verdant monkai said:
So people are whining on about how women are overtly sexualized in games 'n' stuff. In my experience the people moaning are feminists, those who are trying too hard to be politically correct or someone who has a chip on their shoulder and fancies an argument. (I see the irony btw)
Friends are men not overtly sexualized in games n films also? Women are considered sexualized if they have large breasts. But men are not considered sexualized if they have large muscles! they should be! women find muscles on men sexy, Just like men find boobs on women sexy.
Lets look at it like this. Here is a list of male characters, if they are are sexualized they get a yes, if they are not they get a no.
Ryu (street fighter): Yes
Kratos (god of war): Yes
Marcus Fenix (gears of war): Yes (he is a muscled guy)
James Sunderland (silent hill 2): no
Commander Shepard (Mass effect): Yes
Snake (metal gear): Yes
Mario (seriously?): No
Hawke (Dragon age 2) Yes
Tidus (FF X): Yes
Master Chief (Halo): Yes (...Fuck off I find him sexy and I will bet you any amount of money he is well muscled underneath that armour)
Ok yes I did choose those Characters but you see what I mean, most male video game characters are muscled and that means they are 'sexualized'. There are some less toned male game characters but they are mostly well built.
Then there is what women wear in games, I have never had a problem with this. In fact I nearly always find myself saying "I wish this asshole would find a shirt and the girl he is talking to would take off hers" (I am a classy fellow). Men are equally guilty of skimpy clothing, take for example Conan the Barbarian this lad runs around in only his furry pants and boots. Many sets of male armour do this in games, typically the barbarian style stuff. If you want to replicate this, go into almost any rpg and un-equip everything but your boots, unless you are playing a particularly good rpg you will be wearing brown pants and boots.
Attractiveness however is something to consider, if the main character is a girl 9 times out of ten she will be hot. This in my mind is the only issue for consideration here. Consider this "would Max Payne be taken seriously if the protagonist was a middle aged greying woman?" no of course it wouldn't, no one would play it. You can jokely say "dunno flying through the air as a 43 year old mother, with two guns would be funny" yeah it would for about 3 seconds then the novelty would be gone, so fuck off you would not really spend £40/$60 on it.
Men can get away with being grim Women cannot, sad but true. I will hold up my hand and say I would not be overtly excited to be paying as an ugly woman, but I would not think deeply about being an ugly guy. We will get a few 'White knights' saying "oh well I wouldn't even think twice about playing as an ugly woman" they are liars they may not be bothered but they would at least see it was breaking the mould.
I think it is like this. Gamings target audience is males 10-30 and they will find it harder to relate to female characters than male ones in the first place. However if said female character is aesthetically pleasing, said audience will find them more appealing.
So all we need is a game where we play as an ugly/ average woman. Like silent hill 3 the main character Heather is average looking. There so that is a good example of an average game woman. However this is not the main issue and there are ugly women in games but they generally don't take centre stage (thankfully).
With regards to sexualized characters I think they are a good thing, if you fancy staring at normal run of the mill people fuck off down the local super market, don't try and muscle them in on games which as a rule should not usually be realistic but a form of escapism from the norm.
So basically men are sexualized just as much as women are, and if you dont like it Conan and his hairy pants want a word with you.
(Edited bit) I probably should have mentioned this before but I think there is a point where ssexualisation becomes a bad thing, and a stupid thing, and worst of all a selling point. Women with massive titties are unrealistic and get in the way of immersion. That is to say large breasts are fine but they can be too large if you catch my drift.
Firstly, I'm not a feminist, just so's you know.
Men are not sexualised in the same way as women. You mentioned Solid Snake and this is a good example. Snake is a sexualised game character, the camera focuses on his ass more than his face in most games, he ends up naked or stripped to the waist, he wears a skin tight suit that shows every bulge and flex of his muscles. He has overtly flirtatious comments with most he meets and his enemies are all built around primary Freudian and Jungian archetypes. This is not the same for Marcus Fenix, whose armour more resembles and car and covers his body. He doesn't flirt, and the camera does not lingeringly caress his well muscled torso. One is sexualisation, the other is not. Just because he is well built is not automatically sxexualising. It might still be fantasy and an unobtainable goal for men, but it's not sexualisation.
Your barbarian clothing argument. Let's take Fallout 3. Even the Barbarian women in those games wear less than the Barbarian men when wearing exactly the same type of armour. The men in Raider armour get a steel breastplate to the waist, a shoulder strap and a sleeve, and their legs are covered to the knee. The women get a steel brassiere, a shoulder strap and a mini skirt. This armour is not equal. Sure a man in raider armour is wearing less than a man in power armour, but the women are wearing even less than them. As for suggesting that the character strip off. So in order to not play a woman with a chainmail thong up her ass I have to make do with no armour protection at all? Whereas a man will stride around in his chainmail and steel breastplate perfectly happily. Sexualisation.
Women can be grim and gritty. I will say no more on this. It should be obvious and if it isn't then you won't realise it by any explanation I make.
42% of gamers are women. It is long past the point where you can say that 'the key demographic' is males 10-30 because it isn't. Also, there is a massive difference between a male aged 14 and a male aged 29. When I was younger yes, I had a tendency to think that the overtly-sexualised female characters were great. Now I'm 22 I get bored with seeing massive breasts in the place of sensible armour, and that's less than five years of difference. By the time I'm 30 I'll probably want to play a game with accountants or something. My point is that the demographic argument is now completely invalid. Women play games almost as much as men, and the only men who would genuinely like the sort of sexualisation present in characters like Ivy from Soul Caliber are either teenagers or man-children.
The best comparison should be made to comic books. There the men are just as perfectly proportioned, and in some cases even are sexualised a little (Namor and his little trunks want a word as well) but the overwhelming majority of the female characters are in leotards and swim wear.
Long story short, yes, games are not realistic and men are portrayed as being just as perfect as women. However, sexualisation lies in the little details. The close ups on breasts and buttocks, glistening wet costumes in slow motion when characters climb out of the water, a flirtatious and possibly homoerotic nature with everyone you meet. One or two characters receiving the same level of sexualisation on the other side does not make them equal. I can think of perhaps three male characters who receive as much overt sexualisation as almost every single female character, and that means that men and women are not portrayed equally.
Obviously futuristic settings are a bit better at including women Other M aside.