Slashdot Mirror
On The Feminine Form In Gaming
heartless_ writes "The GamerGirl team over at Gamergod.com has an interesting article delving into a male driven industry. This time the subject of discussion is the sometimes overzealous portrayal of women in games." A well-considered piece, with thoughtful references to the works of Camille Paglia and Naomi Wolf. From the article: "He also highlights several games that, instead of focusing on the female form in its big-breasted glory, showcase women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful. He insists, 'The protagonists highlighted above illustrate that plenty of excitement can be provided by female leads who will, in turn, bring in female gamers - not to speak of richer gameplay options. Additionally, as McIntosh says, most women gamers are "confident enough not to feel threatened" by sexist imagery, merely finding it annoying and disappointing.'"
I like how the site got slashdotted even before comments appeared. Must be something to do with the word "women".
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
It seems to me that this is stating the obvious: the over-sexualized female avatars in games are there to attract male players, not women. If game makers want to draw in a female audience, they need to have characters that women want to play - and that means strong, complex, and capable... not falling out of her clothes.
I found it ridiculous and frustrating that even in a golf game there were no realistic female avatars to choose from. It's hard to get into a sports game when you're playing a character who wouldn't be able to see past her boobs if she were real. It makes it harder to suspend disbelief and to feel like you're actually in the game.
I think the kind of over-sexualized images you see in games has a negative effect on society's attitudes towards women, but that doesn't have to be the motivation to change it. If game makers would go with the demand and sell games women want to buy, I think the market would take care of itself. The problem arises when there's a kind of feedback loop: games have so far been mostly targetted toward men, and therefore men are the main consumers, therefore there is little incentive to make them more appealing to women. I suspect there are a lot of guys who would prefer having more realistic women in their fantasy senarios - isn't it more fun to fanasize about something that is potentially possible? - but what do I know...
The first section, on the history of the feminine ideal in western film and TV, got me thinking about other cultures.
Really, what would these writers think of fertility idols? Talk about exaggerated body types and... er... attributes (both male and female).
I for one welcome our Big-Breasted Female overlords!!
mmmm.. breasts!
i'm pro-female gamers
it's not odd to see one playing some mmo
what i'm still waiting to see is a female slashdotter
I initially thought that the reason why the ladies have such overinflated love cushions were to differentiate them from other mass of polygons, the idea that all game developers were under sexed males completely escaped me.
I'm still waiting for the game where the idea is to help a rather blessed big breasted lady walk down the street via the use of the mouse to help her from toppling over.
Network Mirror
:)
What's wrong with big-breasted women? They can be smart too! You just need to make sure you that you enjoy "their views" as well as "the view".
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I for one, would prefer to welcome, our large-breasted, gorgeous overlords.
Why can't women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful in games ALSO be big-breasted?
Though I agree that many games feature perfect/nearly impossible Barbie dolls...they feature a lot of Ken's too. How often is the main guy character a perfectly chiseled muscle man?
Go back to the beginning of the comic book or look at the covers of old pulp fiction novels. Women have generally always been drawn as buxom and willowy, giving off that hint of repressed sexuality just waiting to come out. Guys ate it up and still do. Would Wonder Woman be as big a draw if she were flat-chested? Girls would still like her but guys would look elsewhere for their eye candy.
So now that gaming and the Internet are the places you find hordes of adolescent males, is it any wonder the trend continues? And so Lara Croft picks up where Wonder Woman leaves off. It may be the 21st Century, but some things aren't going to change anytime soon, not without some sort of ground-swell by woman gamers/artists.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yeah sure, lets go and replace all the male game heroes and Hollywood actors with pale, thin geeks instead of bulky, muscular chick magnets, because surely that's sexist too?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
By "confident enough not to feel threatened" I'm sure they mean ""intelligent enough not to feel threatened".
Just how retarded do you have to be to feel threatened by the shape of a video game character?
Yes, current video game imagery - like 90% of the rest of 'entertainment' is pretty damn sexist in its representation of the genders. However like anything else money goes where the suits think the biggest profit will return from. If they don't believe there's profit to be made from a more balanced view, well that's just part of the trade-off of living in a society where people are allowed to make the games they want to, play and watch what they want to, and think what they want to.
I'd rather live in a society where female video game characters are portrayed the way horny teen males wold have them rather than a society where character designs are dictated to you in the name of equality.
He also highlights several games that, instead of focusing on the female form in its big breasted glory, showcase women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful.
As a male who is being entertained by a game that consists of stealing cars, beating up people, killing them, running them over, getting high, running illegal drugs, and having sex with prostitutes; the addition of intelligent, strong, and powerful women would definitely add to the entertainment factor over a hot chick with big breasts.
Nearly every (human) male hero is portrayed as a tall, muscular Greek-god-like figure. There are a few exceptions, like the goofy short and/or fat guy, but, in general, male characters, like female characters, have the "perfect" form.
I have never met a girl that would look at console ... or game and said... If there would only be a different type of hero that would challenge me as a woman and help me throw off the chains of a sexually repressive society I would live on the couch.
The concept of a more secure female role in games is present in some games... maybe not as much as overly muscular male figures but there are a few... Take "Enter the Matrix" for example... While I feel the comments made in the article are valid, I just think that that feminism usually blows the issue out of proportion... in the end while a change in the gaming industry might result in the increase in female participation the bigger market will always be 12 - 30 year old men.
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" -George W. Bush
Stop Complaining Girls! do guys complain that.. . I think that the unfair representation of guys in games has never been brought up, but the girls always complain when some one has bigger boobs then them. Just give it up girls! Unless you are going to program a game about a plan Jane librarian with A cup boobs, who's job in the game is to put the books back in the Dewy Decimal System. Guys in video games don't have beer guts, Well GTA: SA had a little if you feed your guy too much, but other wise guys are buff tall and have abs you can wash your cloths on.
Having worked in the games biz for over a decade I am going to share with you all a secret...
The vast majority of people in the games biz have girlfriends, wifes, or other form of sexual partners.
The amount of time spent on the female form in our games? Close to zero.
Yes, the female form is usually idealized in games.
And for that matter, so is the male.
And while we're at it so are zombies, aliens, vehicles, buildings, and just about everything else we stick in a game.
It is appealing for people to want to portray the industry as patethic little dorks masturbating in their cubicles over bouncing breast physics in games and the poor women of the world soldiering on in the face of such behavior in men ready to throw their cash at the games market if the 'little boys would just grow up and be as mature as women'
Too bad it has no realtion to reality.
40 percent of our time is spent thinking about and implementing what we think would be fun.
40 percent of our time is spent thinking about and implementing what we think would look cool.
And 10 percent of our time is spent think about and talking about where we are going to have lunch.
...sells
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"...intelligent, strong, and powerful..."
Alyx Vance, for example? She was a brilliant scientist who knew her way with a gun and built huge robots for fun. If she is not a strong female character, I don't know who is.
This seems silly. Men aren't exactly portrayed realistically either. Male characters are often tall, have full heads of hair, muscles, deep voices. There is no bias against women. Just like in hollywood almost all characters are like that.
Crow T. Trollbot
I only went to the article to see the pictures of big breasted women, and there weren't any. Sucks :-(
I wonder how many guys just clicked that link hoping to see some examples of these over developed women in video games. I sure as hell know I did. :D
Everyone gets mainstream societal ideals crammed down their throats all of the time. These ideals pertain to everything from beauty, to intelligence, to societal manners and niceties, and on and on.
No one is spared, including girls who have to put up with large-breasted women in video games... or guys who have to put up with abnormally-bulky monster men in movies. Or the socially-inept who put up with what's considered proper in the context of social interactions.
Removing all the muscled men in movies, taking out the implication that the audience fancies one particular ideal over another is not going to affect whether I buy the product or not. I play video games because they're fun, not because of the pretty virtual women; I'd like to think that other intelligent people, regardless of gender, are in the same boat.
I find that thought annoying and disappointing. "Sexist imagery" can be enjoyed simply for what it is, or ignored. It will be a very gray world if everything that offends somebody is removed -- regardless of how many other people enjoy it.
It's almost like thought control. How dare you like that. I'm offended. Nobody can have it because I will complain.
Of course, video games are like thought control too. Play this game now! Give us more of your money!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful" typically look somewhat like Roseanne.
Picture your average tough-as-nails, smart-as-hell nerd grrl. What does she look like? Yeah, that's right, she's around as attractive as the average nerd guy.
Not exactly prime material for game characters.
I'm an RPG geek, but in the games I play, members of both genders are typically attractive. Look at Final Fantasy IX, for example. The male lead (Zidane) is a cute bishy boi, and the female lead (Garnet/Dagger) is a cute girl.
Now imagine Final Fantasy IX with a Zidane looking like the goatse guy and a Garnet/Dagger looking like Tubgirl...
And then, for a REAL shudder, imagine if all the Manthra^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMithra running around Vana'diel in Final Fantasy XI looked like their players...
It's entertainment, people. It's fantasy. It's not supposed to represent "average-looking" women-- OR MEN. The day Duke Nukem has a pot belly and is balding, the day Lara Croft has saggy boobs and wrinkles... well, that's the day the VG Cats people take over all the game studios, I guess...
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Girls don't play video games in general. They don't like them nearly as much as men do. It's just life. Guys like sports more than girls. Men are more into construction then females are. Call it sexist, call it what you like. It's just how it is. And changing model figures in a video game will not bring in a sudden rush of female gamers. They just don't like it as much. While most of the girls I hang out with like to get drunk off wine, I prefer beer or hard alcohol. We're different. I don't think it's that important to have a 50/50 ratio of guys to girls.
Of course, if girls did like video games as much as guys, it would be nice. It would be hot for my girlfriend to kick my ass in Halo or AQ2.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Okay. So currently, many female characters in games are hypersexualized figures with gravity-defying, anatomically unrealistic bodies. And currently, most female gamers (of which there are what, twelve?) are confident enough to not feel threatened by this. So...this is an argument that those character types aren't an issue with regard to women? Isn't that a bit like saying that "Since everyone who walked on the moon had a spacesuit, the lack of any atmosphere whatsoever isn't really something to pay attention to"?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
T and A: Body Image and Jiggle Technology
."(46). The heavier body represents a body ready for reproduction, while a slim figure denies this possibility.
By the muse on 2005-12-08 18:34:27
Throughout history, the image of women has had significant presence in the world at large; however, much to the chagrin of many women, those images have been dictated by men. With the advent of modern media - movies, TV, and now the internet - those images are more prevalent than ever before, and the dictates still remain. But, why is this image so important, and what does it have to do with videogames?
Camille Paglia, in her book Sexual Personae, maintains that at the core, women represent nature, and man strives to control nature, thus he strives to control woman. "The primary image [of women in media] is the femme fatal, the woman fatal to man," she explains. "Woman's beauty is a compromise with her dangerous archetypal nature. It gives the eye the comforting illusion of the intellectual control over nature" (13-17). With this assertion, it is apparent that men's domination of female body image is intertwined with his need to control the feminine.
Naomi Wolf is much more blunt. In her book The Beauty Myth, she argues that this very standard of beauty set forth by the media is the primary mechanism of women's oppression by men. She discusses the "suffering caused by trying to meet the demands of the thin ideal" (1). Concerns arising from this thesis include body image, discrimination based on beauty, over-consumption of beauty products, and eating disorders.
Many readers may think this is a stretch, but let's look at visual media and see how far off we are. The advent of modern cinema dates back to the early 1900's with the silent films. Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, and Joan Crawford fit the bill as almost carbon copies images of the day dictated by a Hollywood controlled exclusively by men. Delicately coiffed, high breasts, and a boyish shape, the lack of variation in appearance lends credence to the supposition of men's influence in the realm of women's aesthetics.
Prior to silent films, wider hips and larger breasts were the preferred norm, a measure of a woman's ability to bear and nurse children. However, this all changed with the introduction of film. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, in her book Fasting Girls, asserts that it is this image that launched our current culture of women's thinness and the subsequent issues with anorexia and bulimia. In Unbearable Weight, Susan Bordo explains that this thin vision comes from man's fear of being tied down as a result of pregnancy, that "the fear of pregnancy may have more to do with fear of domestic entrapment than with suppressed Electra fantasies . .
This image changed a bit in the 40's and 50's, with actresses like Marilyn Monroe appearing on the scene. The "blonde bombshell" was the new look for Hollywood - big blonde hair, big breasts, and narrow waists - and Monroe fit those dictates. However, even with several films under her belt and the word "star" attached to her name, she still suffered the whims of men in Hollywood. Fox wouldn't grant her script approval, and when she failed to show, Fox suspended her (www.ellensplace.net).
Like other bombshells of her time, Jean Harlow and Jayne Mansfield, Monroe was not taken seriously as an actress. "Marilyn's media-drenched image as a tragic dumb blond has become an American archetype," explains Paul Rudnick in Time (online). It was this image that allowed the more sexual, less boyish figure to reappear, but only under a guise. The figure couldn't have a brain. Paglia's femme fatal made a comeback, but only if she was a ditz. No wonder women of today are stuck with "dumb blonde" jokes and stereotypes; there is an "anger women feel about not having power in the world," writes Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan in their book, Meeting at the Crossroads (11). Could anyone blame Monroe for being angry with Fox for denying her power? But the power of her T and A sure made millions for
Secretary: "How do you write women so well?"
Melvin Udall: "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."
First thing I thought of, evil I know.
here
via this BoingBoing post
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I think part of the reason not many women play videogames is not about the quality of the game characters, but is more about the popular genres of games.
My sister enjoyed the old Super Mario games in the 8bit Nintendo days, Pac man, and things like that. But she's not interested in Yet Another Doom Clone style gaming, doesn't want to run around pouring machine gun turret blasts at other people.
As much as we'd all like to have our very own Morgan Web for our girlfriend/wife, there's just a small number of women like that who are intrested in today's popular games.
Maybe that's hardwired psychology, maybe it's cultural bias when they were young, maybe it will change, maybe it won't. If the game develoers don't figure out a genre that appeals to the female masses, it'll stagnate IMHO, regardless of better roles for female characters.
But these people need to stop fucking acting like it's just the *women* in games. Yes, you won't often see a flat-chested female in a game, but you probably won't see a male character with anything less than a near perfect, lean, muscular body. So either start complaining about the men in games too, or (preferably) just shut the fuck up.
Don't forget, male characters in video games are rarely pesky, brains-before-brawn characters, either. And the ones that do feature such lead 'men' (Earthbound, Katamari Damacy, Ico), while beloved by hardcore gamers, aren't exactly nailing the kind of acclaim and sales that musclebound games like God of War do.
The element of fantasy and excess in video games, let alone popular culture, is nottttthin' new. If anything, there's more respect and gender appreciation paid to women now than there ever has been in popular culture. Leave It To Beaver, anyone? If given the option, I think most would choose busty, gun-toting dynamos over subservient housewives, at the very least, as a "lesser of the evils" stereotype.
I'm guessing for the same reason that bat's with big brains have small balls.
I am of course willing to do some experimentation to help prove the theory.
..while in panties, that is feminine gaming.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
So have both. Any smart company should be able to figure that out. A whole market waiting to be tapped -- unless it's already been tried and just isn't there.
I think the kind of over-sexualized images you see in games has a negative effect on society's attitudes towards women,
I call Cop-Out! I'm willing to bet that if every "inappropriate" image vanished out of every game tomorrow, you'd be hard put to find the change in society the day after.
Since it's not polite to not offer a solution of my own, I will. Society will change and women will be treated differently when they demand such treatment and accept nothing less! Blaming video games is a cop-out to avoid standing up for one's self. And here all along I've thought that women were so much more organized and cooperative together than men will ever be.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I have a little sister who plays computer games.
She is not at all into the shoot em up type of games. The only mindless shooting game she enjoyed playing was Serious Sam in coop mode, where it was mainly me shooting all the monsters and she hides behind me. lol. The other action game she liked was Oni. It involved a touchy feely story and a female for the hero, without senseless killing.
But most of the games that she really likes playing, or still plays involve building stuff. Games like Roller Coaster Tycoon, or (Yes) NeoPets or Black and White.
And yeah, having female avtars with skimply clothing doesn't attract girls to play em...
* Buy bag of chestnuts.
* Submit article to SlashDot including references to both gaming and large-breasted women.
* Include a link to a reasonably low-volume site using database software to serve articles. (Bonus points if attempt to add streaming video.)
* Wait for server to catch fire, then enjoy roasted chestnuts!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
I'm all for the feminine form in gaming.. Tomb Raider just wouldn't have been the same with a male as the main character ;)
MacGregor Despite Them!
These games are based upon fantasy people! Of course the characters will reflect that. By the way, I have a Dreamcast copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica, as I recall the heroine, while attractive, is proportionally pretty normal looking....not a "Laura Croft" as it were.
On the other hand, Gordon Freeman is no Grunt (from Quake II/Quake III).
Haven't we been over this subject once before?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
In case you haven't noticed, the male characters in games are an over exageration of expected masculine characteristics. The muscles are bigger, the hairlines aren't as receded, the player is expected to be something more than a normal man could ever be. The games themselves stereotype men as having to be able to complete the mission and solve the problem to be successful. In real life, failure is an acceptable result, and the games place unrealistic expectations on men.
Of course men are aware the game is an escape from reality, and don't tend to bitch about such things.
Reviews like these paints some women as jealous bitches who can't stand to play or even see a female video game character with qualities they don't find in themselves.
I've been repeatedly berated in the MMORPG I play for calling female players "guy", because either 1) I was looking at them from behind, 2) They were wearing armour, or 3) I really don't pay that much attention to the other players gender. Also, the only players in the game I'm sure actually are female and not gender-bending are the ones that are obsessed with their own appearance. I personally don't care what I look like in real life or virtual reality, and wear whatever helps me best get the job done - including wearing the incredibly gay-looking tiara for runecrafting in runescape.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The big problem with video game female leads is the same problem with the majority of Sci-Fi female leads, and that is they tend to fall into two generic category's, Laura Croft, or Princess Toadstool. Women in both genres/mediums are either there as an object to be rescued, and as always is the case, fall madly in love with the protagonist just because he saved her. Or to be a gun toting take no prisoners b#$@h that will throw the slap down on you and ride you a#! like she would a wild stallion. The problem is that most Sci-Fi shows are written, directed, and edited by men, and the same thing goes for video games. The upsetting fact is that the guys that make, these stories really should not have been given right to write in the first place.
The crux of the matter is, to make good female, and male leads in games, requires the removal of weapons. Creating a game where head-shotting isn't the solution to any, and all problems is never going to appeal to the majority of people male, or female. Just look at the numbers, the best selling genre out there is sports, not FPS's.
-manno
Why all the constant emo angst about female forms in gaming? The male forms are no more realistic. Your average female gamer might not look like Lara Croft, but that image is actually more attainable with less risk than a male gamer trying to look like Duke Nukem.
Are you implying that Major Motoko Kusanagi and Aeon Flux are not strong, complex, and capable?
It was intended to demonstrate 'bias' in games against women.
And really from all the comments it shows what a pervasive bias there is in the world about sexuality.
A beautiful girl in a bikini in a commercial is 'using sex to sell'
A hunk in a speedos in a commercial is just a 'guy in swim trunks'
Women tend to vastly understate their interest in sex.
Men tend to vastly overstate their insterest in sex.
At least it would provide some variety in a stagnant pool of crap that plotlines have become in videogames these days.
Insightfulleriffic.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
You know what? We buy what we want to buy. We see what we want to see. And there should be no one out there who goes about saying "hey! Why don't you like women with small breasts and is overweight?" To all the women complaining, go back and sulk while munching those twinkies and MAYBE one day a clue will come your way.
I don't get offended when a dog barks -- that's what they do! Men do what men do... want what men want. It's NATURAL. Don't bitch about nature 'cause it ain't gonna do any good. What it does cause is needless, health-robbing guilt!
Meet the most offensive demographic: ME! White-male, early-middle-aged, straight. I like women. I'm responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened to a woman, a person of non-white ethnicity and to gays and lesbians. I'm the freakin' devil right? At some point, you just have to turn your back on this crap and just be who and what you are -- the days of "Political Correctness" are numbered.
I'm a man. You know what? I like looking at skinny women with giant boobs and monster heels. My biology is hard-wired like that. And I'm done with apologizing for it. It's who I am and I embrace it. I also consider myself a feminist. I have tons of female friends that I love. I am very sensitive to their feelings -- I have an emotional empathy that I'm proud of and it shows. That's why I have lots of female friends. There's my carnal lust and there's also my compassion for my fellow human beings. People are complex. We can have guys who drool over sexual fantasies and be sensitve to femine plights at the same time. Of course I'm open to mature, emotional, complex representations of women in games. I also don't want my Lara Crofts taken away. Because she's hot! And I have a dick, goddamnit! Ladies, it's hard to repress millions of years of evolution. Lets all live with it and be respectful. I can do it.
You know what? Idiots like these give the rest of us women who don't give a rat's ass about this kind of shit a bad name.
Good thing we stopped relying on unnatural ideals of beauty in other media long ago, like film and magazines. Video games have had a few decades, when will they f-in' catch up?
Seriously, I'm tired of video games treated as some sort of special exception we hold to a higher standard. Articles like this simply revel in the dismissive stereotype that the industry is dominated by undersexed males... which it clearly is... er, but... my point is that other industries that are not so dominated also prop up these abusive cultural ideas of beauty. If our idealistic attitudes about beauty are actually so corrosive, why are we getting singled out again?
Oh yeah, America hates gamers.
*NEWSFLASH*
Women like sexy female characters too! Just don't don't exagerate to the point of it being ridiculous. Jiggling breasts if realistic is fine, but most animators seem to be so fixated on that that the end animation is exagerated and STUPID looking.
That's the difference. Women don't mind sexy. What they hate is when it gets STUPID. In fact, I hate it just as much. I'm 30, not a lonely single teenager who gets his giggles at the dumbest immature things.
Try out Bloodrayne, first tutorial mission where the other female has you follow here around and you'll know what I mean. That ridiculous animation made me feel embarassed for my entire male gender. It's really hard to justify that "adults play video games too" when you see content as juvenile as that.
(Hint to those who won't bother checking out Bloodrayne: The character I speak of has an intense, prolonged breast jiggle EVERY TIME SHE STOPS MOVING!)
It seems the article is setting up a sort of false dichotomy, that women must be either strong, intelligent characters or sex objects.
It is entirely possible to be both, yet that option is rarely discussed.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
the over-sexualized female avatars in games are there to attract male players, not women. If game makers want to draw in a female audience, they need to have characters that women want to play - and that means strong, complex, and capable... not falling out of her clothes.
No. According to your logic, to draw in a female audience, they need over-sexualized MALE avatars. Tons of girls are playing Duke Nukem... or are they?
Syberia (Sorry, the site seems to be down) and Syberia II, for instance, have a reasonably realistic-looking female lead who is more elegant than bimboesque, and definitely portrayed as a strong, capable woman. Decent plot, graphics, and music, too. Too bad it isn't more popular.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Will all female gamers PLEASe shut up about being female. For the love of God already, just get over it. Yes you have boobs, yes you have a vagina. Do I care when we're playing games? NO!
I play games with a lot of girls, it's no different to playing with guys. Save character models, same game, same exprience. If they don't like a game they don't buy it, they buy games they want to play (normally GASP same ones guys like to play). Ingame you're an avatar, as long as you have eyes, ears, and fingers you'll fit right in and be part of the community like everyone else. Don't make a huge deal of your gender and no one else will.
I play the same games as you and I deal with all the issues you do, except it's not "lol you're ugly wheres pics?" it's "lol you're a fag". You're not special because you have boobs, stop acting like you are.
To mods : This is not a troll. I hope we see more female games, but we don't need the attenction whores who want everyone to know they're women when it doesn't matter!
I like muppets.
I play Half Life 2 deathmatch, and my "spray" is animated, of a (real) woman lifting her shirt and her boobs jiggling out.
Big deal.
However, whenever I use this spray, some gamer, obviously male, stops and gawks at the boobies. Therefore, I shoot him in the head.
You could say she has a killer body.
Seriously though, men look because we are MEN, and sadly, not all men want intelligent women, and we buy most of the games. It would be nice if intelligent female characters (with normal proportions) could attract more female gamers. But I doubt it. The types of games we play (as men) have a disproportionate ratio of men to women. Some of that is social, some of it is genetics.
Games offer unrealistic women because it sells - although I thought that the first Lara Croft WAS intelligent compared to anything that had come before...
As it is, I will still use my boobie spray, and get myself boobie kills.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
There weren't any big-breasted women on that link! Just some article talking using big words, and such. My eyes glazed over after about 3 sentences.
To a certain degree, I think the "overzealous" images (male or female) help keep things in perspective: this is a game, not real life. If I am playing a martial arts game where I have to fight a woman, I really do not want her to look my wife, girlfriend, etc. Anyway, there are a lot of games that provide a multitude of characters to choose from, so choose your fantasy.
Speaking as one of the twelve... I'd have to agree with the article's statement. I don't find it threatening. I do find it annoying and disappointing. It doesn't stop me from playing games, but it does affect my enjoyment of the game.
I have less issues with the anatomy (silly as it is) than with the lack of personality, capability, and that stupid *boing* jiggle that the breasts do in DOA or Soulcalibur when the fighters square off. What the heck is that supposed to be? I don't care if female characters are realistic or not, but knock off the gratuitous boing-thing.
I think that the issue of body type isn't the problem. Yes, both males and females in games are unrealistic. However, while male characters are generally beefcake, you don't get their genitalia going *BOING* when they square off to fight. That would seem to be more equivalent to the sort of thing you get with female characters.
~ Leilah
I'll pass on that... please bring on the big boobs and fish nets. Women shouldn't be playing video games anyway. Get back in the kitchen.
It's the motivation behind it. It's unending drive to titilate (no pun intended) the target audience- to manipulate them into making a purchase based on little more than prurient interest. Yes, the game might be good anyhow, but if it's good, then why rely on such cheap sales tactics? As an example, the leaflet that comes with Lineage ][ comes very close to soft porn. Does this add any real value? No, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt sales.
As total jackass, macho, obsessed with sex and big breast. If that is not a stereotype, what is it.
On the flip side, there are a few women that are really tough femenist types. What about Kerrigan (SC), Samus Aran (metroid), or Laura Croft (TR). Sure LC has impressive DD's but it's not as if she's helpless.
But yeah, you do make a good point.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
"I found it ridiculous and frustrating that even in a golf game there were no realistic female avatars to choose from."
This is like asking to be kicked in the balls, why the hell would you want that?
And tell me, please, what exactly saddlebags, cottage cheese, and an a-cup add to any of the games I've ever played?
See the argument isn't that these women are a "sexist" representation, because whether you like it or not, there are REAL women that look like video game women.
The problem comes from not feeling represented, and even worse, being constantly reminded that your mosquito bites don't do it for most guys.
And women wonder why guys lie to them...
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
This thread is worthless without pics!
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Admittedly, a male character with "a codpiece the size of a melon" might turn me away from the game if I had to look at it, but it would probably turn female players away as well. But I also find it difficult to believe that if the game designers used realistic "average American" proportions, the game would lose appeal to both genders. Maybe Sammo Hung can pull off the acrobatics, but I doubt anyone wants to see chubby cheeks, a beer belly, or flapping flab on their character. For example, how many women Quake 3 gamers played the fat woman avatar as opposed to the skinny, perky, long-legged ones? As a member of a Q3 ally clan of RvF ("really violent femmes") back in '99, which was females only, I recall that exactly zero of them used the fat woman avatar. Both genders play games because of both the subject matter of the game and the image that it transfers to them.
An over-simplification, perhaps, but, look at it this way.
The typical male gamer (and they are the majority) have shunned what society has defined as normal, acceptible male behavior and attire. As such, they are pretty much gender-neutral, and as likely to wish to portray themselves as women as men in games. Furthermore, the fact that they have shunned society's male "costume/custom" indicates that they lean towards being female to begin with. But, in the real world, they have male characteristics that prevent them (mostly), from exploring their femininity; physical gender (genitalia, physical build, facial hair, et), societal roles (son, brother, father). So, the artificial world of a game is a perfectly safe place for them to explore their femininity.
They can choose to be super-duper elite women (smart, courageous, wise, etc), or just sexy, with big bossoms and etc. Or, maybe both, say in the form of that Tomb Raider character, or the main character on the tv show Alias (though not a game, similar escapist mechanism).
That's just my 2 cents, your mileage may vary.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Generally speaking, people want to be appreciated. "Attention whores" "Daddy's girls" and all those dependant female types all exist for a variety of tragic reasons, but let's not dismiss the fact that they are, in spite of their compulsions, thinking and independant beings that CHOOSE what they do and who they are just like the rest of us.
What am I talking about? Women feeding the problem that these highly vocal minorities bitch about. These women who are bitching usually do so because they cannot compete in the arena! And since they cannot compete in the arena, they complain that the arena exists. I suppose this will always be the case. When I see a woman who is attractive and fit that also makes these complaints, I will be truly amazed. (Anyone have any examples of such women?)
Women are objectified. Men are objectified too -- we just bitch less. We don't have fat-bald superheroes with droopy man-boobs and I have yet to hear anyone complain about this "ideal man" issue that exists just as much as the "ideal woman" issue. Men don't bitch... okay, I bitch sometimes... I'm not about to shave my chest or wear a ridiculous goate for male fashion. (Has that phase passed yet? Seems like it...) I only hope to please myself. And of women out there want to get my attention by looking a certain way, it's HER CHOICE and no other attention-starved individual should have anything to say about it.
I'll end here and hope for someone to respond to my query about hot women who complain about the popularity of hot women.
I've always thought that some of this (not all of it, to be sure) is because subtlety doesn't work very well with the current technology of gaming. Consider:
TV shows are based upon carefully chosen camera angles (and changes thereof) and sets configured for presentation on the small screen. The way the information gets presented to you is part of the composition, so when it's time for you to see a detail, you'll see it.
3-D games need to present enough information to make the game playable. The view is usually utilitarian for that reason, chosen to present the information and still give a reasonable impression of the proper scale of things. Now you may see characters on-screen, who may be right up front or off in the background a bit. On an old-style color TV these characters won't have a lot of pixels to work with - I think this is a contributing factor to why game characters are often over-exaggerated. If they weren't, the recognition of those aspects of the characters would be almost lost, and people would start complaining that the women don't look like women.
Personally, I love the look of real, beautiful women, and I'd rather see that than the over-exaggerated versions. But I think in certain contexts of gaming the decision is a practical one. Of course, there are games where this is less true (like fighting games, where the characters are always right up front) and in those cases I think it just is a matter of bad taste.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
But the entire argument (was there one?) began by expounding on how women have followed the sexist images to which they've been exposed. In other words, they HAD the choice to try to look like Monroe or not. Everyone has a choice about their body image. And the problem has been that women have chosen male-dominated and sometimes unhealthy, unnatural images to emulate. How does adding choice change ANYTHING? They were already making bad choices.
Maybe I'm just an ignorant sexist male game developer. Admittedly, I've only ever worked on driving games, and games with no women in them. But still...
The "thoughtful" references to the authors mentioned makes it sound like the games industry is some sort of male consipiracy, trying to force women to look like Lara Croft. I don't really see how they stretch to that, thought. Beyond fighting games like DOA or Rumble Roses, I don't see much in the way of game designers turning to "jiggle technology" instead of gameplay (and even DOA does tend to change a little from version to version). To be honest, looking back through time I can't think of that many games with hugely overblown female avatars at all, especially in comparison to overblown male avatars.
And lately, of course, we're tending more towards first-person games where you don't see any avatar at all, except in cutscenes. Or games like Tomb Raider where the size of the breasts are immaterial because of the chase-camera view. As I said, I've worked on driving games, where your gender is never even referred to.
So, since the article only says this is a big problem in lots of titles and never actually mentions any of them by name (the "jiggle" leads me to think of the fighting games I mentioned before, as well as the spinoff Beach Volleyball game), what should we as game producers be doing to combat the male conspiracy to twist women's appearances to our evil will?
Also, as a final aside, anyone else find it interesting that the recent Playboy game was designed by Brenda Brathwaite, who is in fact a real actual female woman?
Game dev and music blog
Very very few of the male gamers out there actually look like Duke Nukem or any of the male characters in todays video games. Even Gordon Freemen, an engineer with glasses who should, by that description alone, be at the top of the geek stereotype, is a buff, cut good-looking individual. Do these unrealistic characters drive away the male populace? Not at all. Part of playing a game is escaping from your ordinary life, and this is enhanced by role-playing as a good-looking, visually appealing character. When given the choice, not many choose an ugly avatar for themselves in the game world.
Now, if every game was designed to attract females as well as males, what would female characters look like? There may be some change, but most, especially those that serve as player representations, wouldn't change much, because females like to roleplay too. They like to imagine they are the incredibly fit and attractive heroine, as opposed to an average-looking everyday character. Bust sizes may be a little less top heavy and closer to the realm of believability, but they will still be on the higher end of the scale. Why shouldn't females be allowed to indulge in as much role-pplay and fantasy as the guys?
But what about male characters in games that aren't handsome or fit? Rare, but when used, are often playing a stereotype or primarily comic role. The fat man isn't the hero, he's either a hapless shmoe in need of rescue, or a bungling foe that is easily dispatched. Now, female counterparts to these stereotypes exist in the real world, but we never see them in games. Why? Is it because females are objectified? I argue that this is at least in part because developers have too much respect and/or fear of females in general to throw them into a game. White males, being the "majority" and the de facto "ruling class" are fare game for satire and ridicule, but females are still viewed as the injured "minority", and as such are beyond such blatant stereotyping, one of several Sacred Cows if you will.
I'm not trying to pass any moral judgements here on how people in games shoud be represented (for the most part anyways), just trying to type out my own observations. That's just how I see it so far.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It's not just women who're annoyed and disappointed by many games' portrayal of female characters. I find it a piss-off myself as a guy, though probably not as much.
... dumb. And hormone-driven. And tasteless. It's like we're all treated like particularly horny introverted teenagers. Yuk.
... well, a bit overdone, the game mostly doesn't suffer from the issues I listed above. The peripheral characters are all particularly cool, and gender is really a side issue. Wow, a minor female character with a few interesting lines, civilized clothing that fits the scene, and a reason to be there. Heck, with "Alex" my first thought was "heh, it must be cold, that's one damn nice big jacket".
For one thing, it's not very interesting. "Hi, I'll be your new sidekick! I'm blond, absurdly proportioned, have a stupid voice and evidently have as much brains as a pea!" Woo. I'm overblowing things, of course, but sometimes that's just how it seems, and mostly it's boring.
Second, it's often somewhat insulting. Do game designers really think that blocky images of badly animated, terribly voice acted absurd looking women with very little on (no matter how absurd and out of place) might push their game sales up much? I'd personally love to believe they'd drive them DOWN, but I fear that may be hoping too much. Leaving aside the quality of their work, there's the simple issue that it's somewhat insulting to have the game developer assuming that you're so
Occasionally I see an interesting character in a game. Even more occasionally a female character who isn't obviously in there as mobile scenery or to be "rescued." It's always a pleasant surprise.
I was particularly impressed with Half Life 2 in this regard. While the main female character, Alex, is
Alas, most games still suffer from having female characters appear "because they're female" not because they're characters with some reason to be there. Many also suffer from the "chain mail bikini effect" also so often observed in film. It's evident that armour worn by a woman magically becomes more effective the less of it there is, for how else could we explain such incredibly absurd and skimpy "armour" as so often appears? In games, each improved armour variant usually has even less actual armour.
Gah, I'll quit my ranting. Suffice it to say that it's more than women who're pissed off by this stuff.
As a woman, I'm not offended by the disproportionately large-breasted female avatars, but they do make the game less plausible. How do I explain this politely? This look might work for strippers, but in athletic activities, larger breasts are a disadvantage. Seriously, take a look at high-profile female athletes out there. You won't see a lot of silicone augmentations.
In World of Warcraft, ladies can play a human/barbie look alike, a night elf that looks a lot like a super model, or a frumpy, squat dwarf girl. Guess which toons are the most popular?
Sexy rotting corpses is just wrong.
My male undead has no muscles really. Just flesh and bones. He's even missing the lower half of his jaw and is bald on top with a nice fluff of hair sticking straight out.
Anyone that finds him sexy needs professional help.
Some women in computers are...
But, it is more the fairly stereotypical imagery that gets annoying. Not much deviation, etc. And, it is rather obvious that they are just catering to men by doing this.
You can sort of tell in some games that have more women. NWN and a lot of RPGs don't go too overboard on this.
OK, what's your vote on video game women who are Intellgent, Strong and Powerful?
My vote is for April Ryan, the protagonist from The Longest Journey (1999). I absolutely fell in love with the story. And even more appealing, while April is definately Intelligent, the "Strong and Powerful" (more like "Confidence") grows throught the game. It also rocks because it's European (Norweigan actually), and it has an "M" rating. Not for sex and violence, but for language, which they refused to tone down for the US release. Burns Flipper is my personal hero.
I just replayed the game a few months ago. Absolutely awesome. Beat out Star Control 2 as the best adventure game I've ever played (IMHO! Please no flame wares).
The sequel (Dreamfall) is finally coming out next year. Can't wait.
Seriously. Let us go one week without a "FEMALE GAMERS ARE ANGRY" article. Last week when you posted one someone else pointed out the fact that we have 1-2 of these articles a week. It's like you intentionally posted this one to mock him.
I'm willing to bet that if every "inappropriate" image vanished out of every game tomorrow, you'd be hard put to find the change in society the day after.
Of course, but that's not the point. All of the small, subtle biases that surround people add up to an overall influence that is non-negligible. Just because something is not THE most pressing problem in the world doesn't mean it's not worth doing anything about.
Society will change and women will be treated differently when they demand such treatment and accept nothing less!
Certainly. And pointing out negative images of women where they exist is part of that. It's not a matter of "blaming" video games for all that is wrong with the world, it's a matter of standing up and saying "I'm not going to spend my money on product which makes me feel objectified and is therefore not fun to play."
Imagine the uproar if men went and complained about romance novels, about how the man are almost always savagely handsome
jerks who eventually turn into lapdogs.
Unless, they're tyrannically brutal fathers or husbands whose cruelty the heroine rises above.
The day the feminazis dictate the body shape of women in games is the day I force rewrites of Jane Eyre so that the guy doesn't become
an emasculated cripple at the end, but is a sensible, sane and well-balanced character.
And in the Harlequin Romance novels, the guy has a bit of a pot belly and thinning hair, and they have a realistic relationship rather than candlelit suppers on top of gondolas, complete with serenade and $10,000 engagement rings.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Beyond Good and Evil was one of the best games ever. The main character is a young, strong, intelligent, realistically proportioned (or as realistic as you can get for the cartoony style of the game) female freelance journalist who spends most of her time taking care of a group of war orphans.
Technoli
Our game's got a strong, powerful woman class in there. Only one out of five, admittedly, but it's there.
We've tried hard to make the girl an interesting class to play (actually, we're not sexist - all classes are good) but due to the interactions between the classes on the team a very good strategy for the enemy is 'Kill all the women first'
This wasn't entirely the message we wanted to promote! ;-)
I mean, come on... would you describe that guy with the gun in Doom 3 as "complex"? "Capable"? I mean, who cares? You steer him around and have him shoot at stuff. If he has any personality traits at all, they're the ones the player brings to the table.
Girls are no different. They'd just like to not have to play the role of some beefy dude to solve all the puzzles in a game level. They probably don't want to look like a completely sleazy Maxim girl, either, but in my experience that concern is secondary.
Breakfast served all day!
Actually the sexually attractive avatars are there to attract those sexually attracted to females, whether they happen to be males or females. It is only a matter of time before they do the same to male avatars in games to attract those sexually attracted to males in the same way as the overzealous female avatars.
This is the exact same reason that males or females of certain overzealous forms are used in ANY type of advertising, and it is not just limited to scantily clad or falling-out-of-clothes females. Harlequin-romance-cover males are frequently featured in advertisements geared towards females, and they are already appearing in video games.
Perhaps all of the reporting on this topic is done by males attracted to females, hence why they don't notice the other side of the coin?
Twinstiq, game news
- Lara Croft
- Archeaologist
- British accent
- Independent (no bf)
- nobility (Her title is countess, I believe)
- solve puzzles
- atheletic
- Dante (devil may cry)
- Push button, shoot undead
- pull lever kill undead
- put orbs into things, ram undead
- get weapon, slash undead
- get huge demonic power, kill undead
- Obtains divine devil weapon, kill divine undead
- Likes girls that looks like his mother.
I do agree there needs to be more main/strong female characters like Orta (Panzer Dragon) or Lara Croft, but more male characters need to have brains too. ^^;With that being said, I say we make more characters with no gender in games . No dispute about gender if we have more games like this.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
I weigh 135 pounds. I'm a pale, scrawny white guy. I don't smoke... never would, really. However, when I play a game I want the character to be a 7 foot 200lb tower of pure muscle, running with a 5-ton automatic weapon and munching on a cigar. "But that's not real!" Of course it isn't! Neither is taking five bullets to the chest and living! Neither is fighting Orcs with swords! Neither is stomping on enemies and making coins pop out of their heads! I sure didn't spend $700 on a brand new X-Box 360 console to see a normal looking woman doing normal things in higher detail. I could have looked out my window for free. Since the dawn of gaming, we want to do things we can't do in real life. We want to see things we don't see in real life. It seems as though the more popularity gaming develops the more small minorities it develops- and all of them stomping their foot, demanding the entertainment be completely changed to reflect what they assume would be the ideal form. Leave it alone while it's still pure and unperverted.
Just give them the newest That's So Raven game, and they'll be fine.
Putting supermodels on the cover of Cosmo and in the ads for, well, everything targeted at women, has sure hurt sales... Actually, no, it hasn't. Maybe women that don't feel comfortable seeing healthy women on a TV screen, cable or video game, need to do something about it. I'm thinking eating a bag of chips and twiddling their thumbs playing Perfect Dark Zero isn't it.
I don't need a moral compass. I certainly don't need someone to tell me that they're looking out for me, then restricting my choice to what they think is realistic, or appropriate, or whatever.
If you dislike the representation of women in games, don't play them , don't buy them, and tell your friends.
But keep your fucking nose out of my business.
And please, your personal insecurities over your unsightly body don't need to be couched in a message of "equality" and "fairness", so stop acting like you give a shit about other people.
It's about their inadequacies, nothing more.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Check his postings. You will find that he does this to everybody. He is just an uncouth highschool kid who is trying to be something that he is not.
I think you're right, but women see it as an escape from reality, too. The difference lays in what each gender wants out of that alternate reality. As I was RTFing woman-written article I finally realize what it is that women want out of games. It's actually quite different then what men demand. Men demand a cool world where you can DO anything, like shoot a policeman, whereas a female is more interested in who they can BE in this world, like a kitten with pink fur and ribbons.
Women are just looking for a different type of game. They're more interested in skinning their cars than racing, in many cases. I'm sure we all know an exception to this rule, but most chicks are going to go for a world like the Sims over Lara Croft every time. Smart companies and smart game creators will hire some female coders and get down to creating a world that your average woman would enjoy, and they'll make big money doing so.
Electric Monkey Pants
Go to the store and just cast a glance around at the magazines in the checkout aisle.
What do you see? "Women's" magazines with beautiful, half-naked models on the covers of 90% of them.
So, it's okay for a woman to encourage women to look like X, but run out the feminist flag if a guy thinks that type of woman is hot.
Do I detect a double standard?
I would have to say as a woman that plays games, I will notice a half-naked well-endowed woman as quickly as a man. I'm not angry about it, I'm just, "Oh great. Two more of those."
Let's not pretend that the female form in a game isn't made to be hot. My husband is playing a female character on World of Warcraft, and an equipment change the other day had him blushing. He said, "I don't want her going around looking like that!" The male form is also unrealistic, but it's hardly ever underdressed by default.
Did these chicks writing this article have big cans?
Seriously, both male and female characters in these games are exaggerated, and this is on purpose. If you have a predominantly male audience yes you are going to make your female models what would attract that audience. That's the bottom line here.
The gaming industry even knows how to make fun of itself on this point, does anybody else remember the DoA advertisement that flashed to the 4 geeks on the couch playing the game and all had pillows placed to hide how "enthusiastic" they were about the game?
It would be like me complaining that all the guys in my wifes romance novels are all tall, muscular, rakish bad boys with hearts of gold. They're that way FOR A REASON. A book which portrays a leading man as something other than that is only considered a "change of pace" to "make a point".
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
"intelligent, strong, and powerful"
How is that more realistic than half-naked and huge breasted? If they want true realism in games then they should portray men & woman as pudgy, average intelligence, frequently bored, and relatively weak.
Judging by my admittedly small sample group (strip clubs), about 20-30% of women are F cups or larger. All wear at least a D cup (but not for long).
Note: The above is a joke, only about 10% wear an F cup.
I realize this is slightly OT. The discussion of "intelligent, powerful women", with (presumably) not Lara Croft-esque endowments made me recall "Mahoromatic". The main character, a female ex-combat android (Mahoro-chan), is smart, certainly powerful, helpful, etc.. The series gets great mileage out of her competition for the attentions of a young man (incidentally a weak eyeglasses-wearing nerd) with a sultry teacher whose physical characteristics are best described as "fevered dreams of GAINAX desginers" (ob picture: Saori-sensei (if someone reading this is new to /., well-endowed anime girls score in the middle range of the "GAINAX bounce-o-meter" scale :-D).
... but I digress. So, not every female lead is necessarily Lara Croft, but a certain percentage of them will be, because let's face it - sometimes you have to imagine yourself, and your surroundings to have "heroic proportions" ;-D
I think my point is that people (at least in the anime world) are aware of the "endowment" issue, and do work into their stories. Oh, and along similar lines, last I checked, neither Dagger nor Yuna were possessed of erm...oversize front-mounted radar housings. Now, Lulu, on the other hand
I was playing Ubisoft's Far Cry. At the higher levels you meet up with this female CIA agent who will mow down 100s of people with a machine gun but will not let you see her boobs and even acts like a stuck up feminist studies professor to the main character, which the user plays. I will never buy another Ubisoft game again after that because it was just not fun and reminded me of the pathetic wastes of $1000s of dollars of college tuition I had to sit through to get enough of said requirements to graduate. I pay $50 to play a video game to be entertained not to be "educated". Perhaps they can have games rated on their sensitivity to feminist sensibilities so I can choose the ones labeled "does not seem to care, much more focused on adolecent fantasy storytelling".
I think one of the hottest female characters to ever hit the video game market is Samus Aran. Throughout the game and most of the advertisement graphics etc, you never see her without being covered in a huge metallic spacesuit. And yet... somehow I find her a great character. The suit adds an aire of mystery to her, and we don't really know much about her background. But she's out to save the fucking universe and she's got an arsenal of big guns. I find Samus a particularly cool character for all these reasons. She is treated by the story just as if she were any other hero, but she happens to be female, and they never go out of their way to make her femininity part of the plot in any way. She is just a girl who wants to kick some alien ass. I love it.
Why would female characters need more depth than male characters? For the purposes of a video game, they don't. But they don't need to be used in a sexist way just to make them likeable, either.
Physical ideals make for better entertainment.
See them here http://www.hwpr0n.se/
There's nothing wrong with big-breasted women, smart or not.
1) It's not about how large the girls' breasts are, but the opinion that only girls with large breasts or this and that physical feature are "worthy".
Instead of basing themselves on the average woman, with average breast size and average face, the media guys (not necessarily game makers) give us some sex goddesses.
AND THEN the models are compared to real girls, and, because they can't be compared, they think they're not worth having a boyfriend and end up having depression / anorexia / etc.
2) The guys fantasize, because, since they DON'T HAVE a muscular Arnold kind of body, girls DON'T pay attention to them. And yes, I mean you, britney girl who doesn't date anyone with less muscle than Joe-the-Football-Player. So what happens when these low-selfesteemed guys can make their dreams reality, dreams about having a very strong body and getting not only girls, but the BEST girls around, with even more bust than the ones who rejected them at school?
See, discrimination goes two ways. What we need is society (both men and women) to stop judging others upon the physical aspects, and appreciate people as they are, with their virtues: Intelligence, Patience, kindness, generosity, etc.
Then we wouldn't need games with "bodacious" women to satisfy our overcrushed ego.
(As a side note, the Bible says the flood was sent because men became evil and only married the most beautiful women. Interesting thought, isn't it?)
I love how women think they are different, look at any game with a male hero in it. Do you see any smart, nerdy guys in these games? No, you see huge muscular men with big guns killing people.
Me, I play Tauren or Gnome. I hate to think what you'd make of that. I've done an elf and an undead, but not on any kind of a regular basis. Everquest, I went Erudite or Barbarian - and my clothing collection was of armor, not lingerie.
I'm not going to deny that a lot of people do what the people you know do, but I think you'll find the same proportion of girl-who-picks-buxom-redhead to guy-who-picks-muscular-heman. It's an overall tendency to pick a character to project yourself in a way that you perceive would be attractive to others or that is attractive to you. It's all about what you want to get out of the game.
Personally, I think that more people choose their characters based on the personality that they want to project, but then again I do tend to play on roleplaying servers so I get a rather skewed view of the mmorpg population.
(And yes, I'm a real life female.)
~ Leilah
This whole battle of the sexes thing is not uniform to all women, but a few that just happen to be really loud.
Samas Aran is one of the toughest (if not THE toughest) female character in the video game world, yet she is rarely mentioned in these discussions about the portrayal of females in gaming. From my experience, it seems like women don't accept Samus as a female protagonist. She doesn't have any lines, she's in her battle suit all the time which minimizes her appearance as a female, and there's never any kind of relationship developed with other characters (romantic or otherwise). As such, Samus is considered a "male" character by women, and doesn't make the kind of connection that you'd expect a hard core ass kicking female protagonist to make with famle gamers. Apparently, female characters do have to be a little bit girly in order to sell them to women.
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
She is not ugly.
don't get me wrong, i'm all for female empowerment and such, but it seems to me that many people are missing the point.. video games are fantasy.
sure, the women portrayed in video games are unrealistic, but so are the men.. when was the last time you went to a lan party and saw arnold shwarzeneggar?
a good deal of american men are overweight, and more than likely, at least out of shape. yet video games like ut2k4 portray men with ripped muscles and v-shaped torsoes.
let me ask this: would you play a game where your character was a 30-something, balding, overweight guy?
i think video games provide a great way to escape the mundane every day life. you can be what you want. thats the beauty. so why do we want to ruin that by making realistic characters?
politically correctness has ruined so much already.
Since when did it become taboo to have sexual feelings?
I enjoy a very close, intimate relationship with my wife. She's very sexy to me, and she finds me sexy as well. And, we're both very comfortable with that.
But, we're both human! When we're in public, it's not uncommon for one of us to notice another member of the opposite sex. We frequently mention it privately to the other, as "Wow, he's hot!" or "Damn, she's got a nice butt!".
See, it's ok. We're all born with the urge to reproduce, and we all find other people attractive, and there's no wrong in that. It would only be wrong if I were to ACT on it with somebody other than my partner - get a phone number, go on a date, whatever.
On the Sci-fi channel, it's typical to see an intelligent, forceful guy as captain, a few, strong, sexy females (in leather!) and a few nerdly guys running around, with a scantily clad warrior, armed with a 6 foot sword.
It's interesting. It's a little exotic. It has a little of something for everyone. And, it's mildly erotic.
People like money. People like travelling. People like sex. Why is it ok to have shows and/or video games with money, or travelling, but not portray a little sexiness? I don't want to stare up poontang, wondering where the cervix is, but, as mouse said, "to deny our basic urges is to deny what makes us human!".
And before you mention "think of the children!", I say this as a father of 5, 3 of whom are teens...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I am so damn sick of this discussion.
Videogames - like movies - are an idealistic fantasy.
If I wanted to watch small-breasted ugly girls fight I'd watch a talk show.
Double-Click here for instant highlight.
Additionally, as McIntosh says...
You do know that Mc is a truncated form of Mac. Interesting that he's in a computer-related field.
...welcome our new HOT GAMER GIRL OVERLORDS. All I want to know is, does she run on Linux?
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
I just want to see plumper video game chicks ;)
Your sig deserves a special mention! (posted AC to protect my karma)
The incident is still immortalized in the halls of the SCA in the form of a song called "I'll see your six (and raise you thrity-five.)" (Yes, I'm a society member.) Quite a few women fight "heavy" as we call it, and by and large they have much more in common with Rosie the Riveter than they do with Laura Croft. Large breasts abound, but there is a muscle and bone structure behind them to back it up (and to allow them to hit like the hammer of god.) Even the lightest of the simulated kits we wear weight close to fifty pounds, add in a five pound ratan "sword" and the ability to swing it for an hour or more at a stretch, and you've got to have quite a bit of muscle. (If you think five pounds doesn't sound like much, try holding the average yellow pages at arms length for any length of time.) My point is, even though these women are quite lovely in their own right (heck, I married one of them!), they hardly look like the stuff of Playboy fantasy that dominates the female characters in computer games. Rather than blame society for this, however, I think it has more to do with male psychology. You have to be quite confident in your manhood to make a move on a woman who looks like she could squash you flat without so much as breaking a sweat. Most men just aren't up to that task.
most women gamers are "confident enough not to feel threatened" by sexist imagery, merely finding it annoying and disappointing
Yeah, because most male heros in video games are bald guys with beer guts. Not to sound sexist but let's face facts here, women constantly cry "sexism sexism" but how many women go to films staring the likes of Brad Pitt or Richard Gere? Wouldn't it be nice to see, say, Danny Devito in a romantic role?
before anyone goes crying troll; it's just a joke, well, kind of. the moral of the story is that the "sexist imagery" plays both ways and we all know it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Yeah I like how the message we jammed into our youth and nation for the past 10 years, "Beauty is on the inside" and "Big and Beautiful Woman" has produced a nation where 50% of its people are obese. We sure feel good about ourselves, right up until that heart attack at the age of 40. Have women been dominated by men for centuries? Yes. Does that mean that exercise and caring for your body is domination? No. Theres a reason why women want to look a certain way that society dictates, its because they want acceptance just like everyone else. Read some Foucault (sp?). This process is not lost on men either ...
As far as women and games .. my sister loves to play Nintendo (the orginial). They are just a couple decades behind us :)
STFU stupid woman.. woman have a screw loose none of them are right in the head.. and before you respond with some stupid comment, think of how many woman you know that dont have a screw loose.. 0.......
men like computer games and so companies make games for those who like them.
MEN.. and men LIKE big boobs..
MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls
Look the fact of the matter is that most women who play video games arent good looking and the only reason to make a character look like one of them is to make a "before" character. You know, the one that was fat and ugly before she lost all that weight. While any range of males will play video games from jocks to nerds.
Was, is or will ever be anyone like Duke Nukem in real life? nope.
What about Doom's marine? nope.
How about Gordon Freeman? not one in a million.
What about CJ in GTA? no way...
And there are many more examples.
Male stereotypes in video games are just as strong as females. It is just us males that like to see big bouncy breasts while we play video games...but male heroes have extremely wide breasts, great physical and mental strength, they are literally superheroes. It is just stereotypes all over the place...but a video game is a fantasy land...if we can't have stereotypes in our fantasy, where can we have them?
This tendency doesn't apply to females only. If you look at how the ideal American male image has changed he has gone from looking like a normal healthy male body to the hulk.
"Do you really think that any woman who expresses an opinion about the way women are portrayed in games is doing so because she's not sufficiently endowed according your standard?"
No, of course not. I'm intelligent enough to realize it's not MY standard their measuring themselves against, it's their own.
You'd think someone like you who takes up the standard for women would actually know something about women. Guess not.
"It just would be nice to have a little variation in the female figures presented in games"
I disagree. What PRACTICAL reason would you give a game developer to reduce his audience and sales by making the female characters "realistic"?
You see, you're expressing a choice. Your choice is in the minority. Sorry, but in business money talks, and I GUARANTEE that if you could increase sales by
redesigning female characters the developers would be all over it.
But they aren't. That should tell you something.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
... does sexist imagery only bother women when it's women who are portrayed that way? After all, aren't male video game heroes usually portrayed as large, muscular, hard as nails, and tough enough to scare a Terminator off? In other words, an idealized male form? And how often do you hear women complaining about this? Never. I also wonder if they'd be happier if female characters in video games looked more like what you see at Walmart on a Sunday afternoon? (Nothing against Walmart, I like the place, but female shoppers there do seem fatter than average). That would, after all, be a much better reflection of reality in a society where so many people are so fat. Or would that also be sexist and demeaning?
Also in this vein, I think a better word for large-breasted female characters in games would better be described as sexual imagery. Depicting some, most, or even all female characters with big tits is not sexist, especially when you consider that many women spend thousands of dollars on fake boobs, and a good number of others at least wish they had bigger ones, even if they don't actually go to the trouble of getting implants. I prefer small ones myself, so I'm glad that not all women feel like they need to get bigger tits at the doctor's office.
And in case anyone who might be offended by any of this or be thinking "No woman would touch this guy with a 10 foot pole!" yes, I'm married. My wife is intelligent, thin, gorgeous, and good at just about everything (computers excepted). And she would also agree with all of this.
I've read some of her stuff, and heard her speak on C-SPAN, and I have to admit that I have no idea what this person is trying to say.
It's not as if I just listened to Buckminster Fuller, who both amazed and bamboozled his audiences with his vision. Instead, I walk away from Ms. Paglia thinking that somehow, someone got her Ph.D. in sociology without being able to construct a single grammatically correct English sentence.
Her stunted syntax belies a confused mind. Her lectures are incoherent, pointless rambles, and I'm convinced she's incapable of articulating anything remotely cogent.
So what's all the fuss about her anyway? So she discusses sex and gender roles a lot -- big deal. I can buy other authors' books on these subjects by the metric ton, and most if not all of these will have discernable points. I can't say the same about poor dear Camille.
Could someone explain this?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
My experience with the over sexualization of female characters can be summed up in a little anecdote.
My husband and I lived with a roommate, and we got Tenchu for the playstation back in the day. At first I liked the game despite the snotty female character because I could actually play an avatar that was my gender. Then our roommate started developing a fascination with the female avatar. He bought several walk through magazines, and got a cheat code to put the female avatar in less clothing. After walking in on him several times while he was trying to angle the character so he could get a good view of her cheat code induced nudity, I just couldn't play the game anymore.
I didn't really mind that the character was a bimbo, or that there was a cheat code to make her nearly naked on her lower half. I was really disturbed by my roommates behavior, and felt if he wanted to spend that much 'quality time' with the game he should get one for his room so no one had to walk in on him. I never could play that game again. Shudder. . .
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
You've been wrong, wrong, wrong. That's the secret they don't want to talk about, see? They're smarter than us, they live longer than us, they control the booty... Why aren't they firmly in control by now???
The answer is because they HATE each other! 2 can get along, but put 3 together and 1 will hate 1 of the other 2. Guaranteed... Then it's ON!
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
It occurs to me that if women do not like how males are programming games or using the art of their own taste, they can always learn to program and get into the industry and change it!..
Funny, lots of complaints, but no action! Sound familiar....?
Ladies..: If you don't like the walls blue, paint them pink. But do not expect someone else to do it for you. Change your environment or deal with it. Complaints change nothing.
"...do they want to see Chris Farley? "
Very few women like zombie movies.
Note Fat wallet will often sundtitute for a large penis in the regards of getting a 2nd date.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why are ridiculously perfect portrayals of the male form universally accepted by both sexes when ridiculously perfect portrayals of the female form are not?
He forwarded me to a supervisor, who explained that they monitored 'socially-unacceptable' behaviour and while this type of entry was insulting and directly compared smaller men to children, it was considered socially acceptable to discriminate based on height. I was actually grateful for the conversation, because it led me to a new research project where I studied height descrimination in North America (worse here than anywhere else in the world) and I used that research for my masters thesis. Small men face virtually identical obstacles when it comes to promotions and pay to what women see, for example. I would have never known that if I hadn't been curious.
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
"...women represent nature, and man strives to control nature..."
Wrong!
Couldn't the simplest reason be the "right" one. Maybe men (the prime buyers of video games) just like to look at womans boobs!
"showcase women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful."
like laura croft! the girls from dead or alive/tekken/every single video games ever.
The problem with the portayal of female role models in video games and elsewhere isn't that women aren't portrayed as powerful, but that
1. every single powerful character is also attractive. many of them also derive much of their power from sex.
2. they are only so intelligent as is fashionable. they are *never* intelligent in a funny and interesting way. they are never so extremely intelligent that they are driven to introversion.
the problem is that the things that make a woman strong in the popular opinion, are still the things that are likely to net her a man.
in my way of seeing things probably the best female role model ever was Lucca from Chrono Trigger. She was brilliant, funny, and knew how to take charge, although not that great looking. They even had a seen where the beautiful princess said she'd trade everything she had for Lucca's intelligence.
of course, as a guy, I still want the hot ditzy women, but frankly women shouldn't care if they're strong enough.
anyway, listen to me. I'm smarter than you.
You have this skewed. Women can get long with each other fine, as long as there are no males around. Throw one man in the mix, and then she who gets the male's attention, (whether she would touch him with a stick, or not,) is the highest ranked female in the group. Women can cooperate with each other with no males around. I am not denying cattiness. I am simply stating that a man cannot witness female society 1st hand without by his very presence distorting the results. Women get far more catty in the presence of males.
Have you heard about the Hooters application process? They hand the girls a bra and say "Fill this out."
is because that kind of input isn't as enjoyable to them.
Men respond very strongly to sights and sounds. Espcially sexually. Women respond to texture, tastes, and scents more strongly then men.
Men are geared to providing the immediate needs to survive day to day;Womem are geared to provide the needs for long term survival of the species.
Now, ganmes that involve using ones brain the way it's geared to be use do attract more women.
Look at the Sims series. Very Large percentage of women players, and it's about doing thing that ensure the survival of the species, Relationships.
Yes, that was a generality, but one that applies to a substantial part of the population.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
She sounds very hot-looking.
Naomi Wolf could be in her own video game!
Proverbs 21:19
Tsk tsk.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Thanks, but I already have it:
You pay DomainsByProxy to hide your whois details, but don't go thinking that will help shield you from liability. The DBP TOS clearly states a policy of divulging client contact information immediately upon delivery of any civil subpoena.
Thanks for responding though. That serves as evidence that your infringement is knowing and willful. I'm all for fair use, but copying and redistributing other people's work so that you can profit by seling advertisements on their pages not fair use. Maybe you should have taken the hint when Google kicked you out of their AdSense program for copyright infringement.
complaining about games written by sexist males: What on Earth stands in the way of writing your own games as you see fit?
Does programming or graphics design have anything to do with gender? You can learn it, too!
In short: Stop bitching, start coding.
And what percentage of women who wear an F-cup have a chest measurement larger than their gut measurement?
Have you heard about the Hooters application process? They hand the girls a bra and say "Fill this out."
I'm glad the masculine form in gaming isn't being questioned. All my male friends look like that.
Frog blast the vent core.
The parent comment encapsulates my feeling about female avatars. I don't mind that they are disproportional; most people like to pretend that they are attractive when playing a game. What I mind is when all of a character's clothing and movement emphasize their unreal physical "assets".
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
It's pretty obvious that companies are gearing their games towards the male population, but what are you going to do, other than settle with the fact it's the stereotype found in all types of media. Eventually the market will curve and trends will change, but it may not be for a while. Most women gamers are willing to put up with the bimbo stereotype if they can customize their own character, or realize that in the real world - I'll make a relatively safe assumption here - most guys aren't fixated with those supermodel-built night elves 100%. I realize I am in the minority here, but it couldn't hurt to mention that in all the MMORPGs I play, I have made an attempt to play the ugliest kind of race, or just the most 'plane jane.' It has it's benefits, though - back when Star Wars: Galaxies was more functional, being the only (or then, one of the only) female Ithorian on the server got you plenty of free stuff from the males of your species. Those twi'lek cantina girls aren't the only ones that can woo male players.
I am so tired of people not taking responsibility for their own actions and trying to blame others for their problems.
I bet these women also believe McDonalds is responsible for fat people. Unfortunately it just doesn't work like that. They have a choice whether to follow what is portrayed in the media. Being "pressured" has nothing to do with it either, as a male I am "pressured" to live up to all kinds of media endorsed standards. I make the distinction between real life and media though.
Next up the overweight low IQ crowd will be blaming Homer Simpson for their problems.
Like the article says - I think the solution is simply to allow players more customizability of their avatars. Instead of women OR men having an idealized or oversexualized digital form forced onto them, they can choose how they are represented in the game world, to their own idividual taste. It makes for happier players when their image matches the personality are trying to convey. Want to be slutty or modest? Fine. Want to be musclebound or frail? Fine. It would also take the pressure of being "gender equivalent" off of the game developers and companies, because players are free to represent themselves however they see fit.
The whole first part of TFA is about how women are personified in games like Barbi and not like real women and how it's bad. BOO HOO
Show me a game where the men are not idealized for the setting! (including Leisure Suit Larry)
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
warning, this post is not specifically relevant to gaming
While I can certainly accept that women feel or actually are "oppressed" by either media's or the culture's or even directly men's demand on some physical form, what I just cannot understand, or stand, is the brazen and ubiquitous *willingness* to be oppressed. Perhaps it is making an unfair overgeneralization, but I think women's own fixation on this shit is also partly (largely?) to blame. The second you can realize your oppression it is your responsibility to do something about it, not just passively accept it, or what is even worse, and seems more widespread, *actively* engage in it against others. Stop asking if you look fat in those jeans, and stop having stupid "who can waste more of their meal by eating the least" contests (give me a girl that can down a pint of beer and a burger and feel ZERO REMORSE about it). Maybe it's some sort of social inheritence inherited from mothers of past generations, or perhaps I just don't understand because while I am increasingly bombarded by some male-form-oriented pressure (yeah, buy that metrosexual beauty cream men or nobody will love you omigod the horror) I grant it is nowhere close to female-form-oriented pressure. I think (hope) this is slowly changing over time regardless as women are gradually and naturally realizing power in various other spheres of life and society. But the passive "media-made-me-hate-myself" victim mentality really annoys me.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
..., but am I the ONLY one that thinks there are WAAY too many "Gamer Grrl" articles in the last six months or so? ESPECIALLY considering that they are supposedly the "silent minority" in gaming. To me it just smacks of "let's talk about gamer chicks to get guys to read our article".
Anyway, I really don't see what the big deal is. The media (at least in this country) is all about making things seem more important than they really are. Anyone whose watched "small town" local TV or read a small town newspaper has seen this to great comedic effect.
People want to feel important, and with the exception of amateur porn, when people entertain themselves visually, it's all about identifying with something more attractive than oneself.
And you know it's true. Five bucks says that at least fifty percent of these "Gamer Grrrls" (and their editorial lap dogs) that seem to to be SO concerned about how women are presented in games watch "Desperate Housewives", "Entertainment Tonight", read "The Enquirer", "People", and any number of those celebrity hound magazines.
"We're uncomfortable with how we're portrayed in video games!"
Bullshit. Then why in the hell do you let every other branch on the media tree get away with it? Stop clogging my gamer news feeds with these BS articles and go after the ones who really started the whole "Barbie" phenomenon. Because most of the "production values" that you're criticizing the game industry for were happily borrowed from your good friends at the MPAA, et al.
PS - And stop letting your kids watch TV and stop buying them "Barbie" dolls!!!
Consider this quote:
Naomi Wolf is much more blunt. In her book The Beauty Myth, she argues that this very standard of beauty set forth by the media is the primary mechanism of women's oppression by men. She discusses the "suffering caused by trying to meet the demands of the thin ideal"
This would be a great idea, except that laying this all at the feet of men is more than a bit unfair to me. To be sure, the ideal of feminine beauty that is espoused by male oriented media seems extreme -- until you compare it to the images in female oriented media. The male favored image requires surgery, unconscionable quantities of gym time, fasting, and a soupcon of digital touch up. But it's nothing compared to the gaunt images that women pay to consume.
Of course, can say that it's men who run the media companies that produce these images, and you'd be wrong on two counts. The "Cosmo Girl" was the creation of Helen Gurley Brown, after all. But Ms. Brown's sex is not at issue at all. The point is that women and men who run media companies end up doing much the same thing, because they're driven by the same economic forces. The Cosmo Girl wants to have it all. The reason she wants to have it all is because promoting the ideal of having it all pleases the advertisers; it involves not a little buying.
The reason that media female body image is so unrealistic is simple economics. If scarcity enhances value, then the unobtainable must be perceived as infinitely valuable. For the man, the companies inevitably take the general parameters indicating robust healthy child bearing capability and simply nip and tuck it to the edge of impossibility. You meet a woman who looks like that once in a blue moon, and she's definitely not going to be interested in you. Voila! the unobtainable.
For women, the companies produce an image that is starved (never mind this contradicts the male oriented images). A normal woman's homestatic processes will torture her into sumbission long before she reaches this stage. Voia! once more the unobtainable.
It's not the opression of women by men; at least if it is nobody's ever invited me to the meetings where this is arranged. It's not as personal as that. The problem is the antithesis of that. It's completely impersonal. it's economic and thus about systems and performance metrics and quarterly goals, not anything as personally satisfying as domination I'm afraid. And when the putatively immoral male sex is displaced in a position by the putatively superior female sex, there's bound to be very little difference in results. They're just cogs in the machine either way.
I'm not saying that certain main aren't pigs. But that's just the general tyranny of the stupid who've lucked into a little power.
Another aspect of the economics of beauty is age. In traditional societies, age is respected, because it is rare to obtain. In a modern consumer society it's devalued. From an individual's perspective, youth is something that slips away irretrievably but age is something he is very likely to count on a steadily increasing supply of.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Average (shallow) women IDOLIZE these women. Why buy Cosmo and the like? To be HOT like the girls on the covers. Why buy Marth Stewart Living? To be the perfect little domestic goddess. Why buy O? To be the caring friend who has people over to cry on her couch.
Question, especially for the guys here: when is the last time you bought a fitness magazine or went to a fitness website, even? If the answer is never it's probably because you don't care about fitness. Another question: do you like playing games like GTA? If the answer is yes then you probably would love to be/are a total asshole in real life.
Simply, peoples' choices reflect their values. All the feminist shouting in the world isn't going to make all women equal there.
And aside from values, I doubt there are many women who actually enjoy looking at women that they know are better looking then themselves especially when they could be looking at...well...men. Time to wake up from your lesbian dream world.
Most people know that men, for the most part, don't have a deep understanding of women. If women want to see see any real change, more women are going to have to become game developers, rather than becoming journalists who write articles complaining about how male game developers make computer games that are too male-centric.
I think we all figured these things out when the lousy game Tomb Raider came out...
I mean.. cmon , they even announced that when the next game in there serie (dunno how many there are) that the breast size would be bigger!!
Maybe it was all better with muds?
http://www.wagenschenke.ch/
This is not an illusion, a rip-off, or a ninja technique!
Excellent link for the counter-argument.
A lot of times women are the worst offenders at using sex to sell. Anyone else remember watching "The Apprentice" where the women's team practically made a softcore porn commercial for a hand lotion. I think it was the second season. Well, if I remember correctly, both seasons were pretty bad with how the women's team used sex to sell things. Dressing up in tinny skirts to sell something on the street. Or asking for $1000 for a kiss from one from one of the girls.
Sex sells! Get used to it. Women's magazines are full of sexy women throughout the pages.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
The representation of both the male and female form in video games is exaggerated. However, most of the complaints that I hear are from females.
Here is a solution that I think will make women happy:
Let them customize the size of the various attributes of their avatar. For example: Give them a breast and hip size slider etc.....
As a mid-30s gaming male, I've been playing since the Pong days. As the gaming medium matures, a whole new range of experiences will become possible. Partly this is enabled by technology, but it also has to do with the growth of the industry; the desire of these entertainment companies to reach more people. To do that, the content needs to change. Personally, I'm looking forward to alternatives to the standard stereotypes, because with them comes possible thematic depth. I want a gaming experience that feels like a Kurosawa or Kubrick film, and I think that is possible. So far, I've been extremely impressed with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus; just imagine what the future might hold. Criticism of how games are expressed now is very important in shaping the future of entertainment. Consider all the stereotypes in the past (racial, sexual, etc) that underwent a major change from the 60s to today. Of course stereotypes will always be with us, but criticism is necessary to effect change.
yeah totally,
MIDDLE_CLICK first reference (up in a new tab in FF);
SCAN; SCAN;
Amazon, yes!
MIDDLE_CLICK on TFA;
PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN; PAGE_DN;
no pictures of amazons anywhere;
what a bummer
It is not so much that designer cannot imagine what women want, it is more a problem of how to integrate it into a game.
The article is very critical of Holliwood portrayal of the women, but forgets to tell that women flock "en masse" to the latest holliwood chick-flick.
Games are based on interaction and game play. Today, the designers know how to transpose violence, destruction and puzzles into games. No one really knows how to port emotion or make a good game just based on interactions (with the computer, not a MMO like 2nd life).
So, when they want to include some female forms, they will still fit within those parameters. It is easier to include T&A in a given formula than to develop a character and make her conflicted.
Anyway, i'm not sure I agree to any of the logic saying that girls will play when the games will present tham as strong characters and avatars. I mean, i did not play mario because i dreamed to be a plumber or sonic for its hedgehog. Lots of games have aliens characters (Abe's Odyssey) and it is the game mechanics that draw the public, not the "confidant characters", although don't we all dream to be a hero?
Look at the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, various GLBTG groups, and the list goes on. Since each of the groups represented by these organizations is in some way put upon by society at large, they begin to lash out at any suggestion of further putting upon of their members. While many times this is legitimate, at times they end up hitting the wrong mark.
I'm saddened by the absurd cries of double standard and so forth from the predominantly male audience, instead of them trying to find actual counterexamples. I'm also saddened by all of the women who fail to notice that they are in fact making progress, perhaps not at the pace they'd like, but progress none the less. 20 years ago Lara Croft would never have been a lead character in a game. Maybe she's overrepresented in the mammary department, but she's still a smart, strong female character who sucked male gamers into expanding their world view ever so slightly. The movie went even further, since Angelina Jolie did a great job of further enhancing the perception of mental acuity (I'm serious, believe it or not), as well as her physical prowess.
The tide is ever so slowly turning, and I think we'll see some rapid acceleration as gaming becomes more and more mainstream. The reason is that as more and more money becomes available in the gaming market, more and more game developers will be drawn into the industry, and that means an inevitable explosion of new ideas. We're already seeing paradigm changing games, some of them involving strong female characters, some involving non-traditional roles for male characters.
Ultimately, its important that people keep up the fight for feminine equality, because its a sea-change moment for modern society when we really recognize that gender doesn't in any way lend itself to being used as a blanket discriminator. Its also important for these women to step back and reflect from time to time upon the progress they've made, and to publicly recognize that things are getting better. Without that reflection its tough for those of us supporting them to continue doing so, because we begin to fear that they've lost touch.
I'd rather play a bulking muscle bound brick than a metrosexual effeminate bottom any day. Give me the manbeef. I already have a pussy.
Moreover, there is a serious problem in the effective literacy of men lagging behind that of women, with a substantial portion of the difference attributed to the fact that women read more.
Considering that "literacy" is rather more valuable than "l33t gaming skillz", the slant of the video gaming industry away from girls pales in importance compared to the slant of the publishing industry away from boys. (Although both may be due to innate differences, of course.)
Which, I believe, was the poster's point. It was argued that the female characters are attractive only to fulfill male desire fantasies, but that male characters are attractive to fulfill male self-image fantasies. The poster pointed out that one very-present reason that female characters are attractive is that women use them to fulfill their own self-image fantasies, acting just like men in that regard. Accordingly, the original argument is---at best---hopelessly naive.
Considering that significant amounts of porn (both F/M and M/M) are consumed by women, I would be surprised if one of the reasons for attractive male characters was not to allow women to fulfill their desire fantasies. Honestly, video games are no different that way than Hollywood movies---it's well-known that sticking a shirtless Brad Pitt in a movie is partly to increase female viewership, just as a tight-clad Angelina Jolie is for attracting the men. That people think things are totally different in a different segment of the entertainment industry is laughable.
Great. That is exactly what they should do. I don't buy products I don't like. I just don't get up on a soapbox to do it. Women already aren't buying games. When I see a game that sucks I don't buy it. Men want fantasy games. The sims is frankly boring, I already have a house and go to work all day, if I wanted to do that I'd just do it in real life.
It's always interested me that for some reason people think that the male idealization of women is the boyish waif. It is my opinion that the image of women prevalent in Hollywood is not so much what men desire, but rather, what Hollywood tells men they should desire. Seriously, does anybody know any guys who think the post-anorexia Lindsay Lohan is hotter than the pre-anorexia one? How about Monica Belluci? She regularly makes the top-5 "hottest women in the world" lists --- does anybody think she's dangerously skinny?
It's crass to say this, but I'll do it anyway. If you want to know what men desire, look at pornstars. They, at a very basic level, model what men desire. Most pornstars do not fit the model of what women think men want women to look like. Jenna Jameson is one of the most popular and visible pornstars out there, yet by the standards of most womens' beauty magazines, she'd be on the pudgy side!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> metrosexual. The embodiment of female sex appeal is flat-chested heroin chic.
What do "fashion magazines" and "according to women" have to do with each other? Hell, half the fashion movers-and-shakers are gay men.
Take a look at women's magazines - you know, the ones whose covers always feature a woman who looks much like these video game characters people are complaining about. Take a look at porn made for women - you'll find the guys are a lot more buff than metrosexual.
Basically, video game characters look like porn actors, and actors in women's porn look a whole lot like the ones in men's porn. Let women pick what they want, and I doubt you'd see much change.
Just something to think about.
I don't know, but I believe that it's been around for very long now. I mean, what's more sexist than a princess being kidnapped only to be rescued by some plumber from brooklyn? Couldn't she fight the koopa guy? (and the Gorilla before that)
Pandamonium, a cute and fun 3D jump-n-run game for PlayStation (a year or two ago I saw it on an NGage) included 2 main characters: a jester and a girl. The girl was not busty, not overtly sexy, none of that. (I think she was supposed to be 'a kid', as in probably 15-20yo range.) I actually met the two main coders of that game at a talk given to my school's comp. sci. club, and we spoke a little about the fact that she wasn't overly sexualize.
Sadly, a sequel came out and she somehow ended up with 38DD boobs and turned into a slut (from what I recall). I was quite disappointed. Not long after, Boob^H^H^H^HTomb Raider was all the rage.
Now, don't get me wrong, I like the female form (a little too much, sometimes), but after a while, these kinds of cliches in games get real tiresome.
This just in:
People like to look at attractive people. People want to be like attractive people. People want to be around attractive people.
This psychoanalysis of popular culture is really grating. If you're shallow enough to define yourself based on pop-culture, you're every bit the female stereotype that you're rebelling against. If you aren't, then why do you care?
Everybody deals with their stereotype, except perhaps those who are actual models of that stereotype. For example, there are about as many Muslims as Jews in the United States (~5m). When was the last time you saw a Muslim on TV just playing a regular role, that didn't have anything specifically to do with them being Muslim? In contrast, Jews are all over the place, in many roles where (gasp!) you're not even made aware that they're Jewish! There are over 1.5m Indians in the United States. A lot of them are second-generation. When was the last time you saw in Indian on TV that spoke unaccented English? I am an Indian (well, Bengali), who speaks without an accent (I've been here since I was five), and M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" cameo was weird even for me!
So what's my point here? Everybody is stereotyped in pop culture. Pop culture is superficial by its very nature! The portrayal of people in popular culture is more or less irrelevent. If women are dissatisfied by their place in the world, only they can change it. Yes, there are still boundaries, and yes, those must be broken down, but the bottleneck to womens' advancement today is in many cases women themselves. Consider, for example, higher education. There is an enormous dearth of women in the "hard sciences" and in engineering. Who can be blamed for this state of affairs? Men? Male students have little control over admissions, and male administrators are falling over themselves trying to increase female enrollment. The opportunities are there, yet a female is still a rare sight on an engineering campus. Why? Simply put: because females aren't interested! Women, it appears, don't want to be engineers or scientists or mathematicians, or even philosophers, or historians, or economists, for that matter. These are the professions in which people are respected for their mind. If women don't enter these professions, despite the opportunities available to them, how can they expect to be respected for their intellectual capabilities?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think Penny Arcade hit this one on the head with this comic regarding steel thongs.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I would like to protest the reflection of men in gaming, i dont know one man who can shoot fire out of his hands, turn invisible, or shoot down entire streets with a 9mm.
Why can't it be both? http://www.hwpr0n.se/! attractive females posing with computer equipment!
[ummm, not really NSFW - no naked anything - but the spirit of it is
Guild Wars, necromancer an a-cup.
The Longest Journy, april the star is an a-cup as well.
Star Wars Galaxies lets you roll your own from plump to straight as a board.
Sure sure, that is only 3 and one is ancient BUT it comes to mind because she was in her undies and that was so not appropriate. Anyway.
As also said in the article males are usually protrayed as super buffed machos as well.
What seems most rare is non-thin characters either male or female. The tech guy in F.E.A.R. is the only one that springs to mind.
Super big breasts is I am afraid more or less and american male obsession and if then a stereotype. What about the perfect skinned, perfect weight, perfect hair, perfect clothes that examples that media sets both real females and males eh?
Hollywood is called the dream machine and that is what games are as well. Fantasy. Nobody wants to be an ugly gnome. Watch twins and ask yourselve who you would rather be. Hell even in a hollywood movie the ugly guy got the plain girlfriend while the macho got the blond.
Now I am back to playing my ranger female in Guild Wars, whose B-cup jiggles so nice when she shoots her arrows.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Rent "Living Out Loud" to see Devito in a romantic role. A great movie, btw.
-X
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
I have never seen a game with a big fat-ass ugly dude to play the hero. What do they expect, Rosanne to play Laura Croft? I'm sure that would sell...
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
Check out Game Storyelling for Stronger Women!!
http://gamestorytelling.com/ [gamestorytelling.com]
http://autumnrangersgame.com/ [autumnrangersgame.com]
CLASSIC STORYTELLING @ E3 : GETTING HER TO WRITE YOU A POEM
I called Hollywood's bluff. Now I'm on the run.
I'm an outlaw in this town.
I duck into a back door at the LA Convention center to lose them, and lo and behold it's E3--the video game industry's biggest expo. 50-cent towers over me, as the crowd whirls through the million-dollar diplays set up by Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision, Vivendi Universal, Electronic Arts. Doom, Half Life, Unreal, and GTA--they're all there.
And nobody gets it.
I'm the only one playing this game.
I duck on by the Unreal exhibit, and I run straight into a chain-link fence, hop it, and press up against a bus. It's got the Grand Theft Auto logo--I'm in Rock Star's hood.
The chicks are beautiful.
They're all dressed like strippers and fantasy fest vixens.
She walks amongst them.
I need her in order to win this game.
And so I begin talking to them.
"Hey--I'm Elliot."
"Hey."
"You play video games?"
"I hate video games," she laughs.
"You look like what's her face--Tomb Raider."
"Lara Croft."
"So what you do in Hollywood?"
"I'm trying to get my own TV show--I wanna be the Martha Stewart for my generation, but where she specialized in party favors, I'm gonna specialize in sex."
She's not the one.
Don't get me wrong--there was a time in my life when I'd Tucker Max on her at this point, but not tonight. Tucker Max is so 2003, and Richard Dawkins dictated that we must evolve.
The objective of this game is not to take her home.
Picking up women is all too easy these days. You remember that whole sexual revolution thing--well it totally backfired on women. And men. We're all in this together. Ask not for whom the bell tolls--it tolls for thee. "What God has joined together, let not man put assunder." Saying stuff like that makes me a wanted man in NY, LA, and DC.
I could go into it how our pump & dump economy is fundamentally tied to the disintegration of the family and the pornification of society, but that stuff bores me. Go read the Tipping Point or Freakonomics if you think God is dead and economics is the end all be all--they both miss the nature of decline, but that's the point--to enjoy yourself on the way down. And you can think you're smarter than everyone else because you've read the tipping point and now know that little things can make a big difference, people tend to like things that they like, and fashions and fads come and go.
But enough on that already--these days when you go out you have to duck to avoid women. Women were rasied on Sex and the City and hiphop. They were raised without fathers, and were then liberted from the patriarchy in college. They were commanded from the commercial pulpits on high to venture forth and conquer. I have let more than a few conquer me--in that ironic Dave Eggers sort of way, if you know what I mean.
Hooking up is easy--it's amazin they still write books on it.
But I'll tell you what's hard.
It's to find the girl who will write you a poem the next day.
It's hard to find someone who still believes.
In love.
Especially in LA.
At E3.
But that's what I'm looking for.
I live for high adventure games.
And there is none higher.
You can frag a million Unreal monsters, but that's for the kids.
A renaissance is what men live for.
And that's why I'm looking for her.
"So how'd you land this gig?"
"My agent called me--they're payin' me a thousand dollars."
What nobody else seemed to realize was that girls have hearts and souls. They actually want to be talkled to as human beings. They weren't just some unobtainable geek fantasy. And until game creators realize this, they'll never render story within a video game.
You can't have story without love.
You can't have love wi
Check out Game Storyelling for Stronger Women!!
Check out Game Storyelling for Stronger Women!!
http://gamestorytelling.com/ [gamestorytelling.com] [gamestorytelling.com]
http://autumnrangersgame.com/ [autumnrangersgame.com] [autumnrangersgame.com]
CLASSIC STORYTELLING @ E3 : GETTING HER TO WRITE YOU A POEM
I called Hollywood's bluff. Now I'm on the run.
I'm an outlaw in this town.
I duck into a back door at the LA Convention center to lose them, and lo and behold it's E3--the video game industry's biggest expo. 50-cent towers over me, as the crowd whirls through the million-dollar diplays set up by Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision, Vivendi Universal, Electronic Arts. Doom, Half Life, Unreal, and GTA--they're all there.
And nobody gets it.
I'm the only one playing this game.
I duck on by the Unreal exhibit, and I run straight into a chain-link fence, hop it, and press up against a bus. It's got the Grand Theft Auto logo--I'm in Rock Star's hood.
The chicks are beautiful.
They're all dressed like strippers and fantasy fest vixens.
She walks amongst them.
I need her in order to win this game.
And so I begin talking to them.
"Hey--I'm Elliot."
"Hey."
"You play video games?"
"I hate video games," she laughs.
"You look like what's her face--Tomb Raider."
"Lara Croft."
"So what you do in Hollywood?"
"I'm trying to get my own TV show--I wanna be the Martha Stewart for my generation, but where she specialized in party favors, I'm gonna specialize in sex."
She's not the one.
Don't get me wrong--there was a time in my life when I'd Tucker Max on her at this point, but not tonight. Tucker Max is so 2003, and Richard Dawkins dictated that we must evolve.
The objective of this game is not to take her home.
Picking up women is all too easy these days. You remember that whole sexual revolution thing--well it totally backfired on women. And men. We're all in this together. Ask not for whom the bell tolls--it tolls for thee. "What God has joined together, let not man put assunder." Saying stuff like that makes me a wanted man in NY, LA, and DC.
I could go into it how our pump & dump economy is fundamentally tied to the disintegration of the family and the pornification of society, but that stuff bores me. Go read the Tipping Point or Freakonomics if you think God is dead and economics is the end all be all--they both miss the nature of decline, but that's the point--to enjoy yourself on the way down. And you can think you're smarter than everyone else because you've read the tipping point and now know that little things can make a big difference, people tend to like things that they like, and fashions and fads come and go.
But enough on that already--these days when you go out you have to duck to avoid women. Women were rasied on Sex and the City and hiphop. They were raised without fathers, and were then liberted from the patriarchy in college. They were commanded from the commercial pulpits on high to venture forth and conquer. I have let more than a few conquer me--in that ironic Dave Eggers sort of way, if you know what I mean.
Hooking up is easy--it's amazin they still write books on it.
But I'll tell you what's hard.
It's to find the girl who will write you a poem the next day.
It's hard to find someone who still believes.
In love.
Especially in LA.
At E3.
But that's what I'm looking for.
I live for high adventure games.
And there is none higher.
You can frag a million Unreal monsters, but that's for the kids.
A renaissance is what men live for.
And that's why I'm looking for her.
"So how'd you land this gig?"
"My agent called me--they're payin' me a thousand dollars."
What nobody else seemed to realize was that girls have hearts and souls. They actually want to be talkled to as human beings. They weren't just some unobtainable geek fantasy. And until game creators realize this, th
But... the future refused to change.
Ladies: Please stop bitching about the 'female ideal.' You buy into it, and every girl wants to think she's in the top ten percentile of attractiveness. 90% of you are wrong, and the only ones who admit it are usually the bottom 10%.
Gentlemen: Please stop obsessing about the 'male ideal.' I was a soldier, in a real war, and it isn't glamorous. You don't often shoot people, and if you get killed, 90% of the time you wont even know you were in a fight. You die from bombs, mortar shells, and other non-heroic things you don't see in video games.
You will never be a strong, independent hero. 99% of your time, you're not doing anything heroic. You are being someone elses bitch, no matter what rank: enlistees are the bitches of the officers, officers are the bitches of the generals, and generals are the bitches of the politicians.
First Person shooters, and RPGs feed into this image that you go out onto some glorious field of battle and win a lot. And they have 'magic potions' so instead of being 'wounded' when you're hit, and getting an amputation and being hospitalized for 6 months before you start rehab.
Death? No prob - Fenix Down! Being away from you girlfriend forever so that you get a Dear John letter? Impossible! Your sexy female interest goes into combat with you! Everyone and everything you have the honor of killing is pure evil - no accidental shootings of innocents, no honoring the ideals they were trying to live up to.
I think it odd that far less than 1% of the population has ever been in a combat situation, but somehow every movie and video game I ever see has them. The reality is, if more people had experienced this reality, the games wouldn't be very interesting.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
A fully clothed female fighter. One of the few.
Might have something to do with her being a giant rat, but who can say? She also happens to have a strong personality, despite her existence pretty much revolving around her boyfriend. But that's really not fair to say, because she picks up her duties as a Dragon Knight once her home's actually put in danger.
I find it ironic that the same dweebs that frown upon intelligent design nitwits with righteous indignation abhor sexuality like a bunch of nuns. Or maybe druids. Maybe there's some kind of dungeons and dragons episcopalian connection or something. Call me crazy, but I'd rather look at well endowed athletic high water booty than flabby hairy armpits any day.
"It's what's on the inside that matters". Sure. True. The outside matters also.
The quote actually refers to a boss enemy in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and boss enemies can often be pretty ludicrous, no matter what gender they are. Someone call the care police.
Medium? So all video games, without exception, follow this practise? Well, this is certainly news to me. I must immediately burn all my games, I can't allow myself to play a game with big-breasted women, even if I don't have one.
Yes, of course. Companies like Valve, Epic and Bethesda are developing cutting-edge engines for the sole purpose of making bigger tits and asses. We all saw the "Tits and Asses Concept Demo Using High Dynamic Range Lighting" that Valve presented, right?
All the feminist writings about video games that I've seen recently have been bullshit. I can no longer take them seriously, at all. Some of the articles at Escapist were so ridiculously bad that I thought they were a joke. One article, for example, asserted in a very academic fashion that men are threatened by the sexual dominance of female zombies in video games. I'm serious.
Camille Paglia, in her book Sexual Personae, maintains that at the core, women represent nature, and man strives to control nature, thus he strives to control woman. "The primary image [of women in media] is the femme fatal, the woman fatal to man," she explains. "Woman's beauty is a compromise with her dangerous archetypal nature. It gives the eye the comforting illusion of the intellectual control over nature" (13-17). With this assertion, it is apparent that men's domination of female body image is intertwined with his need to control the feminine.
No.... That is called reading WAY THE FUCK too much into it. Let me spell it out for you: Men like boobies. Men design games. Thus all female characters in all games have boobs nearly as big as my wife's. That is all the logic there is to it.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
It's kind of interesting, although certain points made are total b.s., in my opinion. They almost touch on them, too. They talk about women's image in the media, and how it is unrealistic for normal women to attain. They also mention men's portrayal in video games, as huge, muscular guys - which is where they miss one point, I think. Is women's ideal, unrealistic form really an example of men exerting control over women's sexuality? Maybe at times - but in general, the men you see in film are just about as "unrealistically" good looking as the women are - I put "unrealistically" in quotes, because I don't think it is unrealistic, I see girls all the time that I think are just as good looking as women in movies. I think a better question would be why are women (in general, not always) more self-conscious about their image when presented with good looking women in media, while men shrug it off? I think it may have to do with how females are socialized - traditionally, they've been brought up to be "chosen" and married by men, so that maybe creates a greater emphasis on appearance for women. That's certainly a somewhat antiquated idea, I think, in most parts of the world, because we don't have arranged marriages, or whatever, but it still lingers on in certain ideas regarding gender relations. For example, men are still pretty much expected to be the aggressors in a relationship. It's certainly not as exclusive as it was in the past, but men are for the most part expected to be the ones to first ask the other one out, to make the moves on the person, to propose marriage, etc. And so that maybe still, subconsciously, feeds women's greater emphasis on image and appearance.
Of course, these are all generalizations, and aren't always entirely true. I still think that society's general notion of male / female interaction affects how women approach image, etc, in general.
Aren't they overlooking the lesbian gaming market?
And here I am, playing KOTOR, thinking very much of how Bastila is a great counter-example to this.
So, in that vein, based on genre - where are our worst offenders for stereotyping?
It seems that many didn't read the entire text. With regards to the male image in visual game media, please see my paragraph on "Suspension of Disbelief." (I admit - I only touched on it - no pun intended - but it is there. Give me time. Maybe I'll write an essay on that as well. . .)
For those who thought they saw a flaming, angry feminist, please read that same section - "we can enjoy them [those body images] in game."
For the guy who said it sounded like I look hot, Thanks! My husband sure thinks so!
Reasonably proportioned, single male seeking reasonably proportioned, single female.
Location: Computer Terminal.
Interests: Defying stereotypes.
For every computer nerd that fits the stereotypical looks, I know one or two who are reasonably attractive (they just don't go out of their way to develope melon sized muscles) and enjoy exposing themselves to sunshine, as well as playing sports.
Most of them, including me, are still single and clueless about women.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I don't know what's damaging my eyes more- the awful purple /. theme or the awful purple background of the linked site.
3% or less is the real percentage of homosexuals in the population. Kinsey's 10% was inaccurate because his study samples were prison inmates who were often involved in forced homosexual activity.
If I wanted to look at a big pasty white gut, I'd look in the mirror.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
http://www.pendlehill.org/Lectures%20and%20Writing s/quaker.htm
Quote
"... the 'supernormal stimulus;' a creation which is 'better than reality,' or 'larger than life' and thus quite compelling which then plays on our emotions. Many modern entertainments have these 'supernormal' elements that are more compelling than reality."... ...
"... if I were to have to market war, I would use moral outrage as the engine. I would lead people into moral outrage, and then push them farther using that same outrage. They would see the world as a titanic battle of good versus evil, with themselves on the side of the good. Many wars are marketed this way, as a slippery slope down the mountain of moral outrage into the fiery depths of a warring hell. And, safely parked in front of our televisions, war itself is entertainment."
End Quote
The author is patently wrong in stating that the trend towards overly sexualized women will go away. The fact is that the sex sells and as long as this is true, it will continue to appear in products meant to sell.
Gaming is likely to become more specialized though. Some games will continue to hypersexualize women, many to a degree of realism and explicitness that has not yet been realized, but others will move in the opposite direction and depict more realistic females. It will more fully fragments into market segments, as it has already begun to do now, and as movies did before it.
The fallacy of hasty generalizations abounds!
You stopped asking 'why?' just a little bit too soon. Why aren't females interested? Well there's two possibilities, right? It's either nature or nurture. That is, either something about the Y-chromosome predisposes us to "hard science" (as you put it) and it's therefor genetic (nature); or (and my position is that this is more likely) it is the way women -- more accurately girls -- are acculturated in our modern, western societies (nurture).
So, when you proclaim "women aren't interested" in being "engineers or scientists or mathemeticians" which of these do you believe to be the cause?
"[T]he bottleneck to womens' advancement today is in many cases women themselves." Wow, this statement must be taken to mean you believe it's genetics -- if they weren't made that way, they'd already be equals! It's just their own faults! Of course, any belief that tendancy to education, ambition, or intelligence is genetic leads us straight down the slippery slope.
All kidding aside, our culture --pop culture or not-- predisposes girls against science and especially math. Well, if we can agree that our American culture is patriarchal (and increasingly anti-intellectual) then we could agree that men are the arbiters of culture (and increasingly anti-intellectual men). Hence, men decide for the most part what little girls want to be when they grow up, whether overtly or subtley. This will [probably] change with time as America slowly conforms to its dream of equality, i.e., liberty and justice for all.
Sort of on-topic, this is why it matters what roles girls play/experience in their video games. Videogames, love it or not, will be a part of our children's acculturation going forward.
Need a barometer of this sorry state google for mathematician barbie. "The portrayal of people in popular culture is more or less irrelevent." You couldn't be more wrong. The portrayal of people in popular culture is what reinforces the status quo or leads to progress. Your own post gives examples of this for Jews, Muslims, and Indians. Look at how Jews were portrayed in the early parts of the 1900s, or Indians under colonial rule. Why did these stereotypes change? Because culture changed.
"If women don't enter these professions [...] how can they expect to be respected for their intellectual capabilities?" I feel sorry for your wife, daughter, or mother. For a fun thought experiment, replace women in your quotation there with "blacks" or "Indians". How biggotted does that sound:
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Was, is or will ever be anyone like Duke Nukem in real life?
Rutger Hauer. Boy he seems an awful lot like some big burly muscular blonde guy that can kick soem serious ass. *coughbladerunnercough*
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sexy doesn't always mean "big-breasted". People like Keira Knightley and Calista Flockhart have been on plenty of magazine covers.
Right. Where are the games that cater to those of us who prefer small-breasted women? HL2 was a good start. Let's see more games that feature the figures of gymnasts and dancers.
Seems to me that there is an assumption that lacks a basis there. Maybe women should just depend on men, and have lots of babies, and the babies, men, and women, will all be happier for it.
That said, I predict that large breasts will become unfashionable as soon as genetic engineering makes them commonplace and uninteresting, and small perky breasts will be the thing to have because they are decorative without being (literally) a burden.
Wow! Aren't you sweet.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
anarchy online patch 17.1.3 buffing with behe and scale increasing items will not make "female body parts" bigger, due to complaints from some people.
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
nt
any girls/women who actually get bothered by portrayal of the feminine form in *video games* are taking things way too seriously.
what's next, men who are bothered by big, muscular (etc.) types in games? should we make all superhero characters more like the everyman? b-o-r-i-n-g.
lighten up, ladies. it's a Game.
clearly if women are so upset they can go make their own games. the untapped market must be immense(meh)...so go at it women, make your politically correct gender sensitive games and let the market decide. stop trying to drain the fun out of mens games. imagine if guys demanded gunfights/blood/car chases be added into chick flicks:P
...why there isn't a raging market for text adventure games for women (or at all).
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
guess noone else wants to know about these mysterious several games that, instead of focusing on the female form in its big-breasted glory, showcase women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful..
And whose the idiot who submitted this article and then chooses a quote as his quote. . It's not from the article.. it's from an article used in the article.
On the subject <sarcasm>I'm am in total agreement that any sane person would uninstall prince of persia because the boss is far too unrealistic. It makes perfect sense. I can't play a game I can't take seriously and i can't take it seriously when bosses are just too
The Wolfkin
A dear Indian friend of mine joined Toastmasters for about a year. It didn't change his accent one iota, although I had a well-formed opinion of Toastmasters which I kept to myself (falls in line with my opinion of Mensa), with the optimism that Toastmasters might help him. He is a more confident person from it, though. One of my favorite quotes of an Indian about their accents is when he said to me "I can't understand the East Indians at all, when they speak English." A nation with 18 official languages, most of which are found only in India, what do you expect? My favorite is Malayalam, a palindrome!
If there's one thing I like about what India has brought to the USA, it's their food. I think more Anglo-American kids would eat their vegetables if their parents knew how to cook Indian food. Of all the new immigrants to the USA, I'd say that Indians come with the greatest interest in social integration. I mean, come on, when was the last time the ATM said "press 1 for English, 2 for Hindi?"
I went to college with a guy like you, one thing that bugged me, though, he took an Anglic name, Steve, something about his given name being an easy target for ridicule. I just thought that was silly. Bring on the Varaprashad's and the Srinivasawanathan's, I tell you! My wife has a cousin whose given name was after a dear Indian friend of theirs. Sure, she goes with a shorter nickname most of the time, Priya, but when your first name is pushing 8 syllables, embrace it! Don't pretend you work for Dell Tech support and answer to "Bob," okay? It's degrading.
Regarding women in video games, I see no difference with Hollywood women: emotionally immature, naive, and objectified. If that were a woman in real life, it would be a "trophy bride." I think a noteworthy exception in Hollywood is "Deborah" in "Everybody Loves Raymond." She's moody, unpredictable, sensibly angered, clever, devoted, and choc-full of identity. Just think of the social development that a gamer would receive if real women were part of whatever gameplay. Perhaps if improvements were made to the portrayal of women in video games, we would have lower divorce rates in the USA than countries with arranged marriages.
That was a scholarly piece of crap. In response, I am sorely tempted to whine about muscular scantily clad males. However, I am not a whiner. Perhaps other readers will be critical of the piece and ask:
Are the premisses true?
Are men and women portrayed with exaggerated aesthics, or just women?
What is the distinction between fictional protrayal and culture?
What are the dynamics of that interaction?
Are the conclusions valid?
Do people complain because they are so different (100 kg and ugly)? And, finally, who cares and why?
Many dominitrixes are fat and ugly. There is a phrase I once heard, 'Barbie Doll with Fangs' that describes what most 'vanilla' men think of when the word 'dominitrix' comes to their mind. But real devotees know that the fat ugly chick is female enough to stand over them.
So all the fat ugly chicks who make up this GamerGirl team can feel vindicated.
resigned
I don't see how the standard tall, muscular, perfectly fit, incredibly handsome video game male is any less an unrealistic depiction of the average male. No one ever seems to worry about this though.
Ah-ha! But there's the rub, there really aren't that many people who actually read Tolstoy (or Dostoyevsky, or Proust, or...) for FUN. Lots of people read them, some of them do it as entertainment, but not nearly as many as read "lighter" authors. It may not really be so much of a comparison between Tolstoy and Superman as a comparison between Tolstoy and, say, Kipling.
Don't get me wrong, I read deeper stuff. I'm reading 1984 right now, just finished Henry V, and have 100 Years of Solitude in the queue for my annual read of that. The fact is, though, that I play video games explicitly because they don't require the same level of mental engagement that reading literature.
BTW, Tolstoy was a bad choice to argue with me. I've had a really hard time getting in to most Russian authors I've read, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Checkov. I'm sure they're all very good, the styles, especially the verbosity of Tolstoy, have been difficult enough that I haven't managed to force myself through them. To buy a book for $10-15 and not read it is one thing. To spend $50 on a video game that I don't play for more than 30 minutes just pisses me off.
Well-said. Has a nice almost-but-not-quite film-noir feel to it as well.
;-) I mean really, what gamer-geek guy wouldn't love a girl who writes him poetry the morning after an all-night Half-Life 2 Deathmatch frag session? :-D
But take that woman and let her play GTA:VC as well and then you've got pure gold.
fragged
My darling, so bold with thy grav-gun in hand,
When thou frag'st me, thou takest mine 'eart in thine 'and.
With thy pistol and crowbar, thy SMG too,
Thou pavest my way o'er the headcrab-filled zoo.
What bravery! What passion! What angst, O what guile!
'Tis all for the glory these hours we while,
As thy villains thou fell to thy left and thy right!
In thine HEV suit, my lover, my knight!
Never claimed I was brilliant in poetry.. heh.
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
A bit pasty, a bit zaftig, yes, but you have to admit, Naomi is pretty hot for a feminist.
Proverbs 21:19
that's not saying much.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs