Depictions of Women in Gaming (and other related issues)

[Koopaul]

I only make the comparison because a lot of people say the violence has an impact on people in real life just like many of you are saying fanservice influences people in real life.

It was more presenting the idea if people know the difference between fantasy and reality.

I don't think the context of whether that thing your killing is a 'bad guy' or not matters. It's more about what the audience is feeling. In this case fun. The plot and setting is merely an excuse for the the player to enjoy the activity given. And Gors is right, there's rarely a good excuse for fanservice, and I think it's because it's really hard to make a good excuse for it.

However in the case of Bayonetta, the character herself is a show-off, taunting her enemies with her sexuality. Whether or not that's a good excuse is up to you. But again, it's not about the excuse, it's about what the player is feeling, and in this case it's visual appeal.

Now you have to understand that most hetero men naturally find the female body pleasing to look at. They naturally tend to think about women the way video games portray them. So whether or not we allow this stuff in video games, it will always exist. In the minds of men, on deviantArt, or whatever. It is their fantasy. And there's no way you can make them unlearn this.

However, for many, it's just a fantasy. You have to give the player the benefit of the doubt that they will know the difference between fantasy and reality.

That women in real life are not objects for your entertainment. That violence in real life is not fun.

The real problem is that there is an overwhelming appeal to the male fantasy without considering females. It's incredibly unbalanced! But I believe is in the process of balancing out... if just slowly.

As for it being insulting, if there were more games women could play that they didn't find insulting, it wouldn't matter. They would have a huge selection of games that didn't insult them. Alas we are not there yet.

Now I already highlighted that women are not objects for our entertainment. So please even if you hate what I'm saying, atleast know that. :X

Okay... *takes a deep breath* I think I'm starting to get really scared. Are we still okay? No fighting?

[StarSock64]

However, for many, it's just a fantasy. You have to give the player the benefit of the doubt that they will know the difference between fantasy and reality.

That women in real life are not objects for your entertainment. That violence in real life is not fun.

You have to give the player the benefit of the doubt that they will know the difference between fantasy and reality.

No, we don't. I guess I'm more-or-less restating what's already been said, but it's beyond common belief that violence is wrong. If you took a survey and asked whether or not women should be objects, I guess you might get a majority vote of "no," but it's not that simple. There are a lot of aspects of objectification that many people think is perfectly fine without realizing it. Our culture is anti-violence (for the most part, moneyman explains it better (actually just reread moneyman's post)), but it still has a lot of sexism and objectification within it. Therefore, it's not a simple matter of fantasy vs. reality, because these problems and beliefs exist in the real world as well.

[Koopaul]

Well maybe your right. Provide examples outside entertainment where our society says it's okay to objectify women.

I know there's dick heads who treat women like trash. But no one says what those guys do is okay. Right?

The way I see it, just because we know violence is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being violent. And just because we know sexism is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being sexist.

But that is where we unfortunately disagree. I wish we could all agree.

[psychospacecow]

Censorship, as I define it, is the alteration or remaking of something to meet a standard by someone other than the artist. Sure, I'm not going to buy a game that has something I don't like as a major factor, but I am in no way going to attempt to alter whether or not the artist can or will do something. To that respect, it is purely the choice befitting the market that any changes are made. If people don't want it or outright hate it, they won't get it.

[Lexou Duck]

though as far as i know the real problem with sexism is how it's seamlessly implanted into our way of thinking

its not all about conscious thoughts on the state of women in society, its more than just things you can easily realize about what your mentality is made of

there's also just how you react to women doing things/things happening to women, and in general the way you would link the concept of gender to certain things/events in which gender actually has no importance


the real problem is that you would need to rethink some principles at the very foundation of your thought, which is of course really complex
personally though i think if we just manage to make a woman's life as easy as a man's that be great

[Mutsukki]

Well maybe your right. Provide examples outside entertainment where our society says it's okay to objectify women.

I know there's dick heads who treat women like trash. But no one says what those guys do is okay. Right?

The way I see it, just because we know violence is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being violent. And just because we know sexism is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being sexist.

But that is where we unfortunately disagree. I wish we could all agree.

That's kinda missing the point. Angie never said that society says it's ok to objectify women, not in clear print anyway. Let's try with a mild example of someone who can be objectifying women without knowing.

John is a simple guy, he likes his movies, his games, surfing the net and hanging out with friends. One day John is thinking what game he wants to buy. He sees two covers, one is war filled Call of Duty Ghosts and the other one is Grand Thef Auto V. He has seen a lot of ads for both games pasted all over town. He then choses GTAV. When asked why, he gives a simple question "Well, this one has that hot girl in it". While being completely sincere and not doing anything wrong, he just reinforced the objectifying of women without even realising it.

[StarSock64]

Well maybe your right. Provide examples outside entertainment where our society says it's okay to objectify women.

I know there's dick heads who treat women like trash. But no one says what those guys do is okay. Right?

The way I see it, just because we know violence is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being violent. And just because we know sexism is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being sexist.

But that is where we unfortunately disagree. I wish we could all agree.

I can't respond to this post in one post. I couldn't even respond to this post if I had a week.

I'm tempted to just start throwing articles out there from people who are better equipped to respond than I am, but I sort of suspect that you're not going to care what random article writers have to say. It's so frustratingly difficult to convince people that objectification is a problem. And here's why:

It has a lot to do with the sheer prevalence of this issue. Not any single individual case, aspect, or fact can convince anyone that it's a problem worth dealing with. The scale is huge. It's very intangible. It's something that permeates society. Cultures are complicated. I can't just prove it to you in five minutes. But if I tell you to take it in good faith that women have lived it and they're not just making things up, then you probably won't believe me. And if you approach it with a mindset like, "well, I never see it, and nobody I know is like that, so these people are clearly exaggerating," then you just won't get it. You can't. And if you dismiss the people who are contributing to the problem as "some random idiots, who cares about them" or assume that these types of people are not prevalent, then you just won't get it.

Unless you're willing to commit yourself to doing a lot of research, then you're not going to understand what you're talking about. And if you really think your arbitrary opinion is better than that of people who spend a lot of time reading about this stuff, then I don't know what else to tell you

[MoneyMan]

Well maybe your right. Provide examples outside entertainment where our society says it's okay to objectify women.

I know there's dick heads who treat women like trash. But no one says what those guys do is okay. Right?

The way I see it, just because we know violence is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being violent. And just because we know sexism is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being sexist.

But that is where we unfortunately disagree. I wish we could all agree.

I fucking hate to pull the "check your privilege" card but... here it goes.

You simply don't understand how it is to be a women, because you're a man. You'll never have to deal with the sort of things they do because you aren't them.

Why do you thing that the biggest way a lot of advertisers sell things is by slapping a pair of tits on it? Or why do you think it's not all that uncommon for a woman just walking down the street to be catcalled and ogled? It sure as hell isn't because they care about the person as a human, that's for sure. I could go on and on, about how women are able to be called things like "hot pieces of ass" and not an eyebrow would be raised. It's such a pervasive part of society that it's hard to convince people who don't see the problem that it's actually a problem.

And why do you think that the people actually raising a stink about it isn't the majority? Because society for the most part doesn't fucking care that these things go on. "It's just part of life." "It's not that big a deal." "What's the problem?" By being indifferent, people are essentially cosigning this behavior into the big list of "acceptable things to do."

I'm not gonna blame them. They just don't know better. But things aren't gonna get better until people actually fucking start correcting the people who are acting in damaging ways. Things won't get better if we just act indifferent to the injustices going on around us.

[Devicho]

Well maybe your right. Provide examples outside entertainment where our society says it's okay to objectify women.

I know there's dick heads who treat women like trash. But no one says what those guys do is okay. Right?

The way I see it, just because we know violence is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being violent. And just because we know sexism is wrong doesn't stop bad people from being sexist.

But that is where we unfortunately disagree. I wish we could all agree.

If you count advertising as an inherent form of entertainment feel free to disregard this, but if you don't count advertising as entertainment: the whole idea behind "sex sells". It's far rarer to see ads featuring sexually suggestive men than it is to see sexually suggestive women, and pretty much the only times I can think of where the men are objectified in such a way are when something is being advertised with a strictly female audience in mind.

As far as whether or not society approves of objectifying women, well, it's both very ingrained AND dependent on the wording what answer you get. It's somewhat related, so I'll give this example (And upon request will dig up to original links): there was a study some time back where either college or high school level students were polled, and what they were polled on is what situations it's okay for a man to rape a woman. Now, rape is a bad thing, and I think that's something we can all agree on. However, the wording used "make a woman have sex with him", and never actually used the word rape. So when you started getting to questions like "Is it okay for a man to make a woman have sex with him if he's spent a lot of money on her?", well, a shocking amount of men AND even women responded with a "yes". It's honestly quite frightening and if you ask me actually ties in quite a bit with objectification, since the people responding positively in this scenario pretty much are viewing the hypothetical woman as something a person can exploit for sex at their leisure without thinking of her comfort or even consent.

[Koopaul]

I don't think we can continue any further. We're starting to dive into human sexuality, which research for is very divided. If I was to share my research finding you'd share your's and we'd have a war on who's research is more true.

Know this, I am glad things didn't escalate into anything. But I'm worried once we tread into this territory it will. So with that I think all that has been said was well recieved. I'll ask a mod what they should do about this topic, if should be locked or not. Thank you.

[MoneyMan]

Koopaul, stop trying to shut down discussion. These are conversations that need to happen, and by trying to stop them you're essentially saying that you don't care about the topics.

[StarSock64]

All I have to say is "there's research that hot girls make straight guys horny!" doesn't make objectification okay so there's no reason to talk about that kind of research in the first place

[Zac]

I don't believe that it's the responsibility of you people that like objectified representation of women to stop enjoying what you like for the sake of other people who are ultimately responsible for their own emotions, and right and wrong are so objective in this case that I could see people believing both sides

but I hope that seeing the strong and varied responses of people in this thread compels some of you guys to at least sympathize with people that feel effected by this issue
even if you don't believe its the job of the media to change and make people feel better, you can still want it too and work towards making it more inclusive
that doesn't necessarily mean changing your beliefs on the subjects of censorship or empirical data either, it just means you have to have a general desire for progress in the mediums of story telling you enjoy

I also think that most of you guys will find that it really is in your best interest to look critically for the problems in the current status of female reps in games (and possibly anything for that matter), rather than dwelling in the "maybe it's okay". We can look at this situation as a challenge to make new and innovative characters that lack any sort of gender stigma, and maybe fail due to an inherent and unchangeable bias in men or maybe raise the stranded for what we expect in media.

(oh also, I personally play games with good characters, unlike you dummies, so this issue doesn't even concern me to much)

[Sketchasaurus]

Characterization in general is a tough thing for many people to master, it requires someone to step out of their own personal experiences in order to create someone from scratch. Unfortunately, for a lot of content creators, they either lack the amount of skill, dedication, or budget to fully explore and develop what is, in-essence, supposed to be a living, breathing personality. Although it's not entirely necessary to catalogue every single event in a character's life, or even diagnose them with a particular set of personality traits or mental issues, I feel it's important to be able to see your characters as though they were a real human being.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing "doesn't sell" in the eyes of money-oriented people, and a lot of writers usually aren't paid to delve too deeply into character-development, especially in video games.


One thing that I think that the latest Tomb Raider did that was really well-done was they gave Lara fears and doubts. Now, none of this was explicitly said in narration or dialogue, we are shown based on her actions and reactions to the events unfolding around her. I feel that the most effective thing that can happen with characterization is when you forget that the person on the screen isn't real. You legitimately empathize with them and don't want to see them suffer, but sometimes, even when you're holding the controller, you can't control everything, you and the character have to fight through the opposition. One reason why I found the death scenes in TR so horrific was because I was so immersed in the experience, seeing another human being die like that was hard to handle, it was instinctual for me to be borderline traumatized after seeing someone maimed. There's a lot of empathy that simply isn't incorporated into a game because it's almost disadvantageous to the gameplay, or even story, to include it.

Unfortunately, there's the problem of shallow attachments that I've seen people form towards, quite frankly, poorly written characters. A lot of people often like to gloss over the fact that their woobie is basically a reskin of a tired cliché. They just form their connection because they "think the character's hot" (which I find kind of weird and off-putting because usually it's a 2D character that would look VERY freaky if that's how they looked in reality) I mean, although I do find the new Lara to be physically attractive, I was more concerned for her safety than "oh, she's hot, I would totally do her, hurr hurr hurr" I wanted to see her survive, and I guess in a sense, I'm proud that she did in the events of the game. I have respect for Lara, not in a "oh, she's a strong, independant woman who don't need no man" kind of way, but in a sort of "Despite daunting odds and tragic events, she still pushes on to survive" kind of way; She shows that it's important to have the will to continue even in the face of pessimism.

Despite spending a bunch of time playing the game, I still don't feel like I personally "know" Lara, but I feel like I've grown to respect her. I know that she's purely fictitious, but the fact that they focused on her characterization as a believable human being is a HUGE reason why I love that game.

[Goemar]

Okay I'm coming into this hella late but well... whatever,

Afterall we can all agree murder is wrong. What kind of sicko would find killing people fun!? But it isn't real. It's a fantasy. We have the right to enjoy shooting someone in the back of the head if it's just a fantasy. That is the prime motive of video games, to fulfill fantasies. These are the very fantasies of artists and creators who wish to share it with the world... and profit from it.

In that case games about rape should be fine. And well, I don't know - I'm not so comfortable about games about rape. And I'm not even talking about the infamous Rapeplay 3 (or whatever is was called) which was more of a "I don't really want to have sex with you, oh my god you touched my boob, take me now master!" - kind of game (new genre, go with it).

I mean yeah that's pretty sexist but well, that's kind of the point of the game. It's hard to de-credit a game which seeks none in the first place. My point is even "Just Fantasy" has to have a line somewhere. A game about raping children for example should never ever be allowed regardless of the creator's "right to create"

As for fighting games, they kind of go hand in hand with jiggly breasts. Hell DarkStalkers had a lot of flesh on show - it's just one of those things. The Japanese like boobs and female/male equality isn't so hot over there. To change that would be change a whole culture and that sounds like a whole other shibang of an issue.

But back to Darkstalkers - for that game it made sense. Felicia is a Cat person and thus - naked except fur. And Morrigan is a succubus so having her chest spilling out makes sense. I'm not saying that that's 100% morally ok. But it makes sense.

Back in the Soulcalibur 2 days Ivy caused my mother to raise an eyebrow and mutter stuff like "You can see teen boys are their audience" but I don't see Ivy's design as sexist. Yes, again, it's not morally right but (as Kriven has said) characters made specifically for 'fan-service' aren't really the issue. But at the same time Soulcalibur 4's Ivy is in the realms of 'I'm not comfortable having this on my TV' - there has to be a line where it's not so extreme to make you uncomfortable.

Talking about uncomfortable: the Witch from Dragon's Crown her design is just ridiculous. Now I'm not going to lie and say during Soulcalibur 2 I never watched Taki's breasts bounce - I'm a man, we like breasts - it's just one of those things. But Dragon's Crown is just stupid, it's embarrassing to have someone see you play if you have a Witch in your team.

I think that's all I have to say on the physical appearance of women in games.

Personally I'm not sure how important the fight against exposed flesh is. I'm not saying it's not lazy/bad of artist etc but I don't know if games of that nature (fighting games etc) are the issue. A lot of men in those are also topless for no good reason as well.

I mean look at Super Mario 3D World. The only playable female character (at the start) is a princess (so yes, it makes sense for her to polite and princess-y etc) but just listen to her. It's so awful. Every time my brother's wife comes round someone ends up being Peach, simply because no one wants to be her because it's so crinchy. Ok so if she is this 'useless' princess character - why is she even out on this adventure? Makes no sense.

I don't know why Tomb Raider gets so much flack. Lara was a good character (regardless of her sex). Yet the Mario games are basically 'Useless woman, Awesome men' and no one bats an eyelid. Yes they are kids games but when do you think people are most likely to learn?

I think something in all that made sense.