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Getting the Girl

Posted by Zonk on from the pink-boxes-not-needed dept.

1up.com has a great article up entitled Getting The Girl. Zoe Flower discusses female gaming stereotypes, the role of women in gaming, and the mythical "girl formula" for gaming success. From the article: "Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification. It was while standing in my first-ever ladies' room line at E3 2004 as I pondered the Playboy bunnies, the return of Leisure Suit Larry, and the slew of buxom virtual ladies headlining each booth that I questioned whether the industry had evolved at all."

10 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. Target Audience by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The biggest market for video games are males aged 12-25. Big breasted women helps sell games to this demographic. That is all.

    1. Re:Target Audience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And let's not forget about all of those big hunky male characters in video games like:

      The Doom Guy
      Serious Sam
      Duke Nukem ...

      I've never heard another male video gamer complain `Duke's arms are too muscular!` or `Look at those pecs, they're unnatural!`.

      They're charactures. It's like complaining that cartoon characters don't look like real people.

    2. Re:Target Audience by Psmylie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If that's true, then isn't having slender-waisted, large breasted women characters also marketing towards a femal fantasy?
      Hmmm...

      --

      psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo

    3. Re:Target Audience by Marvelicious · · Score: 5, Insightful

      THANK YOU!

      I'm sick of hearing about how MEN are responsible for the sexual stereotyping. What about Cosmo and all the other mags dedicated to helping women look as much like the sterotype as possibe?

      --
      Send whiskey and fresh horses!
  2. buxom virtual ladies by drgonzo59 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If having a slew of "buxom virtual ladies" is wrong then I don't want to be right.

  3. What about the studly men!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sometimes women will say to me "Look at those scantily clad women with their tits hanging out on the box! That's sexist!"

    To which I have to say "Do you see any short bald dudes with a big pot belly on any of these boxes either? No, it's all he-man looking dudes busting at the seams with muscles".

    These games aren't any different than music videos or movies. Do you see any ugly people in music videos or movies aimed at 18-25 audience? Of course not. No one attacks the music industry for using half-naked chicks and musclemen with abs-o-steele to get teenagers to watch their videos...

    1. Re:What about the studly men!? by kaiidth · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Well, both sexes are regularly 'objectified' (if anybody's a believer in "objectification is just a politically correct excuse to whine", see this site for a bit of not-too-crap research and discussion on the matter, such as it is), although it's a relatively recent phenomenon for men - there's a vaguely interesting article on the subject here.

      One suggestion in this article is that the increasingly frequent appearance of these idealised images of men are causing similar effects to those often seen in women, blamed on objectification by feminists, and laughed away by the rest of the world :-) And I quote:

      The bodies in advertisements come to represent an ideal that individuals seek to achieve, and hence provide the foundation for a masochistic or punitive relationship with one's own body. It becomes possible to think about one s body as if it were this thing which followed one about and attached itself unevenly to the ideal outline which lingers beneath (Coward, 1992, p. 416). The dislike for the body becomes pathological and has very real consequences such as low self-esteem, distorted self-image, eating disorders, and even changing the body through painful plastic surgery (Coward, 1992; Kilbourne, 1999;Wolf, 1991).

      Increasingly, these consequences are manifesting in men, who are responding to a consumer culture that is less and less forgiving of those who are not sufficiently young, thin, and attractive. In response to these images of the perfect male, men are getting manicures and facials, dyeing their hair, concealing blemishes, and spending millions on plastic surgery.

      In 1992, men spent $88 million on liposuction, facelifts, nose-reshaping, and eyelid surgery. This number increased to almost $130 million in 1997. In 1996, men spent $12 million on penile implants, and silicone calf and pectoral implants are rapidly increasing in popularity (Fraser, 1999). In addition, men now account for almost 10% of individuals suffering with eating disorders (Fraser, 1999). In short, men are increasingly dissatisfied with their bodies, go to great lengths to achieve a more youthful and hard-bodied appearance, and are suffering the psychological consequences that are a side effect of consumer culture.


      So there we are. Finally, equality of the sexes; we all get to have bad self-image thrust upon us! The bonus side is I suppose that one day it might well equal out; when we're all totally freaked out, bulimic gym zombies, maybe there'll be an advertising revolution of some kind.

      And the cynical part of me also wants to add: what goes around, comes around...
  4. Re:How quaint by Staos · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's her real name. Her parents were hippies.

    I'm being completely serious here. She used to write a collumn for OPM, and she wrote about her name once.

    --
    In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
  5. I bet "girl games" would have girls on them too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you go to the magazine section and see all the silly men's magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men).

    When you look at the women's trashy magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men). You know, the ones that tell you how to make your butt smaller, charge your cell phone, run a fortune 500 company, and get that cute guy, all before lunch?

  6. No mention of HL2? by neolith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought Alyx was a pretty well realized female character. Tough, feminine, sexy without being a slutty, smart as hell, and she even possessed a figure without Laura-Croftian... embellishments. I think it says positive things that the top game of the year has a female character that can stand up with the men in the game, and possibly has a future in her own game. I'd *love* to see an Alyx and DOG game, or just Alyx for that matter.

    Sure, you can find stereotypes in trashy games like BloodRayne and various fighters, but there are plenty of male stereotypes to be found over there as well.

    --
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