I think it’s been long enough but if you find yourself getting ready to type up a comment related to Mass Effect: Andromeda’s animations please consider watching this educational video from Extra Credits and not commenting here instead. This post is going to be a clarification of what we mean when we say Creepy Marketing Guy, and since the first post on this topic featured Samara, it’s only fair that Cora be the star of the clarification.
First, let’s start with what we do not mean when we refer to Creepy Marketing Guy. It does not refer to:
- Using distinctly porny ads to promote products (be they porn or not porn), particularly if they’re generic images from a clickbait ad company
- Products where hypersexualization is the norm (eg Bayonetta, Mortal Kombat, etc) even if they’re pitched as “empowerment”
- Auteur productions where the auteur advises that they want sexy ladies because they like sexy ladies or they breathe through their skin
What we instead refer to is a product where you can see the development team’s intentions are to create something where every element is involved in telling a specific story – and then someone (usually marketing) steps in and makes the change specific parts of them with the assumption that the cishet male demographic needs the sexual availability of at least one female character broadcast to them in order to be interested in the unrelated aspects.
In this case, they pick Cora Harper, who is an ultra-professional soldier (one of the most battle hardened in the team), introduced as being calm in a crisis, the second in command on the mission, and seems to use “male” set of animations for her running, etc (instead of the elbows-in butt wiggle run generally assigned to female characters, including fem!Ryder).
Then you see in the outfit in the top of the post before launching into the tutorial mission, during which she appears in cut scenes like this:
Pretty much every other female character in the establishing chapters of the game has pragmatic, non-gendered attire on and off the battlefield. But, since Cora is a romance option for bro!Ryder, she apparently needs to wear a fetish outfit sculpted around her boobs and butt, while on the battlefield. The other female member of the away team who is a romance option also similarly needs to broadcast she’s got a sexy side (she also only owns one set of clothes).
All other traits other than romance option to bro!Ryder are considered secondary – to the extent now Cora looks not just contradictory to her character but out of place in the game about exploring a new galaxy, finding wondrous alien technology and shaping humanity’s future.
(This does not seem to apply to the male romance options, examples 1 & 2)
Ironically this now means she is so out of place cannot be included in marketing material without making the game look a ridiculous parody of a dramatic adventure exploring alien worlds in a new galaxy. It’s almost like they should have just given her one of the dozens of pragmatic outfits I am sure the concept artists designed for Cora before being told to sex it up.
– wincenworks
What is it with the “above boobs and under boobs belts” design feature that’s become so popular lately? Also, I thought Ashley’s outfit in Mass Effect 3 was insulting; the new BioWare studio really took it up a notch, though. … Good job?
I’ve read none of the promotional material for ME:A before it came out, so when I watched part of a Let’s Play of it out of curiosity, I couldn’t believe that Cora was this battle-hardened badass soldier type; I thought she was just another human on the ship. Her design makes me think of EDI before anything else. Those really sad attempts at actual armor pieces (like the baby plates on her shoulders) somehow make it worse, like Creepy Marketing Guy begrudgingly allowed it.
Also, send help, that butt window is staring into my soul.
-Icy
Think how much more amazing Nier Automata could have been if they’d made the bold artistic decision to make 9S more like this Eve cosplay by Leon Chiro.
So bold. So empowered.
– wincenworks
Orisa
Many excited readers informed us of the new Overwatch tank character, Orisa, as well as her child prodigy creator, Efi.
One thing we can say from the start is that Orisa is easily the first female-identified character in the game to whom “can I fap to her?” obviously wasn’t a design priority. So there’s no robo-ass or boobs to show and sexualize.
That said, she’s a modified battle robot, so unless Blizzard lowered their standards to super sleazy, it was a given she wouldn’t have arbitrary secondary sex characteristics.
That said, Omnics having gender in the first place is pretty complicated issue, storytelling-wise, as some are considered non-gendered machines (Bastion) and other are mechanical people (Zenyatta), which makes it akin to “Why does Goofy wear pants, but Pluto doesn’t?” sort of philosophical problem.
Though Orisa’s story, given that Efi converted her from one kind of robot into another, seems to explain her being female quite well.
It’s also nice to see how since the open beta, number of female tanks in the game rose from 0 to 3 out of 6, making it the first currently the only gender-balanced class in Overwatch.
Efi herself being an African girl is good in terms of diversifying cast, though we’re still yet to see a black female character who is also playable.
~Ozzie
If we are to engage in the oddity of gendered robots it’s good that the explanation be something outside of gender roles or excuses for literal objectification of women.
It’s really good to see Blizzard actually applying some of the principles they’ve been talking about at the GDC.
It would however, be even better if they remembered that while it’s important to have diversity in your secondary cast, it’s even more important to have it in your primary lineup. That and robots are not (yet) an audience for your games.
– wincenworks
more Overwatch on BABD | more Blizzard on BABD
edit: Thanks to @randomentalist for pointing out that support class used to be gender-balanced after introduction of Lúcio, but before Ana.
As you can see, some of the details are a little unclear based off this promo art, I guess I’ll have to look at the in game sprite…
Oh…
– wincenworks
So, while it’s good that Blizzard recognized the Chinese New Year in Overwatch and game Mei a neat costume… it’s really disappointing that they seemed to feel the need to give it a pull in waist… to the extent they managed to glitch it.
Unsurprisingly, there seems to be quite a few people in the community who are skeptical of the idea that this @eschergirls worthy design is actually a bug.
– wincenworks