While we touched upon the subject of male empowerment before, we never discussed it in detail. Also, our tone in sexy male armor posts shifts a lot between sarcasm and talking straight, so can I understand the confusion.
Let’s start with why BABD even posts examples of “empowered men”.
To us, the intent of showing men in skimpy/sexualized armor is satire through contrast. The “Women NEED to be sexy (read: show a lot of skin and do sultry poses)” mentality is so deeply ingrained in our culture that many just assume it to be the natural order of things, that “sexyness” is inherent part of the female gender. But not of the male one.
And while there’s slow shift towards giving women more varied representation, men (who have
otherwise
very diverse presence) rarely get to be the overtly sexy characters. And those who are usually get to be the villains, which feeds into “evil is sexy” trope as well as to villain gay coding, both ugly concepts that should die.
We have yet to see genuine, non-incidental sexy male empowerment in mainstream media that doesn’t come off as some sort of mockery.
~Ozzie
Also worth remembering that a lot of our commentary on sexy male armor is tongue-in-cheek parody of the kind of rhetoric we regularly receive in our ask box, in reblogs and in broad-spectrum posts that conflate us with other critics.
Because let be clear, if we tried to keep the “sexy male armor” tag stocked with images I came across naturally through my typical cishet male surfing, it wouldn’t happen every Friday or even every month.
But it seems we will never stop hearing that eighteen years ago a game with a villain in briefs was released, fourteen years ago a unpopular video game protagonist did a nudey run and sometimes they get funny feelings during the glimpses of male butt in spandex – so clearly the market is constantly over-saturated and it’s only fair every game have c-string clad warrior women in it.
– wincenworks
Following @queerrussetpotato‘s article about false equivalence, let’s bring back this old post discussing “male empowerment”, how sexualized male characters tend to be perceived by the assumed video game/comics/etc. audience (read: cishet white dudes) and why do we regularly feature sexy male armor on BABD.
~Ozzie
See also: this post which talks briefly about framing of male sexualization.
So I have this theory, after hearing a lot about false equivalence coming up in discussions about female portrayal in comic books. Every time women talk about being sexually objectified, there’s always at least one dude who shows up to whine “BUT MENZ ARE OBJECTIFIED TOO, LOOK HOW UNREALISTICALLY MUSCLEY THEY ARE!” Attempting to point out the difference between a power fantasy and a sexual fantasy – to say nothing of pointing out that both fantasies are portrayed by men, for men – is typically useless. The two are firmly conflated and no amount of actual logic will penetrate.
I figure it all ties back into some of same concepts that underwrite “fake” geek girls, friendzoning, rape apology, and other things of that ilk: namely, that men think the sexual fantasy is a power fantasy.
When creating a powerful woman, men seem to have this automatic jump to making said powerful woman a sex object, because they truly think sexiness is powerful. For them, that’s what female power is: power over men. This is behind all the guys howling that sexy geek girl cosplayers are “preying” on male nerds; this is behind all the men who say women deserve rape for what they wear; this is behind all those “friendzoned” guys who insist they can’t possibly break off the “friendship” themselves because they’re helpless before the objects of their affection. It allows them to disclaim their actions as coerced, shunt away responsibility, and blame women when things don’t go as they like. They “couldn’t resist” the power of attraction.
In comics, men both don’t understand that their male power fantasies aren’t sexy for women (horrendously muscled, bodybuilder physique is NOT typically a sexual ideal), and don’t understand why women don’t derive power fantasy from the sex appeal of the female heroes. “Look,” they’re saying, “you are portrayed as powerful, and men are portrayed as sexy!” This also slots in with the idea that women are only in anything ever because of men – that their desire to attract men is one of the principal driving forces of their existence. That, therefore, the power to attract men should be important to them in a “strong” female character.
I’ve thought about this too much today and it’s goddamn depressing. It’s the same bullshit which says a woman’s only power, her only worth, is in her physical attractiveness, that women are only powerful in relation to men. I don’t really think I can safely contemplate it more right now.
Guh. Need kittens.
MOAR.
(New ILU)
Sorry to reblog myself but okay there’s more. I had to go back to work after I posted this earlier and there’s nothing to do at work but think (monotonous job is monotonous) and even though it’s depressing I couldn’t think about anything else once I got started. /storyofmylife
So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men. Men not only provide power to women, but they do so by losing power themselves. You guys, maybe this is why men think power is a zero sum game: because they think that women only have power when they are overpowering men with their sexy sexiness.
Fake geek girls, specifically, have an element of dominance issue to them. Look at those hot girls, swanning into fandom, taking away not only attention and material goods (limited fandom resources, such as collector’s editions and etc., has been discussed elsewhere) but also stealing their very wills from them. Better put those girls in their place, because otherwise they’ll be the ones with the power, on account of they have mammaries, and unlike those chicks in comic books they’re not safe paper-and-ink mammaries created solely to be ogled!
Also, since this is all about false equivalence, may I go on a tangent here and talk about realism? Because comics, at least American comics, portray physical dimensions/characteristics for men that are outrageous and close to impossible. Professional bodybuilders can do it but it looks freaking unnatural. No reasonable person expects all men to actually go out and try to become that. However, the way women look in comics is still the way most men, including many who consider themselves quite reasonable, expect women to look. Male superheroes are escapism for men, so they can be as unrealistic as they need to be; female superheroes are also escapism for men, so there’s a limit on how unrealistic they can be. Although niches exist for all kinds of physical-dimension fetishes, women in comics are idealizations of what the men reading/writing those comics would want to have sex with, and so they’re kept pretty close to society’s ideal beauty standards (which, while unrealistic also, are not considered to be such by most men). Let me put it this way: a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the men with bodybuilders would look bizarre and ridiculous; a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the women with models or even well-dressed porn stars wouldn’t make most people bat an eye, except maybe to wonder what city it is or to make appreciative comments. Women are supposed to look like that, says society. Not just a few, exceptional women – all women, at least if they want to be worth anything.
The above paragraph exists to punctuate this point: when women complain about how they’re drawn in comics, it’s not about realism. The body dimensions of male superheroes are metaphorical representations of their power over whatever they’re up against, whereas the body dimensions of female superheroes are meant to be literal depictions of their power over men.
IDK. This post has wiped me out today and I think I’m done with saddening feminist musings for a little while. Still need kittens and now possibly also schnapps.
Can’t believe I discovered this post just now. It was literally written before I started this blog!
What a nice writeup on false equivalence! Puts the subject of power politics in portrayals of gender we discussed here more eloquently than I ever managed. Possibly my favorite part is:
“So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men.”
Meg Foster’s costume weighed a reported 45 lbs., and the actress sustained bruises to her groin from the breastplate she wears throughout the film. Constructed of fiberglass, Foster has said the breastplate restricted her movements a great deal, which is why Evil-Lyn is never show sitting during the film. Foster as also said that the discomfort from the costume helped inform her performance, as the weight and design of the costume forced her to puff out her chest during every take, thus generating the character’s slinky posture.
But people assure us that designs like this are totally practical for real armor…
Today’s throwback: real-life evidence of how uncomfortable lingerie-shaped armor is.
Another amazing thing about this costume is how they went out of their way to make it look nothing like it did in the cartoon (on the right there’s redesign from 2002 reboot, for comparison).
So yeah, not only was the movie character redesigned from scratch*, no-one took it as an opportunity to at least make the costume wearable for a living, breathing woman.
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).
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:
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.
We have previously updated somebingos after they have been posted, however we will not be doing this unless there is an important reason.
Here’s why:
Female Armor Bingo is intended as a fun way to encourage critique of popular media and thus draw attention to troubling tropes. Too much pressure to make every bingo perfect takes away the fun and derails the conversation away from the intended purpose.
Many of the terms are deliberately vague so as to cover the many forms the trope takes and thus it can become very subjective. Nitpicking over details again derails and also encourages the mentality that “No one can criticize you for x, provided you do y.”
When people submit bingo cards to us, they’re marking off the points they see – if they miss a point or two on a card that’s already over half full then it doesn’t really diminish from the core point: The armor is disrespectful to women in general and part of a prevalent and harmful trope.
Sadly, Female Armor Bingo is not an empirical measuring device – we’ve had absurdlyobjectifyingoutfitsthatdidn’t score bingos either due to technicalities or how the squares happened to be filled out. They were still objectifying and deserving ridicule. Just like thefamousBechdelTest, the bingo is supposed to shed light on a bigger trend in popculture, not to meticulously analyze who and what “passes”.
Finding new content for the blog, checking submissions, researching and writing posts, etc. is time consuming and a much higher priority than tweaking bingos that are already entertaining and on-point.
As the Female Armor Bingo is nearing its third anniversary next month, it’s good time for a reminder that the game’s main goal is to help the audiences observe and point out prevailing harmful tropes of female warrior costume design. Not to narrow down definition of sexism, let alone judge which outfits are “sexist enough” to criticize based on the score.
That said, as updating the board is our unofficial yearlytradition – do you, readers, think some squares should be changed or adjusted to reflect any common design problems that aren’t addressed yet?
Absolutely excellent post. As a viewer, I’m absolutely distracted (by the mostly nude man), but there’s no way that I’d be facing him on the battlefield going “and now I’ll just wield this polearm and … oh no, he’s hot!”
By far my favorite point is that there is a difference between telling a realistic story and a naturalistic story. A naturalistic story tells a story that is completely plausible in our world. No wizards, no dragons, no secret vampires, no alien invasions. Telling a realistic story is telling a story that is logical and consistent and makes sense (even if the setting is in a fictional world or in a reality very different from our own).
PS: About the chainmail bikinis, specifically? Don’t say “oh okay but what if she were wearing it like a joke and then ended up being stranded somewhere in that,” because then it’s clear that, as a writer, you’re just using a “crowbar” to force your character into a bikini. Same thing if the bikini armor is somehow magical and sufficiently protective—it’s obvious and awkward because you obviously just wanted an enchanted bikini in your story.
There are plenty of opportunities to make characters wear less clothing. For one thing, people in the privacy of their homes tend to wear less (and everybody loves a good in-the-room shirt-change—they’re almost mandatory on supernatural dramas). Also, an kind of shape-shifter who does much more than swap faces is going to have a clothing problem. Unless you are using fairytale/Harry Potter magic where clothes transform, too, most versions of werewolves are going to have issues with their clothing. Same thing for someone who turns into a hawk or vapor or a fire golem or a giant squid.
But if you’re telling a story about a fantasy world and you want a warrior man or woman who is under-dressed, consider other things. Take Young Justice (the recent television series). Superboy often ends up with his shirt partially or completely destroyed, because while he is all but invulnerable, his shirt is made of cotton and does not take as well to being slashed at by claws or set on fire or hit with a blast from an energy weapon.
An invulnerable warrior would not necessarily have invulnerable clothing or armor, and if there were some rare material that was nearly as invulnerable as the warrior herself/himself, it might be expensive. I think that it’s a bit of a cheap move, but someone who is invulnerable and on a tight budget might spend the money on “modesty” armor that can survive a blast of dragonfire or being gnawed on by a pack of wolves. After that, you keep the story engaging and stakesy by deciding upon that unbreakable warrior’s vulnerabilities (drowning, starvation, suffocation, inhaled or ingested poison, magic, telepathy, kryptonite, whatever).
But even if you got yourself a dragonscale loincloth or a diamondmail bikini, you’d still wear clothing of some sort over that. And it probably wouldn’t be skintight. You don’t have to be ashamed of your body to not wear a catsuit—you might just want to be comfortable or not stick out like a nothing-to-the-imagination thumb in the middle of a crowd.
(You needn’t make such a character completely indestructible — there are a lot of superpowers that make a person not need actual armor, including unbreakable skin (which leaves you immune to cuts, not to bruises and crushing attacks) and regeneration (like a vampire or Wolverine), though most regenerators would probably want armor anyway)
Great response! simonjadis makes some really good points!
mod note: best parts bolded for emphasis
This week’s throwback: a real blast from the past! Comprehensive explanation of why “bikini armor makes no sense” is a completely different issue from “bikini armor is unrealistic".
When there are so many more reasonable scenarios to put fanservice in your work than fashioning female armor into lingerie/fetishwear (and there always are), “fantasy isn’t supposed to be realistic” rhetoric just won’t cut it.
