The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: Jim Sterling
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If there’s something more pathetic than refusal to finally have a female protagonist in a well-established game franchise (especially when there’s clearly demand for it!), it’s the attempts to justify why only a guy main character is a possible option.
Jim points out what amazingly absurd rhetoric Nintendo employed lately to explain why neither female Link nor playable Zelda are viable option for the next Legend of Zelda game. The arguments are downright nonsensical.
At this point @LewieP’s joke explanation* sounds more cohesive than anything Nintento representatives had said:
A few words regarding the crucial difference between censorship and the creators consciously choosing to edit their content.
I dedicate this post to every salty dudebro who had the gall to suggest that we at BABD wantto “stranglecreativity”, because heavens forbid anyone was openly critical of The Thing You Like and suggested it has problems!
Important quote from the video:
Or is it only censorship when it’s people who aren’t you, and don’t think like you, getting what they want for once instead of you?
Dear dudebros, please ask yourself the above question next time before you type a single word of a reply to us.
~Ozzie
edit: “Thanks” to Tumblr’s absurdly broken video post feature, the video initially didn’t load. Fixed now.
Can you believe that this post is nearly a year old and we’re still getting brodudes screaming that providing feedback is censorship and insisting that any change they disagree with was force by “SJWs”?
Even in the face of mountains of evidence that the majority of people who make media actually want it to be enjoyed by lots of people, and thus do care about what alienates potential audiences and don’t take kindly to their “champions” engaging in this kind of nonsense. This, by the way, has always been the case.
This is, of course, glossing over the hilarity of bloggers having the power and authority to force billion dollar businesses to make editorial changes is just a little ridiculous. A little.
Amazingly~*~, we’re not the only two people in the world
who do not “feel ashamed for our words and deeds”
and don’t think Quiet’s design is justifiable in any possible way. Not with “she HAS to uncover her skin, because narrative reasons”, not with “Hideo Kojima can do no wrong”, not with “MGS is a silly franchise, so ANYTHING absurd is acceptable”.
Here are some of my favorite things Jim says in the video:
I’d have been so much cooler with the situation if [Kojima] just said “The secret reason for her exposure is that I just wanna get a gigantic fucking hard-on with my big Kojima cock.”
Indeed. If you guys were wondering why BABD is so hung up on Quiet compared to many similarly bad designs, it’s because how straight-up disingenuous (and inconsistent) her creator is about the character’s conception.
What Kojima promised would be the “antithesis to the women characters appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed” is instead the embodiment of characters in the past who are excessively exposed.
If you explain away everything with “It’s a Metal Gear game, it’s always silly and you’re stupid if you criticize it”, then you ultimately do Hideo Kojima himself a disservice as a writer.
Interestingly, another baffling excuse we’ve been hearing again and again since we started criticizing Quiet is “The Boss is awesome, therefore every MGS heroine is just as good”. And while Jim agrees about Boss being great, he knows she’s just one character, and therefore should be upheld as a model for women in the franchise, not as a proof that female representation is okay already in MGS.
Also, predictably, this is the sort of replies the video gets:
Apparently not being able to go back in time and complain about twocharacters in military uniforms with absurdly deep cleavages, while he currently complains about another military-themed character clad literally only in a bikini and fishnets makes him a “hypocrite”.
A Jimquisition episode I was wondering whether or not reference here for some time now.
Will Jim’s search for a female video game protagonist who doesn’t fit the narrow criteria of gendered double standards be fruitful?
~Ozzie
I feel the “she must be pretty” is the first step that leads to the slippery slope of over-sexualization and ends with polished gold battle thongs. It skews priorities from word go and immediately wipes out countless options before they can even be considered.
A few words regarding the crucial difference between censorship and the creators consciously choosing to edit their content.
I dedicate this post to every salty dudebro who had the gall to suggest that we at BABD wantto “stranglecreativity”, because heavens forbid anyone was openly critical of The Thing You Like and suggested it has problems!
Important quote from the video:
Or is it only censorship when it’s people who aren’t you, and don’t think like you, getting what they want for once instead of you?
Dear dudebros, please ask yourself the above question next time before you type a single word of a reply to us.
~Ozzie
edit: “Thanks” to Tumblr’s absurdly broken video post feature, the video initially didn’t load. Fixed now.
For any guy that responds to women’s objectification in any media (yes, this video pertains to video games specifically, but it still applies to all other forms of media.) with “well men are objectified too!”, sit the fuck down and watch.
Reblogging this because I’ve had this video submitted to me a bunch, and I conveniently saw this on my dash. 🙂
Jim makes the important distinction between idealization and objectification. Male characters are idealized in some ways, but as a power fantasy, are much more varied, and are created for straight cis men to see themselves as. They are idealized, but as the subject. Mainstream gaming is still typically created by straight men for straight men. It doesn’t mean there are never any problems with the way that’s done, how characters portrayed, or that that can’t be addressed, but it’s still an important distinction.
Female characters are made for men to want sexually, to look at, fantasize about, and to be attractive to the male gamer, even if they’re the protagonists. They’re meant as objects for the straight male audience. An example of this is when Jim pointed out in a previous video that publishers don’t want developers to have female characters in straight relationships because they’re meant for the (presumed to be straight male) player to think of as a potential girlfriend, and they fear the players would be turned off if she has sexual agency of her own.
