@Nicked said:
@jmic75 said:
The statue is a dumb juvenile object but on it's own, it is not sexist, it is not chauvinistic, it does not promote violence against women. It should not be banned, it'll flop on it's own. I take no issue with articles like this showing up on Giantbomb, but really the most sexist things about this whole thing was Patrick saying that the torso crossed a line because it was a woman (implying there is a difference between the genders when it comes down to the appropriateness of dismembered torsos) and then only getting the opinions of women in the industry. Stuff like this affects men as well as women. I would however like to get opinions from people in the games industry proper, rather than from games writers who will tend to lean towards the more sensationalistic responses and who will cover these subjects on their own sites anyway.
True enough, but surely the statue is in some ways metonymic of the way women are represented by the industry, right? Female characters are overwhelmingly sex objects. Like if you consider a character like Samus who is at first glance decidedly non-sexualized, she ultimately must be made into sex object because she wears latex under her robot-suit-thing. One has to wonder what Master Chief's got on under his own armor... Why don't we ever see him in his skivvies? Point is, there's double standards and sexual exploitation abound in the industry and I think the statue, while being a "dumb juvenile object" is a cold reminder of the way women are near-exclusively represented throughout various media. I'm not saying it's "bad" to like tits or anything, but that we should just be mindful of how we represent gender, race, and so on: A pretty benign point.
Also, I don't think it's reasonable to criticize Patrick for only interviewing women. Giant Bomb almost NEVER has women on podcasts, quick looks, or as the focus of articles. All the editors are male. If you wanted to continue that line of argument what you might suggest is that Giant Bomb interview women in the industry about stuff other than "sexism".
I'd agree that it is the typical way that the industry has traditionally displayed women once they moved out of simply being a collection of pixels. Though I do think the industry as a whole has taken strides towards more realistic depictions of females in games where it makes sense (Beyond good and evil, mirror's edge, the tomb raider reboot, etc), of course there is still work to be done. I say where it makes sense because not all games strive for realistic depiction of characters, male or female. Think of it in terms of comic superheroes, none of them are depicted realistically, they are all idealized versions of both genders that look closer to greek gods and godesses than anyone in real life. Women's secondary sexual characteristics are accentuated obviously (larger bust, lips etc) however so are males (deep voices, large stature, extensive muscles, square jaws, broad shoulders and chest), these are things women look at in males when choosing a sexual partner same as how men look for them in women. So I think a fairer conclusion is that both male and female characters are sexualized, I don't however think they generally made into sex objects.
Saying someone is portrayed as a sex object would imply that they are shown as being solely or primarily used for sex. While Samus clearly is sexualized wearing a latex suit, at no point is she shown as only existing for sex; she is a skilled and capable bounty hunter that saves the federation on a number of occasions and not portrayed as a sex object. A counter point to this would be women in the God of War franchise, who rarely exist for any other reason other than for Kratos to have a sex minigame with them, in this case the women are both sexualized and are portrayed to be sex objects.
As to your question about Master Chief isn't he wielded in there or something? lol A serious answer though is to not compare male vs female characters from two different franchises, but rather from the same universe. If it is something dumb like males wear huge suits of armour while females wear tiny chainmail bikinis I'm right there with you, that makes no sense. Though if both Men and Women are wearing skimpy outfits, or neither are that's fine and consistent between the genders. If you compare male and female spartans in Halo you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two:
http://www.gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer-Blogs-Components-WeblogFiles-00-00-00-00-09/8306.HaloReach.jpg_2D00_610x0.jpg
I do think it's fair to criticize Patrick, because he specifically went out of his way to ONLY get women's input on the subject. Giantbomb may be lacking in Female editors but that wasn't an active decision (well one would hope it wasn't), it was how things shook out, they didn't decided to only get input from men, and only cater to men (as Femmegamer seems to have done for the opposite gender, but that's a whole other kettle of fish). Of course I would want Giant bomb to interview women on stuff other than "sexism", to not do so would be insulting to women, insinuating that "sexism" is the only thing they would be knowledgeable about in the games industry. Much in the same way it is insulting to not get some male perspective on the topic insinuating you are only interested on one gender's take on the subject or you believe only one gender will have important input. Of course I'm not going to hold any of this against the guy, but to call a statue sexist, and then turn around and only get one gender's opinion on the subject is kind of a gauche thing to do.
So in conclusion chainmail bikinis are dumb...unless guys are wearing them too, which no one should anyway because I bet they chafe.
I appreciate this post. Unfortunately you displayed genuine insight, so no one is going to comment on it.
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