That was literally the first thing I thought.
I was thinking “is this some kind of college project” but I don’t know how “big” this is gonna get.
Haha… get it… I said “big”.
Implying a penis joke… because ya’ know, woman don’t have one.
And because of that they might get jealous… haha… hahaa…aaaaaaaaaa…
I should make video games.
Actually men are better at sucking dick.
When I was a freelance graphic designer, I was commissioned by various publishers to create magazine ads that would also appeal to woman. But woman have a very small place as a consumer in the game market, according to a upper-level dude @ EA. He told me that most companies rely on the 18-34 year old male demographic (and the younger ones like 9-15, and post 15 y/o too), and that they would never shift their scope to the other side. Just because there’s a rise of women gamers, doesn’t mean they’ll alienate their first customers in favor of some new ones. They also said that this “girl gamer” bullshit is nothing more than a fad that was created due to dumbass analysts blowing the statistics out proportion.
If you look at the big name blockbusters (primarily coming from Western devs), you’ll notice that it seems like these games were tailored for women. Simplified gameplay formulas with a non-complex button scheme, ability to customize your avatar with a plethora of accessories, “strong” women roles that aren’t being objectified; man this shit never ends. It seems like Jap devs are the only ones who are out of touch with this “phenomenon” of women gamers, and rightfully so, they shouldn’t take the time out of their lives to study pedantic bullshit that doesn’t occur in their domestic market. So Capcom, SNK, Namco, Konami, keep “objectifying” your women characters so we can get a kick out of stupid cunts who think being an activist for the rights of fictional women is ethical.
Simple fact of that matter is that if women want to make video games change then they need to start playing them and giving companies their money. Instead they want us to feel bad because we like looking at the perfect depictions of women on our screen instead of them. It is just plain old jealously disguised as some noble bs. Pretty much your typical woman argument where the whole argument is about something totally unrelated to her true feelings of insecurity because she doesn’t want to seem like the self centered and insecure fool that she is. Suddenly it’s your fault for being catered too.
If the goal is to improve female representation in media, wouldn’t it be more productive to point out female characters that fit this “criteria” rather than pointing out the ones that don’t? A big complaint to alot of these arguments against characters like Chun-Li and Laura Croft is the feminists who are hating them seem impossible to please. Why didn’t she make an over-budgeted series of videos that informed people of female character’s she’s enjoyed and why? I mean she slightly touched on what characters she sort of liked (halfheartedly), but if she’s just joining the complaint without offering a solution or well thought out examples of a solution, is she really helping?
Erin has a point though. Story-wise, there’s nothing objectifying or demeaning to women in Skullgirls.
First of all, I hate fisking, so I"m not gonna do that :p.
Secondly, I honestly like Mai’s outfit, specifically I like the little tassles and the flame whirl, and I have for many many years. Nevertheless, c’mon.
I notice that you inserted the word ‘solely’ (and bolded it!), but that’s not a word I’ve used in here, although admittedly ‘that’s her entire purpose’ was pretty close… when I said it was ‘the center of the character’, that was a much better way to put it, absolutism is just about always silly. But fine, convince me that she has so much else going on. What’s her purpose beyond being the sexy-sexy mascot? Is it how she’s constantly trying to hook up with Andy Bogart?
If you look at web and media discussion of her, almost as far back as you can go, its centered on the sex-object/pinup aspect of the character… all the way back. Even if you were to show there was some other idea in the beginning, that’s what she’s become and SNK has embraced it (as you noted, just look at her KOF13 pose)… but I think you’d have a hard time showing that. So far you haven’t really mounted any counterarguments to speak of anyways.
And otherwise there’s no answer to how to make me not think of her as a sex object except them not presenting her as a sex object. There are tons of characters they’ve done that aren’t presented that way, and you don’t see me complaining about them.
This isn’t that I hate the character Mai Shiranui, or that I want her taken out of games, or anything else, its simply that she’s an egregious example of sexual objectification in fighting games. I don’t gain anything by saying she is, I don’t have any vested interest in it, its just obvious.
Of course, looking back of it, I think the whole disagreement here is you focusing on that '**solely**' thing, which I get, I can get fixated on that kind of thing too, but that's kind of quibbly. Nothing is ever 100% absolute clear-cut, just about (see, I even hedge that), and given that it's not the ***only*** thing about her, its still the central thing.
Edit:
[quote=d3v, post: 7104286, member: 9887]
Erin has a point though. Story-wise, there's nothing objectifying or demeaning to women in Skullgirls.
[/quote]
Storywise maybe, in the visual representation almost everything. Its an entire world made up of J cups in mega-micro-minis and goth-lolis.Did that bitch say anything about Fortune’s back story?
Didn’t you read the things Ilthuain posted, about how research shows 30% of players and 46% of the buying power (if I remember the number right), are women now? What you’re saying should happen already is.
In general, about the ‘money grubbing’ attack the messenger stuff, as a thought, what all that money means (and it’s many many many times the amount she asked for) is that a large number of people find this to be a legitimate issue and concern, regardless, or more properly because of the reactionary responses.
Edit: you can tell when I"m getting into these discussions, crazy long run-on sentences with lots of commas.
Japanese game development is on the rocks, so I’m not thinking it’s such a great idea to look to them for the future of the industry.
Also, you are demonstrably wrong about the demographics, and I believe you are probably making up that story about an EA rep saying that they “would never shift their scope to the other side” becuase EA is certainly moving towards wide scope marketing. These “dumbass analysts” make companies loads of money, by the way, which is why developers/publishers with strong analytics are the ones that are getting rich.
Unless you post where the real statistics are hiding, I’ll put more faith in analysts than some dude who says he knew a dude who told him something.
Further reading: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF
Then we’re going to go back to the question of whether or not it’s wrong to show women as attractive in games, or any form of media for that matter.
These people don’t want a solution, they want someone to be empathetic to their feelings of misery and to try and make as many other people as unhappy as them. Why else would they in all their privileged glory focus on so spreading so much negativity. For the amount of money that is getting pour into this petty project there could have been a game made with the kind of female characters they wanted to see in game. Shit even them corny 4chan kids made a game of sorts and did it all for free without even asking for any profit from what little I know about it. Even if it is a sick game dedicated to fucking invalid children lol.
Sorry the quote thing is acting very odd, for some reason its not showing up so hopefully this doesnt look to confusing:(
“50 years is very recent, and objectification of men doesn’t have nearly the proliferation as objectification of women.”
It does actually, male objectification based off utility and agency has been a aspect of male identiy since the dawn of time and has had some very serious implications on men’s survival for…well since forever lol. Objectification from both men and women is expressed differently, women through their physical beauty and men through their utility and ability as a provider and protector. In the context of sexual and physical objectification of men you are correct in saying its a more recent occurance(id argue recently more “public”) but that doesnt exactly make it a non-existent issue or defer from the double standard when women objectify men. In short, for anyone to say a man objectiying a woman sexually is worst then a woman objectifying sexually is grossly sexist and completely…well WTF.
"So if 100% of elected representatives were straight, white males between the ages of 45 and 54, and all of them came from upper class backgrounds and all of them went to the same schools with the same friends and with the same occupational backgrounds, you would be totally okay with that? Would that be proportional and representational as far as you are concerned?
To use another example, all of the political power in the post-war South was held by white men. Do you believe that there was a power delta between white men and slaves in post-war south, or would that statement also be “terribly inaccurate”, because not ALL white men in the south had power?
The position you are arguing from is untenable, because unless there is an absolute case (which there never is), you cannot hold your position and believe that there is such a thing as a trend in a society. Using your logic, since many people had difficult lives in the late 70s, and there were Cambodians who did not have difficult lives in the late 70s, then you could not state that people who lived under the rule of the Khmer Rouge had a more difficult life than anyone else.
I am not discussing her specific arguments or how she represents any group. What I am discussing is that there is a power delta between men and women and that objectification of women is more of an issue because of historical context.".
But you see here is the flaw in your argument or at least the premise in what your are suggesting. If your implying that people in power will work with interest torwards other people in power then that is a accurate enough assertion since I think the same would be true with people within similar social classes,religions and possibly race. However to suggest this same dynamic exist between man and women is where I take issue, because the men in power dont instantly work towards the interest of"ALL"men in society, just other men/people in power. Men will often put women’s interest even above their own or other men’s interest, so just because we dont have a 50/50 representation of men and women at the apex of society doesnt mean that the men in that small minority are working against women just for the benefit of other men(I know thats not what you were suggesting, but the power delta theory is very similar sounding to extremely flawed and broken patriarchy theory).
"I also hold the position that not marketing to her demographic (women, who make up 46% of gaming purchasing power) is a mistake that will be made less often as time goes by. The game industry is maturing, both due more diversity in creative positions and much stronger market analysis. Both of those factors will help even out the gender dynamic considerably in the years to come.’
The female market is growing but personally I dont like the direction it implies, since it means adapting to female interest we will see a erosion in any themes that could possibly upset women’s easily offended nature…and im not just talking about girls showing their tits and ass but if twilight and hunger games are any indication, I fear what a female dominated gaming marekt would turn into.
Observe for example the electronices and gadget market which is actually now lead by a larger female consumer base then males. Lots of marketing experts when speaking on the sudden change in consumers remarked that the biggest reason for the shift was due to the gadgets and electronics employing “easier interfaces”, “better looking products”, “easy use”. If these qualities are what it takes to attract female consumers(and going by the games that tend to be popular with girls, there is a very strong chance this will be the case)id hate to think of the gaming industry with a female gamer as its main demographic…it would be like this E3 mutliplied by 10.
Men have been objectified since before time immemorial.
Yeah, but we’re talking about stereotypes that have existed for HUNDREDS of years, and ones that women themselves have benefited from.
And maybe I’m late to the party, but what the hell is a trope? O_o
The problem isn’t with ‘attractive’ though its with ‘sexual’.
This ties in to the thread of discussion with ‘The Damned’. You can design characters to be nice to look at without putting such a massive emphasis on ballooned up T&A.
To go back to my earlier example, this is obviously supposed to be nice to look at, but it’s pretty much entirely nonsexual:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090110201430/snk/images/0/09/Nakoruru-sprite7.gif
This on the other hand, is specifically meant to be sexual:
Which of those 2 is this more like?
http://04.images.fireden.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SkullGirls_Valentine_Idle.gif
(sorry for scale differences, its the source material)
Edit: Actually its creepy how similar 2 of those actually are. All 3 are kind of hunched over though. All 3 are also holding their arms nearly the same way too, it ended up being a good set of comparisons
Goddammit, women of San Francisco. You’re killing me with all your feminist bullshit and giving my city a potentially more questionable name.
The whole thing with Kunoichi’s is to use said sexuality to distract their opponents and get that swift kill. And tbh, who hasn’t gotten distracted by that one frame where Mai’s butt jiggles after she sweeps you. Shit is hilarious.
Hell, look at those idle animations. I’ll admit I’m distracted right now!
And what exactly is wrong with being “sexy” or “sexual.” Everything is about context, in the context of the game’s story there’s nothing demeaning about the characters looks. The problem is that puritanical American culture has made sex taboo (but violence okay).