Neonivek, maybe you'd like to add something to this discussion, because it seems like your main interaction with it is demanding for me to make arguments when you've already got something in mind. I'm not a textbook or a teacher, I'm trying to have a discussion.
Sure, for example one of the major contensions I have with a game and the difference between "Sexy female character" versus a "Unjustly sexy character" is simply what I call "Sexualization against a female character".
Because the conclusion I found is that instances where a female character is sexualized and is a sexual character is actually rather low, almost in the minority.
This is where I like to bring up Tekken and Soul Calibur because they both are fighters and they both have different levels of sexualization and while Soul Calibur is by FAR the most exaggerated, that isn't what I am focusing on.
What I like to bring up is, for example, the difference between Anna Williams versus, for example, Sophitia.
Assuming they are both equally sexualized the difference between the two is their roles within the series. For example Anna is supposed to be a sexual character and as such her appearance and mannerisms reflect this, she manipulates people using her body and does so... As well the game she is in has a diverse field of female roles, body types, and back stories. Sophitia on the other hand is mainly a Romanesk/Greekesk Mother on a quest to save her children from a great evil and as such her mannerisms mostly reflect this, except each game tends to put her in more revealing outfits as well as making her breast size larger and larger, the other characters in her game (outside one exception), are equally sexualized in that respect.
-Note: Tekken did do one thing odd... It went out of its way to ensure its female cast didn't age. Which I found annoying since it was like they were saying "eww middle ages women? but then they won't be attractive". They let Pretty Boy Violet age, but not any of the female cast.
As well ultra-sexualization of woman and men exist in videogames. Yet ultra-male sexualization tends to be treated as a joke. It applies to women as well, but it is so accepted now that one has to go far out of their way until it counts.
Though if we count muscly men as sexualization of males, which is fair, the major difference however is that it benefits their competence as opposed as taking it away. Since a woman in a tiny outfit, with giant breasts, who needs to fight in the arctic is incompetent just by looking at her appearance.
don't get me wrong, you cannot look at a woman with large breasts and instantly say it is sexualization. Since it is rare REALLY RARE, but sometimes they just have large breasts. You have to look at how they are framed.
Ultimately what I mean is... That sexualization that benefits a female character and rounds out her personality or that is simply character traits that don't matter (AKA: I look good, so what?) is uncommon and what I put within acceptable to "too small to worry about". While sexualization that goes against character, competence, or that devalue the character on appearance alone is the larger issue.
Hookers being in both GTA and Hitman are flat out a given... because that is the type of game they are (Except for those dang Nuns... Honestly Hitman). Crime and prostitution in a game about crime?
Though as I said, female sexualization is taken more seriously from a narrative standpoint then male. Where any sexualized male character is meant to be openly mocked.
If Vec's living in a bubble, it's one that apparently stretches from the west to the east coast of the USA
If Vec is living in a bubble it would be more one that is a outsider viewpoint without really moving into the gamer space most people share. But that would be the only possible one Vector could live in.
For example my Sister loves videogames and would never see this problem with female depiction because her favorite games are point and clicks. She will never see this issue because as far as gender roles are concerned the point and click genre is basically perfect.
Mine is that I grew up on games like Mario where I never beat the game, Mickey's Quest, as well as point and clicks and several games where the character was nebulous, so I had a mix between male and female characters. I didn't grow up in the hyperbolic sexualization of female characters videogames, I found that much later. As well certain aspects of female sexualization occurred to me so young that it isn't sexual and still isn't. I started noticing it when I started seeing really weird instances of female characters wearing or doing odd things (like wearing nothing in the arctic).
Author
Topic: Re: Only two posts on 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games' (Read 313046 times)