this once, just from my perspective because that's all I have.

"Specific aspects that people, women in particular, find most abrasive?"

It was a long time before I played bayonetta. The "sexy, sexy" protagonist was what put me off for so long, because usually it's only rubbish games that resort to having a oh so sexy female character to draw in the sales.

At the end of the day it was the gameplay that did it and it was brilliant. But the fact is the character didn't get on my nerves either. She was strong, confident, didn't whine, no stupid jiggle physics and her sexuality was flamboyantly silly rather than...seedy (even if some of the unlockable costumes were....).

That's why I'm not getting lollipop chainsaw, the gameplay looks passable but not worth playing as a giggling highschool cheerleader where I get achievements for looking up her skirt. The same probably goes for a game like the new duke nukem, I might've one day got it in a bargain bin as a dumb and fun shooter, but if the developers were so...desperate that they included twins giving oral sex and babe capturing/spanking then no.

However I have to admit it's not a real "moral" stance for me. More just a case of rolling my eyes at how idiotic it is and using it as an indicator that it's probably a rubbish game.

How do these elements effect engagement and involvement?

Not at all for bayonetta, the other two enough for me to avoid completely.

The only real aspect that made me pause for a second in mass effect 2 was when it came to relationships with female crewmembers. IIRC They all boiled down to...
1) Sex
2) complete indifference/dislike

But given every path had to be completely scripted/voice acted it's not exactly a huge issue, just something I noticed. That's pretty much the same as pretty much every hollywood blockbuster anyway.

"What would be some of the aspects that could empower, humanize, engagement?"

Probably not much I can meaningfully say on the empowerment front, since I'm a guy.

In terms of the characters being humanised...bayonetta is an over the top bullet time witch who cooly dispatches planet sized beings...

Tomb raider did it really well with Lara (minor spoiler ahead). Sure, she's pretty, but she was a fleshed out character. As a sidenote I didn't have a problem with the almost rape scene either. Pretty much exactly the same scenario happens in every stranded on island story ever, except here she defends herself and kills the would be rapist. I'm fine with that.

"And lastly, if you wanted some titillation, what could be added, or subtracted, to character, story, design, to add a little 'special' appeal?"

Obviously context, character and character design matters, having a bikini clad girl surrounded by armoured guys is plain stupid and so on...

But an easy aspect to address is...presentation. I can appreciate shots that look like they belong in an action film, not a porn film. When a sexy character appears in an action film you get slow motion, whole body panning etc. It's only in pornos and some comedies that you get close ups of parts jiggling around, upskirts and mass cleavage. Are both sexist? Not my concern, but the latter is tasteless.

However (and this is a point that might catch me a bit of flack) it can "fit" if it's in ridiculous fighting games. The ones where every character is basically a dumb stereotype. The asian blackbelt, indian psychic, fat american, sexy siren, drunk hobo. Sure it's a bit much when every female is oh so sexy, but it's a dumb fighting game, it's all tasteless fun and we all know it. Is it morally right or wrong? I'm not too bothered. Does that mean I support the recent sorceress fiasco? I don't know, but the game looks rubbish anyway.

There are probably areas of this post that are a bit contradictory, but I'm just going to cop out of them by listing context and presentation as the reasons. I didn't come to conclusions from cold hard logic or well thought out arguments. I have no arguments. I have no agenda. We're talking about videogames.

Damn that post was longer than I expected it to be.

 

[Ikasury]

"How do these elements effect engagement and involvement?"

i'm tired of playing 'dudes', i liked Mass Effect cause it gave me the option to be a full-blown woman kicking-ass and taking names, with a voice, personality and everything, and while still primarily 'appealing' wasn't bending over showing cleavage all the time... like Miranda... but for a better example of 'engagement', lets take Dragon's Dogma, where you can make you're character be whatever you want, i've played this game A LOT, and beat it several times, and i can say without a doubt there is just something that bothers me when playing as 'guy', i can't explain it, its like this annoying itch in the back of my brain and i don't have the full D&D-esque feel of 'being' my character... because i'm not a 'dude'...

I'd also like to point you toward Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, if it please you. You can make your character female and kick ass without showing off ass and cleavage all the time. It's also a really, really fun game to play(of course, you can ignore me if you've already played this game).

yea, i played KoA, but its more like D'sD and Elder Scroll type games, where despite the 'freedom' to 'make' your character, they really have about as much personality as a cutout cardboard walking through all the missions, ME's Shepard still had this 'personality' to it, and between playing the male and female Shep, F!Shep always gave this extra bit of 'snark' in my opinion, like she was a real woman in the military, and speaking from experience that just made me laugh... i'll agree, it does get annoying having women in games just be T&A trophies and really only for that purpose, it gives a bad message to the women playing the games honestly, 'Gee, i should just go get in trouble and let some burly guy save me and have happily ever afterz?!' says some idiot impressionable 16yr old... ugh... sad but true, its not a conscious thought that we absorb these things but we do...

 

[Legion]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

I think MovieBob had something to say about this. Something to the effective of: "We objectify women because it is a male fantasy, a desired archetype for males, created by males. 'Objectifying' males represents the same issue. Creating hunky, half naked, Conan-the-Barbarian-like studs still caters to a desired archetype of men, expressing any venue of a male fantasy." In otherwords, you can't objectify men in such away.

To claim that sexy female characters pander to men but sexy male characters don't pander to women is nothing but double standards.

Not exactly.

The idea is that sexy female characters are designed to turn men on, whereas muscular/hunky male characters are supposed to be representing the male player. As far as the fantasy goes the man is pretending to be the hunky man, while lusting after the sexy woman.

The logic is that both character designs are meant to cater towards men, but for differing reasons.

But of course following the same logic you could argue that both character designs cater to women, with sexy female characters they can project themselves into and sexy men as eye candy. Your argument that they are both designed to cater to men is just your bias really, you want that to be the case because it supports your pre-conceived beliefs, but logically speaking there is no reason for it to be any more true than saying they both cater to women.

My bias?

It's not my way of thinking, as I don't see things like that. I was pointing out the argument that people commonly use to go against yours. Personally I see the argument as flawed unless people playing as Lara Croft feel any different than when they play as somebody like Marcus Fenix.

I can only speak for myself, but it makes no difference to me playing as either gender. It's only in games such as the ones Bioware makes where you get to choose "romance" options that I see it any differently. Even then the only difference tends to be which gender the "romance" option is (although normally it's nobody, as they feel so tacked on).

The only thing I'd say against your point would be that most games (well action ones anyway) are catered to sell to guys. Most game developers are guys, most testers are males and almost all advertisements about such games show only guys in them.

The kind of games people refer to with "male power fantasies" and "male sexual fantasies" are not the kind of game with female leads and male support characters. The "handsome man" is the player, and the "sexy woman" is an NPC.

If the fantasies were geared towards women, you'd think that the leads would be female so that the women can project themselves onto the character they are playing as, and "fantasise" about the male character who they are not. I don't think anybody projects themselves onto non-main characters in games, as they have no control over them.

Although to be honest I think it's over-analysing at it's worst, as I sincerely doubt it's the line of thinking used by game developers when they create their games. I imagine they tend to base their games on what they think the audience wants and what sells, rather than trying to make their players feel "empowered" or "titillated".

 

[Gatx]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

I think MovieBob had something to say about this. Something to the effective of: "We objectify women because it is a male fantasy, a desired archetype for males, created by males. 'Objectifying' males represents the same issue. Creating hunky, half naked, Conan-the-Barbarian-like studs still caters to a desired archetype of men, expressing any venue of a male fantasy." In otherwords, you can't objectify men in such away.

To claim that sexy female characters pander to men but sexy male characters don't pander to women is nothing but double standards.

What he's saying isn't that objectified men don't pander to females, it's just that they end up pandering to males. For instance, men can "want" Lara Croft, both women want James Bond, and men want to be James Bond.

What would throw a wrench into the thing is that a lot of the discussion on this stuff is done by only males, and we don't always know the female perspective. There's a kneejerk reaction to sexy characters just because they want games to "grow up," but we've seen with Bayonetta that there can be sexy female characters that are also strong, and appeal to both genders.

 

[Ikasury]

snip

I think this video from GWW named "Benevolent Sexism" is the one that explains why males are considered better for being with lots of females than females to males.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VupEC0cAWo

Ha! i actually watched that whole thing, i loved it personally, the 'sad' thing is i've known that my whole life, but where as i was raised by my mother and most of my family is matriarchal, i've never had a concept of 'men are better then women' because my whole life was watching my mother do all the work, so i grew up not having this 'gender barrier' in my mind, so getting out in the 'real world' it was kind of a slap in the face that everything is catered to guys, i don't care what the feminist says or what they put in, i've NEVER been able to be treated as 'equal' like i was growing up, and it always came back to my being a woman, it would take me going all GI-Jane or Ripley to prove to these dudes i could be just as badass as them... but as soon as i did that, i was stripped of my 'woman' role and that's honestly just as annoying as being considered 'less' AS a woman... why can't the two coincide like with my mother? is what i've always been looking for, and for context of this discussion, that's honestly all i've been looking for in a video game, why can't 'badass' and 'woman' just streamline together? why does if a woman is 'badass' she has to be reduced to a male-proxy and no longer honestly considered a woman? just a dude with tits?

i'll give a few examples of female characters i've felt lived up to this: Aya Brea (love) from Parasite Eve, Rose from Legend of Dragoon, Lulu from Final Fantasy X, Morrigan/Flemeth from Dragon Age, F!Shepard from Mass Effect, heck even Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII even if i didn't particularly like that game... strong female characters exist, but even from my own list only two of them are the Main characters... (Lightning being MC is debatable since its a FF game and more about 'party' then a single person)

there's this weird balance between making a 'Ripley' Ie: Female-badass-MC and the 'Vasquez' Ie: BADASS-male-proxy-female-character-that-usually-dies... and usually from what i've seen they go in with the 'idea' of a Ripley but fall flat on their face with something that's really just T&A... i haven't played Bayonetta but i've heard a lot from both sides saying she's 'super-feminist YAY!' or 'just more fanservice' so i have no context for that game... i don't mind Vasquez characters, in fact i love them, but they're usually there just to put a 'woman' in the roster when they are effectively a male-proxy, without a balance of a 'Ripley' they're usefulness of 'showing we have women' is kind of moot...

now these aren't the ONLY types of 'female characters' out there, and i know this, Lulu and Morrigan DEFINITELY DO NOT fall into either of these categories but i still consider them fully-functional badass female characters, they're the 'mysterious femme fetale' types, but even then as much as i love them why are they always shown as 'evil'? like a woman that's completely fine with the fact she's a WOMAN and knowing the mysteries of the universe are inherently 'evil witches'? *shrugs* there is a charm there for it, independent women = sinister evil, but it does kinda detract from the whole they are powerful AND woman...

and don't get me started on the sterotypical 'damsel' characters, or the kooky space cadet i'm-only-here-cause-i'm-cute chicks... for a good line up, once again Persona 4, we have the Vasquez, Prim-and-proper, Adora-cute, and Naoto Shirogane, whom deserves her own category for simply BEING Naoto Shirogane...


[/quote]
And lo and behold:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/3281-The-Numbers[
/quote]

and i just wanted to laugh at this... because i honestly don't find brown-30-something attractive XD

 

[DioWallachia]

The only thing I'd say against your point would be that most games (well action ones anyway) are catered to sell to guys. Most game developers are guys, most testers are males and almost all advertisements about such games show only guys in them.

Yes, the developers are male..... but so what? back in the day they were ALSO a male dominated and that didn't stop them from making games like this, where every gender has its chance to shine:

Even in the days of Atari it was safe to make female protagonists:

Hell, for a male dominated workplace, they sure as hell threat women much better than their male protagonists. Anyone remembers the American version of Princess Zelda....and their version of Link?
http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index.php/2013/03/10/a-rebuttal-to-anita-sarkeesians-tropes-vs-women-episode-1-damsels-in-distress/
Or do people remember that Ms.Pacman was an AMERICAN CREATED idea?
http://classicgames.about.com/od/arcadegames/p/Ms-Pac-Man-The-Unauthorized-History-Of-Arcades-First-Female-Hero.htm

You see young one, its not male mentality that makes women be objectified, its the need to make MORE money to make the dammed games in the first place, and that makes developers make a deal with the Devil (publishers) and they force them to make games that fit their retarded standard of making money, and therefore: tities.

Why tities? who cares? If it sells, why complain? the movie industry does so may as well do that. Case in point as many people have already PAINFULLY pointed out:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/78281/remember-me-rejected-by-publishers-due-to-female-protagonist

This whole ordeal of publishers pulling non-public "stadistics" out of their asses to justify their paranoia of games not selling if there is a female, is reminiscing of Mass Effect 3 research team on the "people disliking the ending are a minority":
https://twitter.com/CleverNoob/status/304676668998569987

Where do both companies get their information? FUCK IF I KNOW! I can at least show you MY facts on women being 50% of gaming population. Click on the blue link to get a PDF:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

 

[briankoontz]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

It's not "natural" to objectify people. It's a form of aggression caused by emotional and sexual insecurity and has no place in a healthy society.

The idea of "equal opportunity objectification" by encouraging women to objectify men to "even the playing field" is pathetic and degrading.

Objectification is a social crime. The solution is not for women to commit the same crime men do but to stop everyone from doing it.

 

[Ikasury]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

I think MovieBob had something to say about this. Something to the effective of: "We objectify women because it is a male fantasy, a desired archetype for males, created by males. 'Objectifying' males represents the same issue. Creating hunky, half naked, Conan-the-Barbarian-like studs still caters to a desired archetype of men, expressing any venue of a male fantasy." In otherwords, you can't objectify men in such away.

To claim that sexy female characters pander to men but sexy male characters don't pander to women is nothing but double standards.

What he's saying isn't that objectified men don't pander to females, it's just that they end up pandering to males. For instance, men can "want" Lara Croft, both women want James Bond, and men want to be James Bond.

What would throw a wrench into the thing is that a lot of the discussion on this stuff is done by only males, and we don't always know the female perspective. There's a kneejerk reaction to sexy characters just because they want games to "grow up," but we've seen with Bayonetta that there can be sexy female characters that are also strong, and appeal to both genders.

AS A FEMALE PERSPECTIVE!! snark snark...

to be honest, i agree with Gatx, i typically stay away from Laura Croft simply because its 'Laura Croft', some guy-fantasy chick from back in the 90s where she was all the rage cause she had big-pixel-boobs, and not much has changed, though i keep hearing the 'remake' or 'redeux' or whatever the latest game was totally didn't do that and made her 'human' i guess and i should check it out... and everyone keeps bringing up Bayonetta... but notice how 'guys' can only name like 2 female protagonists? and both are pretty much defined as 'sexy'? yea... as girl playing video games, no i never wanted to be Laura Croft, simply because of her 'fans', get the big picture, it never mattered what she 'did' or was capable of, soon as a female MC is considered 'sexy' it doesn't matter how 'deep' she is, she has tits, woo~

as for the James Bond thing, yep, totally... as a woman, no i do not find rugged 30-something dipped in brown sexy... i've actually steered clear of the Uncharted series for this very reason, as he is LITERALLY a female Laura Croft, as in trying to be 'sexy' to woman as she was to men, but because he's a guy he's got to be just as appealing to men so they want to BE him too... course i just kind of sit back and laugh, waiting for Indiana Jones to show up with his bull-whip and have a 'word' with the guy from Uncharted XD since honestly, no one can beat Indiana Jones for top Archiologist... male MCs are designed to make male gamers want to BE them, and they 'hope' female gamers will swoon, yea, not working there bub... but from my perspective that is generally how they feel... plus they always end up wangsty and relatively annoying in my opinion or just 2D, but a girlfriend of mine swears on whatshisname from Gears of War so i may just be a jaded woman... XD

 

[oreso]

I just mostly feel that perhaps we shouldn't merit our sexual organs as our most distinguishing feature. It isn't a particular badge of merit to have a particular kind, and doesn't necessarily give you a special perspective.

Sure enough our sexual organs have influenced a lot of our identities, and sure enough you can draw some very significant biological biases based on them. But they're still just one factor among many.

I'm in favour of diversity in gender roles in our story telling for its own sake. I think it leads to fresher and more different stories. But I don't honestly think it will effect the market demographics all that much (because I think there are some biological biases at work there in the kinds of things that men and women tend to be interested in that mere marketing won't help with) but if it does bring in more people into gaming, then that's cool too.

To OP

Specific aspects that people, women in particular, find most abrasive? Character, design, writing, marketing, etc?

Bland characters. Easily stereotyped ones where their actions are predictable. I know that characters always conform to at least some tropes, and that's fine, but main characters shouldn't conform completely to very simple ones.

Supporting characters might well do though, I guess. We only have so much time and space for fleshing out characters, so stereotypes are good for painting in broad brush-strokes here, but I won't find them interesting personally.

How do these elements effect engagement and involvement?

I don't think they do. I like having a large degree of personal choice, or at least an illusion of it. But aside from that, I don't mind 'getting into' almost any kind of character. I enjoy strange and different ones, even.

And lastly, if you wanted some titillation, what could be added, or subtracted, to character, story, design, to add a little 'special' appeal?

I have a few fairly standard fetishes, so including any of those would probably work?

But more than titillation, we should give romance some respect too. Have sexual relationships, not shying away from nudity and sexual acts, but showing the full side of it too.

In a bright and shining future, I'm imagining a Mass Effect where people don't shower with their underpants on, and you can actually have arguments and disagreements with your partner(s) because they have a life and opinion of their own that doesn't always go along with Shepherd's whims. (but in all fairness, Mass Effect is a great leader here anyway, and I respect that even showing a sexual relationship at all is a big deal)

 

[DioWallachia]

Why can't 'badass' and 'woman' just streamline together? why does if a woman is 'badass' she has to be reduced to a male-proxy and no longer honestly considered a woman? just a dude with tits?

Oh you silly girl, dont you know? Feminists says that women doing manly things is not a "positive trait". Just ask Anita Sarkeesiam in her Master Thesis:

So please, be a proper lady and start screaming in agony for your lack of self control. Would you kindly?

So yeah, Samus is a dude with tits....which i will still hit it.

And Tony Jay too, while we are at it:
At 16:35, the magic begins.

 

[Ikasury]

Why can't 'badass' and 'woman' just streamline together? why does if a woman is 'badass' she has to be reduced to a male-proxy and no longer honestly considered a woman? just a dude with tits?

Oh you silly girl, dont you know? Feminists says that women doing manly things is not a "positive trait". Just ask Anita Sarkeesiam in her Master Thesis:

So yeah, Samus is a dude with tits....which i will still hit it.

*snorts* oh Samus... never played a metroid game, but BOY do i know about her XD i actually kinda like Samus, but seeing as i haven't played the game can't judge her that much... but i did find it funny when someone was like 'OH MY GOD!! SAMUS IS A GIRL!!' and i looked in the manual 'yes, it says it right here...'

pfft... i'll show those 'feminists' a positive trait!! *picks up a hundred pound bag of concrete and chucks it at them* can't be awesome my ass~ i swear, feminist do more damage to female self-esteem then the inlaid sexism... i don't 'mind' a guy being nice and helping me, that's nice, and i do the same back, but when its 'because he has to because you're a stupid woman' that's when i pull out the boxing gloves... personally we should just drop the whole 'who's gender is better' thing and figure out how to be 'nice' period... *sigh*

and can i get a repost of that whatever you were trying to post, i think the thingy ate it

Edit: OKAY, now i see that thing... pfft... there's A LOT i can say about 'that'... honestly i want to scribble all over that thing, its unfair to men and women...

 

[DioWallachia]

i haven't played Bayonetta but i've heard a lot from both sides saying she's 'super-feminist YAY!' or 'just more fanservice' so i have no context for that game... i don't mind Vasquez characters, in fact i love them, but they're usually there just to put a 'woman' in the roster when they are effectively a male-proxy, without a balance of a 'Ripley' they're usefulness of 'showing we have women' is kind of moot...

Here is MovieBob being creepy about why Bayonetta is progressive:

*snorts* oh Samus... never played a metroid game, but BOY do i know about her XD i actually kinda like Samus, but seeing as i haven't played the game can't judge her that much... but i did find it funny when someone was like 'OH MY GOD!! SAMUS IS A GIRL!!' and i looked in the manual 'yes, it says it right here...'

In the original game, even the manual refers to Samus as male. The developers only came to the decision to make her female about midway through the production process, when one of them casually remarked that it would be really funny to get to the end and discover she was a girl all along. Possibly one of the greatest instances of Throw It In in video game history.

The second game's manual, however, uses "she" throughout. A literal case of All There in the Manual, only confirmed by the best ending. (Later games do much the same.)

 

[Gatx]

Why can't 'badass' and 'woman' just streamline together? why does if a woman is 'badass' she has to be reduced to a male-proxy and no longer honestly considered a woman? just a dude with tits?

Oh you silly girl, dont you know? Feminists says that women doing manly things is not a "positive trait".

There's nothing wrong per se with the just having a generic male badass and then making them female method of making "strong female characters," I don't think it's really representative of the gender. And not response to what you said, but the reaction that if a woman DOESN'T act like a badass man then she's a "weak female character" (I think on TV Tropes it's referred to as Real Women Don't Wear Dresses or thereabouts) is something I dislike. The fact of the matter is that women and men are different biologically and have different perspectives and life experiences.

I'm not saying that those characters are bad, but it wasn't too long ago, and maybe even now, when that was the ONLY type of female character that was considered respectable.

-snip-

I actually think Lara Croft is a very good female character, or at least her premise is. She's physically capable, intelligent, and good looking. All the bad press around her is because so much attention was focused on the last thing, but on her own she's a solid character. Also I only bring her up because she's the go to example for this kind of thing - her and the Dead or Alive girls.

As for Bayonetta, she's the only openly very sexual character that has been praised by female critics that I can think of. While I think that there are strong females in Soul Calibur (like Ivy, as has been stated in an earlier post by someone else), and Dead or Alive, Bayonetta is only one who I can definitively point to and say "Look, female characters can be sexy without being offensive to female gamers, and here's actual female gamers who think so."

 

[Vale]

I think male characters aren't nearly attractive enough & wear far too much clothing. Men will never stop objectifying women, so let's make the playing field even.

Kratos is still a male power fantasy through and through.
I'd also argue that he's a bit to carved up and has a skintone too strongly reminiscent of a dead person to be just straight-up "eye candy" for most people.

Also, "hey look guise is sexualized 2 nao shut up" is not an appropriate or practical way of handling the whole "women and gaming" debate.

You know who is an absolutely amazing female character?
Kreia. She's a bit Mary Sue (ok, a lot, just very unattractive), but I'd say it can't really detract from how god damn impressive she is.

 

[Ikasury]

i haven't played Bayonetta but i've heard a lot from both sides saying she's 'super-feminist YAY!' or 'just more fanservice' so i have no context for that game... i don't mind Vasquez characters, in fact i love them, but they're usually there just to put a 'woman' in the roster when they are effectively a male-proxy, without a balance of a 'Ripley' they're usefulness of 'showing we have women' is kind of moot...

Here is MovieBob being creepy about why Bayonetta is progressive:

*snorts* oh Samus... never played a metroid game, but BOY do i know about her XD i actually kinda like Samus, but seeing as i haven't played the game can't judge her that much... but i did find it funny when someone was like 'OH MY GOD!! SAMUS IS A GIRL!!' and i looked in the manual 'yes, it says it right here...'

In the original game, even the manual refers to Samus as male. The developers only came to the decision to make her female about midway through the production process, when one of them casually remarked that it would be really funny to get to the end and discover she was a girl all along. Possibly one of the greatest instances of Throw It In in video game history.

The second game's manual, however, uses "she" throughout. A literal case of All There in the Manual, only confirmed by the best ending. (Later games do much the same.)

lol, MovieBob... though i will have to give credit, she does seem like an interesting character, the only person i knew who played the game was our dapper-old-guy from a class in the Navy, and he raved up and down that the game was great, but primarily for the lead-lady, the 'younger' 'less-refined' guys that caught him playing it, of course, only cared that she pretty much stripped to attack... to be honest i thought that was funny, because while me and Mr. Dapper may have thought more along the lines of MovieBob, from what he was telling me and what this shows me, the other guys were just... stupid... suppose that's just another thing, a lot of people (guys in general i hear from more then say my one female roommate who had a thing for GoW guy) is that they completely miss the point of the 'complexity' of characters like this... though this does make me want to go out and get the game to see what all the fuss is about XD

as for Samus, i think that was a translation thing throughout the game, they were probably refering her in a non-gender-specific way in Japanese, but with English we only really have 'he' and 'she' as saying 'it' is rather rude... but yea, real-life All-There-In-The-Manual indeed XD

but here's the thing, while i agree with MovieBob's thing about EMPOWERING-SEXUALITY-IN-WOMEN-RAWR-HAWT!! i see that a lot, and funnily enough, yea, its USUALLY the 'witch' character, he says 'can't think of another female character like Bayonetta'... i automatically think of Lulu (FFX) and Morrigan (DA:O) but yea, they aren't 'main characters' so sure, but i was also giggling and remembering Rayne from BloodRayne, as in the 'good' one, not the crappy sequel and whatever else XD but even there she was more of sexy-gimicky with massive amounts of Gainaxing and lesbian overtones... *shrugs* i'll just have to buy the game i suppose and test this out, see if we truly do have an awesome female-MC and not just a Female-Dante... honestly i'd probably be good either way XD

 

[LetalisK]

When playing the beginning of Mass Effect 2 my reaction to Miranda's ass constantly in the camera was something like this:

I still cannot understand at all why they decided to stick those angles in. They don't seem to do it with other characters or games, so to me it felt even more jarring because it was Bioware doing it. Even with Isabela in Dragon Age 2 and her lack of proper clothing, they kept the camera angles reasonable.

Did they have a meeting and decided that cheap fan service was the way to go? Or did focus testers complain about the lack of it?

It's just strange, they are normally better than that.

I see this argument a lot and, to me, it seems to get close but not quite there. You point out how Bioware doesn't do this with any of their other characters. Even in the same game, Jack barely had her nipples covered and we get a great shot of Samara's cleavage, but they aren't focused on like Miranda's full body suit is. The fact that this isn't normal Bioware behavior would clue me in that they are trying to tell me something and I've always took it as an intended reinforcement of the narrative that Miranda was genetically engineered to be "perfect" and her choice of attire(completely covering body suit...) is symbolic of her resentment of this "gift", but also her ultimate resignation to its usefulness(...that is skin tight). I think they did go overboard with it and we should yell "We get it! She's the pretty one!", but I think it ultimately served that purpose rather than mere fan service. If they wanted fan service, they should have given Tali a bikini. Talimancers would have loved it. >.>

I could also go into how this and the rest of her character, sexiness and all, are a foil to Jack and all that, but I don't want to bore anyone.

 

[Ikasury]

Why can't 'badass' and 'woman' just streamline together? why does if a woman is 'badass' she has to be reduced to a male-proxy and no longer honestly considered a woman? just a dude with tits?

Oh you silly girl, dont you know? Feminists says that women doing manly things is not a "positive trait".

There's nothing wrong per se with the just having a generic male badass and then making them female method of making "strong female characters," I don't think it's really representative of the gender. And not response to what you said, but the reaction that if a woman DOESN'T act like a badass man then she's a "weak female character" (I think on TV Tropes it's referred to as Real Women Don't Wear Dresses or thereabouts) is something I dislike. The fact of the matter is that women and men are different biologically and have different perspectives and life experiences.

I'm not saying that those characters are bad, but it wasn't too long ago, and maybe even now, when that was the ONLY type of female character that was considered respectable.

-snip-

I actually think Lara Croft is a very good female character, or at least her premise is. She's physically capable, intelligent, and good looking. All the bad press around her is because so much attention was focused on the last thing, but on her own she's a solid character. Also I only bring her up because she's the go to example for this kind of thing - her and the Dead or Alive girls.

As for Bayonetta, she's the only openly very sexual character that has been praised by female critics that I can think of. While I think that there are strong females in Soul Calibur (like Ivy, as has been stated in an earlier post by someone else), and Dead or Alive, Bayonetta is only one who I can definitively point to and say "Look, female characters can be sexy without being offensive to female gamers, and here's actual female gamers who think so."

oh TvTropes, greatest way for me to waste a day... i think i've read that trope too, so yea i know what you're talking about and that IS the inherent flaw for, well, everything... women must be badass, but badass is being 'manly', therefore women who are badass must be 'manly'? is kind of what the logic is, as i said, Vasquez-type characters... i think the inherent problem with designing a strong female character is there are all these vastly different archtypes and its hard to pick them apart sometimes, while with guy-characters its 'dude with gun' or 'dude with sword', they can be insanely 2D but still considered 'BADASS' for no reason really beyond 'dude with phalic-weapon'... snark... while with the female archtypes its... what? Boobs of Steel or the Vasquez? i believe Lara falls into the Boobs of Steel category *snorts* still not quite the 'Ripley' i'm looking for, but i could be wrong, last time i played a LC game was when they came out...

the irony of this all is Tifa, from FF7 (which i will state here i absolutely hated FF7 but played it all the way through anyway) got pretty much the same beef as Lara back in the day, 'oh that's just a chick with big boobs, huh huh' says some stupid guy i know... and pretty much anyone else i knew that played the game loved it for the reason i hated it and hated Tifa cause they figured she was 'flat' and only there for 'boobs'... honestly, aside from RedXII she was my favorite character and it had nothing to do with boobs... Best DeathBlows in the game, super-powerful, actual human interaction and decisions, honestly my only beef with her character was her choice in 'love-interest', but i can't much fault her that, it was a 'game-plot' thing... to me, even as just a party character she was really good as a female character, not a dude with boobs... now Lara, like i said, very little reference, and honestly wasn't into the game-type at the time or now, to me she always came off as a Female-Indiana Jones, which isn't BAD persay, its just the whole 'Female version of a male character' thing... and best known for boobs... i don't think the movies helped all the much with that XD i think this was another reason i laughed at the Uncharted series, they made a 'Male Version of Lara Croft' who was already a gender-expy of an already Awesome! male character? *eyebrow raise* whatshisname is like the grandkid i can see Indy just b*tchslapping and his 'mom' just shaking her head at XD so sure... points for Lara, she has her own expy XD

i can't take Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive seriously, AT ALL, and its not because of the flippant Gainaxing *snorts* but because its a fighting game, and as much as i love Chun Li and Scorpion, i could never put much depth into a 'fighting' game XD and i'll still have to go look into Beyonetta, i think i might find quite a bit in common with her *snorts* but as of now, my female-hero standard is filled by Aya Brea, who didn't 'have' to be sexy to be awesome, she just kind of was... even if the last game had lots of fanservice, but i can't debate that without LOTS of spoilers XD