Given how regularly we get people rush in to tell us that we cannot question anything from outside the USA because of cultural reasons (never mind that neither of us is from the USA, or even near it) – this is kind of darkly hilarious.
Apparently Nintendo’s judgement is only unquestionable as long as they’re pandering to entitled straight men – as soon as that stops it’s an evil conspiracy to censor video games involving one or more of the following:
Everyone in politics from religious conservatives to liberal activists
“the Internet police”
The developers not “wanting the game to succeed”
the singular group of people who are the only ones who ever have concerns (except about censorship?)
Numerous groups zealot groups unique to western culture (as if God of War III was never altered for Japanese release)
Of course, it goes without saying that one can never include pandering in these video games – even when it’s fan service labeled “fan service” it’s always there for deep artistic reasons.
Speaking of which, my favourite part of the comments was this justification and insistence that these costumes are essential in a franchise which is about going around haunted houses, taking photos of ghosts with magic cameras:
And this was a movie where I was kind of kind of excited about because it had Gamora in it!
– wincenworks
It’s one of those cases that disappoints, but doesn’t surprise me. Especially since with the first movie, not unlike with Avengers, they reduced female team member count to one, despite there being more women in the comics.
And we should be always pointing that out, for as long as it remains the status quo.
~Ozzie
As the follow up to last week’s throwback, it’s worth remembering that the general differences between men and women in mainstream media are most certainly not the result of “how things are”.
Major studios hire casting teams to generate calls like this and then carefully curate everyone who gets to be in front of a camera. Sometimes this is for specific effects (making 5′9″ Lucy Lawless look like a towering glamazon) but more often it’s just to re-enforce harmful ideals and perceptions.
It seems a popular trend in trying to defend terrible costume designs with random pictures of female wrestlers or MMA fighters. Usually accompanied by some sort of rant about how anyone who questions the perfection of these costumes is the sexist one!
Yes, there are many sexualized costumes in women’s sports. It’s not because the costumes are flawless. Rather it is a sign that female athletes often suffer under the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy too.
At the end of the day, justifying sexist double standards in the media by pointing to more sexist double standards in the media only showcases how wide spread the problem is.
Since we’ve just covered how plate armor can be worn by basically anyone who has the training,it’s probably good for us to address a popular defense of very suspicious dimorphism.
