Here’s BABD list of highlights regarding portrayal of warrior women of 2015.
Best:
- Captain Phasma was announced + official Star Wars Facebook mod replied to dudebro concern over her armor being ‘unfeminine’
- Rumor has it Disney has discontinued sexualizing female Star Wars characters and may even discontinue the Slave Leia merchandise
- Zarya and Mei divesified female Overwatch roster a bit
- Hisako joined Killer Instinct
- Illaoi, the super-intimidating Kraken Priestess diversified League of Legends female roster a bit
- Soul Calibur: Lost Swords closed down, proving sex doesn’t sell
- Oglaf published possibly the best comic parody of bikini armor logic
- Foldable Ideas made an excellent video on why “there is an in-story reason” is no a get out of criticism free card.
Worst:
-
Mobius Final Fantasy
protagonist met with a “he’s too sexy for a man” outcry and subsequently, a toned-down redesign was released - MGS V: Phantom Pain premiered and literally nobody was ashamed of their words & deeds after discovering the “reason” for Quiet’s exposure
- EROTIC VIOLENCE Castlevania pachinko machine promo killed any sort of hope for Konami’s marketing
- Camilla and Charlotte embodied problems with female designs in new Fire Emblem
- Star Ocean’s 5 Fiore… just Fiore
- Comic book industry professionals threw multiple tantrums over the mere idea of women being given non-sexualized costumes and portrayals:
–J. Scott Campbell against new Wonder Woman costume
–Erik Larsen inciting boycott of practical female superhero outfits
–Frank Cho making multiple failed attempts at snark against criticism of the Milo Manara Spider Woman cover, Rob Liefeld and J. Scott Campbell got his back
–J. Scott Campbell being upset, cause Disney won’t pay him for drawing Leia boobs anymore - We confirmed that as entertaining as some of their videos are, Game Theory’s research doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny and you should probably not cite them as a source in serious conversation
- Despite Overwatch being still in beta by that time, Zarya and Mei’s inclusion did not change how the rest of female cast is presented (also D.Va, yet another generic sexy lady was added along with Mei, kinda diluting the impact)
- Street Fighter V decided to change a camera angle, and was met with outrage and a petition to change the game by the people who insist we shouldn’t tell video game developers to change games.
And here are BABD’s own accomplishments in 2015:
- Ozzie put up the Guide to Gendered Armors
- wincenworks put up three new How do I Armor and Stuff posts
- We started a deviantArt group and a Steam group, complete with curator list for recommended games
- We reached 17 000 followers (doubling the number from the beginning of the year)
Here’s hoping next year the good stuff will outweight the bad stuff!
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
