NOPE. Media creators actually keep using some variation of “Once you learn why her being half naked has convenient in-story reasons, you will feel ashamed about your comments” to preemptively shut down criticism they know they gonna get for creepy double standards in costume/character design.
Brought to our attention by superheroineworld (thank you so much for linking it in a reblog!)
This video sums up pretty damn well why any sort of “makes sense in context” justification for absurd and creepy things in fiction (like, say, bikini armors) is invalid by default.
Quotes worth highlighting:
Writers routinely alter the rules to suit their interests and the needs of their story. So, in the world outside of the diegesis, in our world, only the implications and impact of that fiction actually matter.
It’s basically a circular argument to expect that the fictional rules created specifically for the narrative will shield the narrative from being criticized on the meta level.
Criticism of a creative work is, ultimately, criticism of the decisions that people made when they were putting it together.
Which is also why “you’re slut-shaming that character" is a fail at responding to criticism. Characters are fictional constructs with no agency and the “choices” they make can be blamed solely on their creators.
You guys might have noticed, but around half of the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo is made from Thermian arguments. That’s how popular this circular logic is among skimpy armor defenders. And I’m glad we now have this video to explain why it doesn’t work.
Most people understand that stories are constructed with plot outcomes in mind and thus parts of the story (such as characters) are adapted accordingly. The love interest will always be attractive regardless of background, and the protagonist will always be set off on the adventure regardless of how many other potential candidates are about.
So it stands to reason that it should not be expected that if we’re told a female character just happens to have a plot critical reason for dressing in a ridiculous outfit, it’s pretty likely the plot was adapted to justify the costume and not vice versa.
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.
An article relevant to the rhetoric we’re often met with in response to our posts – that we’re against anything remotely sexy, or that we’re conflating sexyness with sexualization (even if the author is weirdly fixated on alleged inherent problems with anime culture).
This article is not about how you perceive people; it’s about how they are presented to you. The human body is neutral, not inherently objectified just by virtue of being visible.
Sexiness without objectification is not some hypothetical or abstract concept […] “Sex sells!” commenters squawk every time this comes up, as if this voyeuristic collage of disembodied lady parts is the only way to make non-erotic programming commercially viable.
Back to clearing up the confusion, important thing to remember is that here at BABD we usually use word “sexy” (as well as “empowered”) in a tongue-in-cheek manner, unless stated otherwise. For example – in the Overwatch slot machine“sexy” is a shorthand for “objectified and attractive according to conventional Western beauty standards” and replacing it with “beefy” and “curvy” for Zarya and Mei does not mean the two aren’t sexy characters. It means that (slightly) different body type/beauty standard than generic hotness was a priority in their design.
We’ll always firmly stand by the assessment that sexyness is perfectly fine thing to portray in media – the key is to remember there’s time and place for anything, even fanservice – and (in our blog’s case) portrayal of female warriors ain’t that time.
An article relevant to the rhetoric we’re often met with in response to our posts – that we’re against anything remotely sexy, or that we’re conflating sexyness with sexualization (even if the author is weirdly fixated on alleged inherent problems with anime culture).
This article is not about how you perceive people; it’s about how they are presented to you. The human body is neutral, not inherently objectified just by virtue of being visible.
Sexiness without objectification is not some hypothetical or abstract concept […] “Sex sells!” commenters squawk every time this comes up, as if this voyeuristic collage of disembodied lady parts is the only way to make non-erotic programming commercially viable.
Back to clearing up the confusion, important thing to remember is that here at BABD we usually use word “sexy” (as well as “empowered”) in a tongue-in-cheek manner, unless stated otherwise. For example – in the Overwatch slot machine“sexy” is a shorthand for “objectified and attractive according to conventional Western beauty standards” and replacing it with “beefy” and “curvy” for Zarya and Mei does not mean the two aren’t sexy characters. It means that (slightly) different body type/beauty standard than generic hotness was a priority in their design.
We’ll always firmly stand by the assessment that sexyness is perfectly fine thing to portray in media – the key is to remember there’s time and place for anything, even fanservice – and (in our blog’s case) portrayal of female warriors ain’t that time.
It’s worth bringing up that while the vast majority of content we cover is direct comparisons of depictions of cis women to cis men, and the main reason for this is frankly it’s very rare for popular media to create engaging characters that aren’t cis and/or don’t conform to the gender binary.
The complexities of gender along with the complexities of trying to incorporate signifiers in your designs are perhaps yet another great reason to instead focus on other aspects in armor/costume design. Concepts like:
Practicalities and priorities in combat/adventuring
Personality traits and personal histories of characters
Unique or special traits of the world in which the character exists
Basically all the stuff that often gets considered with cis male characters design processes in most media. Then we can have all kinds of characters created with the same sort of depth and respect.
It’s worth bringing up that while the vast majority of content we cover is direct comparisons of depictions of cis women to cis men, and the main reason for this is frankly it’s very rare for popular media to create engaging characters that aren’t cis and/or don’t conform to the gender binary.
The complexities of gender along with the complexities of trying to incorporate signifiers in your designs are perhaps yet another great reason to instead focus on other aspects in armor/costume design. Concepts like:
Practicalities and priorities in combat/adventuring
Personality traits and personal histories of characters
Unique or special traits of the world in which the character exists
Basically all the stuff that often gets considered with cis male characters design processes in most media. Then we can have all kinds of characters created with the same sort of depth and respect.
Let’s end this week right, with a discussion of the most desperate and hilarious attempt at comparisons between double standards to date – even more desperate than when he claimed jiggle physics were just realism.
During the interview Harada claims that Tekken contains a character (Ganryu) who is a sumo – and that people might think that he was just an inappropriately dressed man if they didn’t understand Japanese culture.
To understand how hilarious this is, we first need to recognize a few facts:
The mawashi is an item of sport attire that has remained in use for literally centuries
Sumo is an exceptionally widely known sport, as is that it originates from Japan
With all that we’ve just considered, let’s briefly remember that the most immediate Tekken scandal was a swimsuit pack, that Harada seems to be unsure about himself and can’t seem to link to Japanese culture in any way, shape or form.
Since Harada wouldn’t elaborate more on how it’s cultural other than to rant about “SJWs”, let’s look at a previous Tekken 7 scandal (from 2014) and that involved a distinctly Japanese character that was poorly received by many people assumed to be “uninformed critics”:
It’s important to remember: Lucky Chloe did make it into the release of Tekken 7, but despite the name drop in the interview Ganryu didn’t! At least not to date, the game still hasn’t had it’s really-final-for-sure release, but Harada’s latest comment on his beloved sumo character?
It’s almost what he’s really upset about is that he’s not receiving unconditional praise for making something (that’s supposed to be a widely distributed commercial piece of media) just for himself at the expense of others…
