So i’ve come across this blog of yours, and i can’t help but notice you seem to hold this ideal that showing skin is bad. I’m not saying there’s not a time and a place for everything, and i’d be quite warm to a game where someone in skimpy or silly armor got their just desserts. But i don’t see why you think these designs inherently wrong on such a level. Designers designed them for a reason. They had a vision of the character and made them a certain way. No “change” needs to be made.
You’re right, designers did design them that way for a reason: to be sexy. And that’s where a change needs to be made. When everyone is “sexy”, no one is. There needs to be more variety in female character designs.
You see, women are like onions. But not because they turn brown and start sprouting little white hairs if you leave them out in the sun too long: because they have layers (didn’t you see Shrek, geez). They’re also all different, though you wouldn’t guess so based on media representations of them. I’ll start accepting a designer’s vision for a sexy lady, the minute that stops being the only vision they ever have.*
*Also what we get isn’t always the original design as there’s sometimes pressure from editors or other outside influences to make the character “sexier”.
As a designer myself I’m REALLY tired of this argument. Art and design does not exist in the vacuum. An idea being the artist’s “vision” does not make it inherently good or creative, in fact the first ideas that come to a designers mind tend to be the most derivative and uninteresting.
On the other hand, as Staci notes, lots of designs RHA, BABD and related sites comment on aren’t actually a result of concept artist’s original idea, but a product of many revisions from the executives. And executives (unlike artists they hire) are the people whose “vision” is usually the farthest from creative.
No matter how you look at the “artist’s sacred vision” logic, it’s flawed and in no way justifies a cliched, unresearched, insonsistent design.
~Ozzie
Bringing this back as a reminder that “an artist created it, therefore it’s creative” is NOT a valid rhetoric to justify bikini armors… or anything, for that matter.
Well, I’m a little disappointed that they seem to have gone with three men and a token woman approach (not that I had high hopes for Gauntlet – one of the original “kill everything that moves or doesn’t move” games), but looking at the most revealing outfit they’re showcasing for her:
I can’t stay mad at her… look at her!
– wincenworks
Since it’s that time again where the popular rhetoric is “Why be so negative? Why not celebrate the improvements!?” I feel it’s time to bring this back.
So, the message to major studios that want praise for “trying to improve” while improving by only the slightest increments (followed by backsteps) remains the same:
Well, I’m a little disappointed that they seem to have gone with three men and a token woman approach (not that I had high hopes for Gauntlet – one of the original “kill everything that moves or doesn’t move” games), but looking at the most revealing outfit they’re showcasing for her:
I can’t stay mad at her… look at her!
– wincenworks
Since it’s that time again where the popular rhetoric is “Why be so negative? Why not celebrate the improvements!?” I feel it’s time to bring this back.
So, the message to major studios that want praise for “trying to improve” while improving by only the slightest increments (followed by backsteps) remains the same:
– wincenworks
Posted on
..my move is just awful, it’s chauvinist! Every time I fall over my vagina and vulva is exposed. I might as well be an NPC that doesn’t know where to wander!
Felicia Day, playing as Tyris Flare in the original Golden Axe game, (x)
Golden Axe, the iconic side-scrolling hack’em up is also a pretty iconic example of bikini armor:
And yes, Dolph LundgrenAx Battler (that is his actual name!) is wearing a bikini too but as well as being a male power fantasy (or someone I’d expect to see featured at videogamesmademegay) he always looks badass posed like Conan the Barbarian or a classical mythological figure. He also quickly got an unsuccessful spinoff game and you had the option to play a dwarf who at least kept his shirt on.
Tyris on the other hand, despite having a much less ridiculous name, had to wait until 2008 when she would get to be the star. But hey, that’s like eighteen/nineteen years of social and artistic progress right? Let’s see how they portrayed her and promoted the game!
Yeah…
– wincenworks
I felt it may be time to bring this back, not because anything has happened with the Golden Axe franchise – but because there’s still apparently a wide spread believe that exposed skin is the be all and end all of sexualized armor design.
As you can see, they actually gave Tyris more clothes in her spinoff title, but less powerful presence simply by design decisions like making her muscles less defined, body language less intimidating and ensuring her extra clothes highlighting sexualized body parts.
As convenient as it would be – there is no one element of design that guarantees a design will work. Designs consist of dozens of decisions and each can improve or worsen it by degrees.
– wincenworks
Posted on
..my move is just awful, it’s chauvinist! Every time I fall over my vagina and vulva is exposed. I might as well be an NPC that doesn’t know where to wander!
Felicia Day, playing as Tyris Flare in the original Golden Axe game, (x)
Golden Axe, the iconic side-scrolling hack’em up is also a pretty iconic example of bikini armor:
And yes, Dolph LundgrenAx Battler (that is his actual name!) is wearing a bikini too but as well as being a male power fantasy (or someone I’d expect to see featured at videogamesmademegay) he always looks badass posed like Conan the Barbarian or a classical mythological figure. He also quickly got an unsuccessful spinoff game and you had the option to play a dwarf who at least kept his shirt on.
Tyris on the other hand, despite having a much less ridiculous name, had to wait until 2008 when she would get to be the star. But hey, that’s like eighteen/nineteen years of social and artistic progress right? Let’s see how they portrayed her and promoted the game!
Yeah…
– wincenworks
I felt it may be time to bring this back, not because anything has happened with the Golden Axe franchise – but because there’s still apparently a wide spread believe that exposed skin is the be all and end all of sexualized armor design.
As you can see, they actually gave Tyris more clothes in her spinoff title, but less powerful presence simply by design decisions like making her muscles less defined, body language less intimidating and ensuring her extra clothes highlighting sexualized body parts.
As convenient as it would be – there is no one element of design that guarantees a design will work. Designs consist of dozens of decisions and each can improve or worsen it by degrees.
Actually we’re both working on our own projects (they’re at a stage of completion where we’re comfortable sharing, and neither are the like minded people we’re working with (so there will be no further details forthcoming at this time).
Also, believe it or not: Some of the people involved in related blogs actually work in industries such as video games.
Saying that it “worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series” is as absurd, it’s like suggesting that someone’s who broke should just become a millionaire by building a web site like Google (it worked for Larry Page and Sergey Brin!)
Homestuck is a particularly bad example because it:
Didn’t really challenge the status quo at all, it was just a new absurdist comic that wanted to tell a story and entertain
Has a large and very enthusiastic fanbase, but has more or less no influence outside of that fanbase. It’s very successful for a web comic, but that success doesn’t mean it’s influential in the grand scheme of things (or even in web comics)
Employs an economical style that works fine for the stories in Homestuck but is not necessarily even faintly compatible with other styles and stories.
Making a production that showcases women in sensible armor would pretty much require a higher standard of visual quality than something that’s intended to look like a scribble done in MS Paint. So even with a web comic at a lot of hours in image creation.
More accessible and larger markets (which means more competition) products like animated features/movies/etc require even more effort and expertise. Video games would require more skills and time again.
That’s not to say things like Kickstarter and Steam’s Greenlit aren’t fantastic and making the market more accessible but it’s insulting to creators of these products to downplay the work involved and pretend just anyone can do it (particularly with their other responsibilities and how much work is involved).
Even if Ozzie and I did somehow stumble across the time, money and connections to make a modest game (since video games are currently the biggest market) – say on par with Gone Home, here’s what we could look forward to:
Sales would be a small fraction of those by mainstream publishers – even a lambasted product like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning gets more sales (and hence market influence) than a critically acclaimed indy production
If the game doesn’t do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash saying that it’s proof that the public doesn’t want well armored heroines
If the game does do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash from people claiming that it’s only got sales due to political reasons and not because of the game (for more information, read the reviews on Gone Home’s Steam Store page – for extra laughs compare them to the reviews on The Stanley Parable a game that employs almost identical mechanics but doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of the world around them per se)
While it may provide some influence in mainstream gaming, it is likely that the industry would in general mostly overlook. Lots of people want to copy Minecraft – but almost nobody talks about its gender ambiguity.
I mean we already have big names in industry like David Gaider promoting the importance of inclusion, Mark Rubin – the executive producer of Call of Duty (the iconic game of brodudes) recently announced they’ll be including female playable characters to recognize the female fanbase they already have around the same time that Ubisoft announced that making female characters in their next Assassin’s Creed game would be too much work.
The idea that an independent production is somehow going to overpower the influence of the mainstream media is, frankly, ridiculous (unless you’re Batman). None of that is to say there aren’t things like games or artworks out there that are made for political reasons or with such goals – but they’re made by people who want to make the things.
History has already shown that if you make a web comic just because you want to make lots of money off it – you’re going to be disappointed. Likewise if you make a web comic, animation or game just because you want the world to change their perceptions of other people. Usually even political projects are less about expecting to change people, and more about the need to express something important.
So to summarize the main points:
1. Not everyone who is critical of a market should be expected to produce for that market. Every modern marketplace needs more customers than suppliers so it makes sense to leave the production up to people with the motivation and skills to do so.
2. If 50% of the population can see themselves well represented by going to, say, a game store, but the other 50% have to spend years building a game for themselves – that is not equality.
Criticism in the marketplace is important, it leads to more pressure on the experts to make better products and refine their priorities.
All of the above are the reasons why it is warranted its own spot on the Rhetoric Bingo.
Feel free to share this post with anyone who insists that people should start making their own games/movies/comics/whatever instead of “whining” about having no representation in media.
Hey I want to genuinely ask why don’t you make your own story/game with the design of how you want females to be represented? I know what you have to say about it in your Rhetroic Bingo but there are ways to get around that; Like making a webcomic of said story to gain fans then make a kickstarter for a game or book I mean it worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series, Or you could gather a group of like minded individuals to collaborate on a game/movie/comic.
Actually we’re both working on our own projects (they’re at a stage of completion where we’re comfortable sharing, and neither are the like minded people we’re working with (so there will be no further details forthcoming at this time).
Also, believe it or not: Some of the people involved in related blogs actually work in industries such as video games.
Saying that it “worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series” is as absurd, it’s like suggesting that someone’s who broke should just become a millionaire by building a web site like Google (it worked for Larry Page and Sergey Brin!)
Homestuck is a particularly bad example because it:
Didn’t really challenge the status quo at all, it was just a new absurdist comic that wanted to tell a story and entertain
Has a large and very enthusiastic fanbase, but has more or less no influence outside of that fanbase. It’s very successful for a web comic, but that success doesn’t mean it’s influential in the grand scheme of things (or even in web comics)
Employs an economical style that works fine for the stories in Homestuck but is not necessarily even faintly compatible with other styles and stories.
Making a production that showcases women in sensible armor would pretty much require a higher standard of visual quality than something that’s intended to look like a scribble done in MS Paint. So even with a web comic at a lot of hours in image creation.
More accessible and larger markets (which means more competition) products like animated features/movies/etc require even more effort and expertise. Video games would require more skills and time again.
That’s not to say things like Kickstarter and Steam’s Greenlit aren’t fantastic and making the market more accessible but it’s insulting to creators of these products to downplay the work involved and pretend just anyone can do it (particularly with their other responsibilities and how much work is involved).
Even if Ozzie and I did somehow stumble across the time, money and connections to make a modest game (since video games are currently the biggest market) – say on par with Gone Home, here’s what we could look forward to:
Sales would be a small fraction of those by mainstream publishers – even a lambasted product like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning gets more sales (and hence market influence) than a critically acclaimed indy production
If the game doesn’t do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash saying that it’s proof that the public doesn’t want well armored heroines
If the game does do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash from people claiming that it’s only got sales due to political reasons and not because of the game (for more information, read the reviews on Gone Home’s Steam Store page – for extra laughs compare them to the reviews on The Stanley Parable a game that employs almost identical mechanics but doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of the world around them per se)
While it may provide some influence in mainstream gaming, it is likely that the industry would in general mostly overlook. Lots of people want to copy Minecraft – but almost nobody talks about its gender ambiguity.
I mean we already have big names in industry like David Gaider promoting the importance of inclusion, Mark Rubin – the executive producer of Call of Duty (the iconic game of brodudes) recently announced they’ll be including female playable characters to recognize the female fanbase they already have around the same time that Ubisoft announced that making female characters in their next Assassin’s Creed game would be too much work.
The idea that an independent production is somehow going to overpower the influence of the mainstream media is, frankly, ridiculous (unless you’re Batman). None of that is to say there aren’t things like games or artworks out there that are made for political reasons or with such goals – but they’re made by people who want to make the things.
History has already shown that if you make a web comic just because you want to make lots of money off it – you’re going to be disappointed. Likewise if you make a web comic, animation or game just because you want the world to change their perceptions of other people. Usually even political projects are less about expecting to change people, and more about the need to express something important.
So to summarize the main points:
1. Not everyone who is critical of a market should be expected to produce for that market. Every modern marketplace needs more customers than suppliers so it makes sense to leave the production up to people with the motivation and skills to do so.
2. If 50% of the population can see themselves well represented by going to, say, a game store, but the other 50% have to spend years building a game for themselves – that is not equality.
Criticism in the marketplace is important, it leads to more pressure on the experts to make better products and refine their priorities.
All of the above are the reasons why it is warranted its own spot on the Rhetoric Bingo.
Feel free to share this post with anyone who insists that people should start making their own games/movies/comics/whatever instead of “whining” about having no representation in media.
The problem with crediting “sexing up” the game with increase in sales is that it assumes sex was the only avenue of generating interest – a theory that doesn’t hold up when you consider that some of the biggest selling game types (flight simulators, first person shooters, side scrolling platformers) often don’t include any sexual angle at all.
Back in 1970, Marvel comics experimented with putting Conan the Barbarian in comic format. After the first few issues sales began to decline and the writer, Roy Thomas (who loved Conan), went to Stan Lee (who was indifferent to Conan) for advice. Stan looked at the covers and the sales, and told them to shift away from putting animals on the covers and instead use more humanoid monsters.
They followed Stan’s advice: Sales went up again and the comic continued for twenty-three years. However you don’t see many people campaigning that “Humanoid monsters sell!“ then trying to fit them into all marketing regardless of product or target market. (And sex obviously wasn’t selling Conan, they had bikini damsels after all)
Conan the Barbarian, in his loincloth and flexing his muscles, looked like a poor man’s Tarzan (which had been the popular comic fifty years ago) when battling animals – but when battling humanoid monsters he looked like a more mature fantasy narrative that was new and unique in comics at the time.
The only narrative that sexing/male gazing up a game really provides is “This game is made to cater to the fantasy of straight men.” So if swapping out your old narrative for this one increases interest and sales dramatically – then your old narrative must have been pretty boring.
There have been numerous warrior women in video games over the years. Most of them have been under marketed, relegated to sidelines, ignored or otherwise mishandled due to general fear that they weren’t meeting the “make straight men feel important” factor that modern markets cling to as their sacred idol.
Cate Archer is essentially a light-hearted, distaff James Bond in the No One Lives Forever franchise dresses in the attire of a fashionable lady in the 60s. Often sexy but out of character for the production. Monolith would later try to replace her with “Contract J.A.C.K.” and have since lost the paperwork so nobody knows who owns the intellectual property.
Mona Sax was, until the end sequence of Max Payne 2, a badass assassin who liked her tight tops but also pants and a jacket to side her gun (Mona starred in more or less equal space with Max on the cover of Max Payne 2, but is barely even mentioned in Max Payne 3).
Aveline de Grandpré dresses in badass leather when assassinating and very becoming gowns when socializing as a noblewoman. It was originally released on a handheld device and if you want to play it on the PC or console that you play the rest of the Assassin’s Creed franchise on you need to buy it online at very specific places that weren’t marketed. (PS3) (X-Box 360) (PC)
Left 4 Dead has Zoey and Rochelle are both attractive young women who possess the will and the skills to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Casandra Pentaghast in Dragon Age certainly does not wear bikini armor or anything exploitative – but there’s no shortage of folks who find her incredibly attractive.
It’s actually not that difficult for creators to make female characters who are sexually attractive without going into bikini armor or other exploitative tropes. I mean, if you give a woman agency, ability and personality – odds are good people will find it sexy.
Essentially the problem is that the gaming industry, and many other mediums, are reluctant to take the risk of incorporating different perspectives and different priorities over “games to reassure straight white men that they’re straight and awesome”.
– wincenworks
Bringing this back this Thursday because the most important conversations to have in character design and critique thereof are not “is it sexy” or “what’s wrong with sex” but:
Even if you’re a soulless corporation making products purely for profit and only interested in sales – it’s worth it to consider all these points. After all, you do want your audience to like your product and to cut through the noise of what everyone else is doing.
Guy that (supposedly) worked on a mobile game said they’d first tried not to use sex appeal. Tried some inoffensive DLC & got lukewarm response. Then they caved & tried selling things that “sexed up” the game. Supposedly they gained more male gamers (& their revenue) than they lost from girls leaving. QUESTION: Are there good visual examples of warrior women that are genuinely sexy (to teens into girls, theoretically) without being demeaning? Can we have “sex appeal” revenue w.out offensiveness?
The problem with crediting “sexing up” the game with increase in sales is that it assumes sex was the only avenue of generating interest – a theory that doesn’t hold up when you consider that some of the biggest selling game types (flight simulators, first person shooters, side scrolling platformers) often don’t include any sexual angle at all.
Back in 1970, Marvel comics experimented with putting Conan the Barbarian in comic format. After the first few issues sales began to decline and the writer, Roy Thomas (who loved Conan), went to Stan Lee (who was indifferent to Conan) for advice. Stan looked at the covers and the sales, and told them to shift away from putting animals on the covers and instead use more humanoid monsters.
They followed Stan’s advice: Sales went up again and the comic continued for twenty-three years. However you don’t see many people campaigning that “Humanoid monsters sell!“ then trying to fit them into all marketing regardless of product or target market. (And sex obviously wasn’t selling Conan, they had bikini damsels after all)
Conan the Barbarian, in his loincloth and flexing his muscles, looked like a poor man’s Tarzan (which had been the popular comic fifty years ago) when battling animals – but when battling humanoid monsters he looked like a more mature fantasy narrative that was new and unique in comics at the time.
The only narrative that sexing/male gazing up a game really provides is “This game is made to cater to the fantasy of straight men.” So if swapping out your old narrative for this one increases interest and sales dramatically – then your old narrative must have been pretty boring.
There have been numerous warrior women in video games over the years. Most of them have been under marketed, relegated to sidelines, ignored or otherwise mishandled due to general fear that they weren’t meeting the “make straight men feel important” factor that modern markets cling to as their sacred idol.
Cate Archer is essentially a light-hearted, distaff James Bond in the No One Lives Forever franchise dresses in the attire of a fashionable lady in the 60s. Often sexy but out of character for the production. Monolith would later try to replace her with “Contract J.A.C.K.” and have since lost the paperwork so nobody knows who owns the intellectual property.
Mona Sax was, until the end sequence of Max Payne 2, a badass assassin who liked her tight tops but also pants and a jacket to side her gun (Mona starred in more or less equal space with Max on the cover of Max Payne 2, but is barely even mentioned in Max Payne 3).
Aveline de Grandpré dresses in badass leather when assassinating and very becoming gowns when socializing as a noblewoman. It was originally released on a handheld device and if you want to play it on the PC or console that you play the rest of the Assassin’s Creed franchise on you need to buy it online at very specific places that weren’t marketed. (PS3) (X-Box 360) (PC)
Left 4 Dead has Zoey and Rochelle are both attractive young women who possess the will and the skills to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Casandra Pentaghast in Dragon Age certainly does not wear bikini armor or anything exploitative – but there’s no shortage of folks who find her incredibly attractive.
It’s actually not that difficult for creators to make female characters who are sexually attractive without going into bikini armor or other exploitative tropes. I mean, if you give a woman agency, ability and personality – odds are good people will find it sexy.
Essentially the problem is that the gaming industry, and many other mediums, are reluctant to take the risk of incorporating different perspectives and different priorities over “games to reassure straight white men that they’re straight and awesome”.
– wincenworks
Bringing this back this Thursday because the most important conversations to have in character design and critique thereof are not “is it sexy” or “what’s wrong with sex” but:
Even if you’re a soulless corporation making products purely for profit and only interested in sales – it’s worth it to consider all these points. After all, you do want your audience to like your product and to cut through the noise of what everyone else is doing.
