Far too often I see people jump at feminists who criticize sexist designs on female characters with, “They’re just showing how confident they are in their sexuality! We need more sex-positive women!”
Yet, these characters never in the game ever make any hint of their sexuality, whether it be through flirting, being unashamed of their sexual behavior, defending the sexual choices of others, or wearing revealing clothing as casual wear (i.e. not wearing battle armor that exposes their entire chest.)
Instead, anytime there are “sex-positive” women in gaming that are vocal about their sexuality and confidence in such, they are almost always a villain. Yet, I never see these people defend these characters, or take note that the only time that a woman in a game is confident in her sexuality, it’s because she’s an ~evil seductress~, and the game developers use it as an exploit rather than a character trait.
How about instead of shouting at feminists that point out the needlessly and nonsensical revealing clothing on female game characters that it’s supposed to be because they’re “sex-positive”, you instead take the energy and criticize game developers that everytime there is a “sex-positive” women in gaming, she’s evil and it is instead seen as a character flaw?
I’ve alludedbefore that it’s possible to create a female character who dresses skimpily to express how sexually liberated and confident about her own body she is… possible in theory, at least.
Also, as I mentioned in my Stafire-design-through-years article, character’s personal affairs DO NOT excuse what costume she “chooses” to do her job in, particularly when that job is FIGHTING. Especially while warrior men who are equally, if not more, sexually empowered, somehow don’t go around fighting crime in sexy male underwear. And again, a loincloth* on someone like Conan or Kratos is not the same as battle lingerie.
I feel like a large part of the FemShep fandom was that while much of the attire in Mass Effect is questionable – FemShep actually comes pretty close to meeting the “sex positive, not sex toy” criteria. Regardless of the options you pick, she’s competent and complicated.
When she goes into battle she’s kitted with armor, guns, badassery and the potential to be saintly or scary… then when you’re in the safety of your ship you can pick an outfit for her and go talk to your favorite crew member:
Making her vastly more sex positive and personally empowered than pretty much any other female protagonist… even if her outfits are not perfectly equal to BroShep’s and tend more towards hideous than hot.
(For those asking: We have the explanation for Quiet’s ridiculous outfit, and information on how her character is handled… a post will be forthcoming!)
Definitely time that we brought this one back since there’s still way too much of:
Ultimately though there’s, sadly, still a long way to go before there’s the general acceptance that since women are diverse and complicated – female characters should be diverse and complicated.
None of that means we won’t have sexy female characters, it just means there’ll be more sexy female characters who act like people rather than one-dimensional fuckbots, and that means they’ll be more interesting.
Far too often I see people jump at feminists who criticize sexist designs on female characters with, “They’re just showing how confident they are in their sexuality! We need more sex-positive women!”
Yet, these characters never in the game ever make any hint of their sexuality, whether it be through flirting, being unashamed of their sexual behavior, defending the sexual choices of others, or wearing revealing clothing as casual wear (i.e. not wearing battle armor that exposes their entire chest.)
Instead, anytime there are “sex-positive” women in gaming that are vocal about their sexuality and confidence in such, they are almost always a villain. Yet, I never see these people defend these characters, or take note that the only time that a woman in a game is confident in her sexuality, it’s because she’s an ~evil seductress~, and the game developers use it as an exploit rather than a character trait.
How about instead of shouting at feminists that point out the needlessly and nonsensical revealing clothing on female game characters that it’s supposed to be because they’re “sex-positive”, you instead take the energy and criticize game developers that everytime there is a “sex-positive” women in gaming, she’s evil and it is instead seen as a character flaw?
I’ve alludedbefore that it’s possible to create a female character who dresses skimpily to express how sexually liberated and confident about her own body she is… possible in theory, at least.
Also, as I mentioned in my Stafire-design-through-years article, character’s personal affairs DO NOT excuse what costume she “chooses” to do her job in, particularly when that job is FIGHTING. Especially while warrior men who are equally, if not more, sexually empowered, somehow don’t go around fighting crime in sexy male underwear. And again, a loincloth* on someone like Conan or Kratos is not the same as battle lingerie.
I feel like a large part of the FemShep fandom was that while much of the attire in Mass Effect is questionable – FemShep actually comes pretty close to meeting the “sex positive, not sex toy” criteria. Regardless of the options you pick, she’s competent and complicated.
When she goes into battle she’s kitted with armor, guns, badassery and the potential to be saintly or scary… then when you’re in the safety of your ship you can pick an outfit for her and go talk to your favorite crew member:
Making her vastly more sex positive and personally empowered than pretty much any other female protagonist… even if her outfits are not perfectly equal to BroShep’s and tend more towards hideous than hot.
(For those asking: We have the explanation for Quiet’s ridiculous outfit, and information on how her character is handled… a post will be forthcoming!)
Definitely time that we brought this one back since there’s still way too much of:
Ultimately though there’s, sadly, still a long way to go before there’s the general acceptance that since women are diverse and complicated – female characters should be diverse and complicated.
None of that means we won’t have sexy female characters, it just means there’ll be more sexy female characters who act like people rather than one-dimensional fuckbots, and that means they’ll be more interesting.
Why are almost all the female characters in games slender and young? We dig deeper into gaming’s problem with body diversity in our brand new Tropes!
You can find a complete transcript of the episode on our website.
While body shape is not technically the focus of this blog, it is a heavily related issue simply because it basically all fits into idea that female characters are only worthwhile if they are conventionally attractive, heavily sexualized and avoid challenging too many perceptions.
For all the talk about how much people like a female character for being badass, there’s a tendency to only support it if it doesn’t clash with other ideals like conventional beauty or sexualization.
Which is not only ridiculously limiting from a creative perspective, but also re-enforces the idea that all women should look like these ridiculous fantasies (that look like at best, very few real women, and at worst no real women).
– wincenworks
We touched upon this issue before, especially when talking about Overwatch (particularly this post), but Anita puts the problem of double standards of beauty in character design most comprehensively in this video.
Lots of illustrative examples really drive the point home: There is a noticeable lack of visual diversity among female game characters (and, by extension, in other popular media), while male ones get a variety of appearances. This limits not only the designer’s creativity, but the female audience’s sense of inclusion.
Could people behind blockbuster adaptations please stop using the whole “it empowers her” talk to explain why they decided to put a female character in a weirdly skimpy outfit? Especially when it’s either unfaithful to the source material or really the part of source material that probably shouldn’t be reproduced.
~Ozzie
“Hawley said she got the idea for Harley’s costumes by looking at Instagram accounts of Mexican drug cartels and the attire that rock and roll icons like Debbie Harry, Courtney Love, and Patti Smith wore.
“
Of course, it’s not really surprising that the final result looks very little like any of those or that various incarnations of Harley Quinn (such as the Arkham games) are not cited as the top reference. After all.
Could people behind blockbuster adaptations please stop using the whole “it empowers her” talk to explain why they decided to put a female character in a weirdly skimpy outfit? Especially when it’s either unfaithful to the source material or really the part of source material that probably shouldn’t be reproduced.
~Ozzie
“Hawley said she got the idea for Harley’s costumes by looking at Instagram accounts of Mexican drug cartels and the attire that rock and roll icons like Debbie Harry, Courtney Love, and Patti Smith wore.
“
Of course, it’s not really surprising that the final result looks very little like any of those or that various incarnations of Harley Quinn (such as the Arkham games) are not cited as the top reference. After all.
