The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Month: September 2015
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Looking at the Steam trailers you would never guess that Defiance had a rich lore involving numerous types of aliens, politics and a diverse range of characters – their main priority in the latest trailer seems to be reassuring you that you can play as a sexy young woman and always be reminded of it by seeing her pigtails at all times.
And yet, her costume is dramatically better than that of the signature character in the first trailer… who seems to be there mostly to assure us there are women with cleavage and the game is “edgey”.
Looking at the Steam trailers you would never guess that Defiance had a rich lore involving numerous types of aliens, politics and a diverse range of characters – their main priority in the latest trailer seems to be reassuring you that you can play as a sexy young woman and always be reminded of it by seeing her pigtails at all times.
And yet, her costume is dramatically better than that of the signature character in the first trailer… who seems to be there mostly to assure us there are women with cleavage and the game is “edgey”.
Incidentally I have an issue of ‘La geste des chevaliers dragons’ in my reference pile, because the cityscapes and castles are fantastic, I just thought I should point out that the characters wearing very little armour tend to be savagely eviscerated for their stupidity, not that it isn’t incredibly fan servicy and ridiculous despite that, but at least there are no inexplicably impervious navels.
As Ami of eschergirls and lady-knight- (in her comment) noted, it seems like Ange intended their comic to be subversive of fantasy clichés (so female virgins slay dragons instead of being kidnapped by them), but the execution indulges in harmful narratives (like demonizing women’s sexuality).
I don’t really think that letting scantily-clad warriors die for drama justifies making them scantily-clad in the first place.
It may work in comedy, but La geste des chevaliers dragons(or at least the first issue, the only one I managed to read) never makes fun of those costumes, just assumes we’re supposed to accept them as a sign of female empowerment or some other misogynistic bullshit.
The only character that commented on Jaïna’s non-armor was framed as a sexist dude who’s jealous of dragon slayer’s status, so… yeah, the readers probably weren’t supposed to agree with him.
While Franco-Belgian comics (bande desineé) have the advantage of more liberal views on depicting sexuality and nudity than American mainstream comics do, it doesn’t mean they never indulge in pointless and gratuitous sexualization. As my Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo points out, cultural differences don’t justify double standard.
Oh yeah, I also wanted to reiterate that bikini-clad warrior deaths played for dramafail to be dramatic, considering battle damage is a natural consequence of fighting in a skimpy armor.
As Ami of eschergirls and lady-knight- (in her comment) noted, it seems like Ange intended their comic to be subversive of fantasy clichés (so female virgins slay dragons instead of being kidnapped by them), but the execution indulges in harmful narratives (like demonizing women’s sexuality).
I don’t really think that letting scantily-clad warriors die for drama justifies making them scantily-clad in the first place.
It may work in comedy, but La geste des chevaliers dragons(or at least the first issue, the only one I managed to read) never makes fun of those costumes, just assumes we’re supposed to accept them as a sign of female empowerment or some other misogynistic bullshit.
The only character that commented on Jaïna’s non-armor was framed as a sexist dude who’s jealous of dragon slayer’s status, so… yeah, the readers probably weren’t supposed to agree with him.
While Franco-Belgian comics (bande desineé) have the advantage of more liberal views on depicting sexuality and nudity than American mainstream comics do, it doesn’t mean they never indulge in pointless and gratuitous sexualization. As my Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo points out, cultural differences don’t justify double standard.
Oh yeah, I also wanted to reiterate that bikini-clad warrior deaths played for dramafail to be dramatic, considering battle damage is a natural consequence of fighting in a skimpy armor.
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.
More under the cut.
– wincenworks
Showmanship vs Sportsmanship
It’s a public secret that WWE isn’t exactly about competing to see who has the greatest combat skills. WWE and those like it are about over the top stunts, fast paced drama and general entertainment.
If we accept that climbing up on a giant prop so that you can taunt your opponent, call for the crowd to cheer and then drop down with a body slam is not serious fighting behaviour, we should be able to accept they are not wearing serious costumes either.
For reference, compare any rebuttal outfit to what Saori Yoshida wore when she took Gold at the 2012 Olympics.
Rules of Engagement
Unsurprisingly in heavily regulated sports that have to adhere to regulations from sponsors, insurance and law enforcement – they have a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do to each other.
Even in more liberal fighting sports such as MMA or Ultimate Fighting, the opponents are not actually trying to kill or permanently injure each other – they’re trying to force a submission through allowed techniques. Certainly you can’t bring claw weapons, throw fireballs, use grappling hooks or rip their head off at the end of the round.
Weight Classes
This is usually more an objection when we talk about body types or lack of muscle, but there’s always no shortage of people rushing to post images of conventionally attractive young women who are professional fighters – thus insisting that all warrior women should conform to these standards.
This overlooks a rather critical aspect of the above rules of engagement – that in order to keep competitions within the many rules fair, fighters are sorted into weight classes. Professional fighters need superb discipline and go to great lengths to balance performance vs weight – because they need to in order to be allowed to fight in their weight class.
Unsurprisingly, height is also and advantage so in many of lighter weight classes the contestants tend to be of slim build and a few invariably fall within the conventional beauty standards.
Sponsorship
The lighter weight classes are particularly important, because for any combat sport event to get big tournaments with professional fighters, promotions, photo shoots, etc they need sponsors. The bigger the sponsors, the bigger the events. WWE’s sponsors include Disney and Mattel. And this is where the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy comes in.
Companies sponsor events and fighters in order to boost their image and promote themselves. That means the marketing department gets involved and so does the flawed mentality that sex sells – this effects both the events and the individual fighters.
Now before we continue – I need to stress here that the problem is not the women who benefit from these opportunities and/or enjoy these aspects of the sport. The problem is that the circumstances create additional barriers for women who do not fit or feel comfortable within the constraints.
Journalists and brodudes alike constantly try to justify this focusing on sound bytes or photos of successful female athletes who seem to be okay with it – that’s not fair to the women who dropped out because of these issues or the women who succeed.
The upper limit for the absolute heaviest weight class for women that receives sponsorship for national and international events is 66 kgs or 145 lbs. For men, it’s 120kgs or 265 lbs AND occasionally they experiment with super heavyweight – a division with no upper weight limit at all.
To put this in perspective: Fighter/actress Gina Carano was a champion fighter in the heaviest divisions of Mixed Martial Arts. She tended to weight 140 – 143 pounds during her fight career and once had to publicly strip naked to make her weigh in. This is her with regular sized, just plain actor, Ewan McGregor in Haywire:
This is her generously allowing The Rock to lean on her while he takes a nap:
On top of that, if you want to be a professional fighter you’re going to need a very rigorous training schedule, be able to travel, take time off to heal up after fights, etc. So it’s in your best interests to attract sponsors who will pay you to do all of that.
The downside is, marketing guys will tend to want you to pose for their promotions and fight wearing items of clothing that they pick for you to wear during promo shoots. It also means that marketing guys additional funding options such as interviews, cover shoots, etc tend to want to focus more on “isn’t she sexy!?” rather than “isn’t she a badass!?”
So long as society remains comfortable with this idea that women aren’t worth giving attention to unless they’re sexy, there’s never going to be any shortage of examples like this. That doesn’t make any one example okay.
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.
More under the cut.
– wincenworks
Showmanship vs Sportsmanship
It’s a public secret that WWE isn’t exactly about competing to see who has the greatest combat skills. WWE and those like it are about over the top stunts, fast paced drama and general entertainment.
If we accept that climbing up on a giant prop so that you can taunt your opponent, call for the crowd to cheer and then drop down with a body slam is not serious fighting behaviour, we should be able to accept they are not wearing serious costumes either.
For reference, compare any rebuttal outfit to what Saori Yoshida wore when she took Gold at the 2012 Olympics.
Rules of Engagement
Unsurprisingly in heavily regulated sports that have to adhere to regulations from sponsors, insurance and law enforcement – they have a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do to each other.
Even in more liberal fighting sports such as MMA or Ultimate Fighting, the opponents are not actually trying to kill or permanently injure each other – they’re trying to force a submission through allowed techniques. Certainly you can’t bring claw weapons, throw fireballs, use grappling hooks or rip their head off at the end of the round.
Weight Classes
This is usually more an objection when we talk about body types or lack of muscle, but there’s always no shortage of people rushing to post images of conventionally attractive young women who are professional fighters – thus insisting that all warrior women should conform to these standards.
This overlooks a rather critical aspect of the above rules of engagement – that in order to keep competitions within the many rules fair, fighters are sorted into weight classes. Professional fighters need superb discipline and go to great lengths to balance performance vs weight – because they need to in order to be allowed to fight in their weight class.
Unsurprisingly, height is also and advantage so in many of lighter weight classes the contestants tend to be of slim build and a few invariably fall within the conventional beauty standards.
Sponsorship
The lighter weight classes are particularly important, because for any combat sport event to get big tournaments with professional fighters, promotions, photo shoots, etc they need sponsors. The bigger the sponsors, the bigger the events. WWE’s sponsors include Disney and Mattel. And this is where the tyranny of Creepy Marketing Guy comes in.
Companies sponsor events and fighters in order to boost their image and promote themselves. That means the marketing department gets involved and so does the flawed mentality that sex sells – this effects both the events and the individual fighters.
Now before we continue – I need to stress here that the problem is not the women who benefit from these opportunities and/or enjoy these aspects of the sport. The problem is that the circumstances create additional barriers for women who do not fit or feel comfortable within the constraints.
Journalists and brodudes alike constantly try to justify this focusing on sound bytes or photos of successful female athletes who seem to be okay with it – that’s not fair to the women who dropped out because of these issues or the women who succeed.
The upper limit for the absolute heaviest weight class for women that receives sponsorship for national and international events is 66 kgs or 145 lbs. For men, it’s 120kgs or 265 lbs AND occasionally they experiment with super heavyweight – a division with no upper weight limit at all.
To put this in perspective: Fighter/actress Gina Carano was a champion fighter in the heaviest divisions of Mixed Martial Arts. She tended to weight 140 – 143 pounds during her fight career and once had to publicly strip naked to make her weigh in. This is her with regular sized, just plain actor, Ewan McGregor in Haywire:
This is her generously allowing The Rock to lean on her while he takes a nap:
On top of that, if you want to be a professional fighter you’re going to need a very rigorous training schedule, be able to travel, take time off to heal up after fights, etc. So it’s in your best interests to attract sponsors who will pay you to do all of that.
The downside is, marketing guys will tend to want you to pose for their promotions and fight wearing items of clothing that they pick for you to wear during promo shoots. It also means that marketing guys additional funding options such as interviews, cover shoots, etc tend to want to focus more on “isn’t she sexy!?” rather than “isn’t she a badass!?”
So long as society remains comfortable with this idea that women aren’t worth giving attention to unless they’re sexy, there’s never going to be any shortage of examples like this. That doesn’t make any one example okay.
