Poll: Which is Worse (for Female Characters): Appearance or Actions/Behaviour/Role?

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Now I said appearance, but I was thinking of those RPG outfits where they are barely in nothing and flaunting it. I've never been a fan of that. But if it's for a specific purpose, like Kill la kill that's been mentioned, than I can understand.

 

[lucky_sharm]

I think actions matter more than appearance, but if its a character who's useless in addition to being pure eyecandy, something like that just rubs salt into the wound.

However, I'm more of the opinion that female character should be cute, attractive, and endearing by their personality alone as opposed to running around with barely any clothes at all. For instance...

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

I feel like you could depict a smart, cautious, strong woman without making her look like an oversexualised, woefully underdressed child. Going from appearances, the story shes depicted is probably very dire and serious, and having someone like her engage in life or death struggles armoring herself in...that... would take me out of the story pretty quickly.

 

[feeback06]

Actions speak louder than words, I'm going to say appearances too.

 

[Uhura]

I think it's pointless to try to separate these two aspects of characterization. Visual design is part of character creation, which is why we have costume designers and makeup artists working in every single TV-show and movie. The LOTR wouldn't have the same impact if the hobbits were wearing jeans and Adidas sneakers. The Game of Thrones wouldn't be the same if every woman in the show was styled after Paris Hilton. What characters wear and how they style themselves has a huge impact on the way we see those characters and people who work in entertainment business clearly know it. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending money/time on costumes and makeup.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I think it's pointless to try to separate these two aspects of characterization. Visual design is part of character creation, which is why we have costume designers and makeup artists working in every single TV-show and movie. The LOTR wouldn't have the same impact if the hobbits were wearing jeans and Adidas sneakers. The Game of Thrones wouldn't be the same if every woman in the show was styled after Paris Hilton. What characters wear and how they style themselves has a huge impact on the way we see those characters and people who work in entertainment business clearly know it. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending money/time on costumes and makeup.

Thank you so much for saying what I was thinking but didn't feel like typing. I may be a little biased, given my field of work (and I'm leaning much farther toward the character side than props these days). But character design is such an integral part of a character's overall believability, for me it can totally make or break it.

When a character is written one way and the visual design doesn't support that, it's so jarring to me that all I can think is how there were at least two different people involved, and 0% communication or collaboration between them. There is nothing good about that.

 

[nariette]

All though I feel that it's unfair that a lot of the time female gamers are expected to put up with the majority of females going around in next to nothing and to stop bitching about it, when if the genders were reversed and the majority of video games we're like Free! with lots of female fan service then you would hear my fellow male gamers complain all the time about near naked men.

Thank you. Amen to that. There is nothing wrong with attractive people in games nor with some extent to sexualization, but anime like free! is nothing compared to other things out there that are sexualizing women. I don't mind women showing skin that much. However, there is a huge difference between Lara Croft and the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown when it comes to sexualization in my opinion.

Then again, I think we should rather work on actions and personalities rather than appearances. Most people realize that women usually don't go outside wearing a belt for a skirt and one for a top. However, stereotypes concerning personalities are a lot more prevalent and people don't seem to see that the way some characters act is not the way real women would act.

There are games that show us that women who are more "conservatively" dressed can still be wellwritten and attractive. For example in "the last of us", Tess is a strong, attractive woman and she doesn't need to wear a bikini to show this. The amount of games that are likes this is still quite small (giving examples of games with female rolemodels is great, but you really can't say that this means that sexualization of women isn't a problem) in comparison to games with male rolemodels, but we should rather encourage and speak well of good games than to condemn bad games.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I think actions matter more than appearance, but if its a character who's useless in addition to being pure eyecandy, something like that just rubs salt into the wound.

However, I'm more of the opinion that female character should be cute, attractive, and endearing by their personality alone as opposed to running around with barely any clothes at all. For instance...

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

I feel like you could depict a smart, cautious, strong woman without making her look like an oversexualised, woefully underdressed child. Going from appearances, the story shes depicted is probably very dire and serious, and having someone like her engage in life or death struggles armoring herself in...that... would take me out of the story pretty quickly.

Interestingly enough you "Think" actions matter more than appearances, but in practice you still primarily judge characters based on their looks.

I'm really glad I picked Fyuria as my example to defend because that choice is revealing a lot of hypocrisy in this thread.

 

[lucky_sharm]

I think actions matter more than appearance, but if its a character who's useless in addition to being pure eyecandy, something like that just rubs salt into the wound.

However, I'm more of the opinion that female character should be cute, attractive, and endearing by their personality alone as opposed to running around with barely any clothes at all. For instance...

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

I feel like you could depict a smart, cautious, strong woman without making her look like an oversexualised, woefully underdressed child. Going from appearances, the story shes depicted is probably very dire and serious, and having someone like her engage in life or death struggles armoring herself in...that... would take me out of the story pretty quickly.

Interestingly enough you "Think" actions matter more than appearances, but in practice you still primarily judge characters based on their looks.

I'm really glad I picked Fyuria as my example to defend because that choice is revealing a lot of hypocrisy in this thread.

Why are you so defensive? As others have stated, while one should take priority over the other, both appearance and actions are important when creating a character, as appearances can also serve as aid in establishing a character such as shedding some unspoken backstory. For instance, maybe a character who dresses in a certain way exclusive to some other culture, hinting towards that character's foreign background. Or like Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed 4, who mainly dons a modified outfit from someone he killed for his own gain. Or a soldier with several scars on his body and face, indicating a very harsh, brutal life.

While actions are important, clothing and character design can serve an important role in creating a character.

 

[generals3]

So Escapist community; which is truly the worst thing that can happen to a female character: Dressing skimpily or acting without agency or sense?

I'm gonna go for the big cliché answer. It depends. Sometimes the clothes can be so out of touch with the general feel of the environment/game that it can be truly bugging but than on the other hand for less extreme cases i would go for the "action" part.

But i'm kind of annoyed at the fact we're blatantly overlooking the fact this can happen to male characters too :|

 

[Coakle]

I think actions matter more than appearance, but if its a character who's useless in addition to being pure eyecandy, something like that just rubs salt into the wound.

However, I'm more of the opinion that female character should be cute, attractive, and endearing by their personality alone as opposed to running around with barely any clothes at all. For instance...

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

I feel like you could depict a smart, cautious, strong woman without making her look like an oversexualised, woefully underdressed child. Going from appearances, the story shes depicted is probably very dire and serious, and having someone like her engage in life or death struggles armoring herself in...that... would take me out of the story pretty quickly.

Interestingly enough you "Think" actions matter more than appearances, but in practice you still primarily judge characters based on their looks.

I'm really glad I picked Fyuria as my example to defend because that choice is revealing a lot of hypocrisy in this thread.

Hahaha. I still can't believe you brought up Fyuria.

Oh man. For the record, I never gave the romance angle a fair shot when I played Generations. I enjoyed the humor from the characters and situations, so I didn't want to take any of it too seriously. It was too fun not to play it tongue-in-cheek.

I do appreciate that you went there. Some people on this thread seem to judge a character based on whether or not it panders to them specifically. I understand if a certain personality or look isn't in your strike zone, personal tastes and all that. I dislike the "Innocent Guy" type, but it would be unfair to declare that a character is bad because they fall into that category. I may not personally like it, but I can still recognize the times when it is done right. If that makes sense.

It's not as simple at that though. Sometimes, in order to pander to certain people, the quality of a character has to be tanked by necessity. Y'know, those shows where girls are treated like pets. A character "done right" in this instance would have to be a poorly written, it would stop pandering to that group if the girl became well-written.

TLDR: A character shouldn't be declared good because it panders to the right audience. There's better criteria out there.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Hahaha. I still can't believe you brought up Fyuria.

Oh man. For the record, I never gave the romance angle a fair shot when I played Generations. I enjoyed the humor from the characters and situations, so I didn't want to take any of it too seriously. It was too fun not to play it tongue-in-cheek.

I do appreciate that you went there. Some people on this thread seem to judge a character based on whether or not it panders to them specifically. I understand if a certain personality or look isn't in your strike zone, personal tastes and all that. I dislike the "Innocent Guy" type, but it would be unfair to declare that a character is bad because they fall into that category. I may not personally like it, but I can still recognize the times when it is done right. If that makes sense.

It's not as simple at that though. Sometimes, in order to pander to certain people, the quality of a character has to be tanked by necessity. Y'know, those shows where girls are treated like pets. A character "done right" in this instance would have to be a poorly written, it would stop pandering to that group if the girl became well-written.

TLDR: A character shouldn't be declared good because it panders to the right audience. There's better criteria out there.

I don't like to think there are concretely "Good" character traits so much.
There are certainly "Roll model" traits, but that doesn't automatically make a character good.

An example would be like Catherine from Catherine, she's well written, but she's no role model. Some might even call her a sexist stereotype but she's exactly what she has to be. The story would be lesser if it wasn't for her.
I don't think it has so much to do with pandering as much as filling a role

 

[Mikeyfell]

I think actions matter more than appearance, but if its a character who's useless in addition to being pure eyecandy, something like that just rubs salt into the wound.

However, I'm more of the opinion that female character should be cute, attractive, and endearing by their personality alone as opposed to running around with barely any clothes at all. For instance...

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

I feel like you could depict a smart, cautious, strong woman without making her look like an oversexualised, woefully underdressed child. Going from appearances, the story shes depicted is probably very dire and serious, and having someone like her engage in life or death struggles armoring herself in...that... would take me out of the story pretty quickly.

Interestingly enough you "Think" actions matter more than appearances, but in practice you still primarily judge characters based on their looks.

I'm really glad I picked Fyuria as my example to defend because that choice is revealing a lot of hypocrisy in this thread.

Why are you so defensive? As others have stated, while one should take priority over the other, both appearance and actions are important when creating a character, as appearances can also serve as aid in establishing a character such as shedding some unspoken backstory. For instance, maybe a character who dresses in a certain way exclusive to some other culture, hinting towards that character's foreign background. Or like Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed 4, who mainly dons a modified outfit from someone he killed for his own gain. Or a soldier with several scars on his body and face, indicating a very harsh, brutal life.

While actions are important, clothing and character design can serve an important role in creating a character.

I don't mean to come off as defensive. It's just that a lot of posts in this thread are along the lines of "Personality is the most important thing, as long as they don't look like a sex object" Which is burring the lead.

If you can't (Or fine it hard to) look past the way a character looks you can say it, it's okay. (Especially in this thread where the point is to find out what the consensus on the topic is)


A character who acts like a nun but dresses like a slut would be a weird dissonance but it wouldn't color how I feel about the character.
And I'm beginning to think I'm in the minority despite what the poll says

 

[RA92]

But if I meet a smart, cautious, sympathetic strong woman like

Spoiler: Fyuria

I'm not going to be like "Oh, she's wearing a belt around her tits instead of a shirt, fuck her."

That's a woman?

 

[Coakle]

TLDR: A character shouldn't be declared good because it panders to the right audience. There's better criteria out there.

I don't like to think there are concretely "Good" character traits so much.
There are certainly "Roll model" traits, but that doesn't automatically make a character good.

An example would be like Catherine from Catherine, she's well written, but she's no role model. Some might even call her a sexist stereotype but she's exactly what she has to be. The story would be lesser if it wasn't for her.
I don't think it has so much to do with pandering as much as filling a role

Oops. By "Good" I meant in a fleshed out or well-written sense. Yeah, role models are a different bag entirely.

Off Topic - Just a bit
I agree that Catherine's exactly what she has to be, but I felt her role demanded a two-dimensional character. She needed to be more a symbol than a person. It allowed her character to mesh well with the themes. It's interesting, since a fully fleshed out, complex Catherine would have muddled the narrative. She played her role perfectly and fulfilled my expectations, but she's still a kinda, mediocre character. Just to be clear, I don't mean that as a slight.

I played "Catherine" because I was drawn in by the mystery and Vincent's hesitant approach to navigating his relationships. Keeping Catherine's role as Vincent's "Dream Girl" pandered to me because it kept focus on the Vincent. People who expected the focus to be on Catherine where not the target audience, so the game didn't indulge that desire. Nothing can please everyone.

 

[JimB]

The answer is, "Neither, because they're just fucking games and we need to get the fuck over it."

You may, of course, get over anything you want to get over, Doublegee, but I will thank you not to dictate my priorities as if they're your own.

Shitty characters of both sexes exist, so shitty female characters are going to show up often.

Characters of both sexes with ridiculous outfits exist, so female characters with ridiculous outfits are going to show up often.

This is not sexism.

You ever hear the saying that all chihuahuas are dogs, but not all dogs are chihuahuas? You seem to be arguing that there is no such thing as a chihuahua, only dogs, and I don't know why. What do you think sexism is, Doublegee? And once you've defined it, what is your basis for saying it doesn't exist in characters in fiction?