i’ve been meaning to do this post for YEARS and i finally managed to dig out all these sketches and put them together.
the sexual dimorphism in WoW has always been sad especially considering blizz had such good ideas at the start but the furious fan feedback always made them redesign these fascinating and monstrous females of the races into much more humanlike. i also remember the uproar of thin male blood elves and the homophobic and sexist slurs that followed which made them beef up the male model considerably.
i tried my best to give a go at redesigning them to make their body types, postures and facial features more aligned.
dwarf, undead, goblin and gnome models on the other hand are great, 5/5.
So, last time we shared a poster from the upcoming Warcraft movie – there was a concern among people that we were being unfair because the sexy-orc lady was a half-orc so the comparison wasn’t necessary fair.
Glossing over that the poster itself made no effort to convey this, or the politics of , we now have a poster of a full blooded orc woman, Draka. For reference, this is Draka:
So it seems they decided facially she was perfect, but somehow her outfit wasn’t quite ridiculous enough and needed some more random gaps of skin, less pauldron and what looks like a dog collar.
And well, as for the humans… it seems pretty clear that in the World of Warcraft, the men go to war and the women… wear fancy dresses?
Probably a good time to bring this back since, well we’re still having people assuring us that Blizzard – a company with literally billions of dollars and armies of talent people… is really trying! Just look at them trying so hard with Overwatch! Examples include going from this:
To this:
This is not, by any stretch of the imagination – trying. There is no classroom in the world where this would be considered a passing grade improvement despite the claims of caring by lead. (If you missed the outrage by… people claiming others are outraged, there’s a great summary here.)
Yes, it is scary for companies to change up imagery when working with an established brand – but making the actual changes is the only way that it still perpetuates all the problems. Ultimately, all they’re doing is well…
The only way they’re going to fix things is to really take an actual whole new direction with it – and they probably won’t get that right the first time either.
Neither of these games improved by trying to get credit for minimalist changes and writing nice quotes about how their game is for everyone. They did by actually digging into what was wrong and looking at ways to avoid doing that.
Probably a good time to bring this back since, well we’re still having people assuring us that Blizzard – a company with literally billions of dollars and armies of talent people… is really trying! Just look at them trying so hard with Overwatch! Examples include going from this:
To this:
This is not, by any stretch of the imagination – trying. There is no classroom in the world where this would be considered a passing grade improvement despite the claims of caring by lead. (If you missed the outrage by… people claiming others are outraged, there’s a great summary here.)
Yes, it is scary for companies to change up imagery when working with an established brand – but making the actual changes is the only way that it still perpetuates all the problems. Ultimately, all they’re doing is well…
The only way they’re going to fix things is to really take an actual whole new direction with it – and they probably won’t get that right the first time either.
Neither of these games improved by trying to get credit for minimalist changes and writing nice quotes about how their game is for everyone. They did by actually digging into what was wrong and looking at ways to avoid doing that.
I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.
And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised.
Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.
Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.
@nicholaskoletook notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:
edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc. While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.
I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.
And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised.
Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.
Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.
@nicholaskoletook notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:
edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc. While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.
