Off-Topic Discussion > Gaming Discussion

Female characters done both wrong and right.

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Iain Baker:

--- Quote from: Assassin714 on January 08, 2019, 01:08:02 pm ---That reminds me, has anyone drawn fanart of what Noemi Laporte actually looks like?

For some reason, I imagine her as African/Asian.

--- End quote ---

Going by the short stories linked below, she is originally from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and is described as being dark skinned. So yeah, pretty sure she is African.


Morrigan in the Sunglare
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/dickinson_03_14/

Morrigan in Shadow
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/dickinson_12_15/

Nightmare:

--- Quote from: Assassin714 on January 08, 2019, 01:08:02 pm ---That reminds me, has anyone drawn fanart of what Noemi Laporte actually looks like?

--- End quote ---

Yes, but that was never "official" as it never was confirmed BP-canon by the team, never became part of the mod and later went missing. This includes several other characters as well.

Spoon:

--- Quote from: DefCynodont119 on January 08, 2019, 02:08:59 pm ---Gosh those comments. . .  :ick:  It's almost like none of them read it beyond the title. . .  Can't say I expected more tho.
--- End quote ---

I agree with the comments, personally. These kind of articles are always objectively terrible and never add anything of actual value. "Oh no, sexy and/or scanditly clad female characters! How terrible! Just look at how awful these all are! How exploitative". Ayyy, okay. I couldn't make it half way past this article without rolling my eyes.

Sorry Iain, I'm just going to be super blunt with you here. If this is the kind of content that you want to write about, I sure as heck hope you aren't going to get paid for it. The internet has too many of these kind of ****ty, valueless articles decrying the evils of sexy female characters in games already. We don't need more of this kind of low level garbage.

Seriously. Let's take this absolutely dreadful golden axe example that you provided:

--- Quote ---Bikinis are not sensible attire, however, for fighting sword-wielding skeletons, (or the fire-breathing dragons!), in a war zone straight out of Conan the Barbarian. Unfortunately, no one told Golden Axe’s Tyris Flare this.
--- End quote ---
1. It's a stylistic art choice, you dingus. Basically every character in Golden Axe wears barely any armor, aside from some helmets and shoulder pads. Most of the male characters are bare chested to show off their amazing abs and muscles. The Conan the barbarian comparison isn't all that far off.
Which brings me to 2. What's this dumb double standard you're going with here? You mention how Tyris wears a bikini, but then just casually neglect to mention the MASS OF ****ING MUSCLES that is Gilius who is center stage of the picture, wearing nothing but a speedo?
3. I played the hell out of Golden Axe as a kid. I grew up just fine.
4. There is nothing wrong with the stylistic choice of Golden Axe. Heck, there is nothing wrong with any of the examples you provided. You can like or dislike them, but there's nothing wrong with them.
5. Games are amazing in that they can choose to be not realistic. If every character in any game ever, wore nothing but historically accurate armor, **** would get stale quick. It would be uncreative as all heck.


--- Quote ---I am no prude.
--- End quote ---
Suuuure. But here you go, writing a low effort article decrying how there are female game characters who show off skin.


--- Quote ---Is this really what we want?
--- End quote ---
Yes. Yes I do.
I can't speak for everyone, neither can you, but there are plenty of people out there, who are not in mortal distress about female characters wearing silly outfits in video games.
Imagine being so bothered by this that you go out of your way to write an article about it. Kind of sad imo.


--- Quote ---I don’t want my youngest daughter seeing Cammy’s camel toe,
--- End quote ---

Why? What's the worse that can happen? Is she going to suffer mental trauma? Will she die? Will she turn into a delinquent or a hooker when she grows up because she saw Cammy's camel toe as a kid?


--- Quote ---or dressing up as her for Halloween. Indeed, my youngest has been an outspoken critic of such portrayals. If an eight-year-old girl can see this is a problem, then perhaps we should take note.
--- End quote ---
Oh nooooo, why won't anyone think of the chiiiilllddreeeeen???
Did you just unironically make this argument?
Yeah wow, I sure hold the opinion of a 8 year old boy in high regard! He sure knows a lot about the world! He sure knows a lot about woman and about the portrayal of women in games! I bet he's not going to change his opinion about any of this when he hits puberty!
We should all just take a moment and ask the nearest 8 year old about what they think about games that are outside of their age catagory and then base our opinions off of this.  :lol:

I was going to point out that he's 5 years too young for the Teen ESRB rating that street fighter has but then you proceed to write this gem:

--- Quote ---At least the aforementioned games are aimed at a teenage-to-adult audience, so it could be argued that children would not see these portrayals. This is complete BS, of course, since kids see all sorts of things that are not ‘age appropriate’, even if their parents make every effort to prevent this.
--- End quote ---
Haha oh heck off.
"There can be no adult content because kids may see it" Again, did you just seriously make this 'argument?'
Seriously? For real? How is anyone going to take your seriously?

I could spend several hours picking apart all the things that are just wrong about this article. But it would be a waste of my time, because there's already ton of these utterly basic and unimaginative articles already out there. Good grief. Please. Just stop writing this kind of trash.

Det. Bullock:
@Spoon: There is a difference between being a prude and kind of raising an eyebrow at the fact that female characters in games have to often be a piece of ass first and a character second.

Miranda Lawson in particular was something that really made me go "Really, Bioware"? It didn't help that after some really well written and heartfelt dialogues you had the dialogue wheel drawing attention to her arse. And Mass Effect 2 is basically a gigantic fanservice pack for the entire setting, you get from a hardcore sci fi setting with everyone wearing head to toe tactical gear or spacesuits in combat to people wearing skintight or skimpy clothing and no more of a fricking breathing mask in an alien environment with no breathable air.

PS: Cammy's design also really perplexed me to no end, especially the perpetual wedgie. And some at Capcom probably got the point since she made a cameo in another game series with a very similar attire only wearing military shorts over the leotard. A pity because I actually like her story, her moveset, her original stage and most of all her theme song.

Regarding Mika, she's kind of meant to be a flamboyant wrestler so while a bit of a stretch her outfit is not too out of place.

PPS: there is also the issue that a naked man is very rarely framed in the same way as a naked woman is and games, probably because they still think their audience is essentially horny male teenagers, are hit really bad by it, they aren't sexualized because sure as hell they aren't subjected to continous crotch and ass shots. There are exceptions of course but they are really few and far between while with women you could just throw a dart while blindolded and hit an example of weirdly out of place sexualization. Sometimes it's like games are perpetually stuck in the 90s era of comic books in that regard.

Thaeris:
ROFL

People can and most certainly should voice their opinions. Furthermore, these opinions ultimately do seep into the market environment (for better or worse) - television is both a good and bad example of this, as are games. Opinions matter more when there's little-to-no market choice, but that's no longer an issue in the market. That's the first point.

Concerning parents... parents need to understand that media is made by adults. Sometimes childish adults, but adults nevertheless. Unless Fred Rogers is making your children's games, you have every reason to wonder about the contents of those games. Seeing as market choice is no longer an issue in choosing game media, you need to do your job and make sure that what you put in front of your children is something you feel is suitable for their consumption. Because, like, it's your job. That's the second point.

Concerning exploitation, it's always debatable, but refer back to the first point. All of your "bad" examples sold well because they were "bad." If you don't want that content these days, buy something else. People like smut, perhaps to their detriment, but that fact is unlikely to change. However, the examples you give in your article are probably not as exploitative as you suggest - all of those ladies (don't know about the cartoon character) are tough, and will beat you to a pulp or blow you to bits in the games they are from. They are fantasy characters from fantasy games, and their personalities seem to fit. The settings they inhabit are often profane or lude, and then filled with violence. If you want a simulation of realism, you should have never played those examples in the first place. That's the first part of my third point.

Concerning realism when it comes to exploitation, I'll throw my direct opinion on the matter in the ring now: realistic games are unlikely to have girls, let alone pretty girls, in the thick of it. Historically this is an anomaly when it happens - the reasons are simple regardless of who chooses to get offended: most ladies are not hard-wired for that sort of thing, they're not as well adapted for it as their male counterparts, and it's not a good choice when it comes to continuing the species. Therefore, unless your lady character is flying around in an aircraft, behind a rifle from cover (Soviet snipers are a good example), or well protected with something like a tank, front line combat is a bad idea. In actual conversation, soldiers I've known have scorned the notion of ladies in front-line action. Because we're men, we are in general hard-wired to want to protect the ladies - if something were to happen to them, we tend to abandon what we're doing to help. If it's a life and death situation, that psychology could result in a lot more people getting killed than in a situation with all men. [There's also a really dark side you could bring up about the side fighting against the female combatants, but I won't go there.] So, unless you've got a game centered around say, partisans fighting occupation, I'm going to argue that putting ladies in a realistic portrayal of direct combat is it's own flavor of exploitation, because it's kind of an affront to history and human nature, possibly even human survival. It might be viable in some settings, but not many. That said, if you want more realism, be prepared to have less interesting female characters in games involving combat... and it seems that most games involve combat. The point continues!

Personality is possibly a point of exploitation, but I'm not sure any of those games you highlight demonstrate this really well... BUT, perhaps there is an example: I've not played Tomb Raider in any guise, so the taste of feet might find me for this comment - but, didn't Laura Croft start out as a tough gun-slinging archaeologist regardless of her sexualized design? Didn't she then eventually become somewhat... abused?.. by the last trailer for a Tomb Raider game I recall seeing? If that perception is accurate, how is that good for a character who must be an action star? You're possibly taking a character who has been made unfit for combat, and might not even want to be there... and then you put them in that exact situation? There's certainly room for stories like that, but in its own way, is it any better than what you rail against? At least the characters in the fighting games seemed like they belonged there, because clearly getting into brawls was their thing. They have personas, no matter how shallow, that warrant them being where they're at. I'm thus going to conclude that putting a character where they don't belong or should not belong is both dumb and exploitative, and you didn't touch on that at all when it comes to women in games. Fantasy games have fantasy women for a reason: Take away the fantasy and it's either unrealistic or abusive. That's my third point in total.

So, to wrap this thing up, if the best you can do is complain about a lack of clothing on women in fighting games, you've not done much to advance your cause. Lude fantasy will always be there, but I think trying to make things more realistic in your choice of games is actually worse in this case, because it opens up the women for some actually horrific abuse that no decent person would want to see. If you need fantasy with more conservatively dressed women, I must imagine that it's out there somewhere.

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