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Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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quick n dirty
But she's a 1000 years old dragon that breath through her belly button! And she fights using a long lost martial art style requiring a level of agility only achievable while wearing these clothes!
Here's Jaffar's Parrot Iago
Please tell me anime prettyboy Iago still sounds like Gilbert Gottfried.
It was a misunderstanding standing. I was asking what they would find attractive for male characters. Not the male equivalent of objectification.
The game does not start during the Yellow Turban revolution but the Coalition against Doug Zhou. The Yellow Turbans that are seen in the game are just the "second wave" of it. I don't disagree, but want to clarify some stuff about the game.
Damn, that guy has some talent.
IIRC there might be like 1 or 2 armors male characters can wear that could be considered 'revealing', but even then they barely count. You would need to mod in revealing male armors instead. For the ladies though, that's a different story.
In Dragon Age origins the female mage robes looked terrible with the weird boob patches; just an ugly robe in general which can be thankfully fixed with a mod.
Thanks for the clarification I don't own the game just yet I actually checked out french fans forums to know what people think of it , and well it was a torrent of fuming ladies who are big mad that the martiarchs are tucked away in the day one DLC ...
Let's not rewrite history here. PhazonBlonde was a great contributer to much of Era's LGBT discussion back when I started here and it was a shame to see her quit like that.
But at the same time I remember she seemed to get into a lot of arguments in the off-topic side the preceding weeks before quitting. I think it's reasonable to assume the argument in this thread merely pushed her over the edge rather than being the main contributer.
I don't know how moderating this site works but as a moderator can you not limit posters in certain threads to specific member features (ie: only female can post)?
Nothing says feminism like a thread of mostly men calling women peadophiles or walking peado-bait after multiple mod warnings.
Depends if your accounting it's before or after he took off his clothes ...
(Not that I would know the answer but those pics got me curious)
The three Yellow Turban Leaders in the are Gong Du, He Yi, and Huang Shao and the game itself takes place in 190 CE and could not have the big revolution because of it. My guess is that CA wanted to have Yellow Turban and choose those three as the main leaders, due them being active at that time, just to have them in the game or people will complain about it. You might get a better idea if you watch the intro to the campaign to get a better idea on what CA was aiming for with this game.
I do want to add that there are only two female characters that have special artwork, which is the Bandit Queen and Sun Ren. I think that CA needed to do a better job with female generals in 3K and them kind of fumble with it.
Yeah they fumbled big time especially since pretty much all european ladies that are fans kept begging for a three kingdom game specifically becausee they wanted to play the matriarchs and female generals . So if they release them later on as a long trickle of paid dlc's this will only get worse and worse ...
Like come the fuck on you've been begged for 10 WHOLE YEARS by your female fan base and they made it dead clear that the reason they wanted a Three Kingdom Total War was to play the ladies ...
They had to know that this would happen ...
I'll be honest, we men dominate discussion on this stuff way too much, and get way too defensive or aggresive about pre-concieved bulletpoints on what makes something feminist or not.
When Beyond:Two Souls came out, everyone online collectively shitted on the game and David Cage for being sexist and so forth. Yet, every girl I knew in real life who played it and a lot of women YouTube let's players loved it.
Certainly it's problematic in aspects, but not in the abstract of being a story about a cool psychic girl. It's not about specifics or defined features that determines is something is positive or not, but rather the general feeling and response the way a woman is presented affects female gamers.
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It's why I mostly lurk here, I don't wanna take away attention from where it should be (well more like sometimes lurk. the non-stop anime talk is genuinely obnoxious.)
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Can you give me a link to this forum because I have questions about this already? CA has a problem that people expect them to fill certain needs from each historical games they come out with. I don't really know what the mindset of CA on why or why not they choose the female generals that they did. I feel bad for the female fans that are disappointed about it.
I should note there are a lot more female generals in the game itself like Lady Wu and generic ones to that the player can get. The problem is that the two I mention before have unique art, while the others do not. There are female generals in the Yellow Turbans you can get but do not have special art.
No, I don't have that power. I don't think it's even technically feasible, and I know for sure that we wouldn't want that anyway.
Yes, um, well...
I hope you see the staggering irony here. You're effectively erasing the voices of all the women who have criticized David Cage.
I'm honestly amazed.
Sorry but the forum I went to is an "invite only" one , but I'm guessing other french speaking forums centered around total war does have the same complaint . I dunno . The one I'm in ladies do speak out and flag themselves as ladies precisely because the forum is led by an all female maoderation team that makes it invite only .
But like I said any French speaking strategy game focused forum should do , I pretty much expect that on this precise case this will pour out given how mad they are on "the amazons creek" (translate in french you have the name of the place ) I'm also a non female fan who also wanted a Three Kingdom total war precisely for female generals and matriarchs , and I know I'm far from the only dude who is siding with the ladies on that question.
Let's be honest, us dudes are inherently less well-equipped to be discussing these sorts of topics than women and non-binary folks are.
That's sort of the reason I'm subscribed to these threads. It gives me a place to sort out my thoughts on this sort of stuff and hopefully grow without the feeling of violating a more strictly-defined safe space. Of course, it would be ideal if women and non-binary folk were more in control of discussion in this thread, and that's clearly not the case.
I'm sorry if I've ever come across as taking this thread's metaphorical platform away from someone more qualified to discuss the topics at hand.
That's sort of the reason I'm subscribed to these threads. It gives me a place to sort out my thoughts on this sort of stuff and hopefully grow without the feeling of violating a more strictly-defined safe space. Of course, it would be ideal if women and non-binary folk were more in control of discussion in this thread, and that's clearly not the case.
I'm sorry if I've ever come across as taking this thread's metaphorical platform away from someone more qualified to discuss the topics at hand.
I'm didn't mean to, I'm more reffering to the sort of voices that dominated the media I watched at the time that discussed it.
A lot of women have shit on Cage as well and the man deserves it. I didn't mean to imply that all women like it at all. What I meant was that as I saw the game as sexist and assumed every women would dislike it in the same way.
I will be honest and said I never interacted with the French forums for total war games and never really heard about the complaint about Yellow Turban part, but I have heard about female leaders in 3k in general.
Funny thing to note, Diaochan can be the Empress of China.
Thank God you chimed in , I was biting my tongue real hard ...
Ummm will def have to check the game out then (boy can't pay day come soon enough on this one , especially since it has a day one linux release so I can play too today if I had the cash for it ) but yeah ladies are mad , some dudes are also more than a bit miffed . Although the reception of the game is more than glowing for any other aspect it's just big disappointement in terms of women representation here , because well this was the occasion ot have a truck load of ladies to play with for once .
It will be interesting to see your impression considering the knowledge you can beforehand with the french forum.
Oh trust me once I lay my hands on that sucker , if they are justified you won't hear the end of my rant . If they were going overboard because of initial disapoitnement I'll refelct that too. But yeah like I said I'm also one that feveroushly wanted a Three Kingdom Total War precisely to have female generals to play with like lots of them . (women played a big part in that time period even on the battlefield that's why people were just begging for it to happen )
That might work in conjunction with "you need to have this many posts to post in this thread" (which to be honest is a feature I'd want for this very thread too), otherwise the only difference is that the throwaway accounts trolling them will have their gender set to "female".
Of course, both would need to be automated, otherwise it would just drive mods batshit crazy trying to enforce it...
I'm not sure how many follow comics, but I wanted people's thought's on the recent backlash regarding Batgirl in the Hero's in Crisis series. In Hero's in Crisis you see many of DC's hero's and some villains, go into a confession like area where they discuss various trauma's they have experienced.
The issue is that some people see the below image as being inappropriately sexual as she is showing her bullet wounds. These being the wounds that Joker caused when he shot her and left her disabled for many years in the comics.
Below is just a reference of how she looked when her new costume was revealed. Some have stated it wasn't so much the costume, but the style of the artist.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11542433/BG_Cv27.jpg)
I will admit, personally I don't see it. And it didn't even cross my mind as sexual in any way.
Yeeeeah, the framing of it is, bleh, especially as they are dragging it out on a 9 panel grid lol. Doesn't help that this outfit feels like a downgrade from the previous outfit, which used leather, and wasn't as skin tight looking as this.
I think there was a full page shot of Lois Lane that people also noted in the same issue.
It will still be a Total War game I'm bound to have fun ;)
But for the women in this thread unfamliar with that time period of Chinese history there were a lot of women on the battlefield like for real a truck load of them and some of them in high ranking commanding positions
Sure those legendary women do get some spotlight in Dynasty Warriors game but I think I don't have to explain to you in what kind of outfits they end up with in that series .
And in chinese and japanese made strategy games they tend to be straight up erased wholesale .
So when CA announced they were finally doing a Three Kingdoms title fans were overjoyed and wanted to have ALL OF THE LADIES . So maybe the initial reaction is more because their fave isn't there just yet . I'll have to check it out .
But hey at least judging by how the Bandit Queen is dressed up in the trailer and is in full on battle gear out to rip and tear I know CA did justice to those that are there already .
So TLDR , ShadowSwordmaster answer's lead me to think that maybe it's just a major case of "but my fave didn't make it though" (which sucks too ok don't get me wrong here )
Sun Shangxiang in a Dynasty Warrior game (and that's the tamest female design of theirs )
Bandit Queen in Total War :
I think I don't need to say more ...
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Yeah i agree her previous costume was much better. But this one kinda won me over. I guess for me i never saw anything sexual or sexy about this scene. It was just batgirl doing therapy like everyone else. Sex appeal was furthest from my mind because i know how and why she was shot. I basically had to get in the mindset of a person that would be able to think what she's doing is sexy. When in truth it's horrifying.
Also the nine panel grid was used for everyone that talked about their issues. Tho some you see them walk out the session.
Was that shot of Lois when she was in sleep wear?
You'd be amazed to see how many dudes just staight up don't read female characters bubbles when they pop up in a comic story ...
Joking aside if all characters are indeed framed from the same angle and a lot of them pass by before you get to batgirl I can see how this would not feel like the wanted intention by with the frames taken out of context , yeah it looks creepy to say the least .
It's not a huge element of game, but I like that in Observation the deuteragonist Emma is romantically linked with the supporting character Josh. A lesser game would've left her open and maybe even had her awkwardly flirt with the AI protagonist SAM (which would be supremely dumb considering spoilers I won't go into) and made the player's role a protective one. Instead, you're more tense, happenstance partners trying to help each other survive and make sense of a crazy, scary situation.
Isn't it a bit of a hasty generalization to assume that most people who watched Madoka shows was just for "suffering", when it's more of the drama and struggles, and overcoming it. Not to mention you assume that all people who do want it to be pedophiles.
I just think with some of the shots there (like when she is standing up to turn around and the butt shot at the end), and how skin tight the suit is, I can see people's complaints, though this is the least of HiC's problems.
And yeah it was the full page shot of Lois in her sleep wear.
Yeah agree that they could have done the panels better for her. Especially the one you're mentioning. However i do understand what they meant to do. She's infront of a camera to show her wounds. Basically a frame by frame of her movement.
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Kinda late, but actually Japanese girls (or more likely idols?) do stand like that from time to time.
E.g. here the second from the left and probably the one in the middle:
They are from AKB48, so I guess it's supposed to look cute.
Is this really the case? As far as I know, the only women who are mentioned (in the novel) with much proximity to combat or command were Sun Ren with her female bodyguards and Zhu Rong, a fictional character. There's also Zheng Jiang in the historical record, but that's about it. Women just didn't figure much militarily during the Three Kingdoms period. Personally I'd love to see more prominent female figures in the game even if they're not strictly historical. And I'm sure that not only will CA add Zhu Rong in a Nanman DLC, they're going to have another DLC centered around women like the Daughters of Mars DLC.
Another route that I'd like to see is an expansion campaign set during one of the periods where women did play bigger roles. Something like Princess Pingyang during Li Yuan's rebellion against the Sui, or Xiao Yanyan during the Song-Liao wars, or maybe one of the White Lotus Rebellions. Overall, I'd say that women weren't horribly prominent on the battlefields of Chinese history. But there is so very much Chinese history out there, even a small bit of prominence will generate plenty of material to work with.
I see. Thanks for the explanation.It should be noted, since SF5 keeps coming up as an example of "SEE?! HOT MALE CHARACTERS EXIST TOO." Capcom has gone on record to say that they were incredibly surprised by the reaction to Battle damaged Ryu.
Their intention was something along the lines of this and the reaction it gets:
not:
However, they were smart enough to not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the reaction. In other words.
"Hot Ryu" formally known as Battle Damaged Ryu was designed by straight men, for other straight men. And isn't an example of male objectification.
If the problem is that most of the character designers in the game industry are men. Then maybe a possible solution to the problem is for the game industry to hire more female character designers? If there was more female character designers working in the game industry, then I think there would be a lot more balance between how the genders are represented.
Also, what about JRPG male characters? A lot of them are usually designed to appeal to Japanese female audiences (and IIRC, many are also designed by Japanese female character designers). That's why so many of them look like J-pop or K-pop boyband members, in order to appeal to Japanese girls. And as a result, a lot of men (especially Western men) find JRPG male characters to be a turn-off (e.g. complaints about them looking effeminate or androgynous). Wouldn't that count as a form of male objectification? (At least from a Japanese perspective, where they have a different standard of male beauty compared to the West.)
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There has been a number of female character designers in the industry. The problem is that they're still beholden to the directors and producers, who are usually male. Until we get more female upper management, characters are still going to be designed with men in mind.
Fair point. There's not many women working in senior positions for major game companies. The only one I can think of, off the top of my head, is probably Jade Raymond.
I wasn't really aware "Hot Cody" was even a thing until quite recently, as I don't remember him getting anywhere near as much online meme attention as "Hot Ryu" did (maybe because "Hot Ryu" was a bigger surprise). But I can see why some women and gay/bi dudes might prefer Hot Cody's clean-cut "male stripper" look over Hot Ryu's gruff "daddy" look.
Either way, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And this is especially true when it comes to cultural differences. For example, a typical Western standard of male beauty might be something like Brad Pitt, whereas a typical East-Asian standard of male beauty might be something more like BTS.
That's why I mentioned, in a post above, androgynous-looking JRPG male characters, a.k.a. "bishonen", who are intentionally designed to appeal to East-Asian female audiences, often at the expense of turning-off Western male audiences. So I think "bishonen" JRPG male characters can be considered a form of male objectification, targeted towards East-Asian females.
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I wholeheartedly agree. As a non-binary male, I just wanted to write this post to let you know that despite being interested in the topic I won't ever interfere again with your discussions. Women shouldn't be felt threatened just by posting their opinion on a public forum. Have fun with this discussion and please continue to write! I will try to check it daily
I only lurk this thread because I don't really feel like my input is needed/don't generally feel comfortable posting in a thread that, yea, is about women's criticisms of character designs. I'm really glad it's a thread that exists though, it's one of a few I follow that feels a bit like a refuge from the rest of Era.
That said, I was so dumbstruck by this I immediately thought of this thread, so I hope it's okay to share this. I think someone posted about Metal Revolution in the thread earlier? A neat indie fighting game where all the characters are robots. Well, I just saw this on twitter:
"Let's take a moment to look back and see how Xophi-IX's design has changed since her first conception to her current version. One thing is clear: you don't wanna be on the wrong end of her gun!"
I laughed when I saw this, I'm just dying at this regression, plainly laid out. Like, how does this happen?
And then some artwork they also posted (nws)
It's a game about danged robots and people will still find a way.
That said, I was so dumbstruck by this I immediately thought of this thread, so I hope it's okay to share this. I think someone posted about Metal Revolution in the thread earlier? A neat indie fighting game where all the characters are robots. Well, I just saw this on twitter:
"Let's take a moment to look back and see how Xophi-IX's design has changed since her first conception to her current version. One thing is clear: you don't wanna be on the wrong end of her gun!"
I laughed when I saw this, I'm just dying at this regression, plainly laid out. Like, how does this happen?
And then some artwork they also posted (nws)
It's a game about danged robots and people will still find a way.
Bishis are only a turn off to straight dudes , and to gay dudes that are into hypermasculine looks ...
There's a reason why Yaoi/Bara stuff sells in western countries too (then again on that front Frenchies and Japanese tend to love the same kind of dudes sooo I'm a bit biased here :P )
Basiccally Hot Cody has been real popular around me and also around american friends living the in the US because of his costume where he is in his overalls . And it's not just a question of memeage it's a question of when I ask around me nobody gives a flipping damn about "Hot Ryu" , but "Hot Cody" I don't hear the end of it and even from people in the US , sooo again when dudes bring up "Hot Ryu" as an example of a design made to appeal to ladies , they are not only wrong on the intention it has been said time and again that this isn't what the designre wanted to convey, they are also wrong on what they assumes ladies wants , because ladies couldn't give two flipping shits about "Hot Ryu" but show them Cody in his overalls and now we're talking ...
Most of the historical recccords are written by Han men , when you dive deeper and look what the other chinese cultures especially the semi nomadic matriarchal tribes (some which still exists today ) have written you see that the battlefields were not "male only" as the Hans were trying to portray so hardcore in their books . (let's not forget that then Hans litteraly genocides half of the matriarchys around them to rise to prominence ... ) In other words "you might wanna hear the non han point of view of what truly happened in that time period you'd be surprised how a lot of things do matchup but how many stuff doesn't , most notably on woman's presence during battles , and political positions ."
Of course. But male designers can also stop being creeps too. :D
No that's not objectification. Making attractive or visually appealing characters is not the same as making objectified characters, even if there can be overlap. Like, this guy might be an "attractive bishonen" but he's not sexualized, let alone objectified. Likewise, this is a very attractive woman, who is not objectified, even in her alt outfits (a huge improvement over how previous Resident Evil games treated their female characters with shit like this).
Never played Resi 5 is that last picture the character that Sheva ? Please tell me it's not the canonical outfit . (not that it would make it less gaudy and gratuituous but I hope that she at least has a canonical outfit that's not like that )
No, that's an alt costume, fortunately. Sheva's default outfit is this. Not quite how I'd expect a merc to dress lol, but at least it's tasteful.
That's an awful lot of pale blue and way too pale green for a hot African environement ... jeez . But yeah at least canon outfit is somewhat sensible .
Yes.
It depends on how far the objectification is. Just having an attractive face is not objectification, it's several factors. See how comic book movies frame their male characters.
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