eschergirls:

(Content warning for video: sexualized violence, self-mutilation, sexual assault, rape)

Hey it’s another video! (Thank you to everybody who submitted this to me.)  This one is by MMO Attack contributor Joe Plork and is about hyper-sexualizing in video games, and how this is actually a really immature and superficial take on “sex” because actual sex, sexuality and sexual encounters are not actually often in games, and it’s just “hey look at the boobs while she beats somebody up or kills somebody or is killed.  Look at the pornface while she’s shooting a gun or being headbutted!” and what not.  It also goes to something that was said in the comments on this blog recently, that when people say “sex sells” about this stuff, that’s actually not true, because no sex is actually being sold.  We’re selling sexualization of women, but generally, not actual sex OR sexuality.

As Jimquisition talked about in a previous video, developers have been told by publishers to actually not have their female characters have straight sexual relationships because it’ll turn off the straight male audience.  We want women in games to be sexualized, but not sexual.  We want female characters in porn poses, with orgasm faces, curved spines indicating lordosis behavior, skin showing, battle bikinis, angles that show butts, close ups that show boobs, etc, while she’s fighting, or getting beaten up, or captured, or falling, or etc etc etc, but not actually having sex.  And we end up with stuff that just ends up being ridiculous with the battle bikinis, Ed Benes butt shots where it looks like everything is being drawn from the perspective of a gnome, and women who look like they’re orgasming or posing when they’re supposed to be injured or dead.  And even when they’re drawing stuff that’s meant to be sexy, like a woman in a bikini, there’s still often issues like breaking her spine because you just have to get as many sexy bits into the scene as possible.  It’s like everything is drawn as if the audience or creator might never see another sexy woman again, and we better make sure that every panel there’s a chance to get boobs and butt, we do it.  And it hurts storytelling and characterization.

Plus, as my friend always says: if everything is sexualized, then nobody is actually sexual.  If all female characters are always swaying their hips, in boobs and butt poses, in revealing outfits, with the same faces, expressions, lipstick, eyeliner, etc, whether they’re fighting, eating, or injured, then it’s really hard to convey that any of the female characters are different, especially if you want to convey that some of them are sexual and others aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with a character being sexual, but often they aren’t actually being sexual, they’re just being sexualized while doing non-sexual things.

It’s like a Michael Bay move: overusing CGI, explosions, rapid scene cuts, etc, doesn’t create an effective action movie, it creates a giant mess that’s hard to follow, takes away from telling a story, and can take viewers out of the movie.  Just like use of action can be gratuitous or effective, so can use of sexualization, and sex.  Having everything explode all the time and huge CGI battles may make a movie “action packed”, but not necessarily a good movie, having battle bikinis and boobs and butt fighting poses may make a comic or video game “sexualized”, but does not necessarily make it sexy or sexual, and can be just as distracting and harmful to storytelling as overusing CGI or explosions.

Relevant commentary on the huge difference between sexualization and sexuality in games (and by extent, other media).

eschergirls:

cristheweirdo:

Objectification and…Men?

by Jimquisition


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. 

eschergirls:

allec-overcoming-anxiety submitted:

“Fighting Girl Clothing”

This link is to a video by Rooster Teeth that shows how effective women’s fighting uniforms are in video games.

As one may guess, the results are…erm…censored.

Burnie (the man who is hosting the show) calls the fighting technique done by their two models desperately trying to fight while not flashing their tits is called “Bashful Panda.” I’m sure you can go to ANY martial arts studio and learn this move yourself.

Escher Girls: Now supported by science!

edit 2016: Due to original video posting service for this (Blip) being dead, the video’s now available via YouTube.

(Source: http://blip.tv/)

eschergirls:

Submitted by crownflame.

This is hilarious.  And pretty much encapsulates all the issues with the battle bikini that’s been brought up by me or readers on Escher Girls, down to the pinching.

mod note: Insterted a copy to of the video to watch without leaving BABD blog, as embedding the clip from YouTube was disabled

2016 edit: deleted the second vid, because it has autoplay; also the first one works fine again