We’re definitely with you there, friend! That’s why there’s the “art shouldn’t be censored!” rhetoric bingo square: cause “creative freedom” should not be a Get Out of Jail Free card of character design. As femfreqputsit:
Yup, it’s all about the big picture of our media, not individual examples. Crying “artistic freedom” (or “stylization”, for that matter) to justify questionable design ignores seeking for the reason artist decided to make such choices.
Publishing this ask cause those points need to be iterated more.
~Ozzie
The other important thing that people should remember is that commercial art (such as covers, character designs, 3d models in games, etc) is not intended to be a purely artistic experience – it’s a product for consumption.
Artists will have to follow briefs that tell them kind of mood to give the work, what characters to put in it, what themes to put in – unlikely that an art director adding “Don’t put the female characters in ridiculous and hyper-sexualized costumes” would somehow break a professional artist’s will to create.
Today the 90s comic book is over and you need more than an “X” in your title to get record sales, but artists now have a big advantage: They can share bits of upcoming comics via the Internet the moment they get approval from the company.
That means they can also get immediate and direct feedback from the target audience who are not so concerned about ways to inflate sales figures as getting good comics. No more getting a summary from someone who got a summary from the guy who got summaries of the fan mail from the interns.
So if, y’know as a purely theoretical thought experiment, you are a cover artist for a major comic company and the audience they’re building for it doesn’t fit the theme, the classy and professional thing to do is respect the audience and the work, like
Am I the only one who’s getting sick of the excuse of “That’s how the artists want to draw, so stop telling them what to do!” excuse when it comes to terrible bikini battle armour? It’s like these people expect all designs to be nothing down to personal preference, and yet never think about the bigger picture of just how many male artists are part of our culture that influence these decisions? Seriously, it’s a poor execuse and I’m sick of hearing ut.
We’re definitely with you there, friend! That’s why there’s the “art shouldn’t be censored!” rhetoric bingo square: cause “creative freedom” should not be a Get Out of Jail Free card of character design. As femfreqputsit:
Yup, it’s all about the big picture of our media, not individual examples. Crying “artistic freedom” (or “stylization”, for that matter) to justify questionable design ignores seeking for the reason artist decided to make such choices.
Publishing this ask cause those points need to be iterated more.
~Ozzie
The other important thing that people should remember is that commercial art (such as covers, character designs, 3d models in games, etc) is not intended to be a purely artistic experience – it’s a product for consumption.
Artists will have to follow briefs that tell them kind of mood to give the work, what characters to put in it, what themes to put in – unlikely that an art director adding “Don’t put the female characters in ridiculous and hyper-sexualized costumes” would somehow break a professional artist’s will to create.
Today the 90s comic book is over and you need more than an “X” in your title to get record sales, but artists now have a big advantage: They can share bits of upcoming comics via the Internet the moment they get approval from the company.
That means they can also get immediate and direct feedback from the target audience who are not so concerned about ways to inflate sales figures as getting good comics. No more getting a summary from someone who got a summary from the guy who got summaries of the fan mail from the interns.
So if, y’know as a purely theoretical thought experiment, you are a cover artist for a major comic company and the audience they’re building for it doesn’t fit the theme, the classy and professional thing to do is respect the audience and the work, like
Given that Blizzard has said they’re making this game to improve representation for women in video games and even address things like “why all the bikinis?”
Zarya is currently the quick “we fixed it” response from a company with a long history of going back on their “fixes”. They’re preaching that they want to fulfill the desire for diversity – but the sexy purple skinned assassin lady, a robot, a gorilla all got priority over so many types of real people.
Currently they are only vaguely close to meeting their stated goals due to a few isolated, individual characters. Pretty much all the tokenism alarm bells are ringing loud and clear.
“Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.“ – Edward H. Harriman
– wincenworks
*Not to say that Zarya is ugly. She’s still “unconventional” in the safest way possible.
The answer is: a definite and resounding… “maybe?” ^_^’ It really depends how much you want to stretch the definitions of every square’s trope. There’s purposely some room left for interpretation with those.
The example you give was actually achieved a couple of times, cause we tend to, exactly as you say, count all things that go into buttcrack as “thong”, no matter if they look like panties or not (see, for example: the latest bingo). Not sure about wincenworks, but I’m also pretty generous with “no underwear” square, cause lots of those things just don’t look like wearable bras/panties to me (and, you know, rarely actually go UNDER the rest of the costume).
Still, I made the bingo as a collection of the worst and most pervasive problems I noticed in female “warrior” costume design, it was never really supposed to be 100% full (and thankfully, never got to it).
But now, as we’re all in on the joke, we’re having some fun with the idea, cause why not. Stretching the boundaries of ridiculousness is the purpose of our Break the Bingo contest!
That said, everyone please remember that the contest’s deadline is 11:59 pm CET on March 31 2015! Updated rules and FAQ for the contest can be found here.
is it possible to create an armor that fills all the squares of the bingo? i mean one of the squares is “thong” but then another of the squares is “no underwear.” is it possible to make an armor SO AWFUL that it managed to fulfill both??? you’d need some sort of weird armor that goes into the buttcrack but doesn’t actually connect into functional panties??? this is brain breaking…
The answer is: a definite and resounding… “maybe?” ^_^’ It really depends how much you want to stretch the definitions of every square’s trope. There’s purposely some room left for interpretation with those.
The example you give was actually achieved a couple of times, cause we tend to, exactly as you say, count all things that go into buttcrack as “thong”, no matter if they look like panties or not (see, for example: the latest bingo). Not sure about wincenworks, but I’m also pretty generous with “no underwear” square, cause lots of those things just don’t look like wearable bras/panties to me (and, you know, rarely actually go UNDER the rest of the costume).
Still, I made the bingo as a collection of the worst and most pervasive problems I noticed in female “warrior” costume design, it was never really supposed to be 100% full (and thankfully, never got to it).
But now, as we’re all in on the joke, we’re having some fun with the idea, cause why not. Stretching the boundaries of ridiculousness is the purpose of our Break the Bingo contest!
That said, everyone please remember that the contest’s deadline is 11:59 pm CET on March 31 2015! Updated rules and FAQ for the contest can be found here.
I assume you’re referring to this blather where Matt Cavotta tried to explain that he didn’t want to be responsible for his decisions are Creative Lead and basically didn’t want to do his job (which is probably why he isn’t the creative lead anywhere anymore). He also admits (Myth #5) that he doesn’t speak for Wizards of the Coast (WotC), just himself.
If you actually read it though, there’s a few very damning points here and a lot of strawmanning and standard issue rhetoric while throwing his fellow artists under the bus. See how he keeps referencing the style guide and saying “Well they’re not doing anything they’re not allowed to… creative freedom!”
Avoid making things look high-tech or sci-fi. Magic stretches the definition of “fantasy,” but there are limits.
Don’t use real-world letters or symbols. This includes religious symbols such as crosses and ankhs.
Keep gore at a PG-13 level.
Because we sell Magic cards in China, please avoid prominently representing human skulls or full skeletons.
And of course:
Make an effort to illustrate a variety of races, genders, ages, and body types.
Feel free to paint beautiful women, as long as they’re shown kicking ass. No damsels in distress. No ridiculously exaggerated breasts. No nudity.
Despite all the do’s and don’ts, we want you to have fun! If you want to experiment or bend a rule, just run your idea by the art director.
See, art directors and their bosses are supposed to supplement guides and provide guidance to artists so that the artist creates the best possible product for the company and the artist themselves. It helps to fix mistakes and smooth out issues, this one was an issue in 2005 when Matt made his statement and it’s continued tobe one.
Now, there are several things that WotC can and should have done before 2005 to fix this. By could I mean both as part of being a responsible company and in terms of trying to maintain brand image and profits:
Amend the standard style guide to be more specific about the depictions of women
Tell the art directors, creative leads and other creative staff to be vigilant about this issue and to pro-actively provide guidance to the contracted artists
Include a separate document in the artist package stating their concerns and expectations specifically depictions of female characters
WotC easily had the infrastructure to do this by 2000 – I know this because I worked for WotC in the early 2000s (up until July 2005 in fact) as an online chat room moderator and even in this minor role I had to sign an NDA, memorize pages of regulations and undergo supervised training. When I left, they were not slowing down on that in the slightest.
This has nothing to do with Wizards of the Coast wanting to be a cool relaxed company, or offer artist freedom or being somehow unable to make decisions on what they do and don’t publish – it’s that they simply haven’t cared to properly address this issue and set high standards for things other than being viable to sell in China and Walmart.
They publish things, they are responsible for the what they publish. It’s that simple. They have more power than the artists over what gets published because they have the ability to refuse, crop or edit submitted artwork – artists, on the other hand, can only get published if they meet the publisher’s expectations… and then it might get cropped or edited.
– wincenworks
Also, themystisk, even if the nonsense you wrote somehow WAS true, it would still prove our point:
It would mean that Wizards of the Coast is completely irresponsible with how they conduct art commissions (because apparently they don’t care at all about what artwork is produced with their money). Such a sound business practice!
It would also mean that fantasy artists are by default all pervy and whenever asked to draw anything remotely female, they deliver “the sexy”, even when not asked for sexyness specifically.
Either way, it’s part of a larger problem with media’s and society’s expectations towards women. Blaming random bad artists for it is just a disingenuous, oversimplified answer and offers no solutions to the issue.
I would just like to point out that WotC have addressed the state of dress that characters in the art for their cards are in, and for all of their other merchandise for that matter. They simply commission an artist to draw, say “Elf rogue in cityscape”, that the artist then hands them a female in skimpy leather armor, isn’t their fault. Essentially, they give the artists pretty free reins, and if they manage to fit the description given, it usually goes through. So blame the artists, not WotC.
I assume you’re referring to this blather where Matt Cavotta tried to explain that he didn’t want to be responsible for his decisions are Creative Lead and basically didn’t want to do his job (which is probably why he isn’t the creative lead anywhere anymore). He also admits (Myth #5) that he doesn’t speak for Wizards of the Coast (WotC), just himself.
If you actually read it though, there’s a few very damning points here and a lot of strawmanning and standard issue rhetoric while throwing his fellow artists under the bus. See how he keeps referencing the style guide and saying “Well they’re not doing anything they’re not allowed to… creative freedom!”
Avoid making things look high-tech or sci-fi. Magic stretches the definition of “fantasy,” but there are limits.
Don’t use real-world letters or symbols. This includes religious symbols such as crosses and ankhs.
Keep gore at a PG-13 level.
Because we sell Magic cards in China, please avoid prominently representing human skulls or full skeletons.
And of course:
Make an effort to illustrate a variety of races, genders, ages, and body types.
Feel free to paint beautiful women, as long as they’re shown kicking ass. No damsels in distress. No ridiculously exaggerated breasts. No nudity.
Despite all the do’s and don’ts, we want you to have fun! If you want to experiment or bend a rule, just run your idea by the art director.
See, art directors and their bosses are supposed to supplement guides and provide guidance to artists so that the artist creates the best possible product for the company and the artist themselves. It helps to fix mistakes and smooth out issues, this one was an issue in 2005 when Matt made his statement and it’s continued tobe one.
Now, there are several things that WotC can and should have done before 2005 to fix this. By could I mean both as part of being a responsible company and in terms of trying to maintain brand image and profits:
Amend the standard style guide to be more specific about the depictions of women
Tell the art directors, creative leads and other creative staff to be vigilant about this issue and to pro-actively provide guidance to the contracted artists
Include a separate document in the artist package stating their concerns and expectations specifically depictions of female characters
WotC easily had the infrastructure to do this by 2000 – I know this because I worked for WotC in the early 2000s (up until July 2005 in fact) as an online chat room moderator and even in this minor role I had to sign an NDA, memorize pages of regulations and undergo supervised training. When I left, they were not slowing down on that in the slightest.
This has nothing to do with Wizards of the Coast wanting to be a cool relaxed company, or offer artist freedom or being somehow unable to make decisions on what they do and don’t publish – it’s that they simply haven’t cared to properly address this issue and set high standards for things other than being viable to sell in China and Walmart.
They publish things, they are responsible for the what they publish. It’s that simple. They have more power than the artists over what gets published because they have the ability to refuse, crop or edit submitted artwork – artists, on the other hand, can only get published if they meet the publisher’s expectations… and then it might get cropped or edited.
– wincenworks
Also, themystisk, even if the nonsense you wrote somehow WAS true, it would still prove our point:
It would mean that Wizards of the Coast is completely irresponsible with how they conduct art commissions (because apparently they don’t care at all about what artwork is produced with their money). Such a sound business practice!
It would also mean that fantasy artists are by default all pervy and whenever asked to draw anything remotely female, they deliver “the sexy”, even when not asked for sexyness specifically.
Either way, it’s part of a larger problem with media’s and society’s expectations towards women. Blaming random bad artists for it is just a disingenuous, oversimplified answer and offers no solutions to the issue.
Of course being aroused by breasts is natural and by no means bad in itself, let’s make it clear. But our culture skewed the perception of breasts by overemphasizing their arbitrary* sexual value (*boobs are not necessary for sex to happen, after all). They’re treated like some kind of secondary genitals, while tabooing the actual function they’re designed for (feeding babies). That’s the sad reason why on one hand a bare female breast is considered “indecent” to the point of shaming women from nursing in public places, while on the other hand they’re used as a shortcut for what straight male audience would (allegedly) instantly find appealing.
And as (horny) hetero men are somehow the default audience for most of entertainment media, boobs need to be bared, or at least emphasized beyond any logic (and beyond how science works) on every possible occasion, even when it makes little to no sense in context. Frustration with above school of thought is one of the major reasons that this blog exists. You know there’s something wrong when it’s more important to show that a warrior character happens to have boobs than to apply some practical battle wear for them.
Bringing this back, cause according to SOME people corenthal’s Power Boy’s crotch-window is a proof that we agree boobs to be equally sexual in nature with dicks… To which I say: wow, go learn what a strawmanfallacy is!
The fact that a satire works within the system it makes fun of doesn’t mean it promotes the system. It’s basically required to take a thing we’re ridiculing to an extreme to even count as a satire in the first place!
And in the culture that treats flaunting women’s boobs like a something inherently sex-related (as if female breasts were genitals) but is completely okay with male pecs and nipples, flaunting what part of a man’s body would be comparably sex-related, huh?
As I said before, satire that reverses the oppressive status quo is very important and potentially eye-opening to privileged groups. And since mere shirtlessness of a male fictional character doesn’t make cishet men uncomfortable in the same way as pointless boob windows make women, a penis-shaft-window should work.
Of course being aroused by breasts is natural and by no means bad in itself, let’s make it clear. But our culture skewed the perception of breasts by overemphasizing their arbitrary* sexual value (*boobs are not necessary for sex to happen, after all). They’re treated like some kind of secondary genitals, while tabooing the actual function they’re designed for (feeding babies). That’s the sad reason why on one hand a bare female breast is considered “indecent” to the point of shaming women from nursing in public places, while on the other hand they’re used as a shortcut for what straight male audience would (allegedly) instantly find appealing.
And as (horny) hetero men are somehow the default audience for most of entertainment media, boobs need to be bared, or at least emphasized beyond any logic (and beyond how science works) on every possible occasion, even when it makes little to no sense in context. Frustration with above school of thought is one of the major reasons that this blog exists. You know there’s something wrong when it’s more important to show that a warrior character happens to have boobs than to apply some practical battle wear for them.
Bringing this back, cause according to SOME people corenthal’s Power Boy’s crotch-window is a proof that we agree boobs to be equally sexual in nature with dicks… To which I say: wow, go learn what a strawmanfallacy is!
The fact that a satire works within the system it makes fun of doesn’t mean it promotes the system. It’s basically required to take a thing we’re ridiculing to an extreme to even count as a satire in the first place!
And in the culture that treats flaunting women’s boobs like a something inherently sex-related (as if female breasts were genitals) but is completely okay with male pecs and nipples, flaunting what part of a man’s body would be comparably sex-related, huh?
As I said before, satire that reverses the oppressive status quo is very important and potentially eye-opening to privileged groups. And since mere shirtlessness of a male fictional character doesn’t make cishet men uncomfortable in the same way as pointless boob windows make women, a penis-shaft-window should work.
