While this costume does score fairly low on the bingo, mostly due to lack of attempt to make it even look protective, I wanted to bingo it because it highlights another example of exotification.
We recently promoted a petition taking a stance against extofication in roleplaying games, and there have been important developments since.
When Resident Evil 5 was first released everyone from games reviewers to the British Rating Board rushed to assure us it was officially “not racist” – however when the game creates a “tribal” outfit like this for the elite counter-terrorist operative who happens to be a woman in “Africa” (rather than a specific country on the continent, thus eliminating any sort of expectation of accuracy/research).
There are numerous cultural groups spread across the many nations of Africa who have different styles and standards of dress – the only ones that would have this are westernized elite who are essentially parodying the traditional residents. That’s not a good image to promote.
(Before anyone… I see you, rushes to tell me how this shouldn’t count because it’s an “extra” please consider that this costume is not nearly as offensive as one of the main groups of antagonists in RE5)
– wincenworks
insomniacapples submitted:
I’ve been playing Toukiden: The Age of Demons for a while since I’ve been on a “hunting” game kick since Monster Hunter isn’t enough. I really enjoy the historical and mythological themes and the armours in Toukiden are quite sensible (well for the most part) for both genders. But when I looked into the DLC for more fashionable armours (cause sometimes I wanna look cool and DLC is good for that) I was a wee bit disappointed with these two (the other two can be viewed here and here which are okay for the most part). Cause those puffy pants tucked in boots exclusive to the guys are my jam. And if I was playing as a guy I would have liked to be in cute heart shaped armour with diamonds to show my foxy side… Oh well.
I look at these outfits and two things baffle me… the first is how the designers seem to have a full blown obsession with showing off the woman’s shoulders, stomach and thighs.
The second is the absurdity that it seems these two somehow got the same hair styles and decided to over compensate by trying to dress as radically different as they could manage while keep with a theme/color scheme.
Adventurers are very silly people – but I’m glad that most of the outfits are relatively equal across genders.
– wincenworks
