The video as a whole is a really great introduction to character posing in animation and why Tracer’s “lookatmubutt” pose needed to be replaced. But the last bit is the most important part for BABD, as Dan brings up how sexualization tends to compromise everything else that is established about a female character instead of being properly used as a character-building tool. Not surprisingly, two heroines we talked about a lot on BABD are brought up as examples.
Regarding Tracer’s pose redo, while I agree the new one is technically more in-character and dynamic, I still think Blizzard did a half-hearted fix job by choosing posing that’s still gratuitously sexualized for the “improved” look.
And for the record, Tracer’s design devoting way too much attention to her butt(crack) has been a problem since Overwatch’s beginnings. If Blizzard has genuine interest in objectifying her less, they could start with making her pants not ride up her colon.
~Ozzie
h/t: @greybeck
Since Overwatch’s release date is pending, I’ve been seeing a lot of people getting excited about it’s diversity (particularly in comparison to it’s primary rival) and Tracer as a character – and I’ve noticed something.
Pretty much every favorite Tracer moment tends to frame her from the shoulders up for two reasons. The first is that her facial expressions are magic (hopefully Disney is taking notes) and secondly because most of the top half of her costume seems designed with her personality and role in mind.
The rest of it seems designed with the intent to make sure that there’s no confusion here, the plucky, fun female character is also definitely slim and ha great legs and butt.
Clearly her appeal is enough they really didn’t need to do that.
– wincenworks