Are those super heavy armors on all the male characters, including Superman who’s way more invincible than Diana? Yes, they are.
Truly, the double standard is but a cherry on top of the utter ugliness that is this overdesigned figure set.
This reminds me of the old Jimquisition video in which Jim uses another ridiculous Square Enix statue of egdelord Batman as a perfect metaphor for Squeenix’s skewed priorities in game and visual design:
It’s funny that when a video game or video has an attractive female that guys gush over, it’s oppression but if there’s a video game or video with an attractive male that girls gush over, it’s just fan-girling. For example- Guys gushing over Bayonetta= Oppression!! MEN ARE SO DISGUSTING! AUGH! They only want BOOBs n crap! Girls gushing over a freaking cartoon skeleton man in a single video and making an entire fan-base because his hair overnight = Just having fun. I propose that both of those situations are just people having fun.
Ok, but ONE of those types of fun involves sexual objectification that makes many women uncomfortable.
The other involves a skeleton with cool hair who is not being sexually objectified.
There’s a difference.
Also skeletons are not frequently objectified and devalued in the real world. Skeletons are not the victims of violent crimes, sexual or otherwise, due to the dehumanization of that objectification.
While objectification by itself is a problem, its informed by its real world existence; no media exists in a vacuum, and the real world treatment of women is largely what makes objectification through media such a touchy subject.
Agreed. When skeletons with cool hair are routinely subjected to institutional discrimination, maybe we’ll care more about “girls gushing over them” on the internet.
Meanwhile, the sexual objectification of women has been tied to real world issues facing real actual women.
“Tumblr hipocrisy”? OP, you keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Bolding mine.
~Ozzie
After I read this I went desperately searching for this awesome skeleton with cool hair that women were apparently gushing over. I looked and looked. I asked friends… nobody seems to know about Skelonetta.
Now I have to live the rest of my life knowing that somewhere out there there’s video of a skeleton that has hair so cool that’s it’s apparently comparable to the super spectacle that is Bayonetta… and I may never see it.
Thanks OP.
– wincenworks
Edit: So I’ve been told by many of our beloved followers and one of my loveable geek friends that they know who the Skeleton with cool hair is. Brace yourselves for the pandering-on-par-with-Bayonetta:
So, as we close on the first third of the year and the insistence continues that people who would like something other than the same “hot chick with ….” design are just too easily upset/offended/whatever – it’s worth reminding people that the opposition includes people who are upset by a skeleton with spectral hair.
This is, of course, ridiculous since now more than ever there is plenty of media to go around. There really is no reason for everything to be about appeasing one demographic who are already drowned in choices.
It’s funny that when a video game or video has an attractive female that guys gush over, it’s oppression but if there’s a video game or video with an attractive male that girls gush over, it’s just fan-girling. For example- Guys gushing over Bayonetta= Oppression!! MEN ARE SO DISGUSTING! AUGH! They only want BOOBs n crap! Girls gushing over a freaking cartoon skeleton man in a single video and making an entire fan-base because his hair overnight = Just having fun. I propose that both of those situations are just people having fun.
Ok, but ONE of those types of fun involves sexual objectification that makes many women uncomfortable.
The other involves a skeleton with cool hair who is not being sexually objectified.
There’s a difference.
Also skeletons are not frequently objectified and devalued in the real world. Skeletons are not the victims of violent crimes, sexual or otherwise, due to the dehumanization of that objectification.
While objectification by itself is a problem, its informed by its real world existence; no media exists in a vacuum, and the real world treatment of women is largely what makes objectification through media such a touchy subject.
Agreed. When skeletons with cool hair are routinely subjected to institutional discrimination, maybe we’ll care more about “girls gushing over them” on the internet.
Meanwhile, the sexual objectification of women has been tied to real world issues facing real actual women.
“Tumblr hipocrisy”? OP, you keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Bolding mine.
~Ozzie
After I read this I went desperately searching for this awesome skeleton with cool hair that women were apparently gushing over. I looked and looked. I asked friends… nobody seems to know about Skelonetta.
Now I have to live the rest of my life knowing that somewhere out there there’s video of a skeleton that has hair so cool that’s it’s apparently comparable to the super spectacle that is Bayonetta… and I may never see it.
Thanks OP.
– wincenworks
Edit: So I’ve been told by many of our beloved followers and one of my loveable geek friends that they know who the Skeleton with cool hair is. Brace yourselves for the pandering-on-par-with-Bayonetta:
So, as we close on the first third of the year and the insistence continues that people who would like something other than the same “hot chick with ….” design are just too easily upset/offended/whatever – it’s worth reminding people that the opposition includes people who are upset by a skeleton with spectral hair.
This is, of course, ridiculous since now more than ever there is plenty of media to go around. There really is no reason for everything to be about appeasing one demographic who are already drowned in choices.
Apparently, according to all the people who were upset that we dared to call out Hideo Kojima and implied that his use of Quietin promotional materials was objectification and pandering, you can also act like it’s totally subversive by writing a long back story for the character.
It doesn’t have to be, or really their own back story, or one that the majority of players will even experience – just so long as there’s something there to claim that you “totally humanized and made worthwhile” the character who’s boobs appear in every promo post.
Then it becomes a deep commentary of the “reality of women in these situations”… there being so many women who run around in bikinis on battlefields in reality.
– wincenworks
Since “weaponized femininity” got namedropped in that post we reblogged this weekend, let’s maybe bring it back today. And wonder once again how exactly does displaying a conventionally attractive heroine’s
tits and supermodel strut equally as much as her
weapons and battle prowess count automatically as female empowerment and not thinly-veiled pandering to cishet men.
And also let’s remember another, more evocative name which Miss Represenation documentary gave to this Totally Subversive™
Apparently, according to all the people who were upset that we dared to call out Hideo Kojima and implied that his use of Quietin promotional materials was objectification and pandering, you can also act like it’s totally subversive by writing a long back story for the character.
It doesn’t have to be, or really their own back story, or one that the majority of players will even experience – just so long as there’s something there to claim that you “totally humanized and made worthwhile” the character who’s boobs appear in every promo post.
Then it becomes a deep commentary of the “reality of women in these situations”… there being so many women who run around in bikinis on battlefields in reality.
– wincenworks
Since “weaponized femininity” got namedropped in that post we reblogged this weekend, let’s maybe bring it back today. And wonder once again how exactly does displaying a conventionally attractive heroine’s
tits and supermodel strut equally as much as her
weapons and battle prowess count automatically as female empowerment and not thinly-veiled pandering to cishet men.
And also let’s remember another, more evocative name which Miss Represenation documentary gave to this Totally Subversive™
“why can’t female heroes kick arse in heels” because it’s not practical and will literally snap your damn ankle you can scream weaponised femininity all you want but first off, you need to admit that they’re not an almighty symbol of empowerment, and secondly that if you do a job with a lot of physical activity in heels you’re risking your own safety. all these women fighting in heels on tv are going to end up seriously injuring themselves.
weaponised femininity is a concept made up in an attempt to get us to embrace the industries created to hold us back/profit from our insecurities so that we can continue to fit into the male expectation of what a woman should be and not question why we are forced to spend thousands on our appearance every year
just a small anecdote. I had a friend who worked in theater; she was the stage manager and an actress came to her in tears one day because the director absolutely refused to let her do a choreographed fight scene in less than 3 inch heels because “they’re platforms so you’ll be okay.” My friend, who is a woman’s size 10, brought her own heels in the next day and DEMANDED the director put them on and try the choreography before the actress did it. He finally agreed to change it, without putting the heels on.
so like I know you might think of “all those women on tv fighting in heels” as fictional woman who WOULD hurt themselves in real life, but its fiction so its okay…except those women are portrayed by real actresses who are actually fighting in actual heels, being directed by dudes who have never worn a pair of heels in their lives, alongside men who aren’t expected to constantly wear things that make their stunts 2x more dangerous than they have to be. Just a thought.
Men take “let’s see feminine women being badass” to mean “let’s see women impractically focused on their appearance in combat situations.“
Also, as a side note, the things we consider “masculine” usually are just the things that are practical and comfortable for a situation. Usually when when we say a female character is “feminine, but able to kick ass”, specifically in reference to costume design, we actually mean “there are some very impractical elements in this design (read: wonder woman and valkyrie), but her boobs aren’t on full display and she’s not wearing stilettos”. The idea that practical and appropriate clothing for dangerous or physically demanding situations is inherently masculine really has to go, because it is all kinds of fucked up.
shoes etc.) are assumed to be inherently feminine, therefore mandatory for women in fiction, no matter the context. And that female characters who don’t comply to them to some degree are automatically “tomboys” or “rebels” or cheaply-achieved “good” female representation.
“why can’t female heroes kick arse in heels” because it’s not practical and will literally snap your damn ankle you can scream weaponised femininity all you want but first off, you need to admit that they’re not an almighty symbol of empowerment, and secondly that if you do a job with a lot of physical activity in heels you’re risking your own safety. all these women fighting in heels on tv are going to end up seriously injuring themselves.
weaponised femininity is a concept made up in an attempt to get us to embrace the industries created to hold us back/profit from our insecurities so that we can continue to fit into the male expectation of what a woman should be and not question why we are forced to spend thousands on our appearance every year
just a small anecdote. I had a friend who worked in theater; she was the stage manager and an actress came to her in tears one day because the director absolutely refused to let her do a choreographed fight scene in less than 3 inch heels because “they’re platforms so you’ll be okay.” My friend, who is a woman’s size 10, brought her own heels in the next day and DEMANDED the director put them on and try the choreography before the actress did it. He finally agreed to change it, without putting the heels on.
so like I know you might think of “all those women on tv fighting in heels” as fictional woman who WOULD hurt themselves in real life, but its fiction so its okay…except those women are portrayed by real actresses who are actually fighting in actual heels, being directed by dudes who have never worn a pair of heels in their lives, alongside men who aren’t expected to constantly wear things that make their stunts 2x more dangerous than they have to be. Just a thought.
Men take “let’s see feminine women being badass” to mean “let’s see women impractically focused on their appearance in combat situations.“
Also, as a side note, the things we consider “masculine” usually are just the things that are practical and comfortable for a situation. Usually when when we say a female character is “feminine, but able to kick ass”, specifically in reference to costume design, we actually mean “there are some very impractical elements in this design (read: wonder woman and valkyrie), but her boobs aren’t on full display and she’s not wearing stilettos”. The idea that practical and appropriate clothing for dangerous or physically demanding situations is inherently masculine really has to go, because it is all kinds of fucked up.
shoes etc.) are assumed to be inherently feminine, therefore mandatory for women in fiction, no matter the context. And that female characters who don’t comply to them to some degree are automatically “tomboys” or “rebels” or cheaply-achieved “good” female representation.
