6 Ridiculous Excuses Game Designers Gave For Sexist Costumes
6 Ridiculous Excuses Game Designers Gave For Sexist Costumes
Video games feature more scantily-clad women than a ladies’ gym changing room, and worse excuses than a cameraman hiding there in the corner.
A similar piece to another Cracked list we shared before. If lists some of the characters we featured before on the blog, like Quiet, Cortana or Ivy.
~Ozzie
There is one important criticism I want to address with this article, specifically the handling of spot #1. Bayonetta. That is, even if you find an example where you think it’s better or avoids the hazards of the others – do not take it upon yourself to give it an official “not sexist” stamp. Seriously.
While it’s true that Bayonetta is a rarity in that she gets a role and attitude normally reserved for male characters, there’s still plenty of problems with her character concept and the principles behind the design. That and it’s not a coincidence that it was the female character who was to be defined by being “sexy” instead of “cool”.
Their confession that they wanted her to be sexy doesn’t make their explanation that somehow she doesn’t wear clothes because she can make clothes out of hair except when she’s launching her most powerful attacks (ie the time when you really don’t want to be exposed).
There’s always a temptation to believe that things we enjoy and that seem to be flawless and that because we know a thing means that we can declare it to be “not problematic” because we know something others don’t – but that’s really just another line of bullshit.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Dante’s “cool” factor comes from him being the son of the greatest hero in history, and so badass he can take down monsters of unimaginable power. Hence the confidence boost and the willingness to focus on style over efficiency.
With Bayonetta the only reason for her being defined by sexiness… is they wanted to cram more “sex appeal” (targeting cishet men as always) into it while also wanted to be taken seriously as a Devil May Cry type action game because as long as we say it’s sexy, it can’t be sexist right? Glossing over her exposure is not one of the things that makes moves like this awesome:
Whether you like the game or not, that’s all kinds of bullshit and the games don’t deserve a free pass because because the creator admits the blatantly obvious (while still adding layers of bullshit so as to claim “creativity”).
– wincenworks
6 Ridiculous Excuses Game Designers Gave For Sexist Costumes
6 Ridiculous Excuses Game Designers Gave For Sexist Costumes
Video games feature more scantily-clad women than a ladies’ gym changing room, and worse excuses than a cameraman hiding there in the corner.
A similar piece to another Cracked list we shared before. If lists some of the characters we featured before on the blog, like Quiet, Cortana or Ivy.
~Ozzie
There is one important criticism I want to address with this article, specifically the handling of spot #1. Bayonetta. That is, even if you find an example where you think it’s better or avoids the hazards of the others – do not take it upon yourself to give it an official “not sexist” stamp. Seriously.
While it’s true that Bayonetta is a rarity in that she gets a role and attitude normally reserved for male characters, there’s still plenty of problems with her character concept and the principles behind the design. That and it’s not a coincidence that it was the female character who was to be defined by being “sexy” instead of “cool”.
Their confession that they wanted her to be sexy doesn’t make their explanation that somehow she doesn’t wear clothes because she can make clothes out of hair except when she’s launching her most powerful attacks (ie the time when you really don’t want to be exposed).
There’s always a temptation to believe that things we enjoy and that seem to be flawless and that because we know a thing means that we can declare it to be “not problematic” because we know something others don’t – but that’s really just another line of bullshit.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Dante’s “cool” factor comes from him being the son of the greatest hero in history, and so badass he can take down monsters of unimaginable power. Hence the confidence boost and the willingness to focus on style over efficiency.
With Bayonetta the only reason for her being defined by sexiness… is they wanted to cram more “sex appeal” (targeting cishet men as always) into it while also wanted to be taken seriously as a Devil May Cry type action game because as long as we say it’s sexy, it can’t be sexist right? Glossing over her exposure is not one of the things that makes moves like this awesome:
Whether you like the game or not, that’s all kinds of bullshit and the games don’t deserve a free pass because because the creator admits the blatantly obvious (while still adding layers of bullshit so as to claim “creativity”).
– wincenworks
The AAA industry is so diverse and creative with their female-led action games, huh?
Found the first picture by as a one-off joke in badassoftheweek article and @wincenworks proposed we made more.
I’m disproportionally proud of how they came out.
Not pictured: Hot chick with a chainsaw (Lollipop Chainsaw) and Hot chick with a sword on a dinosaur (Golden Axe Beast Rider).
~Ozzie
– wincenworks
PS: Font credits:
My apologies for not including this earlier. ~Ozzie
The AAA industry is so diverse and creative with their female-led action games, huh?
Found the first picture by as a one-off joke in badassoftheweek article and @wincenworks proposed we made more.
I’m disproportionally proud of how they came out.
Not pictured: Hot chick with a chainsaw (Lollipop Chainsaw) and Hot chick with a sword on a dinosaur (Golden Axe Beast Rider).
~Ozzie
– wincenworks
PS: Font credits:
My apologies for not including this earlier. ~Ozzie
So Bayonetta is coming to Super Smash Bros, and And it has been noted that her footwear looks remarkably similar to that of someone we’ve kind of talked about a little on this blog. We even reblogged a comic about that is disturbingly similar to this whole situation.
Also since the copyright stamp on the announcement video was for 2014, suggesting that her announcement was intended around the time of the Samus shoe controversy but delayed for reasons unknown.
Hilariously the response to announcement of Bayonetta joining Smash from brodudes to this news was to rush out and create fake petition (full of anti-sex worker slurs) and try to blame it on SJWs (while only anti-SJW sites promoted it). The petition has since come down off Change.org – I guess it’s finally occurred to them how silly other petitions looked.
Still hasn’t occurred to them yet that we’re okay with people enjoying problematic things or that there’s a time and a place for sexy. Actually a lot of time and places, off battlefields.
That and well, if they’d just gone ahead and included Bayonetta as their sexy Super Smash Bros pinup girl from the start, and not gone through with all the “Samus needs rocket boots to compete with the boys” or “a female designer was involved so no sexism!” (sound familiar?).
– wincenworks
Hi! First of all thank you for your hard work, this blog opened my eyes about the game industry and made me realize how sexist it is. I’m sending you this cause I have some mixed feeling about one one of my favorite characters: Bayonetta. I know she’s sexualized to the extreme and thats sad, cause she’s awesome, and I still like her. My question its if you think its okay to like a sexualized character like her and still be against the bikini armor, or maybe that’s hypocrite? Thanks for reading.
It’s perfectly okay, normal and healthy to enjoy things that are problematic. There is a DIRE shortage of media that isn’t problematic and nobody should be expected to just sit in a corner and wait until something perfect comes along. Furthermore, media creators can’t be expected to create better media unless they release things to be critiqued so they can do better next time.
The problems come when people deny media they like has problems and want to hold it above critique or when they decide that if anything detracts from the media then it’s not worth worrying about. Not only does it lead to a lack of progress – it leads to people normalizing and internalizing the problems.
As an example: Bayonetta core concept is pretty awesome and open to all kinds of interpretations – super witch with unlimited access to magic and fashion who battles all kinds of powerful and weird stuff. The gameplay exists essentially independent of the concept and is really enjoyable for many people.
It’s just unfortunate that literally everything in the production sets cranking the male gaze up to 11/10 as the top priority. Whether the problems offset the fun aspects is a matter entirely up to the individual experiencing it at the time- what aspects could have been improved is a matter between critics and creators.
– wincenworks
Hi! First of all thank you for your hard work, this blog opened my eyes about the game industry and made me realize how sexist it is. I’m sending you this cause I have some mixed feeling about one one of my favorite characters: Bayonetta. I know she’s sexualized to the extreme and thats sad, cause she’s awesome, and I still like her. My question its if you think its okay to like a sexualized character like her and still be against the bikini armor, or maybe that’s hypocrite? Thanks for reading.
It’s perfectly okay, normal and healthy to enjoy things that are problematic. There is a DIRE shortage of media that isn’t problematic and nobody should be expected to just sit in a corner and wait until something perfect comes along. Furthermore, media creators can’t be expected to create better media unless they release things to be critiqued so they can do better next time.
The problems come when people deny media they like has problems and want to hold it above critique or when they decide that if anything detracts from the media then it’s not worth worrying about. Not only does it lead to a lack of progress – it leads to people normalizing and internalizing the problems.
As an example: Bayonetta core concept is pretty awesome and open to all kinds of interpretations – super witch with unlimited access to magic and fashion who battles all kinds of powerful and weird stuff. The gameplay exists essentially independent of the concept and is really enjoyable for many people.
It’s just unfortunate that literally everything in the production sets cranking the male gaze up to 11/10 as the top priority. Whether the problems offset the fun aspects is a matter entirely up to the individual experiencing it at the time- what aspects could have been improved is a matter between critics and creators.
– wincenworks