Big boobed characters in video games

[Seiseki]

The point here is that we realize and adknowledge when we're sexualizing women and when we're really drawing them as powerful  individuals, and then realize how awkward it might be for a woman to see a supposed "strong female character" when it's anything but.

I think somehow in the male mind they're both connected. Like a deadly female assassin is more deadly if she also looks sexy.
It's like, when you level up a female character you give her a bigger sword and less armor..

I guess it's basically the strengths we males wish for.

[Dusty]

Also I guess I'd chime in more about what my sisters look for in female characters. When given the chance to customize a character they tend to go the route of big boobs(overly big), sexy-looking females. Well, at least my one sister does(She's 16). My other sister(17) tends to make them a bit more on the average size, but definitely not small/petite. In games like Fable 2, where females end up looking muscular when you level up and get stronger, they absolutely despised it. They hated the idea of their characters looking ugly to the point they removed all the strength points from them(removed the muscles). They wanted their girls to look attractive.

I guess this doesn't really change the fact that women are being sexualized in games, but like someone said before we are not one whole. Some developers(like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomonobu_Itagaki) obviously get a kick out of overly sexualizing women, but not all developers do. And Itagaki's most blatant sexualized game, his Xtreme Beach Volleyball game didn't do too well in sales(http://www.vgchartz.com/game/482/dead-or-alive-xtreme-beach-volleyball/), behind the aforementioned Silent Hill 3. So does sex automatically = sales? Even from a prominent developer like Team Ninja it didn't mean automatic success. It is sad to see it got the numbers it did get though. But again, I'm pretty sure Xtreme had some heavy marketing behind it. But I mean, if a game I want to play tends to sexualize females, then what? I mean, I don't find it adds anything to the game, but I still want to play the game for other reasons(Metal Gear Solid 3 for example sexualized EVA).

Also, is it just games weren't talking about here? Why target gaming when other medias have been doing it for much longer(magazines, movies and so on).

[Seiseki]

So there's a lot of talk about male power fantasy..

But what is female power fantasy?
Is it the skinny models we see in magazines?

And lots of female feminists seem to have different tastes than their average peers.
Is it simply that one side is enlightened while the other is a product of male biased media?
Can you really call that representing the opinion of the majority of women?

[Ymedron]

Yes, the culture in general has this exact problem. However, we are talking about games because, by and large, this is a gaming related site. Pixel art is associated with games, and probably attracts more gamers than filmmakers or fashion writers. Just like I was told to make a game to start a trend, its only logical to talk about a medium that the audience is interested in/has a chance of influencing.

Female gamers don't exist in a vacuum, and there are many who are influenced by how their gender is portrayed. If all the females that you looked up to in games are portrayed like Lara Croft, won't that skew your worldview on what makes a character or player beautiful? Just because there are people who are happy with how things currently are doesn't mean people who AREN'T should be ignored. Again, I underline that games that advertise character creation need to give you an opportunity to play whoever the hell you want. While you can play an ugly, handsome, fat, thin, muscular, old or young males, the only option when given a female is a slight shift from petite to curvy. It may seem weird at first to think of adding an old hag into a game like Street Fighter, but I believe that's because street fighter has never had any kind of age range of females.

The thing about the fat-part in the feminism post is that people should not level hate toward others for how they look. It's the same as hating someone entirely on their skin color, height or the clothes they choose to wear.
Apparently its considered less douche if you are 'concerned for their health.' However, how do you know how healthy someone is? Besides, is it your job to tell random people that they are unhealthy? Unless you are their doctor, then I'd wager that the answer is no.



Lastly, female power fantasy.
I believe female power fantasy would often times be being able to do heroic things without having to be sexy first.
A real person performing rigorous action doesn't look 'sexy' at all times. They don't have an alluring expression, an aestethically pleasing pose (discounting the aestethic of athletics itself, which is different from 'look at my beautiful hips' beauty), free-flowing hair (or otherwise put into a pretty hairdo) nor are their boobs always visible or emphasized. Their awesomeness comes from the fact that they DO, not that they ARE.

[Seiseki]

What about being a fashion model, movie or singstar?
Because those are power fantasies we can see in games and media aimed towards women.

Unless I've got the power fantasy thing completely wrong.. xD

[Helm]

You do have it wrong. Those rolemodels are impressed on young women by a patriarchal model.

[Joe]

However, how do you know how healthy someone is?

If someone is in fact obese, you can rest assured that they are not healthy.

Also, is it just games weren't talking about here? Why target gaming when other medias have been doing it for much longer(magazines, movies and so on).

This is an excellent point, one that I think serves this thread well.  Yes, this is a pixel art forum, and yes, the domain of pixel art largely intersects with that of video gaming.  However, the source of the problem is also the same as in other media, and I think that if this thread was distilled:

'Big boobed characters in video games' -> 'Objectification of the female in video games' -> '...in media' -> 'Objectification of the female in general'

Then I think what would best serve the thread is to discuss the cause of sexual objectification.  That's not an easy question to answer; I cannot pinpoint it but I believe it is strongly related to the patriarchal society and the male gaze.

Awesome links in this thread btw.  The feminism 101 was a very comprehensive list, offering many issues I'm familiar with but also many, many perspectives I had not considered.  Also the role switching video and the strong female characters were both hilarious.

Props to Ymedron for bringing this up, I've always wondered about it, was always turned off to video games featuring exaggerated female figures... ultimately in regards to video games the biggest turn off for me is the fact that it's completely contrived.

[Ryumaru]

If you want " the male gaze" to be eliminated, then there are going to have to be more females designing games, or at least creating the art for them. Of course when a heterosexual male creates something it's going to be through his eyes; arguably the entire point of art creation is to show your individual perspective of a subject. Even if I were to try and make a game through the lens of a female it would become a male's interpretation of how a female sees things.

[Ymedron]

It doesn't mean the current devs can just resign and hope someone comes along and does the right thing.
I personally substitute male with white and female with black to try to evaluate the sensibleness of some statements. While its not possible to portray every aspect of female/black culture when you are not part of it, you can still work to remove the 'blackface/chicken/watermelon' level ignorance from your products, no?

The best way to do this is by treating your characters as people first, genders second. I remember someone saying that if you can swap the gender of a character without changing their role in a story, it's a good thing. (I suppose excluding specific things that require you to be a certain gender, such as pregnancy, or if you are doing historical fiction?)

Edit: Also I apologize for kind of skipping over parts of the discussion, but mostly its because I don't know what to say about it or because it was responded to better by someone else. <:U!

[ErekT]

The best way to do this is by treating your characters as people first, genders second. I remember someone saying that if you can swap the gender of a character without changing their role in a story, it's a good thing.

That's an approach I'd like to see more of in entertainment media in general. My main beef with the use of sexual imagery, unless it's a stylistic choice and/or important for telling the story, is how it usually ends up undermining it instead. The reptile part of the brain doesn't bother with stories much.