Solving sexism in games: Fat/ugly human female characters

[Valkyrie-Favor]

The "giant testicles" thing is a false equivalence, since it wouldn't be a woman's ideal version of a man.

QFT. This part of the discussion is pointless, but I already typed the rest of this. The tangents are way more fun than the OP anyway!

Back to the "giant testicles" thing, despite what I already said, it isn't a completely absurd comparison. It brought to my mind the traditional cape and underwear super heroes who tend to exist in universes full of very large breasts and apparently very tiny penises. There's no other explanation for those tights. I always thought that was funny.

I thought I was the only one! I vividly remember watching Superman on Saturday morning with my dad. I was eight years old when I asked, "Does Superman not have a penis because he's an alien?"

More to the point though, does this mean all sexualized depictions of women are bad? I feel like there are positive examples. I certainly don't want to live in a repressed world that's afraid to be a little unrealistically sexy once in a while.

I agree here too. Personally, I always felt it was inauthentic and lame to get excited by a TV show, but I'd rather be the hypocrite I am than live in a world where everyone hates their own sex drive.

To that point I wonder how Japan views issues like this since there's fan-service galore for both genders in their popular media. I know that these days a lot of young Japanese men are very concerned about maintaining their looks and adhering to a standard of beauty. Things that western feminists often complain about. It's an interesting phenomenon I think.

As a guy with long hair, I understand the pressure to look a certain way. Might have to give in just to get a job. I don't think that either gender should be required to look anything more than decent. All that work for absolutely nothing! Even ten minutes of preparation every morning really adds up. It's totally cool if you want to spend your time like that, but you shouldn't feel obligated to.

I wouldn't mind a deal with a specific person of the other gender though. If I cut my hair, she has to grow hers out to her waist. All right.

Gigantic pecks aren't as sexually taboo as breasts are. Both balls and tits are covered up, while bare-chested men has long been the norm.

Maybe we should think of it this way.
Or maybe not.

I just wanted to point out that we're not dealing with a huge double standard here.

Enlarged/exposed male genitals wouldn't be "fair compensation" for the exaggerated women we see all the time. Enlarged/exposed female genitals would be. More exaggeration doesn't make this fair, since men don't have an equivalent for breasts. I feel stupid just saying that.

Honestly though I see no problem with breasts being used as a sign of femininity.

Thank you.

[pierrot]

This thread was really looking up for a couple pages--.

*Deep breaths*

Okay. I intensely dislike repeating myself, but a couple things from my post seem like they're being conveniently overlooked.

That's kind of nice that they seem to have at least realized pandering to the male libido is passe. Although I can in some small way understand the impetus behind accentuating certain features of a gender to highlight their character, in the context of LoL's scale and camera, what's to say the male characters shouldn't have huge, pendulous testicles, and giant, protruding codpieces. I think one of the arguments was also that there wasn't necessarily a reason that the official designs of the characters needed to follow suit with the ingame character models.

I'm not sure what's up with the focus on balls, guys. The point is that it's very male centric to say that the player needs to be given the cue of "this is a female character" to make the distinction rather than, "this is a male character." I didn't say anything needed to be changed. The suggestion is, 'Hey, next time, maybe--y'know--don't draw the breasts so big, and make the women walk around in their underwear, all the time.'

I certainly don't want to live in a repressed world that's afraid to be a little unrealistically sexy once in a while.

Emboldened for emphasis.

[Forlorn Drifter]

So, my whole issue with this thread, and similar things I read on the internet...

Why the hell do we decide that making a character unappealing in a sexual manner as a good solution? Its a shit one. I'm playing a videogame, I want to be in a fantasy world where all the women are beautiful, all the men have six pack abs, and nobody ever grows old. If you want to fix the sexism, it will come down to making well made female characters, non-mysogynistc male characters *cough* Duke Nukem *cough*, and having them dress properly, on both sides of the fence.

If the women are going to dress like Red Sonja, the men should dress like Conan. Or He-Man. Or something like that.

[AppleQueso]

An artist can easily distinguish between genders on that scale/angle by simply accentuating masculine build features such as broad shoulders. Sex organs don't even have to enter into it. It doesn't look anywhere near as absurd for one.

This honestly isn't that hard.

[JayJaySut]

One thing I think that gets left out is using stereotypes effectively. If you want to get sexism out of games then you would just need better writers and designers, stereotypes and tropes are usually just the result of lazy writing/design. If you want to get sexism out of games you just need writers/designers who will try to create more realistic characters, not ideals. However I think in some cases stereotyping works well take a look at Street Fighter for example all the characters have straightforward and/or exaggerated features and personalities but it works with in the context of the game because as soon as you pick up that character you can instantly assume that role. Street Fighter is meant to be exaggerated and when you see a scantily clad female character it doesn't feel out of place amongst the ridiculously ripped male characters (except Rufus). I mean honestly you expect me to believe that the yoga guy from a small Indian village has THOSE ABS!?

It just works with in that context. If you're trying to be serious and are full of stupid sexist stereotypes it's just poor design. But SF is meant to be over the top and exaggerated and that comes across pretty clearly so I don't think it would really have much of a negative effect.

[Gunstar Green]

I'm not sure what's up with the focus on balls, guys. The point is that it's very male centric to say that the player needs to be given the cue of "this is a female character" to make the distinction rather than, "this is a male character." I didn't say anything needed to be changed. The suggestion is, 'Hey, next time, maybe--y'know--don't draw the breasts so big, and make the women walk around in their underwear, all the time.'

You didn't need to reiterate. I wasn't necessarily arguing with you I was just adding my own musings. I'm really enjoying the conversation I feel like Racketboy is one of the few gaming communities where you can have this conversation without it turning to immature mudslinging.

One thing I think that gets left out is using stereotypes effectively. If you want to get sexism out of games then you would just need better writers and designers, stereotypes and tropes are usually just the result of lazy writing/design. If you want to get sexism out of games you just need writers/designers who will try to create more realistic characters, not ideals. However I think in some cases stereotyping works well take a look at Street Fighter for example all the characters have straightforward and/or exaggerated features and personalities but it works with in the context of the game because as soon as you pick up that character you can instantly assume that role. Street Fighter is meant to be exaggerated and when you see a scantily clad female character it doesn't feel out of place amongst the ridiculously ripped male characters (except Rufus). I mean honestly you expect me to believe that the yoga guy from a small Indian village has THOSE ABS!?

It just works with in that context. If you're trying to be serious and are full of stupid sexist stereotypes it's just poor design. But SF is meant to be over the top and exaggerated and that comes across pretty clearly so I don't think it would really have much of a negative effect.

An argument I hear sometimes is that the really ripped men don't count because they're in the game to appease men as well, that it's all part of the male power trip. I could go on about that but I'd rather hear some thoughts from some of you first.

Since you brought up Street Fighter I have to say it deserves a bit of extra credit since a lot of the women are rather muscular. They're still designed to be attractive (as they should be) but for the most part they're fairly ripped themselves and you actually believe they could be fighting these behemoth guys.

[Jmustang1968]

What about the sexualized women that please women as well. Did you read a few pages back about my wifes thoughts on the matter? It mightve been lost in the censoring semantics debate.

[AppleQueso]

An argument I hear sometimes is that the really ripped men don't count because they're in the game to appease men as well, that it's all part of the male power trip. I could go on about that but I'd rather hear some thoughts from some of you first.

Well a male character designed to appeal to women generally is going to look different than one there to appease men.

Think of a character design like Vaan from Final Fantasy XII. He was literally inserted into the game as the protagonist solely to appeal to women. I imagine if all male characters looked like him, men wouldn't be too terribly pleased.

What about the sexualized women that please women as well. Did you read a few pages back about my wifes thoughts on the matter? It mightve been lost in the censoring semantics debate.

I dunno, like I said before, the bigger issue is the ratio of female characters designed to play up a sexual fantasy vs female characters who aren't. It's not so much that scantily dressed women exist in games at all, it's that they're pretty much the default female character archetype.

[GodofHardcore]

Wow, I leave for a few days and my thread has ballooned immensely. This is in contrast to Digital Press/Retrogaming Forums. Before I posted my thread here, I posted my thread there. After about 10 replies, the thread was closed. I guess that explains why racketboy forums is more active, popular and better than Digital Press Retrogaming forums.

On topic, in my original post I asked readers to post examples of fat/ugly/old women in video games. Apart from a few examples from old PC games, minor sub-characters (fat policewoman pig from Dead Rising) and non-human females, there weren't many good examples at all. I think this is a good indication of my original assertion: fat, ugly and/or old women are under-represented in video games. Not only that but fat, ugly and/or old MEN are more represented than fat/ugly/old women (see Old Snake from MGS4, Rufus from Street Fighter 4, the cast of Gears of War etc).

As for the poll results, all 3 options are neck to neck. Some people think there should be more fat/ugly/old women in video games. Some people don't. Some people are undecided. If you answered the poll, why did you choose that option?

Finally another question: if women and/or feminists want more of the games that they want (less sexism, sexualization etc), why don't they make those games and show their support by buying them? Nobody is stopping any woman from making a video game (ignoring financial concerns).

Thread over

10 pages later... Apparently not!

Forgot to add, it is the attitude/personality of the girls in games that makes them attractive. Strong females can be very attractive, or to some weak females attract them. It is all in what you perceive.

I disagree or I disagree partly. It is not an either/or. Sometimes it is the personality of girls that makes them attractive. Sometimes it is their looks. Beauty is subjective (for the most part).

Well a huge portion of games come from Japan and feminism is a lot less stronger there than it is in North America and North Europe (although it still is far from the Islamic world). And on top of that there's the whole culture of cute/moe thing, with game developers designing their characters for the largest, most important consumer group, otakus.

I think you gave me an idea for a new thread: I think it would be an interesting thing to compare Japanese and Western designs of females. At the very least, one observation that can be made is that female video game characters drawn by Japan tend to be slim with a feminine-looking face and with appropriate size breasts (big, small or flat). American female video game characters however tend to lean towards very curvy bodies (wide hips, above-average sized breasts). American character designers in contrast have trouble creating a feminine-looking face (many have man-faces). Furthermore, they only know 2 breast sizes: big or bigger. It seems that small perky breasts don't exist in their world. Which also leads to another subject: American character designers have trouble creating convincing teenager and younger female characters and differentiating it from male teenagers.

I'm not sure if this was directed toward me, but my posts haven't been in response to the OP. His posts are fairly clearly bating people into a presumption that games would be somehow boring, or insufficient as entertainment if they took women's grievances into account during the design phase.

That's not my argument at all. All I did was point out how I noticed many of the females in video games were designed to be attractive (99% slim body with nice youthful face and nice tits) and then I subsequently offered the suggestion: what if there were more old women, ugly women and fat women taking the main role or major role in video games?

tl;dr - Stop thinking of the issue as parties of victims and villains. Start considering how over-sexualized representations of genders can be harmful (yes, even to men) and a barrier to entry for certain people. This is not limited solely to video games, but in the context of this website, yeah, it kinda is.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do: by inserting more fat/ugly/old female characters into video games, I am de-sexualizing the representations of genders. Of course, chubby-chasers/the desperates/granny-lovers are immune from my proposed policy but they're in the minority. The majority want young, supple women with nice tits. I am decreasing them in favor of fat/ugly/old women. Is that not a positive step?

Of all the shit you're all talking about, how has no one pointed out the majorly flawed thinking it requires to base a characters physical appearance off of the hentai that fans drew of them?

You have the logic completely reversed: hentai drawers base THEIR character designs off of the official safe-work female character designs. How do hentai drawers decide which females to draw dirty pictures of? By choosing who they think is attractive in video games. With regards to the thread subject, the only points I was making was:

1. the number of hentai drawings of a particular female character is an indication of her attractiveness. in this case, the original character designer was successful in drawing a female video game character that resonates with the mind and penis of gamers.
2. by inserting more fat/ugly/old female characters into video games, this solves the sexualization problem: nobody, not the gamers and not the hentai drawers will sexualize them.

One more thing: the person I was replying to in the first place made the claim that Chie from Persona 4 isn't attractive because she is a tomboy or has no tits or whatever, I don't remember. I pointed out that since there are lots of Chie hentai, this proves the opposite: many do see her as attractive enough to demand hentai pictures of. If she wasn't attractive in some way to some people, there wouldn't be hentai of her. Heck, she wouldn't be in a video game in the first place (because video games sexualize women, according to feminists).

Solving sexism in games: will not get done by changing a character's appearance - as this just perpetuates the problem. The problem with sexism is the unequal power of the gender or sex in question.

I see this a lot in this thread already: "sexism can not be simply solved by this"

Well then what are the solutions? Why should there not be ugly/fat/old women taking major roles in video games as my thread suggests? God knows there are plenty of attractive ones.

It's the prevalence of those sorts of tropes that's the issue. It's the fact that there is a disproportionate number of them in comparison to more positive examples. It's why we generally don't make a big deal about tropes that paint men in a bad light, such as the "doofus sitcom husband." You don't have to look anywhere at all to find other good examples of positive portrayals of men, because they're everywhere.

By contrast, when a genuinely good and positive portrayal of a woman shows up in video games, it's kind of a big deal because they're so comparatively rare. It shouldn't be.

I hate to repeat myself but as I have hopefully proved, ugly/fat/old women taking central roles in video games are comparatively rare, compared to young attractive females and even ugly/fat/old men. I'm not saying more ugly/fat/old women in video games will solve sexism. But it is a step in the right direction.

I'm not even sure the industry itself knows what is and isn't "marketable" these days.

Sex sells and it always has. It is why 99% of women in video games are young and attractive, not ugly, fat or old. We need more ugly, fat and old women in video games. It might not be marketable but at least it is social justice.

I can think of some attractive women that have strong roles in games that arn't just fapping fodder.

Like Alyx Vance from HL2, or Lara Croft (ok she's really hot and lots of guys fap to her but she's still a strong woman and when I was a young girl she was a role model to me), Samus and even Jill Valentine...sort of.

This is the problem with attractive women in video games: they will be fapped to. No exceptions. Sure, Lara Croft and Samus are strong independent woman and they should be respected as such. BUT, they're also attractive so male gamers will fap to them and hentai will be drawn of them (especially Samus).

If you (or feminists) have no problem with male gamers masturbating to attractive female video game characters with good personalities, then that's great.

But if you do have problems with that, then the only solution is promoting strong female video game characters who are also ugly, fat or old. That way, nobody will masturbate to them.

Mileena in Mortal Kombat with some serious dental issue.

Facially speaking, yes Mileena is ugly so this is the best example so far of an ugly major female character. Unfortunately, her body is typical: scantily clad and well toned body and pretty big tits. Then again, if Mileena kept her mouth shut and teeth hidden, then she's just another male sex fantasy.

Come on people? Where are those very ugly females? Old ones? Obese ones?

I'm really enjoying the conversation I feel like Racketboy is one of the few gaming communities where you can have this conversation without it turning to immature mudslinging.

At the very least, better than Digital Press Retrogaming forums where my thread was locked.

[AppleQueso]

Aw shit and here the thread was starting to go somewhere

I think you gave me an idea for a new thread.

Please don't.