Tag: fandomsandfeminism

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bikiniarmorbattledamage:

fandomsandfeminism:

arcana-heights:

“Women should be respected and accepted as they are, don’t shame them regardless of what they look like and what they wear. Do whatever you want, ladies!”
*virtual ladies in bikinis*
“Um, this is infringing on my rights. How dare you? Keep this misogynistic filth away from me.”

Do you not understand the difference between a fictional character, created by men, to be seen as sexually pleasing for men in fiction and…like…REAL WOMEN who are ALIVE and are able to make CHOICES for themselves? 

Like, women have some key differences with fictional depictions of women. 

Ah agency, one of so many issues that bikini armor apologists work so hard to avoid understanding.  Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s a trend with developers to try to have it both ways and insult their creations for being… how they created them.

– wincenworks

Thanks to @giantpurplecat we now have new and exciting insight into just how some creators assume women do choose their outfits [big image here]. 

“This? I designed it myself. It allows me to communicate quickly with my blade and control it whether sword or whip… I’ve never really thought deeply on why though, to be quite honest.” – Ivy in the latest Soul Calibur

Remember – testing shows that not only can Ivy not control her weapon, she basically can’t even give her opponent a brisk shove without a wardrobe malfunction or two.  

Even the new game’s character creator classifies her outfit as underwear – her underwear lets her control her weapon better… so she doesn’t wear anything on top… even though it’s underwear.

image

Ultimately the most insulting part about the people who rush to support this kind of double standard is that they have so little respect for women that they will accept nonsense like this (or worse) as great writing.  

Nine times out of ten, this particular demographic will also have nothing but contempt for real women who actually want to express their own sexuality on their own terms. (As well as contempt for the same fictional women)

– wincenworks

GIF Source

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Rule: When analyzing or critiquing media, you can not defend a problematic aspect of media by saying that a character CHOSE to do it, and that people are allowed to CHOSE to do things.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

fandomsandfeminism:

Because fictional characters do not have the capacity to make choices. Because they are not REAL people. 

Power Girl and Starfire did not CHOOSE to fight evil in skimpy, revealing outfits. It is not their PERSONAL CHOICE to wear those clothes. They are fictional characters and their wardrobes are under the control of the author and artist.

Dumbledore did not CHOOSE to stay in the closet as a personal and professional choice because that was his right as a person. He is a fictional character. The fact that his sexuality was left at only vague subtext and only revealed through word of god was a deliberate decision made by the author.

Fictional characters are fictional characters. They do not make their own choices.

Addendum to the rule: for the same reasons, you can not argue that criticism “shames” a character for their appearance or behavior.

And just for the record, seeing what kind of responses this post received before we got to reblog it: NO, the fact that fictional characters tend to grow and take a life of their own still does not mean they have agency.

No matter how developed a fictional person is, they’re still written by a real person (or people) who have their own biases and rationalizations. Just because some “choices” feel natural to the author doesn’t mean they’re objectively plausible “choices” for a character to make within the given narrative.

Sometimes the choice, like (in case of what our blog critiques) decision to wear a sexualized costume to battle, can be explained by specific circumstances. But in most circumstances or with other explanations, the same choice can be plain silly and inconsistent with the rest of established story/worldbuilding.

~Ozzie

more about character agency on BABD

This week’s throwback: a timely reminder that yes, we still live in a world where fiction doesn’t merge with the reality, so no, fictional characters do not possess free will that lets them personally decide what to wear and how to behave. 

Each and every “choice” a character makes is 100% responsibility of their real, living creator(s). Thus criticizing how fictional people are designed or written isn’t the same as personally attacking them.
To cite @foldablehuman‘s Thermian Argument video: 

Criticism of a creative work is, ultimately, criticism of the decisions that people made when they were putting it together. 

Essentially, there’s no point in getting offended on behalf of a person who doesn’t exist, especially in response to valid critique.

~Ozzie 

Posted on

fandomsandfeminism:

arcana-heights:

“Women should be respected and accepted as they are, don’t shame them regardless of what they look like and what they wear. Do whatever you want, ladies!”
*virtual ladies in bikinis*
“Um, this is infringing on my rights. How dare you? Keep this misogynistic filth away from me.”

Do you not understand the difference between a fictional character, created by men, to be seen as sexually pleasing for men in fiction and…like…REAL WOMEN who are ALIVE and are able to make CHOICES for themselves? 

Like, women have some key differences with fictional depictions of women. 

Ah agency, one of so many issues that bikini armor apologists work so hard to avoid understanding.  Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s a trend with developers to try to have it both ways and insult their creations for being… how they created them.

– wincenworks

Posted on

fandomsandfeminism:

arcana-heights:

“Women should be respected and accepted as they are, don’t shame them regardless of what they look like and what they wear. Do whatever you want, ladies!”
*virtual ladies in bikinis*
“Um, this is infringing on my rights. How dare you? Keep this misogynistic filth away from me.”

Do you not understand the difference between a fictional character, created by men, to be seen as sexually pleasing for men in fiction and…like…REAL WOMEN who are ALIVE and are able to make CHOICES for themselves? 

Like, women have some key differences with fictional depictions of women. 

Ah agency, one of so many issues that bikini armor apologists work so hard to avoid understanding.  Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s a trend with developers to try to have it both ways and insult their creations for being… how they created them.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Tumblr hypocrisy

fandomsandfeminism:

spookywompus:

fandomsandfeminism:

sweet-cherry-doodles:

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:

image

Yeah… this is what OP was raging about.

– wincenworks

Posted on

fandomsandfeminism:

conscious-bounded:

Anyone explain to me why feminists are against women sexually objectified? I mean men are too… Also is it that bad to be sexually objectified? Don’t a lot of women gain confidence by feeling sexy and wanted?

There is a difference between feeling sexy and being turned into a sexual object. 

The fact that so many people need this explained to them is concerning. 

Bolding mine.

~Ozzie

Posted on

fandomsandfeminism:

kfcdoubledown:

It says something about feminism when a character having rocket-powered high heels in a video game is a hot-button issue, like this is the most important thing going for them at the moment

And these are the same tools who post shit like “gonna crush the patriarchy with my six-inch heels” too, you’d think that with Smash’s mostly-male roster they’d be in favor of it

You know there’s a difference in actual, real life women choosing what they wear, and a video game character being presented by writers in a certain way, right? 

And no one is saying that Samus’s ridiculous, impractical, and laughable costume change is the BIGGEST MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE EVER. But it is, obviously, a VISIBLE one and offers a widely accessible platform to talk about the double standard of video game costuming. 

Emphasis mine.

Gotta “love” all the people who suggest that by caring about things like video game character design feminism apparently lost its priorities (and somehow, shifted all focus from any other issues, cause heavens forbid the movement cared about multiple things at once!).

It’s totally not the other way round, right? That we see the actual impact that popculture products like videogames have on the society at large and do our best to spread awareness of it!

~Ozzie