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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Thank you, I thought I was going crazy. What's going on here? :D
So it wasn't just me lmao
The post was almost instantly edited to blank but originally was a one-line post about how male objectification is ignored. I don't think it's worth discussing any further because they edited it out immediately. I suggest we just move on.
Now I can't go to sleep until the mystery is resolved... :/
Edit: Thank you! Insomnia averted.
Edit: Thank you! Insomnia averted.
My anime world and their anime world are light years apart. Unless High Score Girl is finally ready and they upload it.
Hope you referring to the OG anime
Yes, I'm talking about the original adaptation.
The new adaptation is available on Crunchyroll but I suggest watching the previous title.
We exist on a startlingly similar but also kind of exact opposite plane with this, you and I. Xenoblade 2 is a shoe-in for my GOTY to a surprisingly heavy degree in a year with so many fabulous releases, despite the issues I take with its visual design.
For my part, I take absolutely no issue with the existence of and even frequently enjoy trashy anime, fully understand the appeal of Dead or Alive though I'm not a fighting game fan, and have no issues with people who consume such media--hell, I do myself. I've been pretty open about that in this thread (and way too active in the thread, too) and haven't once been called a creep or degenerate or bad person by even the most outspoken of posters here. And I mean, we have some pretty outspoken posters in here, I'm not gonna lie. If someone in here thought I was a piece of garbage because of my choices in media consumption they'd probably have told me by now.
What people bristle super heavily at, as a general rule, is people coming in to drive-by about how anyone with concerns about sexualization in media is a prudish puritan who has the active power to enact legislation and take the things they like away and wants to do so. That is a thing that still periodically happens, with clear indication that the poster hasn't even read the OP. This thread was created by a woman as a space to explain to the large and often unaware audience here why she and many other women take issues with sexualization in video games and the way that it affects her. She was immediately met with people attempting to tell her why she was wrong to be so bothered by it, when all she was looking for was (at worst) a nod and an "I disagree, but I can respect where you're coming from."
Mind you, it'd be disingenuous to say there haven't been a few misfires here and there because things can get prrrrrrreeeeeetty heated sometimes, but by and large any posters who disagree and don't drive-by have come out mostly unscathed and with their accounts intact.
Now, personally, I take almost exclusive issue with characters who are otherwise competently written, clearly respected by their writers, and have not an ounce of "present for fanservice" in their nature outside of their visual design, who are then treated like a piece of meat to have sexual fantasies about exclusively by visual components of the story they're present in. Pyra is one of the most immediately apparent examples of such a character I've ever seen in all my time, well, engaging works of fiction. That bothers me a lot, on a pretty deep level.
It's totally cool that you're in the opposite space, and I can even understand reasoning for being there. I mean, Pyra's an incredibly well realized character, so if you were scoring her using a binary grading system she'd come out as a hell of a lot better of a representation of a woman than a character in a mindlessly rote work of softcore pornography. I don't use such a metric, but I can appreciate that others might and would find her less offensive than the casts of Dead or Alive or Senran Kagura or what have you. There's a hell of a discussion there, really, about which is theoretically worse.
But yeah, I don't think anyone who actually posts actively here has ever made any particular claims that works that contain fanservice have no worth, or that people who enjoy them are bad people, as much as people can be pretty outspoken about their personal dislike for a piece of media. There's an important distinction between vitriolic dislike of a work and the active belief that it shouldn't exist or that the people who do like it are bad people.
Basically, I don't think anyone here disagrees with you.
EDIT: Made some alterations for better coherence. Also typos/forgotten words.
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It certainly doesn't invalidate them, but having to recommend works with considerable caveats is also equally difficult. No work is perfect, sure, but there are definitely works out there that don't use and abuse pandering, and it becomes difficult to recommend works that do in light of... well, preexisting work that doesn't. But because it's so prevalent in games, it also greatly reduces the field of works available. It's still back to the issue of it being clowns all the way down, when maybe, just maybe, I don't want or need clowns in every single work I want to enjoy.
I'm not going to be sad if there's less pandering in the future. I feel like, as a reader of works, creators should respect me enough to not pander. Creators should also have enough respect for their own work to not be lazy about it. And ultimately, that's what pandering is. Laziness. And unfortunately, that laziness in design rubs off on the rest of the work. It makes the rest of the work look lazy, even if it isn't.
I quite like what our resident harmless rabbit is putting down, here. For me, as I said, I find the distinction is in porn where it doesn't really belong.
Consider, if you would, that if the worst mods from Skyrim were actually the default aesthetic for that game. That's kind of the case for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That doesn't make it a bad game (to the contrary, I really would like to play it), but that does mean that it has distasteful porn present within a place where it shouldn't be.
I think most of us can agree on that, somewhat, no? The problem then, is that anyone who finds that particular porn distasteful is excluded.
If something is a niche that doesn't really have a lot of games, and it's a niche one may enjoy? That exclusion hits damned hard. I'd still be depressed about it right now if I weren't so excited for Biomutant (I will mention that I am so excited for Biomutant).
I feel Biomutant occupies one of those niches, but it doesn't exclude me by having an inappropriate abundance of what would appear to be softcore porn content in a mainstream video game. That's cringy, it's also something that no one would take out with them in public.
I mean, that's the thing, isn't it?
If we're not being disingenuous, here, that's the thing.
Would you take a pervy, modded Skyrim out in public with you and play it in a public place? No? Why not?
Would you have Dahlia and Pyra on your party and play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in a public place? No? Why not?
The answer is kind of innate.
It's distasteful, it's potentially hurtful. You don't want to get judged for possibly doing harm in a public setting. The anonymity of the Internet is a boon, really, since you don't have to have your name attached to any harm you might cause.
Steven Davies, by the way. Buggerin' awful name. I'm going to have to change it one of these days, it's terribly dull and I rarely identify by it. I don't do harm, so I'm happy to put my name to something. The only reason I wouldn't give away everything is the worry that some nutter may just target my family. That's not on, is it?
Still, I own my posts. I don't intend to hurt with them. I own everything I say. If I do hurt, I'd want to make amends.
I guess it's just a factor of kindness and empathy. You don't want to be seen as being an unempathetic person, so you wouldn't want to play something like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 out in public where it might seem as though you're lusting over and objectifying women. For those who've been in bad situations with that, that wouldn't be a great look for you.
If a developer did have to include things that feel two steps away from softcore porn, a "porn off" button would be lovely. And it'd be fantastic if it defaulted to off so we wouldn't be afraid of starting up a game in public.
That'd mean respectful outfits for the women, a better translation that allows Pyra to have/show agency, and removing the ridiculously horny camera and replacing it with one that's more professional.
I don't think fanservice invalidates a game, but it can exclude people. And is something really valid to you if you're excluded from it? Validity to a person is kind of a subjective thing, after all. So I'd say it invalidates Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for me as I'm not able to play and enjoy it, am I? I'm excluded.
And if you know someone (as I do) who's experienced sexual abuse, how do you explain the game you're playing to them that objectifies submissive women? You don't. Because you're not playing it in the first place.
You're not playing it out of empathy.
And you're wishing that it had a "porn off" button. Because why is porn in the mainstream again, anyway?
Consider, if you would, that if the worst mods from Skyrim were actually the default aesthetic for that game. That's kind of the case for Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That doesn't make it a bad game (to the contrary, I really would like to play it), but that does mean that it has distasteful porn present within a place where it shouldn't be.
I think most of us can agree on that, somewhat, no? The problem then, is that anyone who finds that particular porn distasteful is excluded.
If something is a niche that doesn't really have a lot of games, and it's a niche one may enjoy? That exclusion hits damned hard. I'd still be depressed about it right now if I weren't so excited for Biomutant (I will mention that I am so excited for Biomutant).
I feel Biomutant occupies one of those niches, but it doesn't exclude me by having an inappropriate abundance of what would appear to be softcore porn content in a mainstream video game. That's cringy, it's also something that no one would take out with them in public.
I mean, that's the thing, isn't it?
If we're not being disingenuous, here, that's the thing.
Would you take a pervy, modded Skyrim out in public with you and play it in a public place? No? Why not?
Would you have Dahlia and Pyra on your party and play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in a public place? No? Why not?
The answer is kind of innate.
It's distasteful, it's potentially hurtful. You don't want to get judged for possibly doing harm in a public setting. The anonymity of the Internet is a boon, really, since you don't have to have your name attached to any harm you might cause.
Steven Davies, by the way. Buggerin' awful name. I'm going to have to change it one of these days, it's terribly dull and I rarely identify by it. I don't do harm, so I'm happy to put my name to something. The only reason I wouldn't give away everything is the worry that some nutter may just target my family. That's not on, is it?
Still, I own my posts. I don't intend to hurt with them. I own everything I say. If I do hurt, I'd want to make amends.
I guess it's just a factor of kindness and empathy. You don't want to be seen as being an unempathetic person, so you wouldn't want to play something like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 out in public where it might seem as though you're lusting over and objectifying women. For those who've been in bad situations with that, that wouldn't be a great look for you.
If a developer did have to include things that feel two steps away from softcore porn, a "porn off" button would be lovely. And it'd be fantastic if it defaulted to off so we wouldn't be afraid of starting up a game in public.
That'd mean respectful outfits for the women, a better translation that allows Pyra to have/show agency, and removing the ridiculously horny camera and replacing it with one that's more professional.
I don't think fanservice invalidates a game, but it can exclude people. And is something really valid to you if you're excluded from it? Validity to a person is kind of a subjective thing, after all. So I'd say it invalidates Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for me as I'm not able to play and enjoy it, am I? I'm excluded.
And if you know someone (as I do) who's experienced sexual abuse, how do you explain the game you're playing to them that objectifies submissive women? You don't. Because you're not playing it in the first place.
You're not playing it out of empathy.
And you're wishing that it had a "porn off" button. Because why is porn in the mainstream again, anyway?
I wouldn't agree on that, no. If that's the game they (the devs, publisher, and anyone else involved with the game) decided to make, I'll just have to come to terms with that. I can criticize it, I don't have to respect it, but it is their decision, and at the same time I can decide whether this distateful porn is enough of a reason not to play the game.
I don't think anyone getting excluded is necessarily a bad thing. Appealing to a certain group can potentially alienate another group. Obviously it's bad for the one(s) getting excluded, and yeah, it would suck really bad if there's not many alternatives, so I definitely understand why people would voice their opinion, but it is what it is.
I don't go outside much so I can't really answer, but I think there's some things in life I want to enjoy by myself without other people judging me? I think people would react differently to all kinds of extreme games. If I went to play EU4 for 5 hours in a Starbucks, I think the cashier would be looking at me strangely as well. If I were playing a hyper violent game in public, people may think I'm a weirdo too. If we ignore games for a bit, drinking alcohol in public is frowned upon too, or listening to music loudly. I don't think listening to music or drinking alcohol is bad though. Even though I don't drink any. So I don't see why people potentially reacting negatively to a game, means the game should be changed.
I've not seen anything in Xenoblade 2 that offends me (though I don't own the game) so for now I'd say I'm totally fine with playing that in public, yeah. Don't see how me playing a game with sexualized designs is potentially hurtful either.
Agreed. More options for everyone, what's not to love?
I'm hopping in this thread every once in a while because i'm surprised It's still going.
There are some games i stopped playing because of the portrayal of women and the overall perviness of a title. MgsV was one of them.
Plus, since i started living with my girlfriend, i have actively avoided any overly sexist game, just for the sake of projecting a positive image of the medium on her mind. Not all games are made for men who want to see virtual cleavages at all times.
The main problem has become online gaming. Can't believe how fucked up people can be online towards a female voice. Mic off and hinding behind male avatars has become the way to go. And that is just a failure.
Ot:
About the male thing: I don't think male objectification is a thing as much as male standards being set crazy high by current media. Maybe i just get influenced easily.
There are some games i stopped playing because of the portrayal of women and the overall perviness of a title. MgsV was one of them.
Plus, since i started living with my girlfriend, i have actively avoided any overly sexist game, just for the sake of projecting a positive image of the medium on her mind. Not all games are made for men who want to see virtual cleavages at all times.
The main problem has become online gaming. Can't believe how fucked up people can be online towards a female voice. Mic off and hinding behind male avatars has become the way to go. And that is just a failure.
Ot:
About the male thing: I don't think male objectification is a thing as much as male standards being set crazy high by current media. Maybe i just get influenced easily.
What would be the relevance? Private individuals Vs. a mass consumed medium. It seems neither here nor there.
... What? Are you trying to "subtly" pull the "lol women just dislike fanservice because they're jealous they're not as hot as my anime waifu" "argument"?
Ewwwwww!
It's a stealth anime thread.
Better have one thread for such topic than 10 separate and scattered threads. Will the thread get auto-locked at 200?
Most harem anime don't even sell well nowadays, isekai is the new fad.
Wow this one is still goin huh...
lol, I think they can make very attractive cosplays (is that the term?)
lol, I think they can make very attractive cosplays (is that the term?)
I'm envious of people who have yet to experience Deadly Premonition. Attractive people and cosplayers are A-OK
But their approaches are very different. Skyrim is more or less set in your standard high fantasy setting. It's fantasy so you can technically do whatever the hell you want and it'd be okay, but whenever devs go for high fantasy settings they typically just want to stick as close to Tolkien as possible. XB2 on the other hand has no rules. It's a game that takes place on the backs of titans. A game where you can swim in clouds. A game where humans and creatures live inside of crystals until they're awakened. Even excluding the characters, you can just compare the environments in XB2 to Skyrim and they couldn't be more different. Monolith Soft's world designs are pretty much in a league of their own at this point. As such they really get to establish what the rules are for what looks right in that world because they really aren't trying to copy existing settings and rules.
Wait are you saying that standard high fantasy hadn't tended toward sexist designs before?!
Where do you think chainmail bikini started...
And yes they do get to make the rules. They chose a sexist rule. Everyone applaud now, let them know what a good job they've done being so creative and original.
Where do you think chainmail bikini started...
And yes they do get to make the rules. They chose a sexist rule. Everyone applaud now, let them know what a good job they've done being so creative and original.
No. I'm saying that those that follow a more Tolkien-inspired high fantasy don't tend to go in that direction. They can but obviously Skyrim isn't one of them.
Nowhere did I say you have to applaud or like them. I'm say that what may look strange in Skyrim doesn't look strange in XB2. Whether you like those designs or not is a completely different issue.
I mean, the pointless sexualization of female characters still looks and feels entirely out of place to me. I don't see how it 'being a fantasy' or it containing a lot of fantastical elements in any way makes it 'less out of place'. I don't think this is a compelling argument at all, and I think the below video from Dan Olson / Folding Ideas is in some way relevant here (specifically about how 'they get to make the rules' doesn't protect those rules / decisions from criticism). It's under five minutes long so I'd encourage you to watch it.
This is wonderful and so immensely applicable today, you're absolutely doing us a favor by in bringing it up. I need to subscribe to him as I only just recently became aware of his channel.
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