I still disagree with you about the body types though.
If we where to silhouette the characters you compaired (excluding sakura and makoto as these characters are often seen as being put into the other 1 or 2 women body types group of being a ‘child’), pose them the same way, and remove superficial differences (clothes, hair, wrist spiky things etc). I think one would be hard pressed to perfectly distinguish cammy, chun, viper, rose, etc from one another. Whereas if you where to do the same with the male cast, sure you would have trouble picking ryu/ken/akuma, but sagat, geif, seth, random shoto, rufus, vega, yun/yang, blanka would all be *immediately *distinguishable from one another.
Of course we did. In fact, it’s something we should have realized the moment Mike mentioned the words “Mortal Kombat”, as it was so obvious. After all, what’s the most iconic thing in the Mortal Kombat series?
Better in what way? What would you suggest? The biggest issue I have with most sexist criticisms is that they rarely propose any real solutions to their issues. The other issues I have with sexist arguments is when the problem they’re attacking (or the solutions they offer) are vague, unrealistic, or trivial. If there is a real sexist issue (as in, discriminatory against women in all the negative connotation that the word ‘sexist’ implies), I’m all for attacking and removing it. But how is Skullgirls ‘status quo’, when its portrayal of women is anything but the ‘damsel/eye candy/supporting role’ that is the status quo that people against sexism rally against (and rightly so)?
Nitpicking the character designs is largely barking up the wrong tree.
Female privilege exists also. Yes, it’s different from male privilege, and no, its not necessarily in fair or equal measure, but just because one is male does not make them unable to view issues in a valid or objective manner. If one can provide logical reasoning behind calling an argument feminist junk, then it’s just as valid a conclusion as a supporting argument. If the viewpoint is invalid because it’s from a male (and thus, from ‘privilege’), then that’s equally sexist, if not more so.
Males acknowledging their place of privilege is likely a large reason you DON’T hear men complaining about sexual objectification. But regardless, it’d be nice to hear women acknowledging that sexual objectification isn’t inherently sexist, and that it’s a very effective marketing tool.
So Makoto is ‘child’, then? I disagree. What about Sakura? Juri’s sexy, but I wouldn’t call her an hourglass. That goes double for Cammy, who’s definitely on the skinny side. If you go down the list of Street Fighter females, you’ll likely find as many or more different body shapes as hourglasses.
Actually, which girls in SF actually have that stereotypical figure? I count Rose, Chun, maybe Ibuki?
Trying to take fighting games to task on sexism is generally a TERRIBLE example. Unless you’re debating trivial stuff, like Dhim and Sophitia/Pyrrha’s knee to the groin grab.
Only if women internalize that sort of message from what they’re seeing. And if they do, that’s a problem entirely with them. Advertisements, magazines, television (i.e. things featuring actual messages to the viewers and real people), I can understand this logic. But while the musclebound dude in the Old Spice commercial may make me want to work out more for the ladies or whatever, I’m not losing sleep over the fact that I’m not built like Ryu from Street Fighter.
Any woman that allows a handdrawn, fictional character to affect their perception of themselves honestly needs to figure out how to get better self-esteem, because frankly, that’s pretty pathetic. The only case in which I can see that as a real issue is for young children that can’t yet distinguish between reality and fantasy. Only Skullgirls isn’t catered to children, and if it was there’d be much larger issues than “Valentine’s affecting young Ashley’s self esteem”.
First off, it’s stereotypical to assume that all grappler characters have to have large muscles and big arms (El Fuerte, Rainbow Mika, etc.). Secondly, a simple large female grappler character wouldn’t fit with the ‘Monster Girl’ theme that SkullGirls has.
Filia: My hair is a parasitic monster
Ms. Fortune: I’m a zombie catgirl
Cerebella: I’m big with muscles.
Yeah, it doesn’t really work. Third, again, if you look at the very fictional Cerebella and surmise that you can’t be a big, musclebound female wrestler from her, then it is problematic. Only you’re the one with the problem, not Alex Ahad. Why does every fictional female in a videogame have to be some kind of role model for women? If you’re looking to fictional characters to justify your own existence, you’re on a failing mission, and that’s the case for everyone. Not everything is some sort of message to or critique of the viewer, and if people stop looking to simple entertainment as that, then most (if not all) of the ‘problematic’ things about products like Skullgirls disappear.
“Fictional characters made by men for the male gaze can’t have agency.”
-_- That’s a rather sexist remark right there. **NO **fictional character can have agency, because they don’t exist (hence, ‘fictional’). And *since *they are fictional, why is the sexy and strong image they represent problematic? What in the hell is so wrong with a character being sexy? This is the issue I have with sexist arguments concerning this game. When you classify the characters as “for the male gaze”, you yourself are excluding women from the equation. The characters in Skullgirls are not solely intended for a female audience, and yes, they somewhat sexually pander to people sexually attracted to women. But does that automatically exclude there being anything in the characters for the rest of the audience to be drawn to? No!
If there’s a valid sexist argument against Skullgirls, it’s that so far there aren’t any men in it so that the rest of the audience can have their sexually objectified characters. But I don’t see any feminists making a big deal over that. Hell, most people that bother to comment on the game in general probably don’t care. And they probably shouldn’t, either.
You and anyone else are allowed to point out whatever you like. Just don’t expect people to automatically accept those points as valid, or anything more than trivial.
I agree that there is more diversity amongst the male SF cast than the female SF cast but I still feel a little more credit should be given. This is all a matter of gradation though and personal opinion. Regardless, I don’t feel the SF female cast “problem” is applicable to SG. The cast has pronounced physical differences between them, even within the umbrella of attractiveness, and these differences only become more apparent when you move onto the extend cast.
Speaking of silhouettes and character design theory, Alex actually wrote a piece about it on the official site.
So, uh, to anyone who’s played the game, how easy is it to combo, in general? Because, I completely sort of suck at fighting games, and the only ones I can combo easily in are BlazBlue and, god help me, Marvel 3. Or is it like Marvel Super Heroes, where I can’t combo to save my life, but it’s totally awesome anyway?[/inbeforetakeittothequestionandanswerthread]
I guess it’s like Marvel? Where you can cancel everything into everything and pretty much the only thing you need is repetition, screen adjustment and imagination
Moving on… I really like this article. I think Alex has a pretty good grasp of what makes a character design good and memorable.
What I like about Skullgirls’ characters is that they are all pretty distinct. I tend to see a lot of dull, boring, repetitive character designs in other series. It drives me a little insane when I see series that have uninspired character designs (note: not minimalist, because there is a difference) gain popularity.
I know Skullgirls is a far cry from anime, but I tend to see it in that circle a lot, stuff like Vampire Knight and Hetalia where half the characters are different hair styles (or even worse, hair colors) on the same exact face and body. Western authors are guilty of it too (looking at you, Homestuck and CRTL+ALT+DEL), though. In general I just hate the “copy-paste, minor change” method of character design.
Which is why I just really respect Alex for coming up with such a diverse cast of characters. Seeing the story trailer just served to further that. So there’s one of the larger reasons I love this game :>
Ugh, was really looking forward to some delectable news when I got out of class. Maybe Machinima will have something interesting after my midterm later, well back to cramming wine history and viticulture…
This is what happens when men dont get enough sex. They start complaining about how women are portrayed in a videogame. Geez guys maybe we should all stop arguing and hit the club or something.
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