Sexual Objectification of Women in Video Games

[The Imagination]

Lets talk about the sexual objectification of spiderman.

[The Nexerus]

^That bulge is of unrealistic size. I think it's time for a lynching.

idlehands said
That's why I said I KNOW IT WAS A REBOOT. I dislike taking an established, strong female character and changing her into a teary eyed kid.

So you wish they hadn't done a reboot, or you wish she had never grown into the character you like and had just always been that way?

[Salroka]

idlehands said
@Beta: Did you say Spider-Man Thread?

[idlehands]

Nex said So you wish they hadn't done a reboot, or you wish she had never grown into the character you like and had just always been that way?

I didn't need to see it. Do people really want to watch Snake in bootcamp?

@Beta, fuck off, plz, thnx

[Salroka]

idlehands said @Beta: Spider-Man Threads are old news, tho.

... silliness? This isn't silliness... THIS! IS! SPAM!

But yeah, bored with this now.

[The Nexerus]

idlehands said
I didn't need to see it. Do people really want to watch Snake in bootcamp?@Beta, fuck off, plz, thnx

That is a completely legitimate complaint. However, it's not something that you should be chastising the writers for, and certainly not anything to do with objectification. If anything they're legitimizing a strong female character by showing how she developed.

[idlehands]

Beta, I don't think you understand Spam. Don't let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you.

@Nex, my complaint is that the iconic Lara Croft, one of the very rare female characters who did not need a man to save her and in fact saved men on occasion, was changed by this reboot. Now, in the future, if she becomes the same character that has spanned a decade of kicking ass and taking artifacts, then it'll be an easier pill to swallow.

[Seravee]

Yeah, I've seen just as many buff men as tiny women. Rarely in my experience have I played a character that was incredibly old/overweight. That, I think, is just for playability. How am I supposed to run all over a map, or believe my character can actually fight a dragon if he's 350 pounds?

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I'm not bothered by that. I use video games as an escape. If I wanted to play as a conservatively dressed, slightly overweight young adult, I'd go out and do the whole real life thing.

And maybe I'm just not playing the right games, but I haven't seen too much of the sexual objectification. In the games I play, women and men have similar armor, so I don't see a girl with a sword and a g-string.

[idlehands]

@Sera, I don't think they need to make characters overweight or even average but the trend of giving female characters costumes more suited for swinging on a pole than swinging a sword is still pretty prevalent. I don't play console games anymore but what I've seen in MMOs says it's still a thing.

[The Nexerus]

idlehands said
@Sera, I don't think they need to make characters overweight or even average but the trend of giving female characters costumes more suited for swinging on a poll than swinging a sword is still pretty prevalent. I don't play console games anymore but what I've seen in MMOs says it's still a thing.

MMO's are the exception, not the rule.

[Salroka]

idlehands said
Beta, I don't think you understand Spam. Don't let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you.

Actually, from what I recall... Spam is Spam. If you didn't want inane silliness, this should have been put in say... the lounge or Off-Topic Discussion.

[idlehands]

No, Beta, you don't understand how it works here. We can have serious discussion, we can have humor, we can have them in the same thread. Those memes are just stupid, unfunny, and irrelevent to the topic.

[Seravee]

idlehands said
@Sera, I don't think they need to make characters overweight or even average but the trend of giving female characters costumes more suited for swinging on a poll than swinging a sword is still pretty prevalent. I don't play console games anymore but what I've seen in MMOs says it's still a thing.

See, I really haven't seen that yet. Though, again, I could just be playing the wrong games. But I haven't seen it in my MMOs... unless the character is actually a stripper. Which is a thing.

[ApocalypticaGM]

Lady Squee said
This coming Thursday, I am doing a speech on this topic. I was really struggle to decide on what I would do, and Jero gave me this topic and now I can't wait. So, for my speech, I am wanting some input. What do you think on this subject?

Do you think there is too much? What do you think can be done about it? Basically, any thoughts you may have about the sexual objectification of women in video games.

This is a topic I have sympathy for. Sympathy, because a part of my job last year was to stimulate student conversations about oppression and privilege, which some thinks equates simply to race, but in fact has no bounds. One thing I faced constantly was the reality that this is an educational experience. Let that sink in. You be educating to some that women are more apt to be sexualized temptresses, rewards, and helpless damsels than they are strong, confident, and courageous leaders in our media. There are people who will hear you talking about this and sum it up as a part of our culture as Americans. In other words, some will see this as a happy fact rather than an issue -- sadly, a number of this sum may well be women. So I have sympathy for this area, because you face a lot of stubbornness and difficulty just trying to convince some that this is a problem, let alone how we each can work to solve it.

I also want to point something out to everyone. I work in marketing for a college, so a bit different maybe, but one rule I hear all too often is to satisfy who you have and market to who you want. Something to consider though is that marketing is the draw. Most games spend less time about their main character, if they even show them, and depict gameplay, live-action videos, in-game trailers, and so on. The focus is more on the experience than "look, you're white and have a dick". So yes, marketing and what not should be considered, but what should also be considered is that gaming is a beast unlike film or others in that you can focus on the avatar (the playable character) or the gameplay, story, setting, features, and other possibilities. Besides all this, the fact is females involved in gaming are a growing population and that's no secret to us -- it's obviously not one to the professionals. Do you honestly believe women and people of colour, growing consumers in gaming, would be left to the wayside to appease historical consumers by that drive alone?

Finally, and Squee I hope you go into this, entertainment is important. We call people who consume too much lazy and it as a whole a luxury, but the fact is that our media helps shape how we see ourselves, our world, and our culture. Not seeing women as women, and not objects to be used and subjugated by men, marks upon all who consume the media. Sexualization is all well and good, because sex sells, but it isn't sex we use most, it's women. Women are more apt to be scantly clad, sexual creatures to be won, saved, wooed, and otherwise used in games than they are to be the saviours and the lonely heroes. Men might often be fit and well cut, but such are the trappings of a hetero-powerhouse, and they are rarely treated as fragile or consumable or more vulnerable as women are. It's important we hold ourselves and those selling this accountable.

Also, Squee, I'll leave you with quote I came across somewhat recently and a TedTalk you might find useful too. I hope you find success in your talk and can inspire at least a few. People often respond rashly when something so steeped in how they've learned to see the world is put into question. It takes patience, compassion, and the understanding working with people in this area. Best of luck.

WhoopiGoldberg said
"Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”

— Whoopi Goldberg

Chimamanda Adichie's The Danger of a Single Story (TedTalk) http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

[Seravee]

idlehands said
No, Beta, you don't understand how it works here. We can have serious discussion, we can have humor, we can have them in the same thread. Those memes are just stupid, unfunny, and irrelevent to the topic.

Also, yes. We can be goofy, we can be serious, we can be both. But entering a thread and just posting random, off-topic memes isn't really common here.

[Salroka]

idlehands said
No, Beta, you don't understand how it works here. We can have serious discussion, we can have humor, we can have them in the same thread. Those memes are just stupid, unfunny, and irrelevent to the topic.

If that is the case, then perhaps Off-Topic would have been a better section, as folks like myself see things like this in Spam and think: "What a wonderful conversation. I think I'll be a stupid fuckwit and derail the whole thing."

But alas.



And as such, I will take my leave.

Seravee said
Also, yes. We can be goofy, we can be serious, we can be both. But entering a thread and just posting random, off-topic memes isn't really common here.

See above response.

[Awson]

Beta said
Actually, from what I recall... Spam is Spam. If you didn't want inane silliness, this should have been put in say... the lounge or Off-Topic Discussion.

oops we accidentally developed standards.

go away.

[Seravee]

Beta said If that is the case, then perhaps Off-Topic would have been a better section, as folks like myself see things like this in Spam and think: "What a wonderful conversation. I think I'll be a stupid fuckwit and derail the whole thing."

Its a shame people have this line of thinking.

[Aragorn]

As for the topic, I've never really thought of it that much, although games where women can be just as strong as the men tend to have a better playing experience for me (Skyrim and Uncharted to name two.)
As for the attractiveness, that's just media. Which is gonna sell better? The game with a normal looking girl on the cover, or a really hot girl on the cover? *Shrug* That's just how it works, and the only way to change it would be to change the thinking of millions of people.

[The Nexerus]

It's threads like these that validate my ever growing sense of superiority.