Big boobed characters in video games

[Ryumaru]

Again, we're talking of a small minority within a larger industry that is far from gender equal.

Just look at lesbian porn vs gay porn, men are pretty much dominating both genres, even though you'd think lesbian porn would be aimed towards women..
This thread was about the male audience dominating the gaming industry, well the porn industry is way more male dominated yet everyone seem to be defending both the porn industry and sex trade while no such distinctions have yet to be made for the gaming industry.

I'm seeing a lot of mixed messages here..

I don't think dominate is the right word for what you are trying to express. The " male audience" does not dominate the gaming industry. The gaming industry ( largely populated by male employees- not necessarily the audience) exploits male's sexual drive and uses it to their advantage for profit. Similarly so with pornography.

The reason we ( or at least, I) am defending the porn industry, is because sex is SUPPOSED to be there. Sex may often be forced into video games, but if there is any place where it is completely appropriate, it is pornography. Furthermore, assuming that a female who is enjoying ( or at least acting as if she is enjoying) the sexual act is still being dominated or exploited inherently takes power away from females. I would argue that the nature of how genitalia is structured that men will always have some sort of " dominating" role as we know of the term; without getting too explicit, the male organ invades, and the female organ yields, no matter if the partners involved are taking the same roles as their genitalia, but that's straying a good bit from the actual mindset of the two people.

[Helm]

I am not defending the porn industry at large; I am defending the outside-the-mainstream porn that does not perpetuate sexist & racist stereotypes. Because it exists. I am very critical on the message of the mainstream porn industry as are most pro-feminist people, but our critique does not end up with 'porn should be banned' (there are feminist movements that desire this, however).

Likewise, I am critical of mainstream gaming, but not to that I desire for it to be banned.

[Ryumaru]

http://jazzylittledrops.tumblr.com/post/48118645174/why-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-makes-me


I cannot helpt but feel this rebuttal is just...  unnecessary.
For one, they mention that " people of color" are only on screen for 10 seconds. Of course that is a figure that could be improved, but at least as a very quick statistic, the census of 2011 states that about 80% of the american population is caucasian:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
There are multiple versions of the commercials with different lengths, but the one that seems to be cited is the 3 minute one here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
"Cloe" coming in about 1:04 may loosely be considered " caucasian" and has a good bit of air time but certainly has more complex ethnicity than that. If I saw her on the street, I probably would not consider her " white". She has approximately 13 seconds of air time. But that isn't the point and shouldn't be the point. Not every commercial has to be about race and has to cite the census when dividing the airtime of differently raced individuals. This seems to be grasping at straws just to make the argument stronger.

Then comes the attack on beauty. As an artist who strives every day to make works of beautiful nature, I despise how this argument sees it. It is spoken of almost as if it's a bad thing! What seems to be forgotten is that this is a beauty product that is trying to sell. Should they expect to dismantle their company because wanting to look good is apparently so demeaning for women? While it's not explicitly stated, and my own interpretation is certainly shining through here, the selection of the participants and their unique features, along with the general feel of the entire commercial is certainly hinting at the notion of real beauty coming from within, and is expressed outwardly. If the women participating had not been beautiful people inwardly, then the people describing them would most likely have negative images of them, no matter how attractive they actually were.

A woman's beauty does not define her completely. Perhaps I just surround myself with a different type of male, but intelligence, loyalty, and common ground are considered to be of higher importance when considering long term relationships. But it should be noted that sexual attraction is very important, especially in the beginning of a relationship. If two people are not attracted to one another physically, there is absolutely no way that they will last to form a more committed relationship. This does not mean everyone has to be a "10" if you'll allow the analogy, and besides everyone has different tastes anyways.

Dove, theoretically COULD potentially make a video about the importance of intelligence ( which basically means you're shit out of luck if you weren't born as the brightest girl in school) or courageous ( which basically means you're shit out of luck if you have social anxieties) but they decided to stick closer to home and focus on beauty- and illustrate that one should have more confidence in themselves than they might realize.
What a horrible message that is.

Now, the fact that the same company that owns Dove apparently also owns AXE is it's own situation, and I don't think at all effects this particular commercial. For something that is designed to have you throw money at it, I believe it does a pretty decent job of giving it's viewers something of substance, which is more to say than about 90% of commercials out there.

edit: on another point ( the writing is a bit long and I forgot to scroll down further) the author says:

"Did you hear that, ladies? How beautiful you are affects everything—from your personal relationships to your career. It could not be more critical to your happiness!"

in response to this quote from the commercial:
“I should be more grateful of my natural beauty.  It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, they way we treat our children, it impacts everything. It couldn’t be more critical to your happiness.”

Of course this a bit of an exaggeration anyway, but even if we take it at face value, it holds up well enough. We are very social animals, we yearn for affection and the feeling of community. Are you trying to tell me that not feeling that you are wanted and appreciated, that you are beautiful, isn't important? I, a 21 year old white male living in the united states ( basically a tyrant, but all powerful king by some) get hung up on my physical appearance All. The. Time. It is well enough to worry about bettering yourself and generate your own confidence, but it's nice to have your confidence reaffirmed every once in a blue moon. Whether you are talking about beauty or not, low self esteem can destroy someone's life, and certainly affect who you group yourself with, what jobs you think you're good enough for, and how you raise your children. Women having low confidence is a very real problem, and even without media trying to raise a pinacle standard of beauty( which Dove has also made commercials attacking), there would still be issues, and Dove is trying to ease them with this commercial.

[Ymedron]

Hm, regarding the beauty thing...
Reading this one blog, an advertisement industry person was saying that he had noticed how extremely sexist he was and what sexist choices he had to keep making. Dividing people into two groups, one of which gets fed messages of privileges and how they deserve this or that, while the other is made to feel bad about themselves or entirely ignored. (How else do you sell beauty products than making your customers feel ugly? How else do you sell diet aids than by making them compare themselves to an impossible ideal?)

With representation of other races than caucasian, even though 80% are white, 20% of 308 million is still an absurd amount of people not represented in the media and that's just in america. Why should those people feel like they aren't normal or accepted, or that they aren't good enough to be shown in media? There was a black female actor/tv personality (I can't remember) who said that because she had never seen a black woman on tv, she couldn't have believed she would herself be shown on the screen. Think about how many people who never end up doing what they want because they feel it's not their place?
Lack of exposure also has an effect on racism. Racism is all about lack of empathy and kinship with a person who is too "different" than yourself. Seeing the stories of non-caucasian heroes on the screen helps create empathy and understanding.

Of course, showing that the people in the middle east (and other areas where america and its allies are warring) are good and valuable would make it harder to recruit soldiers, so yey. 8l

[Ryumaru]

Hm, regarding the beauty thing...
Reading this one blog, an advertisement industry person was saying that he had noticed how extremely sexist he was and what sexist choices he had to keep making. Dividing people into two groups, one of which gets fed messages of privileges and how they deserve this or that, while the other is made to feel bad about themselves or entirely ignored. (How else do you sell beauty products than making your customers feel ugly? How else do you sell diet aids than by making them compare themselves to an impossible ideal?)

With representation of other races than caucasian, even though 80% are white, 20% of 308 million is still an absurd amount of people not represented in the media and that's just in america. Why should those people feel like they aren't normal or accepted, or that they aren't good enough to be shown in media? There was a black female actor/tv personality (I can't remember) who said that because she had never seen a black woman on tv, she couldn't have believed she would herself be shown on the screen. Think about how many people who never end up doing what they want because they feel it's not their place?
Lack of exposure also has an effect on racism. Racism is all about lack of empathy and kinship with a person who is too "different" than yourself. Seeing the stories of non-caucasian heroes on the screen helps create empathy and understanding.

Of course, showing that the people in the middle east (and other areas where america and its allies are warring) are good and valuable would make it harder to recruit soldiers, so yey. 8l

You don't have to bring someone down to sell something that tries to enhance someone's beauty. Not to mention, this idea of an "impossible ideal" is something I have problems with. For every 4 or 5 people here in America that are wasting away on a couch ingesting late night television and a gallon of soda, there is at least 1 person exercising- changing their body for the benefits of increased health, increased attractiveness to whoever might be interested in them, and gaining confidence for both of those reasons- coming close to, or even shattering that "impossible" ideal along the way. Not everybody's best version of themselves has to be, or should even be about the fitness level of their body, but there is a deeper connection than many are willing to note ( particularly by rather intelligent people that can't be bothered to lift up a weight multiple times) to the fitness of the body and the health of the mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKMyCKx50kQ
In this collection of 10 superbowl ads, 5/10 only include white people. With them being the majority of the population, that seems about right. You mention the importance of seeing people of your own color in terms of association with them. Then it stands, that if an ad is targeting America, that they should in fact include white people in them about 80% of the time. Simply put, if say, 80% of acting people in commercials of America were black, asian, middle-eastern, hispanic, or anything but white, not only would it be  a poor representation of the population, it would follow that a majority of (white) people would not be able to relate to them as well as they could and thus, the products would not sell as well because the ads are ignoring a large part of the market.
It's definitely important to include other races in commercials for the same reason, they are part of the country and therefore part of the audience, the little collection of ads above is a far cry from the no representation that your argument seems to make.

Things are always going to be like that in times of war; for the record that issue  I think is also tied to religion and the wars christianity holds. It was Ghandi who said the following: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I think the quote is very telling of the fault of christianity which lies more so in it's practice than it's theories. My thoughts are that this war is mostly unnecessary and that religious stigmas are somewhat tied to it.

[Ymedron]

I know you don't -have- to, but the reality of the situation is that business practicers do a lot of things that are morally questionable to turn a profit, and a lot of culture has been shaped by the greed of companies. Favourite example: hairy armpits are mainly considered vulgar nowadays because a shaving blade company wanted more people to use their products.

It is a fact that there are more people suffering from anorexia after the rise of ultra-thin supermodels and photoshopping normal healthy models to look thinner. In this case, it doesn't matter what a healthy person with a well-adjusted attitude towards their health thinks, as there are so many people suffering from all sorts of mental problems due to the constant message "You aren't good enough".

First of all, my argument is that they aren't represented -enough-. My argument is also that without increasing the presence of non-caucasian (namely black) HEROES, main characters, those whose lives and ideas you see, you can't effectively increase the normalcy of looking different. If you want a nation to change, you change its children.

I can't really say anything about the superbowl ads because that's just 10 ads, that are subject to the whims of the person selecting what ads to show. Considering the sheer amount of ads that are being shown, I'd take the percentage more seriously if you found statistics of how many non-caucasian people appear in a prominent role in about 1000 or more ads. And also it would be a good idea to take into account what they are advertising.
How many ads have you seen where a black or hispanic or native american is shown as a successful "high ranking" member of society? How many games have you seen where the main character is black and isn't in sports, a musician or a dj of some kind?

20% of 308 million is 7 600 000 people. Oh wait, that also includes hispanic folks since the census lists "white people not including hispanics" separately. So only about 63% of people are actually caucasian. Alright. So that'd be 40% of 308 million people -> 123 200 000 people. Holy fuck.

White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2011    63.4%

Anyway. A lot more ads should have a couple non-caucasian folks on the pure basis that they should be expected to be mixed in with the other populace rather than segregated into a 100% non-caucasian workplaces.
Because they are there. Because you shouldn't have to especially request they to be included more. Because black people get represented far more often committing crimes and being untrustworthy in media. Because there shouldn't be any defendable position for a policeman to shoot a black boy for daring to wear a hoodie. This shit happens all the time. There are endless number of studies about how black people get reported for crimes just for being THERE while white people get a free pass. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-data-show-racial-gaps-in-school-arrests/2012/03/01/gIQApbjvtR_story.html)
Anyway, this is of course entirely based on the massive amount of news like this coming from America. Maybe that's why the country has such a hideous reputation in here. Not that finns are any better about including non-caucasians in finnish-made ads. (oftentimes we just get badly dubbed ads from other countries when the product is foreign)

Lastly, the war is caused by many reasons. There is money to be had there, as well. (oil).




(I apologize if the terms I have used actually are offensive, since I don't know what term is good to use. Apparently person of color is also offensive?? )


edit: Also I found this: http://vimeo.com/28066212

[Erenan]

Be careful with US Census data. In our census, we don't consider Hispanic to be a racial type, but a separate origin-related classification that you can either check or not check. So you can be Hispanic or Non-Hispanic, regardless of what race you otherwise specify. So you can be White and Hispanic, White and Non-Hispanic, Black and Hispanic, Black and Non-Hispanic, Asian and Hispanic, and so on...

Needless to say, this confuses a lot of people, who quite frankly don't know what race they should then identify as. My wife's whole family (they are Honduran/Mexican) usually goes, "what the hell, you guys?" A lot of people end up just choosing Other and Hispanic, because they don't want to identify as White, Black, Asian, Native American, etc...

Point being that Whites who are Hispanic are still Caucasian.

The other point being that you should take the numbers reported with a grain of salt, because it's largely a messed up system.

Now then...


I live in the US. We definitely have social problems relating to race, but I think they are much, much bigger than a mere "people of color don't appear enough on television" problem.

Blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate portion of federal prisoners relative to their portion of the country's population. Why this is so is highly controversial.

As for commercials...

Here's a study on racial representation in prime time television advertising:

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic551691.files/Mastro%20and%20Stern.pdf

This is from 2003, so bear in mind this is ten year old information. In any case, to me it suggests a few things:

• American television commercials are filled predominantly with Whites and Blacks.
• Blacks are represented about proportionately to their actual representation in the U.S. population, while Whites are a bit overrepresented, and Latinos and Asians are underrepresented. (mostly unimportant side-note: I'm predominantly Scottish by heritage, and my father even regularly wears a kilt for special occasions, but I rarely see anyone wearing a kilt or speaking with a Scottish accent on American television)
• When elderly people are depicted, they are much more commonly Black or White than Asian or Latino.
• When Latinos are depicted, they are there more often than people of other races for the sake of filling an alluring/sexy role (i.e. the sexy Latino stereotype) or as the one gazing sexually upon another person.
• When Latino women are depicted, they are virtually always very thin and of above average attractiveness (as identified by the people doing the identification, so whatever that implies, you can decide for yourself).

Of course, this is focused just on television advertisements. We really need to think about how people are represented in the actual TV programs as well. We have a lot of shows that are targeted directly at Black audiences, but there are also a lot of shows that deliberately feature cast members of different races. The one that keeps coming to mind right now is Grey's Anatomy, but this is mostly because my wife is watching it every single damn day when I get home from work. Pretty much everyone in this show is a talented surgeon, and IIRC generally when there's a violent criminal, it's a white guy.

My point is that major TV producers aren't a bunch of blithering racist idiots. They understand that minority groups now make up a significant part of our population (and a quickly growing part!), and that in order to maximize their profits, they need their programming to appeal to those groups as well as to Whites. I think our programming has been moving in the right direction with regards to racial representation, and I can only imagine it will continue to do so.

[Ryumaru]

I know you don't -have- to, but the reality of the situation is that business practicers do a lot of things that are morally questionable to turn a profit, and a lot of culture has been shaped by the greed of companies. Favourite example: hairy armpits are mainly considered vulgar nowadays because a shaving blade company wanted more people to use their products.

It is a fact that there are more people suffering from anorexia after the rise of ultra-thin supermodels and photoshopping normal healthy models to look thinner. In this case, it doesn't matter what a healthy person with a well-adjusted attitude towards their health thinks, as there are so many people suffering from all sorts of mental problems due to the constant message "You aren't good enough".

First of all, my argument is that they aren't represented -enough-. My argument is also that without increasing the presence of non-caucasian (namely black) HEROES, main characters, those whose lives and ideas you see, you can't effectively increase the normalcy of looking different. If you want a nation to change, you change its children.

I can't really say anything about the superbowl ads because that's just 10 ads, that are subject to the whims of the person selecting what ads to show. Considering the sheer amount of ads that are being shown, I'd take the percentage more seriously if you found statistics of how many non-caucasian people appear in a prominent role in about 1000 or more ads. And also it would be a good idea to take into account what they are advertising.
How many ads have you seen where a black or hispanic or native american is shown as a successful "high ranking" member of society? How many games have you seen where the main character is black and isn't in sports, a musician or a dj of some kind?

20% of 308 million is 7 600 000 people. Oh wait, that also includes hispanic folks since the census lists "white people not including hispanics" separately. So only about 63% of people are actually caucasian. Alright. So that'd be 40% of 308 million people -> 123 200 000 people. Holy fuck.

White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2011    63.4%

Anyway. A lot more ads should have a couple non-caucasian folks on the pure basis that they should be expected to be mixed in with the other populace rather than segregated into a 100% non-caucasian workplaces.
Because they are there. Because you shouldn't have to especially request they to be included more. Because black people get represented far more often committing crimes and being untrustworthy in media. Because there shouldn't be any defendable position for a policeman to shoot a black boy for daring to wear a hoodie. This shit happens all the time. There are endless number of studies about how black people get reported for crimes just for being THERE while white people get a free pass. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-data-show-racial-gaps-in-school-arrests/2012/03/01/gIQApbjvtR_story.html)
Anyway, this is of course entirely based on the massive amount of news like this coming from America. Maybe that's why the country has such a hideous reputation in here. Not that finns are any better about including non-caucasians in finnish-made ads. (oftentimes we just get badly dubbed ads from other countries when the product is foreign)

Lastly, the war is caused by many reasons. There is money to be had there, as well. (oil).




(I apologize if the terms I have used actually are offensive, since I don't know what term is good to use. Apparently person of color is also offensive?? )


edit: Also I found this: http://vimeo.com/28066212

I am in agreement that many business practices are far from moral; but specifically my response was to the authors reaction to the Dove video which I believe does a fine job of advertising a beauty product in a way that does not demean women, nor does it racially profile- very much in the contrary to the author's beliefs.

Photoshopping of the human image is equally deplorable to me as is undermining the value of beauty. Of course there will always be some sort of " touch up" but I am against highly distorting reality, and so is Dove ( at least on the surface, apparently they still employ photo editing to some degree, but what can you do). I would much rather see real people that work to be best versions of themselves than models who think they must starve themselves, and then end up getting slimmed down anyway. Healthy humans are beautiful humans.

Rarely any ads have "heroes". I have no problem against television that includes diversity of race in prominent roles. My only point is that I think to declare racial diversity as being lacking in the Dove commercial is making mountains out of grains of sand.

I chose the superbowl ads because they are perhaps where the most thought, or at least attention, is given due to the high level of viewership. Admittedly it is as you say screened by some random youtuber. Of course there will always be things to improve upon, but it's certainly not as bad as some would like to make it out to be. Erenan's post does a great job of giving some statistics to look at related to advertising.


Erenan: Yes, a lot of problems comes down to the data. These sorts of arguments would be much easier if, on a whim, we could calculate statistics of whatever we desired to reasonable accuracy. It's very easy for an actual argument of value to become about who has the better sources, or can belittle the opponents more successfully.

I did not know about the hispanic classification. It prompted me to actually look up the definition of "caucasian" which I am finding is so diverse it seems odd to largely be considered synonymous with white.

[ptoing]

Not to get even further offtopic with this thread, but the concept of there being different races of humans is genetically totally bullshit. If we were dogs we would all be the same kind of dog, with very slight variation.

[Ymedron]

Absolutely, Erenan.
I'm a bit confused about all this myself since I've been mainly exposed to american culture through tv and hearing other people talk and explain themselves about how this or that is unjust and unfair in there. *stroke chin* Also my posts are very confusing, sorry.

My main argument that got lost along the way was that when you show different people in tv, as main characters and let the audience share in their thoughts and lives, they stop being so different, and it may change the attitude of many kids who would otherwise grow up to hate different people than themselves.
I notice that my first post mentioned just "media", rather than singling out advertisement. Having tv programs about black and hispanic and asian and native american people where they are the main characters and treated as such is rare, to my knowledge.

Also Helm, that's pretty right. The difference between different groups of humans is probably less than the difference between a spitz and a dalmatian. Arh...

Anyway, I'll try to go back to the original topic now.
...somehow.