so sexism and objectification aside, is there a drastic difference between the protection offered by, say, leather or normal cloth versus bare skin? obviously there are significant advantages in the case of armour, but i was wondering more about spandex-wearing superheroes. or is the spandex usually abnormally tough?
Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Spandex and regular clothes can have some protective qualities but that’s not why superheroes wear spandex.
The thing with protection and in order to properly estimate how well something will protect you – you need to know what you’re protecting against. Depending on the hazard and the situation, a little cloth can work wonders.
Re-enforced clothes like Battle Dress Uniforms can protect against environmental hazards (such as thorn bushes, gravel, etc), light shrapnel, chemical agents, detection via infrared, low heat flames, etc. They won’t save your life immediately but they’ll protect against pain, shock and infections. But you’ll still want to wear armor over the top if you expect to get shot at.
Leather can be really protective (hence why it’s considered standard motorcycle gear) and also has potential for lots of re-enforcing. They’re expensive, but you can get bullet armor that will protect against the vast majority of pistols – and still look like an old school biker jacket.
Spandex and similar products are not particularly tough against say bullets, knives or fire. In fact the main thing it’s advertised as protection against is sunlight. Spandex-like wet suits are often made to protect against chill, wind, sun even being weighed down by water.
The reason that superheroes wear them is not for any protective quality but rather that they allowed artists to showcase the super heroes as having larger than life physiques and being demonstrations of perfection. While his physique doesn’t seem unattainable now, Superman started in 1938, and this is what a contestants in the 1953 Mr Universe competition looked like:
(If he looks familiar, it’s because he’s Sean Connery)
Basically the problem with the double standard is that superheroine designs are less about looking like the perfect powerhouse and more about looking like the perfect sex toy. To the extent it’s hard to take them seriously and people spend no small amount of time pondering the hazardous of the outfits.
There’s also the matter that creators are often quite comfortable loading up heroes like Batman with so much armor that he needs servos to run and jump around, but heroines like Batgirl are always limited to what can show off her silhouette and show the exact shape of her boobs.
Designs don’t necessarily need to be protective, particularly if you’re selling a larger than life power fantasy – but it shouldn’t look like it’s a massive liability purely for the titillation of the people beyond the fourth wall (unless you’re doing some sort of erotic parody where that’s the point).
– wincenworks
so sexism and objectification aside, is there a drastic difference between the protection offered by, say, leather or normal cloth versus bare skin? obviously there are significant advantages in the case of armour, but i was wondering more about spandex-wearing superheroes. or is the spandex usually abnormally tough?
Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Spandex and regular clothes can have some protective qualities but that’s not why superheroes wear spandex.
The thing with protection and in order to properly estimate how well something will protect you – you need to know what you’re protecting against. Depending on the hazard and the situation, a little cloth can work wonders.
Re-enforced clothes like Battle Dress Uniforms can protect against environmental hazards (such as thorn bushes, gravel, etc), light shrapnel, chemical agents, detection via infrared, low heat flames, etc. They won’t save your life immediately but they’ll protect against pain, shock and infections. But you’ll still want to wear armor over the top if you expect to get shot at.
Leather can be really protective (hence why it’s considered standard motorcycle gear) and also has potential for lots of re-enforcing. They’re expensive, but you can get bullet armor that will protect against the vast majority of pistols – and still look like an old school biker jacket.
Spandex and similar products are not particularly tough against say bullets, knives or fire. In fact the main thing it’s advertised as protection against is sunlight. Spandex-like wet suits are often made to protect against chill, wind, sun even being weighed down by water.
The reason that superheroes wear them is not for any protective quality but rather that they allowed artists to showcase the super heroes as having larger than life physiques and being demonstrations of perfection. While his physique doesn’t seem unattainable now, Superman started in 1938, and this is what a contestants in the 1953 Mr Universe competition looked like:
(If he looks familiar, it’s because he’s Sean Connery)
Basically the problem with the double standard is that superheroine designs are less about looking like the perfect powerhouse and more about looking like the perfect sex toy. To the extent it’s hard to take them seriously and people spend no small amount of time pondering the hazardous of the outfits.
There’s also the matter that creators are often quite comfortable loading up heroes like Batman with so much armor that he needs servos to run and jump around, but heroines like Batgirl are always limited to what can show off her silhouette and show the exact shape of her boobs.
Designs don’t necessarily need to be protective, particularly if you’re selling a larger than life power fantasy – but it shouldn’t look like it’s a massive liability purely for the titillation of the people beyond the fourth wall (unless you’re doing some sort of erotic parody where that’s the point).
– wincenworks
pinguinmitbrille submitted to bikiniarmorbattledamage:
I stumbled across this and was kind of confused.
Admittedly, my knowledge about Star Trek is limited to a few episodes of Voyager and TNG and other general trivia, but of all races I didn’t expect Klingon ladies to have boob holes.
And it’s apparently a real thing from the tv series and movies as well…
Though it seems to get better in Voyager…
So apparently even for an alien race of proud and fierce warriors, boob windows in armor are a thing.
And there I was thinking the J. J. Abrams version of Starfleet uniforms sucked at informing us about anything other than the wearer’s gender.
~Ozzie
Figured it’s time to revisit Dragon Quest III and the female warrior, who, for the low-low price of giving up a breastplate and pants, gained way more awesome hairstyle than her male equivalent!
After consideration, I didn’t cross the high heels square, as the shoes look reasonably wearable and not that different for each gender.
Still, she gets a bingo (for which I have the most appropriate gif at hand):
As consolation, let’s imagine that in this other pic that compares the two warriors, the woman’s expression says “why does he get such an awesome getup while I have to hide behind him to not get stabbed?”.
~Ozzie
To me she looks like she’s weighing up if she can get away with stabbing him in the neck and taking his gear…
– wincenworks
As an unholy mix of League of Angels marketing and ripping of World of Warcraft, Magerealm inadvertently creates a great example of so much that is wrong with the video game’s industry.
And when I say ripping off World of Warcraft I mean it, someone took the time to apparently work out how to avoid a lawsuit while adding a Panda Monk character class but never bothered to consider a female character that isn’t dressed in some fantasy war parody of lingerie.
– wincenworks
What I find the most amazing about the first image is that, even despite their genericness, the male characters are at least easily distinguishable from each other.
Female characters, though?
They didn’t try to make the bikini armors diverse in any significant way, let alone the characters who wear them. Even the poses are identical!
Are we entirely sure those aren’t just slight recolors of the same exact image?
~Ozzie
(ht: nosetothewind94)
Survey Shows Even Teenage Boys Think Women Are Over-Sexualized in Video Games
Survey Shows Even Teenage Boys Think Women Are Over-Sexualized in Video Games
A survey has found that most teenage boys—despite common wisdom to the contrary—don’t want women to be over-sexualized in their video games.
This survey has been doing the rounds of the media since it got featured in this little publication called Time Magazine. For those interested in the actual research methods and data, there’s more information here at Polygon (including links to the entire presentation). They also posted a response to all the publicity here.
All in all it’s more compelling evidence to support our stance that sex does not sell anything but sex. This was something that was known (to his great disappointment) by one of the original market researches in the 1960s.
Creators, the truth is that are no shortcuts on the road to creative success, no matter what the creepy marketing guy or the person who won’t leave the comments section tell you.
– wincenworks