The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
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As it approaches Cult Classic status, its worth thinking about how Jennifer’s Body is both a brilliant deconstruction of gender in horror but (sadly to its box office detriment) a great example of the old notion of sex sells doesn’t just fail to generate sales, it actively harms many productions.
The movie was horribly misrepresented in marketing, largely because the studio was convinced the only reason anyone would want to see a Megan Fox movie was to ogle her body. That is: They assume all decisions about whether a movie is worth watching are made by developmentally stunted cishet men (the only demographic who wouldn’t work out there were plenty of places you could already ogle Megan… largely due to movie studios).
Despite what overpaid executives in suits who paid someone to do their exams for them will tell you, nobody actually benefits from the proliferation of this sort of marketing.
People interested in feminist themes don’t get works containing them identified as such to them
People wanting to watch stuff not about conventionally attractive women have to search to find out what things are actually about
Not the mask used as a fascinator, not the inexplicable window on her back, not the skirts that seem to only exist only to blow up and show her legs – nor the odd peakaboo slits on the sides of her shorts, nor the or the skin tight top – but rather the weird piece of cloth that sits on top of of the vacuum sealed top to incorporate underboob and nipple tease without actually showing any torso skin.
She is also possibly the worst archer in the history of bad archers.
Now… obviously expectations are low for this genre of game, but this particular gacha game has had made spread in the market and multiple articles about tis monetization techniques – so this remains an example of how this kind of trash design goes unquestioned in modern media.
– wincenworks
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This Instagram account, mind_flayer_meltdown has been re-titling classic Dungeons and Dragons covers with hilariously accurate commentaries. These particular examples are glorious.
Of course, sometimes they get political and it’s justperfect.
It’s easy to dismiss this as “product of its time” or just something of by-gone days, particularly as the current management of Wizards of the Coast and the connected companies have been very actively trying to do better – but its important to remember that these are essentially formative works both in tabletoproleplayiing games and fantasy in general.
That’s… that’s a problem.
– wincenworks
(h/t: Slovenly Trulls for drawing my attention to this gallery of masterpieces) Specific sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Mandalorians are trained in many forms of combat, such as the battle bikini rubber spine style.
(Cover of Escape From Monster Island #1, Zenescope Entertainment)
Okay, now we’ve all recovered from the psychic damage caused by this… not-anatomy, I’d like to make matters worse. This is the “cosplay variant” cover which I guess means its “inspired” by a cosplayer… possibly in the same creepy manner J Scott Campbell was with some of his personal artworks.
In order to find out who they did this to, I had to do a worrying amount of searching: It’s Leeana Vamp (who I have met in person and can confirm, she is very lovely) cosplay of Boba Fett, lingerie version specifically:
Now that may not be all of it – because early in the searches my first thought was that based on the face and hair, it was inspired this is the cosplay by Lauren Browne and was very confused why they’d altered her outfit so much and removed her tattoos.
That’s because in a lot of Vamp’s cosplay pics, she’s wearing pants (conventions are usually family friend events) and the helmet… because Boba Fett; and Lauren just happens to look a little more like Generic J Scott Campbell Paul Green Babe.
It’s almost impossible to match a “likeness” with in individual using this “style” typical of companies like Zenescope, which take objectifying women to new levels. Neither Zenescope, nor the artist himself gives any vague credit to any cosplayer.
And he has a whole calendar of this shit that Zenescope is selling (note, this artwork was from 2016 ):ites, he doesn’t follow groups run by cosplayers – he looks at those creepy as fuck “sexy cosplay girls” sites/groups that don’t credit the models and are avoided by cosplayers because of the comments sections.
And he has a whole calendar of this shit that Zenescope is selling (note, this artwork was from 2016 and the current year is 2021):
I was originally going to feature Siobhan largely due to excitement about the consistency applied to celtic imagery (including using braids instead of locs).
However I felt this selection of his work showcases how once you get away from the expectation that your female characters must be sexy and wear poorly observed/designed bikinis.
The key consideration on this work is why is the armor and why the specific placement and design of the armor? Why this design? Particularly if its a more complicated design than regular armor.
Anzogh has a ridiculous cow skull on his belt, and a strap across his chest, bone bracelets to emphasise how little he has – it conveys that his is powerful and needs none of the convenience of civilization (like armor). Sometimes these characters have massive pauldrons to give them a more menacing silhouette
Saoirse has armor on her arms, and bits of her legs, the gaps in her armor are not to show power or independence, but to showcase her body from tits to hips. It’s to assure you that despite these weapons, her age and being on the battlefield… she’s got it going on. Generally when characters like this get shoulder, hip or thigh armor it’s to accentuate their hips and frame their torso pleasingly.
Fuck Activision-Blizzard and anyone who looks like ‘em
Fuck ’em with a cactus
If you follow news regarding video games, or anything vaguely relating to feminism you’ll be aware that in the last few months there’s been numerous outings of video game developers running their offices as some sort of hellscape where white men are encouraged to act on worst impulses.
Content warnings for racism, sexual harassment mention of suicide
Charges include a massive amount general harassment and truly horrifying behaviour including, but not limited to:
One employee feeling so harassed she committed suicide on a work trip where she had to accompany her main harasser – who also brought sex toys on that work trip.
Having a “Bill Cosby” suite at conventions which was a hotel room that existed primarily for managers (including a HR manager) to offer a lot of booze to attractive female con goers in the hopes of then coercing them into sex.
Harassing a Black woman employee to the extent she was required to write a one page essay explaining what she would do with the leave she was entitled to, before they would consider approving it.
“But I’m not under oath, so can I lie?” – Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière
David Cage also reported threw a tantrum in the court because he felt it was impinging on his honour. Try imagining working at a place where the man in charge, who famously doesn’t keep promises (cw: Elliot Page deadnamed due to old article here), does that sort of thing when called out. Yeah.
So if you’ve ever wondered why we’re sceptical of claims that “x is actually a great place to work” or “well it wasn’t proven so those reports of employee abuse can’t be trusted” statements – now you know.
The worst part is these are just the biggest companies, which have had the most public outings of their abuse – thousands of reports of abuse by others have been surfacing in the wake of these stories.
Most heart-breaking of all are the women who talk about having experienced these companies, or just the wider industry, first hand they couldn’t bring themselves to be surprised or shocked.
This isn’t just video games. This isn’t just the entertainment industry. This is every industry where people are told they’re “lucky” to work there and become beholden to the whims of parasitic corporate shitlords who are used to getting away with everything.
There are, of course, also a staggering number of other abuses such as crunch, labour exploitation, and tax avoidance… such is the world we live in.
– wincenworks &~Ozzie
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Okay Google… show me what happens when Nier: Automata imagery gets to outright fetish levels….
This is why we don’t trust explanations for why female protagonists have to have convoluted sexy costumes…. because if nothing else it means that they’ve decided they’re comfortable with making that a cornerstone of their brand.
And… I don’t even know what to do with this except cringe.
