i think one of the best examples of how to do women properly in videogames is seen in uncharted
it's not THIS is GIRL in a VIDEO GAME. SHE has BOOBS and we NEED to SHOW THEM
instead, it's more like "oh hey that lady's pretty cool, eh investigates stuff and doesn't afraid of anything"
essentially, the less "male-flavor" attention you give a female character, the better she'll turn out. game designers as a whole need to take off the glasses of male media perception and write the characters pretty much genderless.
that's why i find female shepard in the mass effect series to be a pretty good example, too. she doesn't do anything differently than maleshep, has the same lines, and doesn't have the story modified for her just because of her gender. she doesn't get captured by harbinger and need to be rescued by her love interest.
and the thing is, the shepard-ness of shepard is completely separated from gender. regardless of gender, commander shepard is: desired by all, charismatic as fuck, and in general awesome. so most arguments about the quality of romance in ME have to be directed at the concept of shepard rather than the flavor of naughty bits.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Cheap entertainment still has a large amount of influence on a person's perception of the world.
On one hand I buy this, but on the other I feel it is just the old Video games make kids into murderers argument. I agree that there is a problem with the way women are portrayed in games and that if overly sexualized shallow female characters that young men see that could warp their view of the world, but I still think that you underestimate men's ability to tell games from reality.
Cheap entertainment still has a large amount of influence on a person's perception of the world.
On one hand I buy this, but on the other I feel it is just the old Video games make kids into murderers argument. I agree that there is a problem with the way women are portrayed in games and that if overly sexualized shallow female characters that young men see that could warp their view of the world, but I still think that you underestimate men's ability to tell games from reality.
The problem is that everything in a modern man's reality backs this up. The overwhelming majority of media depicts a world in which men are supposed to be strong and stoic and women are supposed to be caretakers and mothers. Even the difference in boys' and girls' toys and television programs illustrates this. If it were just games doing this, it would be one thing, but this is an example of a vast and unignorable trend in modern society.
From a young age, we're brought up to buy into this dichotomy, and it is continually perpetrated in all forms of media; film, television, advertising, pretty much everything we see subtly or even blatantly feeds into these attitudes.
I think it is quite a huge leap to go from "Gender stereotypes have been taught to our children for centuries" to "boobs in videogames are dangerous!".
I am not saying this is not a problem, but it is as you say something that permeates our whole society and I think it is a bit unfair to bring it up in a discussion that is specifically about videogames when it is obviously such a wide issue. I certainly hope that society will slowly edge away from the cast iron gender roles society has been perpetuating, but I do not think that video games are the main culprit here.
I think it is quite a huge leap to go from "Gender stereotypes have been taught to our children for centuries" to "boobs in videogames are dangerous!".
I am not saying this is not a problem, but it is as you say something that permeates our whole society and I think it is a bit unfair to bring it up in a discussion that is specifically about videogames when it is obviously such a wide issue. I certainly hope that society will slowly edge away from the cast iron gender roles society has been perpetuating, but I do not think that video games are the main culprit here.
This is like saying slavery shouldn't be allowed to come up in a discussion of the Civil War, man.
I think it is quite a huge leap to go from "Gender stereotypes have been taught to our children for centuries" to "boobs in videogames are dangerous!".
I am not saying this is not a problem, but it is as you say something that permeates our whole society and I think it is a bit unfair to bring it up in a discussion that is specifically about videogames when it is obviously such a wide issue. I certainly hope that society will slowly edge away from the cast iron gender roles society has been perpetuating, but I do not think that video games are the main culprit here.
This is like saying slavery shouldn't be allowed to come up in a discussion of the Civil War, man.
I get your point, what I had intended to say that while relevant, the very wide issue of gender roles needs to be applied to the subject to be very useful in the discussion.
I believe there are two relevant forces at work here. One is that men are conditioned to think of women as weak objects and the sexual images in games reinforce this stereotype. The second is that men are biologically inclined to enjoy watching beautiful women, naked or otherwise, and this is a natural and healthy thing. I absolutely reject the notion that it is in itself "pathetic" or "stupid" for men to enjoy watching jiggling boobs in videogames.
As for the first part, obviously video games are a product of the women-objectifying culture and also feeds back into it. However what I think we should ask ourself is, are video games actually making this problem worse and action should be taken to fix this, or are they mostly a symptom of the gender culture at large and it is this that needs to change?
Video games are a symptom but this does not make them okay, and like almost every other symptom of our current culture they also reinforce the culture.
Edit: I suppose the real argument I was trying to push was the one in the middle of that post,
men are biologically inclined to enjoy watching beautiful women, naked or otherwise, and this is a natural and healthy thing. I absolutely reject the notion that it is in itself "pathetic" or "stupid" for men to enjoy watching jiggling boobs in videogames.
I just get annoyed by the attitude that people who enjoy watching tits in video games are automatically nerds, perverts and probably misogynists.
Ultimately, I want to see more female voices in the video game world. Unfortunately, if we ever want to get to that point, we're gonna have to break through all this stuff. Girls can't even have Star Wars lunchboxes without getting made fun of for liking "boy's things", let alone develop an interest in "boy toys" that encourage creativity and thinking skills, then develop an interest in technology, and then an interest in the video game field.
The playing field is literally stacked against female voices in the industry from the very beginning of our lives, which leads us to things like jiggly boob physics and cardboard cutout female characters, which, while they aren't in and of themselves horrible things, are things that lead to incredible stagnation in the industry and cut off a sizeable portion of new voices. Think of how many bright young female minds would be great assets to the growth of the games industry, but they never get involved because gaming is such a boy's club.
Edit: I suppose the real argument I was trying to push was the one in the middle of that post,
men are biologically inclined to enjoy watching beautiful women, naked or otherwise, and this is a natural and healthy thing. I absolutely reject the notion that it is in itself "pathetic" or "stupid" for men to enjoy watching jiggling boobs in videogames.
I just get annoyed by the attitude that people who enjoy watching tits in video games are automatically nerds, perverts and probably misogynists.
Being biologically inclined to something doesn't automagically make it good. We're biologically inclined to rape people, for instance. I agree with you that sexuality isn't a bad thing but I think in the context of 99.9% of videogames, the women in there are objectified in a way that is completely misogynistic, and part of that objectification consists of the way they're treated as a set of boobs to enjoy rather than as actual characters.
I love a good set of boobs. But I also completely understand the rationale that goes into a woman seeing something like Dead or Alive and thinking that video games are a medium that doesn't take her seriously as a person. And quite frankly, I'd love for my daughters to be able to grow up in a world that says "Hey, women are awesome", and not have that put in the context of a big-tittied kung-fu chick.
Edit: I suppose the real argument I was trying to push was the one in the middle of that post,
men are biologically inclined to enjoy watching beautiful women, naked or otherwise, and this is a natural and healthy thing. I absolutely reject the notion that it is in itself "pathetic" or "stupid" for men to enjoy watching jiggling boobs in videogames.
I just get annoyed by the attitude that people who enjoy watching tits in video games are automatically nerds, perverts and probably misogynists.
Being biologically inclined to something doesn't automagically make it good. We're biologically inclined to rape people, for instance. I agree with you that sexuality isn't a bad thing but I think in the context of 99.9% of videogames, the women in there are objectified in a way that is completely misogynistic, and part of that objectification consists of the way they're treated as a set of boobs to enjoy rather than as actual characters.
I did not intend the biological inclination to be the main justification of that statement, and nice touch bringing up rape. And come on, 99.9%? I know that was an intentional exaggeration, but still. I guess we may be playing very different games.
I was always a fan of Valkyrie Profile for strong female characters, Platina/Lucius was a good deconstruction of the 'hero saves the damsel in distress' relationship.
In fact, the death of Lucius is nearly as gut wrenching to me as the death of Aeris was, tragic, pointless, and dying for seemingly no reason.
that's why i find female shepard in the mass effect series to be a pretty good example, too. she doesn't do anything differently than maleshep, has the same lines, and doesn't have the story modified for her just because of her gender. she doesn't get captured by harbinger and need to be rescued by her love interest.
Curly, we're like this. This is nearly my exact thinking on Shepard. It's kind of funny that she makes such a good female character because it had to be written gender-neutral and they couldn't muck it up with stereotypes. It's not the ideal way to approach it, but the result is way better than most of the drivel.
As for the first part, obviously video games are a product of the women-objectifying culture and also feeds back into it. However what I think we should ask ourself is, are video games actually making this problem worse and action should be taken to fix this, or are they mostly a symptom of the gender culture at large and it is this that needs to change?
Of course it's part of a larger problem, but this is a videogame forum filled with videogame nerds and it's more useful to talk about the common medium that everyone has experience with and may view in a different light after exposure to and consideration of some ideas than other media which may be harder to relate to.
I don't think you'll find anyone who'll disagree that a character can't be both compelling and sexy, which seems to be the accusation you're rejecting; the problem is so many female characters are just designed to be the latter and are therefore merely fantasy objects intended to be viewed that way. Consider it from the flip side: a shallow, flimsily characterized male over whom the camera takes long lingering gazes, a slow pass zoomed in on his ass (like Sheva's introduction in RE5), wearing boxer briefs and a tight tanktop, who progressively gets more oiled up and more ripped shirt and more focus on muscle definition throughout the game. Very little personality to accompany it, a character written by Michaela Bay, who you are constantly forced to see the way the creator wants you to see them. Pretend it's a game that is excellent gameplay-wise and very fun to play, like a softcore erotic version of Arkham Asylum.
that's why i find female shepard in the mass effect series to be a pretty good example, too. she doesn't do anything differently than maleshep, has the same lines, and doesn't have the story modified for her just because of her gender. she doesn't get captured by harbinger and need to be rescued by her love interest.
Curly, we're like this. This is nearly my exact thinking on Shepard. It's kind of funny that she makes such a good female character because it had to be written gender-neutral and they couldn't muck it up with stereotypes. It's not the ideal way to approach it, but the result is way better than most of the drivel.
As for the first part, obviously video games are a product of the women-objectifying culture and also feeds back into it. However what I think we should ask ourself is, are video games actually making this problem worse and action should be taken to fix this, or are they mostly a symptom of the gender culture at large and it is this that needs to change?
Of course it's part of a larger problem, but this is a videogame forum filled with videogame nerds and it's more useful to talk about the common medium that everyone has experience with and may view in a different light after exposure to and consideration of some ideas than other media which may be harder to relate to.
I don't think you'll find anyone who'll disagree that a character can't be both compelling and sexy, which seems to be the accusation you're rejecting; the problem is so many female characters are just designed to be the latter and are therefore merely fantasy objects intended to be viewed that way. Consider it from the flip side: a shallow, flimsily characterized male over whom the camera takes long lingering gazes, a slow pass zoomed in on his ass (like Sheva's introduction in RE5), wearing boxer briefs and a tight tanktop, who progressively gets more oiled up and more ripped shirt and more focus on muscle definition throughout the game. Very little personality to accompany it, a character written by Michaela Bay, who you are constantly forced to see the way the creator wants you to see them. Pretend it's a game that is excellent gameplay-wise and very fun to play, like a softcore erotic version of Arkham Asylum.
Would that annoy you?
This is a very good point.
Dudes, just imagine every game ever made was directly influenced by this:
In all seriousness, that'd turn you off video games a bit, wouldn't it? Imagine if you were some kid growing up and you were interested in playing those new electronic games, but they were all like this. All of them.
If the main characters were female, and thus were of the gender that has been habitually treated as eye candy, and as something for men to rescue when they fuck it up and get captured, and as being valuable to the degree that they're pretty, and so on, then yeah, people would probably come to the conclusion that the clothes loss was just another aspect of that. And it probably would be.
It would be like if I took a Space Marine game where one of your allies sacrifices himself by crashing his vehicle into someone screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR" and replaced the Space Marine with a stereotypical Japanese guy. Yes, all I changed was his race, but because this kind of shit is only a problem because of decades/centuries/whatever of racism/sexism/etc. you can't just say "but you were okay with it before!" Holding everything else equal would only be okay if everything else in our society were also equal.
The point you've made, that people aren't complaining when men lose clothes, is exactly the point I and others have been trying to make, only from the opposite direction. When men lose clothes, it's like, whatever. When women lose clothes, it's like, woo, I can see more of her boobs! That's not equal, that's not fair, that makes no sense, and it's because female characters in video games get the short end of the stick and always have.
TychoCelchuuu on
0
Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
But when Batman loses a bit of clothes, all you can see is a thin line of flesh.
When Batgirl loses a bit of clothes, you can see her left bare tit and the upper bits of her thong.
If the main characters were female, and thus were of the gender that has been habitually treated as eye candy, and as something for men to rescue when they fuck it up and get captured, and as being valuable to the degree that they're pretty, and so on, then yeah, people would probably come to the conclusion that the clothes loss was just another aspect of that. And it probably would be.
See also: the new Parasite Eve game and its "clothing damage" system.
I wonder if Arkham Asylum and Sands of Time would get flack about being sexist if the main characters in each were female.
Depending on how deep down the rabbit-hole we go, there's also the argument that strong female characters would be poor representations because they're essentially male stand-ins. It goes back to the article BlackJack posted, but the argument is that aspects of femininity get absorbed into a male pattern of behavior, and the patriarchy reasserts itself.
Aliens is the example I'm most familiar with. It may be a fantastic movie, but Ripley's character was originally written as a man. The message underneath the movie implies that the woman has to abandon her natural behavior and become the fierce action hero men want her to be before she'll be acceptable as a protagonist.
And then of course we get into discussions about what "natural feminine behavior" looks like, and the conversation becomes a lot more difficult to parse out.
I wonder if Arkham Asylum and Sands of Time would get flack about being sexist if the main characters in each were female.
Depending on how deep down the rabbit-hole we go, there's also the argument that strong female characters would be poor representations because they're essentially male stand-ins. It goes back to the article BlackJack posted, but the argument is that aspects of femininity get absorbed into a male pattern of behavior, and the patriarchy reasserts itself.
Aliens is the example I'm most familiar with. It may be a fantastic movie, but Ripley's character was originally written as a man. The message underneath the movie implies that the woman has to abandon her natural behavior and become the fierce action hero men want her to be before she'll be acceptable as a protagonist.
And then of course we get into discussions about what "natural feminine behavior" looks like, and the conversation becomes a lot more difficult to parse out.
That's my issue with Femshep as well. Many "strong females" in entertainment are simply guys with tits.
@Blackjack & Casually Hardcore- Point taken. Batman's an example of clothes ripping done right. If a woman character's clothes ripping was in this way, it'd probably look badass too. Hopefully the upcoming Tomb Raider game might just do that.
I think a good female character is Emily from Deadly Premonition. Other than a few Japanese moments, she acts exactly how a female cop would.
I wonder if Arkham Asylum and Sands of Time would get flack about being sexist if the main characters in each were female.
Depending on how deep down the rabbit-hole we go, there's also the argument that strong female characters would be poor representations because they're essentially male stand-ins. It goes back to the article BlackJack posted, but the argument is that aspects of femininity get absorbed into a male pattern of behavior, and the patriarchy reasserts itself.
Aliens is the example I'm most familiar with. It may be a fantastic movie, but Ripley's character was originally written as a man. The message underneath the movie implies that the woman has to abandon her natural behavior and become the fierce action hero men want her to be before she'll be acceptable as a protagonist.
And then of course we get into discussions about what "natural feminine behavior" looks like, and the conversation becomes a lot more difficult to parse out.
Originally written as a man or not, Ripley is a FANTASTIC female protagonist. She doesn't abandon any behavior, she's still caring and nurturing, but she doesn't at any point let it get in the way of her kicking ass. All her feminine traits are there on full display with her caring for Newt and such, it's just there aren't any moments where she breaks down and goes "Oh, I do so need a man to help me.". No, she goes and does it herself, and does it smart, and succeeds.
Originally written as a man or not, Ripley is a FANTASTIC female protagonist. She doesn't abandon any behavior, she's still caring and nurturing, but she doesn't at any point let it get in the way of her kicking ass. All her feminine traits are there on full display with her caring for Newt and such, it's just there aren't any moments where she breaks down and goes "Oh, I do so need a man to help me.". No, she goes and does it herself, and does it smart, and succeeds.
I agree, I love Ripley as a character, but the question remains of whether Newt just represents a younger version of a damsel. The difference is instead of romantic love, Ripley's doing it for caretaker/blow 'em all to hell reasons.
Originally written as a man or not, Ripley is a FANTASTIC female protagonist. She doesn't abandon any behavior, she's still caring and nurturing, but she doesn't at any point let it get in the way of her kicking ass. All her feminine traits are there on full display with her caring for Newt and such, it's just there aren't any moments where she breaks down and goes "Oh, I do so need a man to help me.". No, she goes and does it herself, and does it smart, and succeeds.
I agree, I love Ripley as a character, but the question remains of whether Newt just represents a younger version of a damsel. The difference is instead of romantic love, Ripley's doing it for caretaker/blow 'em all to hell reasons.
If that's so, aren't we really just shoehorning?
Being a caretaker is not a bad thing. A woman is allowed to care about and want to protect a child, just like a man is (it's just never, ever shown, because that would be totally gay). The difference is that Ripley still manages to do that while still being a badass; she doesn't break down into sobs and cry that Hicks should help her rescue Newt at the end, she straps a flamethrower onto a machine gun and gets her herself.
If we wanna get all metaphorical, Ripley basically takes the worst representation of femininity, a giant female that just pumps out kids, and shoots it with a grenade launcher, wrestles it with a giant robot mech, and then shoots it out into space, while simultaneously rescuing a small child and spouting one of the most well-known lines in cinematic history.
I guess that's my point...if she can't be allowed to cry or be vulnerable when the shit really starts hitting the fan, if anyone thinks less of her because of it, then how is she an improvement over other female characters? For some women, it's going to be inspiring, but for others it might be equally as unrealistic. How is she better than Arnold Schwarzenegger in disguise?
(I got most of this material from my pop culture professor in college. He prefaced the class with "If you don't want to potentially hate some of your favorite movies, then maybe this isn't the class for you." )
(I got most of this material from my pop culture professor in college. He prefaced the class with "If you don't want to potentially hate some of your favorite movies, then maybe this isn't the class for you." )
This reminds me of the one leisure studies class I took in my undergrad--we did a section on investigating obvious (and not so obvious) racism and sexism in classic Disney blockbusters. I've only seen one or two Disney films, and thought the case was actually pretty convincing, if not perfect. The rest of the class was up in arms about it though.
I guess that's my point...if she can't be allowed to cry or be vulnerable when the shit really starts hitting the fan, if anyone thinks less of her because of it, then how is she an improvement over other female characters? For some women, it's going to be inspiring, but for others it might be equally as unrealistic. How is she better than Arnold Schwarzenegger in disguise?
(I got most of this material from my pop culture professor in college. He prefaced the class with "If you don't want to potentially hate some of your favorite movies, then maybe this isn't the class for you." )
She's plenty vulnerable, she just doesn't let it get to her. There are plenty of quiet moments where they express plenty of sorrow and helplessness, it's just that Ripley doesn't do it when she's actually in any immediate danger, which is more than can be said for most female characters in media. Besides, they already have a more stereotypically feminine character in the movie. His name is Hudson.
Although upon further thought, it is kinda neat that the two toughest, most gung-ho characters who don't die horribly in the first ten minutes are both women.
(For the record, I'm loving this discussion, but I'm getting worried it's getting a bit off track.)
Alien was the one with the gender neutral role(s). By Alien they knew her character was a woman. And it strikes me that you're arguing from a gender essentialist position, and yourself reasserting the patriarchy visa vi containment. Any female character who breaks outside the norms of gendered behaviour in the media is criticised as simply being a male stand in, suggesting to women that transcending the norms enforced by society means you are no longer a woman, you’ve become ‘a man’.
Now there is an argument to be made that by ignoring the very different way that the sexes are treated by society ignores the universal female experience (which is no longer a concept taken seriously by reputable academics but whateves), yet this point is almost never made for anyone else. I can count the number of times I’ve heard the roles that Will Smith or Samuel Jackson play described as merely ‘white men in blackface’ on one hand, and they’ve been justly ridiculed, but there’s almost no female action hero I can think of who hasn’t been called a man with tits.
If it's fanservice, the fans are fucking stupid. I agree with that excerpt posted above - you don't HAVE to create your female characters with implausible anatomy and minimal clothing. You choose to. You could just not, and write an actual character rather than a walking excuse to shoe-horn in some boobs.
Can't it be both? I've seen a couple of posts like this in the last couple of pages, and I'm wondering if people are immediately writing off a character if she happens to be curvaceous and/or dressed sexually. Is it necessary for a female character to have features as plain as possible while completely covered up in order to be "taken seriously"?
A sort of "ceiling" of fanservice could be helpful. Good luck getting one that people agree on that isn't just in the area of taboo for your rating, though.
For example, I'd say that the breast slider in Soulcalibur IV crosses that (using that as an example of a very popular, well-established recent game packed to the gills with tits and general attempts at eye candy). But you could probably find people who don't think it does. And, of course, the implication being you're limiting creativity in the interests of taste--which might not be a bad idea, necessarily, but caries its own implications if carried further than a sort of instinctual, self-imposed level.
Are you mentioning the boob slider because it gives you the chance to create a "realistic" figure for your character, to the point that you can outright make them flat-chested?
Problem is, you're still using that character in a game that features the likes of Taki and Ivy, and will inevitably do battle with them (or similarly figured characters online), so I don't know if being the odd girl out helps in any way. But if you're referring more to being given that choice, then yes, choice is always a good thing.
i think one of the best examples of how to do women properly in videogames is seen in uncharted
it's not THIS is GIRL in a VIDEO GAME. SHE has BOOBS and we NEED to SHOW THEM
instead, it's more like "oh hey that lady's pretty cool, eh investigates stuff and doesn't afraid of anything"
Sure, if you're talking about Elena.
Chloe, not so much. But again, that doesn't detract from her being just as interesting and cool a character as the former. Chloe may be smoking hot, but she never ceases to be dependable and capable of taking care of herself.
Heck, by the end of the game, Elena is the one who is put in the most dire situation, although that was less of a knock on her being easily distressed and more like paying the price for her kindness.
Ultimately, I want to see more female voices in the video game world. Unfortunately, if we ever want to get to that point, we're gonna have to break through all this stuff. Girls can't even have Star Wars lunchboxes without getting made fun of for liking "boy's things", let alone develop an interest in "boy toys" that encourage creativity and thinking skills, then develop an interest in technology, and then an interest in the video game field.
The playing field is literally stacked against female voices in the industry from the very beginning of our lives, which leads us to things like jiggly boob physics and cardboard cutout female characters, which, while they aren't in and of themselves horrible things, are things that lead to incredible stagnation in the industry and cut off a sizeable portion of new voices. Think of how many bright young female minds would be great assets to the growth of the games industry, but they never get involved because gaming is such a boy's club.
Alien was the one with the gender neutral role(s). By Alien they knew her character was a woman. And it strikes me that you're arguing from a gender essentialist position, and yourself reasserting the patriarchy visa vi containment. Any female character who breaks outside the norms of gendered behaviour in the media is criticised as simply being a male stand in, suggesting to women that transcending the norms enforced by society means you are no longer a woman, you’ve become ‘a man’.
Now there is an argument to be made that by ignoring the very different way that the sexes are treated by society ignores the universal female experience (which is no longer a concept taken seriously by reputable academics but whateves), yet this point is almost never made for anyone else. I can count the number of times I’ve heard the roles that Will Smith or Samuel Jackson play described as merely ‘white men in blackface’ on one hand, and they’ve been justly ridiculed, but there’s almost no female action hero I can think of who hasn’t been called a man with tits.
I'm not really arguing for essentialism, just that when taken to action-hero extremes, there is a danger about the kind of message being sent. I don't want more protagonists crying as a representation of what women do, just that they are able to, without a loss of credibility. The "natural behavior" comment I made was simply to illustrate how sticky the situation gets when we try to address behavior of a gender as a whole.
The PA frontpage had an article some months back about Bayonetta where the article author argued that she could be seen as an empowering, yet feminine influence. As long as the protagonists are not always one thing or always another (like if Bayonneta can throw a car at someone, maybe Ripley can cry), I feel that we've found a happy middle ground.
What was striking to me when I first heard the notion of Ripley as stand-in was that she did it in a decade dominated by cheesy, musclebound action heros. Certainly, women can be allowed to be action heros, but given the context of when the movie came out, it feels more like a hegemonic "token girl" kind of thing. Suddenly, moviemakers could say "See, now you can't say we're being sexist," when really they had taken a woman originally written as a man and gave her an assault rifle.
Personally, I think Ripley can be interpreted both ways, but that's why I bring her up-- because she can simultaneously be considered a bona fide strong woman character and also a hegemonic device to assert patriarchal dominance.
Like I said, Alien was the one with the gender neutral roles, and that was for the entire cast, not simply her role. A film which is firmly horror, not action.
Though I would be interested what other female action characters you consider to transcend merely being men with dicks?
Like I said, Alien was the one with the gender neutral roles, and that was for the entire cast, not simply her role. A film which is firmly horror, not action.
Well, the origin of her character in the first movie was as "neutral male", informing the way Cameron wrote the evolution of her character in the second movie. Alien was horror, yes. But the continuation of Ripley as action hero came in Aliens.
Though I would be interested what other female action characters you consider to transcend merely being men with dicks?
I love Ripley too! I just think that as well as she was conceived in Aliens (and they did do a pretty good job) there are some nettlesome things that I think can't or shouldn't necessarily be ignored.
Can't it be both? I've seen a couple of posts like this in the last couple of pages, and I'm wondering if people are immediately writing off a character if she happens to be curvaceous and/or dressed sexually. Is it necessary for a female character to have features as plain as possible while completely covered up in order to be "taken seriously"?
That's not what anyone is saying. People are saying that implausibly-busty vixens with hollow characters are fantasy projections and not depictions of a human personality. Hotness is not the indicator here, treatment is.
Personally, I think Ripley can be interpreted both ways, but that's why I bring her up-- because she can simultaneously be considered a bona fide strong woman character and also a hegemonic device to assert patriarchal dominance.
I can understand what you mean about simply swapping genders in male roles, and that line of thought is why I mentioned femShep not being the ideal way to write a strong female - but I think the results are pretty good. Isn't it better if we take action hero traits like cockiness, confidence, and badassitude and divorce them from gender? and to that end, wouldn't even simple gender swaps swing us that direction?
The PA frontpage had an article some months back about Bayonetta where the article author argued that she could be seen as an empowering, yet feminine influence. As long as the protagonists are not always one thing or always another (like if Bayonneta can throw a car at someone, maybe Ripley can cry), I feel that we've found a happy middle ground.
Actually, the most recent GiantBomb podcast brought up Bayonetta, and argued that the game shouldn't be considered sexist because it was so far removed from reality in general.
I'd say it's a valid point. This isn't to say that Bayonetta herself isn't a cool character, but because the game is so tongue-in-cheek with nearly every aspect of itself, her role shouldn't be looked at with any underlying messages or meanings. Put simply, it's a game that wanted to be fun and batshit-insane, and left its genders out the window.
I love Ripley too! I just think that as well as she was conceived in Aliens (and they did do a pretty good job) there are some nettlesome things that I think can't or shouldn't necessarily be ignored.
"Who do I have to fuck to get off this ship?"
Of course, Resurrection in general was a disservice to the entire franchise, but it was particularly sexist regarding the character played by Winonna Ryder; as soon as its revealed that she's a cyborg, everyone is rolling their eyes, vocally stating "well of COURSE she isn't human. What kind of a woman has feelings and sympathy for others?".
Hence the "just saying", but the point I was trying to make was that even if more women were involved in the creation and development in games, it doesn't necessarily mean that there would be less stereotypical depictions of female characters.
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it's not THIS is GIRL in a VIDEO GAME. SHE has BOOBS and we NEED to SHOW THEM
instead, it's more like "oh hey that lady's pretty cool, eh investigates stuff and doesn't afraid of anything"
essentially, the less "male-flavor" attention you give a female character, the better she'll turn out. game designers as a whole need to take off the glasses of male media perception and write the characters pretty much genderless.
that's why i find female shepard in the mass effect series to be a pretty good example, too. she doesn't do anything differently than maleshep, has the same lines, and doesn't have the story modified for her just because of her gender. she doesn't get captured by harbinger and need to be rescued by her love interest.
and the thing is, the shepard-ness of shepard is completely separated from gender. regardless of gender, commander shepard is: desired by all, charismatic as fuck, and in general awesome. so most arguments about the quality of romance in ME have to be directed at the concept of shepard rather than the flavor of naughty bits.
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On one hand I buy this, but on the other I feel it is just the old Video games make kids into murderers argument. I agree that there is a problem with the way women are portrayed in games and that if overly sexualized shallow female characters that young men see that could warp their view of the world, but I still think that you underestimate men's ability to tell games from reality.
Your Console Sucks. An awful subforum of SomethingAwful. There was a more or less identical copy of your OP posted there weeks ago.
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Ah. I only browse the Comedy Goldmine subforum, so I hadn't seen this thread. Can it be linked? Was it better put together than mine?
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The problem is that everything in a modern man's reality backs this up. The overwhelming majority of media depicts a world in which men are supposed to be strong and stoic and women are supposed to be caretakers and mothers. Even the difference in boys' and girls' toys and television programs illustrates this. If it were just games doing this, it would be one thing, but this is an example of a vast and unignorable trend in modern society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZn_lJoN6PI
From a young age, we're brought up to buy into this dichotomy, and it is continually perpetrated in all forms of media; film, television, advertising, pretty much everything we see subtly or even blatantly feeds into these attitudes.
I am not saying this is not a problem, but it is as you say something that permeates our whole society and I think it is a bit unfair to bring it up in a discussion that is specifically about videogames when it is obviously such a wide issue. I certainly hope that society will slowly edge away from the cast iron gender roles society has been perpetuating, but I do not think that video games are the main culprit here.
This is like saying slavery shouldn't be allowed to come up in a discussion of the Civil War, man.
I get your point, what I had intended to say that while relevant, the very wide issue of gender roles needs to be applied to the subject to be very useful in the discussion.
I believe there are two relevant forces at work here. One is that men are conditioned to think of women as weak objects and the sexual images in games reinforce this stereotype. The second is that men are biologically inclined to enjoy watching beautiful women, naked or otherwise, and this is a natural and healthy thing. I absolutely reject the notion that it is in itself "pathetic" or "stupid" for men to enjoy watching jiggling boobs in videogames.
As for the first part, obviously video games are a product of the women-objectifying culture and also feeds back into it. However what I think we should ask ourself is, are video games actually making this problem worse and action should be taken to fix this, or are they mostly a symptom of the gender culture at large and it is this that needs to change?
Edit: I suppose the real argument I was trying to push was the one in the middle of that post, I just get annoyed by the attitude that people who enjoy watching tits in video games are automatically nerds, perverts and probably misogynists.
The playing field is literally stacked against female voices in the industry from the very beginning of our lives, which leads us to things like jiggly boob physics and cardboard cutout female characters, which, while they aren't in and of themselves horrible things, are things that lead to incredible stagnation in the industry and cut off a sizeable portion of new voices. Think of how many bright young female minds would be great assets to the growth of the games industry, but they never get involved because gaming is such a boy's club.
Being biologically inclined to something doesn't automagically make it good. We're biologically inclined to rape people, for instance. I agree with you that sexuality isn't a bad thing but I think in the context of 99.9% of videogames, the women in there are objectified in a way that is completely misogynistic, and part of that objectification consists of the way they're treated as a set of boobs to enjoy rather than as actual characters.
More Elena Fishers and Jades.
I did not intend the biological inclination to be the main justification of that statement, and nice touch bringing up rape. And come on, 99.9%? I know that was an intentional exaggeration, but still. I guess we may be playing very different games.
In fact, the death of Lucius is nearly as gut wrenching to me as the death of Aeris was, tragic, pointless, and dying for seemingly no reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkYehl8tMv4&playnext=1&list=PL895B382AA14C15A5&index=74
Which is while I'll never forgive VP2 for fucking things up.
Curly, we're like this. This is nearly my exact thinking on Shepard. It's kind of funny that she makes such a good female character because it had to be written gender-neutral and they couldn't muck it up with stereotypes. It's not the ideal way to approach it, but the result is way better than most of the drivel.
Of course it's part of a larger problem, but this is a videogame forum filled with videogame nerds and it's more useful to talk about the common medium that everyone has experience with and may view in a different light after exposure to and consideration of some ideas than other media which may be harder to relate to.
I don't think you'll find anyone who'll disagree that a character can't be both compelling and sexy, which seems to be the accusation you're rejecting; the problem is so many female characters are just designed to be the latter and are therefore merely fantasy objects intended to be viewed that way. Consider it from the flip side: a shallow, flimsily characterized male over whom the camera takes long lingering gazes, a slow pass zoomed in on his ass (like Sheva's introduction in RE5), wearing boxer briefs and a tight tanktop, who progressively gets more oiled up and more ripped shirt and more focus on muscle definition throughout the game. Very little personality to accompany it, a character written by Michaela Bay, who you are constantly forced to see the way the creator wants you to see them. Pretend it's a game that is excellent gameplay-wise and very fun to play, like a softcore erotic version of Arkham Asylum.
Would that annoy you?
This is a very good point.
Dudes, just imagine every game ever made was directly influenced by this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYxPJMDO0ZM
In all seriousness, that'd turn you off video games a bit, wouldn't it? Imagine if you were some kid growing up and you were interested in playing those new electronic games, but they were all like this. All of them.
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How so?
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It would be like if I took a Space Marine game where one of your allies sacrifices himself by crashing his vehicle into someone screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR" and replaced the Space Marine with a stereotypical Japanese guy. Yes, all I changed was his race, but because this kind of shit is only a problem because of decades/centuries/whatever of racism/sexism/etc. you can't just say "but you were okay with it before!" Holding everything else equal would only be okay if everything else in our society were also equal.
The point you've made, that people aren't complaining when men lose clothes, is exactly the point I and others have been trying to make, only from the opposite direction. When men lose clothes, it's like, whatever. When women lose clothes, it's like, woo, I can see more of her boobs! That's not equal, that's not fair, that makes no sense, and it's because female characters in video games get the short end of the stick and always have.
When Batgirl loses a bit of clothes, you can see her left bare tit and the upper bits of her thong.
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Depending on how deep down the rabbit-hole we go, there's also the argument that strong female characters would be poor representations because they're essentially male stand-ins. It goes back to the article BlackJack posted, but the argument is that aspects of femininity get absorbed into a male pattern of behavior, and the patriarchy reasserts itself.
Aliens is the example I'm most familiar with. It may be a fantastic movie, but Ripley's character was originally written as a man. The message underneath the movie implies that the woman has to abandon her natural behavior and become the fierce action hero men want her to be before she'll be acceptable as a protagonist.
And then of course we get into discussions about what "natural feminine behavior" looks like, and the conversation becomes a lot more difficult to parse out.
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That's my issue with Femshep as well. Many "strong females" in entertainment are simply guys with tits.
@Blackjack & Casually Hardcore- Point taken. Batman's an example of clothes ripping done right. If a woman character's clothes ripping was in this way, it'd probably look badass too. Hopefully the upcoming Tomb Raider game might just do that.
I think a good female character is Emily from Deadly Premonition. Other than a few Japanese moments, she acts exactly how a female cop would.
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Originally written as a man or not, Ripley is a FANTASTIC female protagonist. She doesn't abandon any behavior, she's still caring and nurturing, but she doesn't at any point let it get in the way of her kicking ass. All her feminine traits are there on full display with her caring for Newt and such, it's just there aren't any moments where she breaks down and goes "Oh, I do so need a man to help me.". No, she goes and does it herself, and does it smart, and succeeds.
I agree, I love Ripley as a character, but the question remains of whether Newt just represents a younger version of a damsel. The difference is instead of romantic love, Ripley's doing it for caretaker/blow 'em all to hell reasons.
If that's so, aren't we really just shoehorning?
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Being a caretaker is not a bad thing. A woman is allowed to care about and want to protect a child, just like a man is (it's just never, ever shown, because that would be totally gay). The difference is that Ripley still manages to do that while still being a badass; she doesn't break down into sobs and cry that Hicks should help her rescue Newt at the end, she straps a flamethrower onto a machine gun and gets her herself.
If we wanna get all metaphorical, Ripley basically takes the worst representation of femininity, a giant female that just pumps out kids, and shoots it with a grenade launcher, wrestles it with a giant robot mech, and then shoots it out into space, while simultaneously rescuing a small child and spouting one of the most well-known lines in cinematic history.
(I got most of this material from my pop culture professor in college. He prefaced the class with "If you don't want to potentially hate some of your favorite movies, then maybe this isn't the class for you."
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This reminds me of the one leisure studies class I took in my undergrad--we did a section on investigating obvious (and not so obvious) racism and sexism in classic Disney blockbusters. I've only seen one or two Disney films, and thought the case was actually pretty convincing, if not perfect. The rest of the class was up in arms about it though.
She's plenty vulnerable, she just doesn't let it get to her. There are plenty of quiet moments where they express plenty of sorrow and helplessness, it's just that Ripley doesn't do it when she's actually in any immediate danger, which is more than can be said for most female characters in media. Besides, they already have a more stereotypically feminine character in the movie. His name is Hudson.
Although upon further thought, it is kinda neat that the two toughest, most gung-ho characters who don't die horribly in the first ten minutes are both women.
(For the record, I'm loving this discussion, but I'm getting worried it's getting a bit off track.)
Now there is an argument to be made that by ignoring the very different way that the sexes are treated by society ignores the universal female experience (which is no longer a concept taken seriously by reputable academics but whateves), yet this point is almost never made for anyone else. I can count the number of times I’ve heard the roles that Will Smith or Samuel Jackson play described as merely ‘white men in blackface’ on one hand, and they’ve been justly ridiculed, but there’s almost no female action hero I can think of who hasn’t been called a man with tits.
One of the characters wears something like this.
Though it could be argued that it's an homage to Japanese school swimsuits, but it's not like I'm an expert on either fashion.
Can't it be both? I've seen a couple of posts like this in the last couple of pages, and I'm wondering if people are immediately writing off a character if she happens to be curvaceous and/or dressed sexually. Is it necessary for a female character to have features as plain as possible while completely covered up in order to be "taken seriously"?
Are you mentioning the boob slider because it gives you the chance to create a "realistic" figure for your character, to the point that you can outright make them flat-chested?
Problem is, you're still using that character in a game that features the likes of Taki and Ivy, and will inevitably do battle with them (or similarly figured characters online), so I don't know if being the odd girl out helps in any way. But if you're referring more to being given that choice, then yes, choice is always a good thing.
Sure, if you're talking about Elena.
Chloe, not so much. But again, that doesn't detract from her being just as interesting and cool a character as the former. Chloe may be smoking hot, but she never ceases to be dependable and capable of taking care of herself.
A woman wrote that. Just saying.
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I'm not really arguing for essentialism, just that when taken to action-hero extremes, there is a danger about the kind of message being sent. I don't want more protagonists crying as a representation of what women do, just that they are able to, without a loss of credibility. The "natural behavior" comment I made was simply to illustrate how sticky the situation gets when we try to address behavior of a gender as a whole.
The PA frontpage had an article some months back about Bayonetta where the article author argued that she could be seen as an empowering, yet feminine influence. As long as the protagonists are not always one thing or always another (like if Bayonneta can throw a car at someone, maybe Ripley can cry), I feel that we've found a happy middle ground.
What was striking to me when I first heard the notion of Ripley as stand-in was that she did it in a decade dominated by cheesy, musclebound action heros. Certainly, women can be allowed to be action heros, but given the context of when the movie came out, it feels more like a hegemonic "token girl" kind of thing. Suddenly, moviemakers could say "See, now you can't say we're being sexist," when really they had taken a woman originally written as a man and gave her an assault rifle.
Personally, I think Ripley can be interpreted both ways, but that's why I bring her up-- because she can simultaneously be considered a bona fide strong woman character and also a hegemonic device to assert patriarchal dominance.
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Like I said, Alien was the one with the gender neutral roles, and that was for the entire cast, not simply her role. A film which is firmly horror, not action.
Though I would be interested what other female action characters you consider to transcend merely being men with dicks?
Well, the origin of her character in the first movie was as "neutral male", informing the way Cameron wrote the evolution of her character in the second movie. Alien was horror, yes. But the continuation of Ripley as action hero came in Aliens.
I love Ripley too! I just think that as well as she was conceived in Aliens (and they did do a pretty good job) there are some nettlesome things that I think can't or shouldn't necessarily be ignored.
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That's not what anyone is saying. People are saying that implausibly-busty vixens with hollow characters are fantasy projections and not depictions of a human personality. Hotness is not the indicator here, treatment is.
That doesn't really dispute his point at all.
I can understand what you mean about simply swapping genders in male roles, and that line of thought is why I mentioned femShep not being the ideal way to write a strong female - but I think the results are pretty good. Isn't it better if we take action hero traits like cockiness, confidence, and badassitude and divorce them from gender? and to that end, wouldn't even simple gender swaps swing us that direction?
Actually, the most recent GiantBomb podcast brought up Bayonetta, and argued that the game shouldn't be considered sexist because it was so far removed from reality in general.
I'd say it's a valid point. This isn't to say that Bayonetta herself isn't a cool character, but because the game is so tongue-in-cheek with nearly every aspect of itself, her role shouldn't be looked at with any underlying messages or meanings. Put simply, it's a game that wanted to be fun and batshit-insane, and left its genders out the window.
"Who do I have to fuck to get off this ship?"
Hence the "just saying", but the point I was trying to make was that even if more women were involved in the creation and development in games, it doesn't necessarily mean that there would be less stereotypical depictions of female characters.
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