Skullgirls Dev Dismisses Cries of Sexism

[ReinWeisserRitter]

He's lying his ass off, or is outright delusional; the point of the cast is sexism, or they wouldn't be walking fetish stations. And it's done for the same reason as Arcana Heart or Vanguard Princess did it; to get extra attention from the people who dig such things. And of course they're "strong, powerful women"; it's a fucking fighting game, you twit.

The sexism is justifiable in its own way, if sad and a show of a developer with little confidence in his product as an actual game, but claiming that's not your aim is plain pathetic.

As for the lead designer being female, women aren't immune to exploiting their image for money any more than men are; that claim is even more inane than the original one. That's like saying a brothel isn't sexist because it's owned by a woman.

"Walking fetish stations" just proved that you haven't even looked at the characters who are in the game.

And how about this: You start making your own game. (This isn't a "Why don't you make a better game" argument) You fill it with ugly female characters who wear unattractive clothing. See how well it sells.

That argument has almost nothing to do with what I said, and it certainly doesn't disprove my claim that the game is sexist. The implication that female characters can't be seen as attractive unless they're dressed provocatively and their breasts are bouncing around is pretty... well, inane, besides. While this isn't the best genre to make an example (especially given that the example I'm about to make shares a series with Mai Shiranui, arguably the most sexualized female fighting game character ever), attempts [http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/kof11-king.jpg] to sexualize her a bit more have irritated fans more than anything.

Referring back to Skull Girls, I even said the reason it's sexist is so it'll sell better. I didn't fault it for that, necessarily; the point was that it's still sexist, and to claim otherwise is silly.

As for the characters being walking fetish stations, I can give you now [http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4669/filiavpeacockpostcard01.jpg] with only a brief search of why they generally are (school girls/voyeurism, skin-tight clothes/leather/legs/older women, and furry/guro, respectively), so seriously, don't even go there.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

Arcana Heart is pretty sexist too, though. And given that it comes from Japan (one of the most sexist industrialized nations), that's not exactly surprising, which isn't to say everything that comes from there is.

Anyway, you're missing the point; no one is saying that an all female cast is sexist. No one with at least half a brain, anyway. The issue people are taking is with how they're portrayed.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

Arcana Heart is pretty sexist too, though. And given that it comes from Japan (one of the most sexist industrialized nations), that's not exactly surprising, which isn't to say everything that comes from there is.

Anyway, you're missing the point; no one is saying that an all female cast is sexist. No one with at least half a brain, anyway. The issue people are taking is with how they're portrayed.

Sorry i misinterpreted. While depiction is something you should be conscious of, i remind you that fighting games aren't exactly deep and shallow characters in a fighting game isn't exactly a remarkable development. I say go ahead and celebrate deep characters but to not go out of your way to call sexism on every negative depiction unless it reflects genuine hatred. If you call people out on every stupid act you witness, you'd go mad within a month.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

Arcana Heart is pretty sexist too, though. And given that it comes from Japan (one of the most sexist industrialized nations), that's not exactly surprising, which isn't to say everything that comes from there is.

Anyway, you're missing the point; no one is saying that an all female cast is sexist. No one with at least half a brain, anyway. The issue people are taking is with how they're portrayed.

Sorry i misinterpreted. While depiction is something you should be conscious of, i remind you that fighting games aren't exactly deep and shallow characters in a fighting game isn't exactly a remarkable development. I say go ahead and celebrate deep characters but to not go out of your way to call sexism on every negative depiction unless it reflects genuine hatred. If you call people out on every stupid act you witness, you'd go mad within a month.

Sexism isn't necessarily about hatred; those are usually referred to as misogyny (toward women) and misandry (toward men). More often, it refers to unreasonable/unwarranted portrayal or bias toward a given gender or expecting certain things from certain genders. Incidentally, a lot of men are sexist toward their own gender while they're being sexist toward the other.

That said, everyone's sexist in some ways, and most of the time, it's harmless. This game's portrayal is mostly harmless, outside of it implying (but not necessarily believing) that women aren't compelling or marketable characters unless sexualized. You could argue that male characters are sexualized just as often, but it's probably unintentional most of the time (which in turn just makes it amusing), and the intent is important on a subject like this.

And for better or worse, I've already gone mad, more than likely for the very reason you have indicated; cynicism is a double-edged sword.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

Arcana Heart is pretty sexist too, though. And given that it comes from Japan (one of the most sexist industrialized nations), that's not exactly surprising, which isn't to say everything that comes from there is.

Anyway, you're missing the point; no one is saying that an all female cast is sexist. No one with at least half a brain, anyway. The issue people are taking is with how they're portrayed.

Sorry i misinterpreted. While depiction is something you should be conscious of, i remind you that fighting games aren't exactly deep and shallow characters in a fighting game isn't exactly a remarkable development. I say go ahead and celebrate deep characters but to not go out of your way to call sexism on every negative depiction unless it reflects genuine hatred. If you call people out on every stupid act you witness, you'd go mad within a month.

Sexism isn't necessarily about hatred; those are usually referred to as misogyny (toward women) and misandry (toward men). More often, it refers to unreasonable/unwarranted portrayal or bias toward a given gender or expecting certain things from certain genders. Incidentally, a lot of men are sexist toward their own gender while they're being sexist toward the other.

That said, everyone's sexist in some ways, and most of the time, it's harmless. This game's portrayal is mostly harmless, outside of it implying (but not necessarily believing) that women aren't compelling or marketable characters unless sexualized. You could argue that male characters are sexualized just as often, but it's probably unintentional most of the time (which in turn just makes it amusing), and the intent is important on a subject like this.

And for better or worse, I've already gone mad, more than likely for the very reason you have indicated; cynicism is a double-edged sword.

Trust me, i agree with you on all aspects, i just make a slightly lesser deal of it because i kind of expect it these days. At least we have a wider variety of stereotypes to exploit is all i can say. It still sucks, but things improved marginally and leave us open to the possibility that things may be close to tolerable before we wipe ourselves out with stupid decisions. Just remember, finding comedy can salvage sanity to some degree.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Uh, what? Sexist because of an call female roster? I all bullshit. Did anyone call sexism on games with all male rosters? Why yes they did. Why? Because it negatively depicted males? No, because it had no females!

While feminism is still a necessary movement, it's safe to state that a lot of it is hypocrisy and worth ignoring. Besides, it's not like this is the first all female anime themed fighting game. Or am i the only one that remembers Arcana Heart?

Arcana Heart is pretty sexist too, though. And given that it comes from Japan (one of the most sexist industrialized nations), that's not exactly surprising, which isn't to say everything that comes from there is.

Anyway, you're missing the point; no one is saying that an all female cast is sexist. No one with at least half a brain, anyway. The issue people are taking is with how they're portrayed.

Sorry i misinterpreted. While depiction is something you should be conscious of, i remind you that fighting games aren't exactly deep and shallow characters in a fighting game isn't exactly a remarkable development. I say go ahead and celebrate deep characters but to not go out of your way to call sexism on every negative depiction unless it reflects genuine hatred. If you call people out on every stupid act you witness, you'd go mad within a month.

Sexism isn't necessarily about hatred; those are usually referred to as misogyny (toward women) and misandry (toward men). More often, it refers to unreasonable/unwarranted portrayal or bias toward a given gender or expecting certain things from certain genders. Incidentally, a lot of men are sexist toward their own gender while they're being sexist toward the other.

That said, everyone's sexist in some ways, and most of the time, it's harmless. This game's portrayal is mostly harmless, outside of it implying (but not necessarily believing) that women aren't compelling or marketable characters unless sexualized. You could argue that male characters are sexualized just as often, but it's probably unintentional most of the time (which in turn just makes it amusing), and the intent is important on a subject like this.

And for better or worse, I've already gone mad, more than likely for the very reason you have indicated; cynicism is a double-edged sword.

Trust me, i agree with you on all aspects, i just make a slightly lesser deal of it because i kind of expect it these days. At least we have a wider variety of stereotypes to exploit is all i can say. It still sucks, but things improved marginally and leave us open to the possibility that things may be close to tolerable before we wipe ourselves out with stupid decisions. Just remember, finding comedy can salvage sanity to some degree.

Oh, my sense of humor is definitely in tact. It's a little finicky, but the only thing keeping me from frothing at the mouth while yelling at passers-by from the roof of my apartment until they cart me away to the looney bin is my ability to laugh.

Besides, I believe that cynics are just optimists that are used to disappointment; I still have hope for us as a whole. I just don't expect us to deliver on it.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

You know that there's quite a bit of middle ground between ultra-sexy and ugly, right?

You got me thinking. So I tried to remember middle ground characters.

Very tough, because I don't think there is a ground where a woman is completely not ugly and not atractive at the same time.

image snip

Such a nice collection, it made me feel like contributing!


Here we go:

Baiken has a beautiful body and a relatively revealing kimono, at the same time she lacks an arm and an eye, so she has a middle ground of being attractive while residing in the uncanny valley at the same time.

Amaterasu from Okami I think fits this very well, she's only a wolf in the game so we don't ever see her as a goddess but at the same time she's praised as this unbelievable entity, you sorta kinda imagine she will be pretty, but she also may end up being just an odd being somewhat like the above image, or something not human-like at all. You do entertain she'll be pretty and sexy like the tree sprite or the sea dragon princess but you're not really sure about it.

Then we have the easiest one of them all, Yuna. She's obviously very attractive but her demeanor and outfit are nothing someone would consider sexy.


We seem to run into a lot of kimono-inspired looks here, since in Japanese stuff cuteness is often superior to obvious sex-appeal in the style of a stripper. Having a more fetishistic than primal character about it.

Finally, we have Aigis, she's clearly not human but in her long blue dress or school outfit she looks perfectly normal, she was even built with breast-like bulges for some odd reason, so she looks quite beautiful when we don't see her robotic joints and gun fingertips. Unlike the rest of the characters, she doesn't even understand sexuality throughout most of her life, so she's even less sexy due to that fact alone, though during her social link and especially at the final event of her social link tree we do indeed have quite a bit of intense sexual feelings conveyed, which is what pushes her into the middle ground.

Yep, that's right, Aigis is sexy BESIDES her body, how many female characters in any medium, ever, can boast such a high accolade?

 

[Grahav]

You know that there's quite a bit of middle ground between ultra-sexy and ugly, right?

You got me thinking. So I tried to remember middle ground characters.

Very tough, because I don't think there is a ground where a woman is completely not ugly and not atractive at the same time.

image snip

Such a nice collection, it made me feel like contributing!


Here we go:

Baiken has a beautiful body and a relatively revealing kimono, at the same time she lacks an arm and an eye, so she has a middle ground of being attractive while residing in the uncanny valley at the same time.

*snip*

I had thought about Baiken also. She is one of my faves, I love her design and plot, but I guessed that the revealing kimono would kill my argument since it leaves a lot of implied fanservice of her.

She is very relevant to me in this subject, because she can be either used as fanservice:

Or as something else (much more interesting to me):

Spoiler

 

[Lilani]

What I want to know is how many of these people crying sexist are actually women who are offended, or just guys who feel some misplaced drive to defend the honor of women in games.

If the first, then get over yourselves. As a woman myself I see absolutely nothing sexist about this. Sexism is the belief that one sex is inferior to another. Nothing about these women is portrayed as inferior. Hell, they're gladiators. 20 years ago the only games like this had nearly all male rosters--males who were covered in rippling muscles, and often shirtless wearing nothing but either pants or a loincloth. So until these girls start bowing in submission to their male overlord and offer their bodies for his free use, let's save the cries of sexism for actual problems in the real world.

If the second, then do us women a REAL favor and shut the fuck up. You aren't helping anyone. You're only making sexism an issue where it's not, which lowers the significance of the word in general. If you for some reason are having trouble discerning issues from non-issues, then perhaps you had better just keep your mouth shut and study the issue for a while. First learn what real issues are before you start making boogeymen for the sake of proving how un-sexist you are.

 

[Jennacide]

ITT: Men pretending that women need to be protected from games like Skullgirls, while owning copies of DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball.

I'm totally buying Skullgirls. It's not sexist, if anything it's empowering. You can't cry foul on this game without whining about Chun-li, Cammy, Juri, Sakura, etc.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I had thought about Baiken also. She is one of my faves, I love her design and plot, but I guessed that the revealing kimono would kill my argument since it leaves a lot of implied fanservice of her.

She is very relevant to me in this subject, because she can be either used as fanservice:

I think simply explaining a few things like I did would settle it quite easily. GG has a lot of things that look not like what they are after all. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I had thought about Baiken also. She is one of my faves, I love her design and plot, but I guessed that the revealing kimono would kill my argument since it leaves a lot of implied fanservice of her.

She is very relevant to me in this subject, because she can be either used as fanservice:

I think simply explaining a few things like I did would settle it quite easily. GG has a lot of things that look not like what they are after all. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to.

Bridget: sexually confusing more adolescent boys than Poison.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I had thought about Baiken also. She is one of my faves, I love her design and plot, but I guessed that the revealing kimono would kill my argument since it leaves a lot of implied fanservice of her.

She is very relevant to me in this subject, because she can be either used as fanservice:

I think simply explaining a few things like I did would settle it quite easily. GG has a lot of things that look not like what they are after all. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to.

Bridget: sexually confusing more adolescent boys than Poison.

Nah, there's no confusion, if you're not gay for Bridget you're gay. Simple really.


People will just recoil on the idea but once they realize that we're attracted to female traits and not actual female-ness and that Bridget is the most feminine char in the game after I-No they won't be confused any more.

 

[ExileNZ]

Honestly, I don't remember anyone making this big a fuss over Rumble Roses, or even Dead or Alive for that matter.

DOA just gets laughed at, like chainmail bikinis. Far as I can tell, Rumble Roses just gets ignored. It's like DOA but without even pretending not to pander to base urges (my favourite part of DOA was Ryu, for example, and the tie-ins with Ninja Gaiden).

And seriously? And anime-styled game with scantily-clad chicks and panty shots?
Have people not heard of, say, the entire anime industry?

 

[Galletea]

So this game is sexist because it's full of scantily clad strong women? Does that mean that the other fighting games are not sexist because they usually only have a couple of scantily clad women with impossible physiques among the well covered men?

And what the hell is the deal with the whole guilty gear thing? There are more confusing backstories in there than anything I have ever seen.

 

[felixader]

Well Soul Calibur was overdoing so much that ut repelled me from buying the last additions of the series.

 

[Grahav]

ITT: Men pretending that women need to be protected from games like Skullgirls, while owning copies of DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball.

I'm totally buying Skullgirls. It's not sexist, if anything it's empowering. You can't cry foul on this game without whining about Chun-li, Cammy, Juri, Sakura, etc.

So this game is sexist because it's full of scantily clad strong women? Does that mean that the other fighting games are not sexist because they usually only have a couple of scantily clad women with impossible physiques among the well covered men?

And what the hell is the deal with the whole guilty gear thing? There are more confusing backstories in there than anything I have ever seen.

Blazblue and Final Fantasy. Not easy.

Also I will post these.

 

[Denariax]

Sexism and racism only exist because there are people that find such things offensive. There isn't even much of a "Hey, that's intentionally racist" excuse anymore because companies aren't stupid.

 

[Evil the White]

When the head Om Nom Nommed the person, I lol'd. Quite literally, that cheered me up greatly.

As a guy, I don't care. I didn't really notice anything particularly scanty about the design or game...