What I like to use as a measure for female characters is whether or not they are sexual characters or they have simply been sexualized.
Moxxi though is a really good example because for the most part while she is a sexual character, how often does engage in fanservice? She likes sex but she doesn't let it define her and through her actions in the game she commands respect.
Yet I don't exactly hold her as a measure for Far-end Sexy Female characters mostly because... and I know it is bad to say this... She isn't really sexy. She wears makeup that is basically caked on and barely moves, and her body proportions are modest for the series. The only thing she does "sexy" is speak in double entendre.
What I mean is, she is a good example of how to do a sex based female character and not have her be about the sex. Yet, you never see her act on it.
Yes there are male prop characters, but when 99 if not 100% of your females are prop characters, that's a big difference. If all your protagonists are males.
There is kind of an issue with declaring a character as a prop in the sense that, it is easy to do it to anyone. As well 99% of all characters are "props", only a hand full ever get to be fully realized characters.
Pisskop, I don't know if you want the same thing out of the game as a woman might. Plus it's not about being a sex magnet or not. I don't want that in a game, but these characters do not exist to appeal to women in a way that says "play a character that is super sexy" they are there to appeal to men in a way that say "jerk off to this while you play the game." They are making female characters that specifically exist as sexual fantasies of males, see my comments about moxxi being sexy but not sexist.
I am always reminded of two characters in this discussion
The First is Lara Croft from the first Tomb Raider who, due to a programming error, got rather sizable breasts and they kept it because people liked them. Yet the series, in spite of this, never actually focused on Lara as a sexual object. A lot of people bring up her appearance as one of the major examples of sexualization, but they always sort of forget that outside advertisement and marketing... The games never really portrayed her as that. In fact the series steadily progressed where she eventually sort of became like a mix between Indiana Jones and James Bond. To the extent that it is her newer incarnation that is closest to fetishizing her, as it attempts to do the typical "Break the woman", something that the original Lara would have handled a lot differently (namely by winning).
The second is the female lead from Alone in the Dark who to this day is the first female character created for a female audience. Who is pretty unique in that she is an older woman (I think she is in her 30s) who wears conservative clothing. She kind of reminds me of a 30 year old Nancy Drew for some reason.
Yet both these characters were considered appealing to women. Though it is telling that Alone in the Dark 3 takes that female lead and turns her into a damsel... (and Alone in the Dark 2 ditched the female lead and had a male only lead... same with 3)
----
The one thing I absolutely hate about these discussions in the end is the Thought Crime aspect. "It was made by men" and "It was made for men" really shouldn't come into play.
I think my biggest problem with the entire industry and sexism is that they choose to include scenes of female abuse. IE in watchdogs and mafia and bioshock (I loved bioshock though such a good game). They could have just as easily not had random encounters of abusive-murderous-scumbag husbands killing innocent women. But they included it anyway.
There is no problem with female abuse. One of the aspects of not being sexist is not to give anyone special treatment. I think though the difference is the type of abuse women tend to suffer in videogames as well as how it relates to them.
Going to Tomb Raider the latest one. While Nathan Drake went through probably equal punishment to Lara Croft in his games in terms of physical harrowment... Which game tried to break the character down emotionally and make them cry? Which one did attempted rapes?
Author
Topic: Females in Games? Thread (Read 167175 times)