These images are taken from a novelty trading card set that was printed in 1902, imagining how women of the future might look in the roles that were exclusive to men at the time.
Now, it bears noting that there was no serious artistic intent behind these – they were not an exploration of the (then) future so much as they were a novel excuse to have photos of cute girls in costumes.
Yet somehow they remain far more convincing and charismatic than so, so many modern products that want us to take the notion of their “empowered” warrior women seriously.
– wincenworks
Indivisible is a crowd-funded RPG by the creators of Skullgirls, the project was successfully funded and flooded our inbox with requests for commentary. It opened up with the trailer below, and revealed more info and characters as it reached funding goals.
Now, as you can see the cast game has a very diverse cast both in terms of demographics, and in quality of attire.
While overall it’s easy to see why so many people are getting excited about this, a couple of major issues jumped out at me. So, for now, I’m going to address the matters that are specific to BABD in very broad strokes.
(Obviously this is based entirely off the crowdfunding campaign, since the game isn’t released yet)
Things that are awesome, specifically related to the blog:
- There is a lady tank and she is BIG (Phoebe)
- Anja’s transformation at 0:56 in the trailer
- Anja girding her loins at 2:50 in the trailer
- Anja’s outfit makes sense it in that it was what she was wearing and she’s adapted it for action.
- The badass known as Qadira
- This badass known as Toko
These things are not awesome:
- Phoebe’s outfit seems to be ridiculously sexualized, as though to compensate the audience for her being bulky in size
- Anja’s transformation in the in game footage doesn’t seem anywhere near as intimidating or powerful, rather more of a cutesy palette swap
- Qadira doesn’t appear on the line-up above because she was one of the last characters to be revealed.
- Conventional sexy ladies seemed to be prioritized up the front of the line-up, to the extent Thorani’s gets dangerously close to the women as reward trope.
- Pretty much all the guys have weapons and/or obvious martial abilities while Thorani, Yan, Phoebe, Zahra and Nuna (ie most of the female early release Incarnations) look support or non-combative roles
- I have no idea what is going on with Yan’s costume… it looks suspiciously like like a Playboy Bunny outfit.
So overall, there’s some really cool stuff and I can really see why many people are super hyped up for this game, but in the context of the issues this blog examines, there are some big problems here.
Some of them might get changed before release, but a lot of them are also with how they choose to pitch this game.
– wincenworks
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s Captain Phasma, Unmasked
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s Captain Phasma, Unmasked
I particularly like how, in this interview about a dress of all things, Gwendoline addresses the reason why Captain Phasma’s armor is so striking.
“…normally the kind of female characters that we see in films, we see the way in which they’re made flesh. We see the outlines of their body. But this is a character who is wearing armor, and as a consequence we are forced to judge her or interact with her… form a relationship on her character and due to her actions.”
This is the power that you give characters when you don’t lean on sexualized tropes, objectification and the false idol of “sex sells”.
– wincenworks
(ht: @itsgoodtobeming)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s Captain Phasma, Unmasked
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s Captain Phasma, Unmasked
I particularly like how, in this interview about a dress of all things, Gwendoline addresses the reason why Captain Phasma’s armor is so striking.
“…normally the kind of female characters that we see in films, we see the way in which they’re made flesh. We see the outlines of their body. But this is a character who is wearing armor, and as a consequence we are forced to judge her or interact with her… form a relationship on her character and due to her actions.”
This is the power that you give characters when you don’t lean on sexualized tropes, objectification and the false idol of “sex sells”.
– wincenworks
(ht: @itsgoodtobeming)
