While, overall, League of Super Redundant Heroes is very hit and miss (including having a super villain called Distractarella who does exactly what you think she does) there are a few strips that really highlight some issues with female costume designs.
– wincenworks
Where I work, one of our priorities when doing character customization is to give the player one expectation for a clothing item, and then meet that expectation regardless of the sex of the avatar. Because of this, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about gender and gender expression, and the gender coding in clothing and motifs. We like to design things that only need small tweaks to look appealing on different bodies, and we also like to let the player determine how masculine or feminine they want their avatar to look. From many, many months of doing this work and decades of gaming between us, it has come to our attention that not every character customization system does this.
Aion does not do this, and is therefore my guinea pig for this exercise. Aion has some very nice, rich, tasty costume designs, (and it’s up to you whether it’s good or bad that they do this because I’m not casting judgement in this post) but they basically come up with two completely different designs per single “outfit.” The female version is often extremely feminine, and the male version is generally more masculine. That’s par for the course for Korean MMOs, but the part that drives me up the wall is that entire motifs and design elements are gutted from one or the other to achieve this type of gendering. So much good design,withheld from a costume for such a flimsy reason.
What I’ve done here for this exercise is to take every element from the “base” costume and transpose it onto the other, while attempting to preserve the original feminine/masculine gender expression that Aion loves so well. One of the original costumes usually emerges as the more gender coded of the two, but therein lies the very fun challenge: make lacy frou-frou masculine enough for your typical male player not to immediately sell the costume on the game market.
Feel free to do this exercise yourself if you like!
I was intending to refer to this post for a looong time. It’s a really nice thought excersize for anyone interested in learning firsthand what is the inherent problem of double standards in costume design.
Its sequel, where another set of clothes is translated verbatim onto the other gender (and thus, the guy ends up in a corset and frilly skirt), can be viewed here.
~Ozzie
So there is such thing as “too sexy”?
We’ve been noted by lots of our lovely followers that Square Enix changed their minds about their mobile game protagonist who caused such an outrage a while ago.
chikyful said:
Sorry if this is information you already know, but the mobile Final Fantasy game, Mobius (originally Mevius), has had some design changes. Due to ‘negative’ feedback, the main character now has less skin showing. Meanwhile a new female character has been announced. What are your thoughts?
indirajartwork (who also suggested this post’s title) submitted:
“Too sexy!” New Final Fantasy’s hunky male lead has his revealing costume toned down
Where are all the dudebros to cry about censorship and creative freedom NOW? O__o
Morrigan submitted:
Remember that skimpy male armour from FF Mevius?
Well, turns out the SJW cabal has been forcing Square Enix to abandon their sacrosanct artistic vision and censor themselves… I’m sure the brave knights of free speech will protest this blatant censorship, right? Surely, Squeenix will be called prudes who hate sex after this?
….Right?
Mobius Final Fantasy was ‘a little too sexy,’ watch the redesigned mobile RPG
The hypocrisy is so blatant, and yet somehow, so unsurprising. Sigh.
criemoar said:
Have you heard the news about Mobius Final Fantasy? OK PREPARE FOR GENERAL LEL@GAMERS basically the champions of FREDUM OF SPEUCH and ANTI-CENSORSHIP are now defending squeenix censoring a male character’s scanty outfit due to complaints from whiny male gamers. BEAUTIFUL. /popcorn
As pushtosmart puts in their very concise (and wonderfully sarcastic) summary of the case:
Thankfully, Square Enix recognized how uncomfortable it would be for men to play as a character who was designed as a sexual object before an active, heroic subject, and announced today that they had modified his design.
[…] Thank you for being so understanding, Square Enix.
Can’t say I’m surprised or angry, but very much disappointed.
A franchise that one hand gave us such “gems” as Fran or Lightning’s eye-gauging wardrobe, but on the other catered to female gaze with designs like Vaan or the equal opportunity skimpy armors of FF XIV, now they’re listening to people with opinions like this:
And said people are more than happy to shield this change with the good old “creative freedom” excuse. The same creative freedom that would most likely be called “censorship” or “entitlement” if the such redesign was applied to a female character instead.
So, apparently, there IS such thing as “too sexy”… but only under condition that you are a man. Who knew, right?
~Ozzie
I am really disappointed in my fellow men for this one. Ever since I started helping out here they’ve always been so eager to tell me how people who bothered by a sexualized depiction of their demographic should respond.
- “Go make your own.” Pretty self explanatory. Just start a studio that makes computer games professionally, produce critically acclaimed games that sell in record amounts and in twenty-eight years you could be showing them how it’s done.
- “Realize it’s a fantasy game were anybody can have a magic powers.” So nothing needs to make sense and nothing matters… really they should be campaigning for him to have less clothes, that way it’s more fantasy-ish right?
- “Enjoy it as a celebration of male form.” It makes men look good so that’s got to be good for all of us right?
- “Just stop.” Okay, I’m not sure how this one helps but they seem very confident about it.
All these options… and which did you go with?
– wincenworks
more on Mevius/Mobius Final Fantasy | more on “creative freedom” | more sexy male armors