the difference between unrealistic portrayals of men and women
- idealized men are the powerful, complex people you want to be
- idealized women are things men want to fuck
- any questions?
And, boom.
Briefest way to say everything we said in this post and some others before.
~Ozzie
the difference between unrealistic portrayals of men and women
- idealized men are the powerful, complex people you want to be
- idealized women are things men want to fuck
- any questions?
And, boom.
Briefest way to say everything we said in this post and some others before.
~Ozzie
straight boys: Silly feminists, it’s okay for women to be depicted with little to no armor. Look at Conan, he’s totally the same thing!
straight boys: *playing FF12* Vaan, put on a damn shirt you’RE MAKING ME FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE
straight boys: *reacting to new male protagonist’s skimpy armor* Squeenix pls stop
straight boys: But yeah, Conan. Totally the same thing. And you don’t see us complaining!
Perfect summary of this "controversy".
~Ozzie
What if I just think Final Fantasy has bad costume design in general, regardless of sex? Or damn near any Square game? Is it okay to think that?
Seems to me it’s okay to think that, especially since we very much agree that FF has LOTS of horrendous female costumes to offer as well.
But it’s not so fine if you only voice that opinion with the male characters.
It’s really suspicious how people get vocal with “I don’t like it because of bad design” only when a dude is shown in skimpy armor, even though there are plenty more ridiculous female costumes to pick apart.
In the context of sexualized male armor, how much comparison do we actually have? Almost none.
How does male sexualization go “right”, then? There’s barely any standard to hold on to. So much so, that many people think that skimpiness itself is inherently feminine.
I have said already (and still stand by it), we’ve seen so many ugly-as-hell female armors in mainstream games that I do not mind if the first prominent sexy male armor in a while gets to be badly designed. We need to catch up on all kinds of skimpy male armor, “good” and “bad” alike, anyway.
Also, personally I really don’t find it bad in FF standards. The franchise always liked their costumes ridiculously over the top and silly, so this thing is actually not that unusual for them.
Part of the joke of our post was the fact how epicly the dudebros overreacted to a design that was just natural progression from how older Final Fantasy bishounen looked.
Anyway, to answer what you were actually trying to pursue with that question: everyone’s perfectly entitled to personally find that character (if not all FF visuals) bad design-wise, but it would be advised if they kept that opinion, well, personal.*
Skimpy male armor is so scarce in mainstream media that there is no way to criticize any particular one without sounding as if you found the mere concept of a man in sexy armor bad.
And, if you asked me, that concept, unlike the concept of sexy female armor, is not bad, it is subversive and therefore sheds light at the inherent problem of skimpy female armor.
~Ozzie
* Is is also advised to examine thoroughly what exactly makes the design supposedly “bad” to you.
If you (likely) discover that it’s the same element that makes the design “sexy”, then you officially missed the point.
PS: Regarding your other message concerning Japan’s sensibilities, I’d advice you to read this post.
Sometimes when I’m watching a review for a Marvel movie and they start talking about how hot the female lead is, I briefly think “Seriously? Gross pigs”. But then I take a look at my desktop and see screen caps of almost all of Chris Evans’ ass shots from his Marvel movies, and I realize I have absolutely no right to judge. I am no better. That’s not to say nobody else has the right to judge, because they do. Just putting it into perspective so both sides can understand one another better.
Not really. Who even cares about objectifying Steve Rogers when he gets 3 of his very own movies and there isn’t even a SINGLE movie for ANY female character. Who cares about women on tumblr objectifying him prettyyyy much harmlessly when entertainment shows/sites seen by millions gush about Steve’s character development or Chris’ acting, while the only thing they say about the SOLE woman is her new hair/her weight loss or gain/how hot she looked. Sometimes, women are ONLY put in movies to be the token “eye candy”, (regardless of whether or not she’s underage) and this happens a lot. Look at the massive franchise that is Transformers.
It’s not the same thing… Men objectify women and it leads to real life violence against women—fuelled by already rampant misogyny. Women objectify men and it leads to gifsets of Chris Evans’ ass.
Yuppppp
And no one respects sexy men less for being “objectified” if you can even apply the term the same way to a guy- if anything, being objectified is glorifying for men.What’s that thing Joe Mangianello said about how he doesn’t feel like men can be objectified? Cuz women are viewed as sex objects, but men are viewed as power objects?
A guy who takes off his shirt and shows off his buff bod in a movie has power, he’s displaying his value and attractiveness
I mean, the culture isn’t NEARLY the same; I’ve been thinking lately about how no matter how much we “objectify” men, it’s always an empowering thing for the man.
He’s sexy: it’s an achievement.
And a lot of our attraction is also about fawning over the man’s personality, his expressions, the nuances of the character he plays- cute jokes about Doritoes….
I can go from posting ten close-ups of Chris Evan’s ass (accompanied by praise and self-deprecating jokes)
To a picture of him in a sweater-vest, looking pensive and talking about his love of golden retrievers in the same ten minutes (with commentary about what a darling angel he is)None of it is demeaning or objectifying in remotely the way female objectification is, and your point about Chris Evans starring in three Cap solo movies is really right on….
…while women can barely scrape past the damn Bechdel test half the time, and half the time are reduced to T&A and get assaulted or fridged or show up in their undies for no reason…
Some wise words about gendered double standards and false equivalence between objectifying male and female characters.
~Ozzie
Tumblr hypocrisy
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:
Yeah… this is what OP was raging about.
– wincenworks
male gamers like to pretend that male characters designed, draw/rendered and written by men, made hulkishly muscular and hypermasculine by men for a deliberate target audience of men is objectification and hypersexualisation rather than actively appealing to male power fantasy
and it’s somehow women’s fault of course
My favorite example of this is when people try to invoke this guy as their ultimate trump card of “Men are objectified in video games too!”
The ultimate steroid rager who converses primarily by screaming and murdering. A completely selfish man who, since murdering his wife and daughter, seems to only one emotion (anger) and prone to random acts of violence. A man so terrible that he goes out of his way to incorporate murdering random women* into “puzzle solving”.**
People actually point to this character, created by a man (David Jaffe) and try to tell us this is objectification of men in order to pander to women.
Then, presumably, after throwing a tantrum and destroying random objects in their home, then wonder why women aren’t impressed by this and find them undateable.
* The fact that almost the entire female population, including the monsters, goes to great pains to show off their breasts to the player also never seems to factor into their assessment.
** This sequence featured in Tropes vs Women in Video Games – however please be advised that this sequence along with other parts in the video contain extreme depictions of violence against women. (x)
– wincenworks