Tag: commentary

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Brigitte and Overwatch’s continous female design problem

We talked already about Brigitte’s costume, but there’s a whole lot of other issues about her character design that shouldn’t be overlooked. Again, it’s a nice idea to have a new lady in actual armor in the game, though we wouldn’t be BABD if we didn’t point out some obvious and less obvious problems that can be spotted with her. 

She’s, after Moira, another white European lady in a row, while still the closest to black female representation among playable heroes is Orisa, a robot (and before anyone says it – nope, none of the dark-skinned female characters are black).
For a game that prides itself in having diverse international cast, Overwatch can not imagine people of color color coming from places that wouldn’t be POC-dominant already (also lots of their heroes of color somehow happen to be morally dubious compared to white ones). And just because Brigitte is a pre-established character doesn’t yet excuse prioritizing adding her to the game over someone with different background. 

It’s kind of funny how after being unnamed for no reason in her last major media appearance, the Reinhardt animated short, now Brigitte got elevated from a supporting lore character to one of main heroes. This, paired with ridiculous lack of consistency in her cross-media appearances gives us a strong feeling that no-one at Blizzard is overseeing writing and art direction of Overwatch as a franchise. Fans who spot constant retcons in the story would agree.

Speaking of no visual consistency, seems like from comics to the animated short to the actual game Brigitte finished her long journey from a unique-looking person to another standard issue pretty face. 

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And no, different artists working on each of those appearances isn’t an excuse for how only her hair and skintone remain relatively consistent. Her crucial features like jawline, freckles, nose shape and size, how big her eyes are and how strong her chin is shouldn’t alter so widely just because of art style change. Blizzard is perfectly capable of making and using style guides – and when they don’t, it’s either by choice or negligence.

And if you wondered what we meant by “standard issue pretty face”, this pic, for obvious reasons, has gained some major mileage around the Internet: 

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Congrats, Blizzard! You officially care about diverse female appearances as little Disney does! (image sources: [x] & [x]) 

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Or maybe the jokes are true and the (weak) excuse for looking like clones is the same as for the Frozen ladies? Mercy is Brigitte’s real mom!

Not to mention that Blizzard can’t make up their mind on what Brigitte’s body type is supposed to be. Is she thin and curvy as virtually every other Overwatch lady? Is she almost as buff as Zarya? Something inbetween? Who knows.

I saw some fans trying to excuse her twig arms from Christmas comic as being possibly earliest in the timeline, but no official channel would confirm or deny any speculation. Overwatch is pretty satisfied with fans using their headcanons to justify whatever information the story canon won’t commit to. Why make an effort when fans can do your job for you? 

~Ozzie

“Brigitte Lindholm, squire to Reinhardt Wilhelm, is a former mechanical engineer who has decided to take up arms and fight on the front lines to protect those in need.”

If I didn’t know anything about this character and was just reading her background blurb, I would be imagining a character design more akin to this:

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Why build a regular armor and shield when I can pilot a 12-foot-tall exoskeleton? Her father builds turrets during combat, it would have been cool if she had skills related to building and adjusting her own armor in-combat.

Her design doesn’t inform me of her character at all, which is a problem with several of the Overwatch cast (mostly ladies, I wonder why that is). She wears armor, but so does Pharah; is she also a soldier? She has no welding mask or a tool belt that would indicate that she’s a mechanic type. I get that she doesn’t want to just fix things on the sidelines, but she does throw out armor for her allies. It isn’t a stretch to flavor it as her fixing her team’s equipment in the heat of battle, and she does get a welding mask in a different skin but not the primary one?

Her color scheme is almost the same as Mercy’s, with silver (instead of white), yellow and black being the core, which really isn’t helping that same-face problem, Blizzard. Not to mention the shapes are very similar to Pharah’s. There’s just nothing new here design-wise, and I am disappointed.

-Icy

Posted on

Okay, so we’ve received approximately… more requests than I can bother to count to comment on Blizzard finally announcing Brigitte Lindholm as a playable character and releasing her on the test server.

Now, initially I put off commenting on this because she had only one skin and the minimum features to allow people to play her on the test server.  This felt suspicious to me, because put simply: The default skin is, in isolation, good:

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There are minor issues, such as her hair, waist and the weird hip cape designed to remind us she has a (presumably sexy) butt.

However, once the Legendary skins came out, the conversation became more complicated (expect more posts in the near future) because well, the come in two themes (knight and mechanic) and… let’s just look at them:

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Yes, it seems that while someone at the Overwatch art team managed to get her primary look to be pretty good, the powers that be decided her Legendary Skins (ie the prestigious ones) need to have the standard sexualized nonsense.

On top of that, despite that visually she is a distaff Reinhardt (who still does not have a sculpted codpiece) and her video announcing she is not content to be a support character and wants to tank… she is Support:

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Reminder: She maintains all Reinhardt’s gear… so there’s no in game explanation why her shield is roughly one third the strength.

Also, while there is some joking about her being a copy of a Paladins character (that would be the ultimate irony), I can’t help but think I’ve seen this shield and flail combination somewhere in a Blizzard game before…

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Overwatch, supposed to be Blizzard doing women characters better.

– wincenworks

Posted on

But is it really porn?

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

So now and again we get people insist that x title shouldn’t be counted because it’s intended to be viewed as porn (especially if that product is from a country outside the English speaking world… because reasons).

Reasons for this assumption often include:

  • The presence of explicit fan service or sex scenes
  • The inclusion of ridiculous double standards
  • Fans having labelled it as an erotic product on their own wikis
  • The publisher having actual porn products in their catalog

But generally this just assumes that by shoehorning in some sexualized content a product immediately becomes excluded from criticism.  Very few products exclude all content from their own genre (plenty of action movies have a romantic subplot for example).

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Generally a lot of the cross genre trends have a pretty basic premise behind them, it helps improve the audience investment:

  • Comic relief in horror and thriller helps avoid the audience becoming desensitized or burnt out from the tension
  • Having a love interest can humanize a protagonist (or an antagonist) and increase your ability to get invested in them
  • Mixing a little mystery with your modern fantasy story reminds the audience of how little we really notice or know about the world around us and makes them more accepting to the idea of secret magic

So, what purpose does having ultrasexualized costumes for female characters and regular arbitrary fan service?  Well, mostly it’s because of the general belief that certain demographics need a lot of reassurance that some products are okay for them, and in fact made exclusively for them:

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It’s been covered before, but I really feel the need to restate that the main reason for this is a very simple reasoning: x genre is a for (straight cis) men so we need to market exclusively to them and make sure they know we’re doing it (even if they think it’s already being overdone and kind of insulting).

(Evidence suggests this works… but only in the sense that it does make a lot of people think that the product is not for them and hence don’t buy it. Or just have more fun mocking it than they’d have playing it.)

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That’s not to say that there aren’t products or stories where including sexual content gives it a boost, but generally you’ll want to do it in a way that makes sense and does actually improve the product and that still doesn’t make it porn.

You can physically eat a lot of things, but just as you wouldn’t call it food unless you buy it specifically to eat it, you shouldn’t call it porn unless you buy it specifically for sexual gratification.

– wincenworks

Given the responses to some recent posts, and the recent responses to some old posts, its probably worth bringing this back – particularly since we’re now more or less out of the “slow season” where companies assume everyone is still broke from Christmas shopping.

The general idea that companies should get a free pass for “its just cheesecake” or “that title/genre/etc has always been like that” is essentially a plea to two well and truly exhausted pieces of rhetoric:

If publishers want to produce porn, then they should be confident enough to own that and to try produce good porn.

If publishers want to cram porny designs into other products and pretend that it’s just how things are they should be called out on it – particularly if they are simutaneously having fans defend the quality of their work and insisting more research is required to fully understand a two minute trailer.

– wincenworks

Posted on

But is it really porn?

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

So now and again we get people insist that x title shouldn’t be counted because it’s intended to be viewed as porn (especially if that product is from a country outside the English speaking world… because reasons).

Reasons for this assumption often include:

  • The presence of explicit fan service or sex scenes
  • The inclusion of ridiculous double standards
  • Fans having labelled it as an erotic product on their own wikis
  • The publisher having actual porn products in their catalog

But generally this just assumes that by shoehorning in some sexualized content a product immediately becomes excluded from criticism.  Very few products exclude all content from their own genre (plenty of action movies have a romantic subplot for example).

image

Generally a lot of the cross genre trends have a pretty basic premise behind them, it helps improve the audience investment:

  • Comic relief in horror and thriller helps avoid the audience becoming desensitized or burnt out from the tension
  • Having a love interest can humanize a protagonist (or an antagonist) and increase your ability to get invested in them
  • Mixing a little mystery with your modern fantasy story reminds the audience of how little we really notice or know about the world around us and makes them more accepting to the idea of secret magic

So, what purpose does having ultrasexualized costumes for female characters and regular arbitrary fan service?  Well, mostly it’s because of the general belief that certain demographics need a lot of reassurance that some products are okay for them, and in fact made exclusively for them:

image

It’s been covered before, but I really feel the need to restate that the main reason for this is a very simple reasoning: x genre is a for (straight cis) men so we need to market exclusively to them and make sure they know we’re doing it (even if they think it’s already being overdone and kind of insulting).

(Evidence suggests this works… but only in the sense that it does make a lot of people think that the product is not for them and hence don’t buy it. Or just have more fun mocking it than they’d have playing it.)

image

That’s not to say that there aren’t products or stories where including sexual content gives it a boost, but generally you’ll want to do it in a way that makes sense and does actually improve the product and that still doesn’t make it porn.

You can physically eat a lot of things, but just as you wouldn’t call it food unless you buy it specifically to eat it, you shouldn’t call it porn unless you buy it specifically for sexual gratification.

– wincenworks

Given the responses to some recent posts, and the recent responses to some old posts, its probably worth bringing this back – particularly since we’re now more or less out of the “slow season” where companies assume everyone is still broke from Christmas shopping.

The general idea that companies should get a free pass for “its just cheesecake” or “that title/genre/etc has always been like that” is essentially a plea to two well and truly exhausted pieces of rhetoric:

image

If publishers want to produce porn, then they should be confident enough to own that and to try produce good porn.

If publishers want to cram porny designs into other products and pretend that it’s just how things are they should be called out on it – particularly if they are simutaneously having fans defend the quality of their work and insisting more research is required to fully understand a two minute trailer.

– wincenworks

Posted on

heroineimages:

qsy-draws-a-lot:

Speaking of fandom, just blocked a guy that was complaining about me not liking this figure.

He was complaining about how people like me always whined even when we got what we want, and that we were never satisfied and GW was buying bullied or some shit. Because apparently when you tell a guy “I want new and redesigned SoB figs to come out, without the boob armor and stupid shit and especially without the heels some art has” they hear “I want more SoB figs”.
Like no I’m sorry but at this point I’d much rather they stop making them if they’re going to do these pieces of shit. How clueless can you be making the first sororita fig in months and give it a stripper leg ?

Here’s one for @bikiniarmorbattledamage. I keep laughing like a moron just looking at this pic. The armor’s not just impractical and sexualized, it’s gaudy, kitschy, and stupid. Is that the Sisters’ strategy? To distract their opponents with how ridiculous their outfit looks? I mean, I suppose it’s hard to aim when you’re convulsing with laughter. 

Boobplate made from literal skulls and nonsensical heels is somehow a good response to all the problems women have with Sisters of Battle armor… really? That’s an… interesting place to draw the “you’re never satisfied, aren’t you?” card.

Some vocal male Warhammer 40k fans probably aren’t part of Toxic Masculinity Brigade, but I haven’t really met one yet… 

And since every time something about double standards in WH40k is referenced a tide of Twitter thread-worthy replies arises, I await them anxiously. 

~Ozzie 

PS: Apparently this design is based on an old piece of artwork… Which is a 0% valid excuse for Games Workshop to produce it now, after years of being called out on perpetuating sexist stereotypes with their figures. 

Posted on

heroineimages:

qsy-draws-a-lot:

Speaking of fandom, just blocked a guy that was complaining about me not liking this figure.

He was complaining about how people like me always whined even when we got what we want, and that we were never satisfied and GW was buying bullied or some shit. Because apparently when you tell a guy “I want new and redesigned SoB figs to come out, without the boob armor and stupid shit and especially without the heels some art has” they hear “I want more SoB figs”.
Like no I’m sorry but at this point I’d much rather they stop making them if they’re going to do these pieces of shit. How clueless can you be making the first sororita fig in months and give it a stripper leg ?

Here’s one for @bikiniarmorbattledamage. I keep laughing like a moron just looking at this pic. The armor’s not just impractical and sexualized, it’s gaudy, kitschy, and stupid. Is that the Sisters’ strategy? To distract their opponents with how ridiculous their outfit looks? I mean, I suppose it’s hard to aim when you’re convulsing with laughter. 

Boobplate made from literal skulls and nonsensical heels is somehow a good response to all the problems women have with Sisters of Battle armor… really? That’s an… interesting place to draw the “you’re never satisfied, aren’t you?” card.

Some vocal male Warhammer 40k fans probably aren’t part of Toxic Masculinity Brigade, but I haven’t really met one yet… 

And since every time something about double standards in WH40k is referenced a tide of Twitter thread-worthy replies arises, I await them anxiously. 

~Ozzie 

PS: Apparently this design is based on an old piece of artwork… Which is a 0% valid excuse for Games Workshop to produce it now, after years of being called out on perpetuating sexist stereotypes with their figures. 

Posted on

khunkhuz:

I fucking love Monster Hunter World but this fucking infuriates me

MH have ALWAYS had a sexist issue with how they treat their female armor design, and World hasn’t gotten rid of this problem completely

Oh yeah and that fantasy stripper armor is supposed to be fire resistant

Thankfully a lot of their other female armor designs look really good

*Heavy sigh* Seems like World continues (if not downgrades even more) Monster Hunter’s inconsistency in gender-equal design. 

See, this is why we refuse giving credit to costumes in games like MH and Guild Wars 2. Just because the double standard is occasionally avoided, it doesn’t excuse all the rest of generic boob/belly/thigh/butt cutouts that female armor gets and male doesn’t. 

Also, this particular one? PAAANK, because how else could we affirm this is supposed to be female character? It’s not like pants were taken away from her already and she runs around in a literal bra and nothing more on her upper torso. Nope, not female-coded enough; needs pink. 

~Ozzie