Fantasy does NOT have to follow real world rules. Fantasy does NOT have to relate to some real world event, country, concept, law, or history. Fantasy does NOT have to mirror any particular time period or country, even if you’re basing your world on a real world one. There is NO SUCH THING as “historical accuracy” in fantasy as it relates to the real world.
THE ONLY THING Fantasy has to do to be believable is follow the established rules OF ITS OWN WORLD. Fantasy can literally be anything you imagine it to be.
If your fantasy world excludes people of color or those belonging to the LGBT+ community, if it’s grossly misogynistic and white cis-male centric, that’s because YOU made it that way. Stop blaming “historical accuracy” or “believability”. It’s not the genre; it’s YOU.
@bikiniarmorbattledamage I believe this is highly relevant to the rhetoric you guys often combat.
Indeed all of this relates to all the stuff we talk about on BABD.
Ultimately, no matter the justifying rhetoric, it’s the creative decisions that will be under scrutiny, not some superficially “objective” rules regarding a fictional setting.
I, as a woman, want Wonder Woman to be hot as hell, fight badass, and look great at the same time – the same way men want Superman to have huge pecs and an impractically big body. That makes them feel like the hero they want to be. And my hero, in my head, has really long legs.
Because that:
Has TOTALLY the same costuming priorities as this:
With lines like that, maybe Jenkins and the costume designer, Lindy Hemming, aim to be the Mari Shimazakis of Hollywood… Except Diana of Themyscira is not Bayonetta, so “she’s supposed to be very sexy and I as a lady find it empowering” excuses do not really work, even in
I want to be optimistic and am gonna assume that the crew is contractually obligated to endorse every choice made about the movie, no matter how ridiculous it is when you think about it for more than a second.
That being said, please don’t read it as an endorsement to boycott Wonder Woman in cinemas. Critics have been saying some great and interesting things about it, so if you decide to watch it, remember that you can enjoy the movie while being critical of its flaws (like costumes that contradict the story’s message). Still, be watchful of both what’s communicated on screen and behind the scenes, cause those things say a lot about how female-led stories are viewed in the industry.
~Ozzie
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Art is not made in a vacuum. It is tangible communication – a powerful object formed from varied experiences and views, and the implications it derives from the world in which it was born.
Pretending that something is “only” a piece of art/fiction/game/whatever and therefore can’t possibly be emblematic of its creator’s own biases (and form further bias among the audience) is ignorant at best.
Art and entertainment are, by design, media for transferring ideas. Not always intentionally in the propagandist way, but the transfer happens constantly. That’s one of the reasons media criticism is needed: to seek out and analyze what media communicate.
This is why we don’t buy “Oh, let those hundreds upon thousands of fictional ladies fight wars in metal bikinis, what bad could possibly be taken from all those stories they are featured in?” argument.
male gamers like to pretend that male characters designed, draw/rendered and written by men, made hulkishly muscular and hypermasculine by men for a deliberate target audience of men is objectification and hypersexualisation rather than actively appealing to male power fantasy
and it’s somehow women’s fault of course
My favorite example of this is when people try to invoke this guy as their ultimate trump card of “Men are objectified in video games too!”
The ultimate steroid rager who converses primarily by screaming and murdering. A completely selfish man who, since murdering his wife and daughter, seems to only one emotion (anger) and prone to random acts of violence. A man so terrible that he goes out of his way to incorporate murdering random women* into “puzzle solving”.**
People actually point to this character, created by a man (David Jaffe) and try to tell us this is objectification of men in order to pander to women.
Then, presumably, after throwing a tantrum and destroying random objects in their home, then wonder why women aren’t impressed by this and find them undateable.
* The fact that almost the entire female population, including the monsters, goes to great pains to show off their breasts to the player also never seems to factor into their assessment.
** This sequence featured in Tropes vs Women in Video Games – however please be advised that this sequence along with other parts in the video contain extreme depictions of violence against women. (x)
– wincenworks
So, due to some minor events that gave this myth a shot in the arm, it’s probably worth bringing this back this week, particularly since said event related to barbarians and similarly physically powerful warriors.
The notion that “men are objectified too” really doesn’t hold up under the slightest scrutiny – particularly when so much media insists on asking the audience to cheer for super violent male characters who are often amazingly unlikeable.
So i just want to say that, aside from a few small gripes (mainly the seeming assumption that only cishet males promote the objectification of women in games. Feel free to tell me if i misunderstood that.), i love this blog. It does address many of the issues in modern media in regards to women. While there still seems to be a small bias it is easily ignored for the most part as the information provided is useful to designers. Thank you, though, for keeping things as straight forward as possible
Glad we can be of service! I did want to clarify our “assumption that only cishet males promote the objectification of women” because we do see people trying to throw the objectification blame around as if that’s productive. We never meant to imply that only cishet males objectify women, just that design decisions that lead to things like this are usually made to appeal to the cishet male demographic, or even just to their cishet male designer. Anyone can objectify a character, but that doesn’t mean that the character was designed to be consumed in that way by certain demographics. With how many “men only” game ads we see, I think we can agree they aren’t pandering to queer women.
I follow quite a few women / nb people in the anime and games community who are attracted to women (I’m a straight woman), and sometimes I see them enjoying or creating art that is objectifying and makes me uncomfortable. One example is Camilla from FE Fates, and the ‘damaged-clothes’ pictures in FE Heroes. I see women / nb people finding these things sexy. I don’t want to tell LGBTQ people what they should or shouldn’t be attracted to though. Do you have any thoughts on this?
There is no social structure in place that routinely supports male objectification or places queer people in the same position of power over women as it does for cishet (white) men.
That said, we don’t tell anyone, even cis straight men, who and what they should be attracted to. We just want people to be aware and critical of those things and consider the bigger picture of what that attraction means. Especially if that thing comes from mainstream media that inevitably builds the collective image of the world we live in, and not from, say, niche kinky corners of the Internet.
It is certainly true some people went naked or near naked into battle, but not alongside warriors in proper armor and not in battle bikinis. There are some other important factors involved in their choice to do so. Firstly it usually only in cases where they didn’t have access to armor and/or the battles were largely ceremonial or otherwise non-lethal.
Armor is developed in response to weapons and usually the first forms of defense were shields. So if you had no nudity taboo and hadn’t developed armor due to lack of resources or lack of regular conflict, you didn’t really have much choice in the matter. Particularly since your weapons are usually tools that are made for hunting or other work.
In areas where this happened, usually the battles were no war in the sense of systematic killing of the enemy but more demonstrations of strength to intimidate others – usually over a piece of farm land or livestock. It was used to resolve grievances and sometimes even as a regular sport.
Usually this happened where people needed everyone to work together in order to provide essential, which means you also don’t need any more land than you already control and work every day. When you have an argument with your neighbours, you settle it to both sides satisfaction so you can resume living next to one another.
The ability to make sophisticated items like bikini armor (which is surprisingly complicated) comes from civilizations where they have sufficient surplus of resources and people they can have specialists who can trade goods and ideas. By the time you reach this level you also a real incentive to try to obtain more and more land.
At that point civilizations can start developing dedicated weapons, training dedicated soldiers (to expand your nation or defend against invaders) and their battles start to involve countless fatalities. Then it becomes worthwhile to begin the cycle of making armor to protect against the enemies weapons, and weapons to beat your enemies armor.
TL;DR: If you’re in a society that has warriors and the know-how and resources to make bikini armor, you’re in a society where your warriors wear actual armor. There were civilizations that fought nude or near nude, but they didn’t have bikini armor, fancy swords, professional warriors or sophisticated combat techniques.
– wincenworks
Time to bring this back, as the subject of nudity and near-nudity in battle came up in a disappointing video about Barbarians and their lack of armor that was recommended to us.
So, just to reiterate: going near naked into battle =/= going into battle in a metal/leather/fur equivalent to lingerie, therefore the fact that some real life warriors, in specific circumstances, fought naked is not a historical precedent for bikini armor. Same rules apply also to gladiators.
Our advice for designers who want to convey a primitive warrior culture that either just doesn’t believe in armor or uses it just partially is, predictably, amazingly: avoid double standards.
Question how and why a “primitive”, yet pragmatic culture would develop such a sophisticated and impractical, melee-inappropriate garment as a battle bikini in the first place. Should they even have a nudity/nipple taboo and if so, why wouldn’t they just throw a simple shirt or sarashi-style wrap on women’s boobs?
If you actually believe in heroic nudity and aren’t limited by “family-friendly” commercial standards, ask yourself: which of those ladies convey the idea of a berserking, unstoppable badass who needs no armor and which ones of a fancy lingerie model:
Just as fully clothed women can be depicted sexily, so can scantily-clad women be depicted as powerful and not sexual. It’s not just about how much skin is showing.
