#hyper-sexualized

Nice try folks - the sexualization and objectification of female characters doesn’t get “made better” by coming up with a half-assed reason to do it.

Admit it - these BS reasons comes out of YOUR HEAD, YOU WROTE IT. YOU WANTED NEAR-NAKED WOMEN, AND YOU WROTE A REASON TO JUSTIFY IT. Whether it’s for sales, to give you a turn on, or both, don’t try to get faux-technical or mystical when justifying the most obvious move out there.

Quick question: why don’t your male characters have backstories that require them to be all skin and thong’d out “for their powers”?

I have a few posts on the topic which I’ll reblog now for a mini-thread, check out the posts immediately following this one!

Award for “you didn’t even try” goes to Jumanji, which puts their sole female character in a sexualized / objectified outfit when the men aren’t, has her say, “why am I like this?” and then continues to have her in the outfit for the rest of the movie. 

When called out the producer said he was trying to make a point about objectification in nerd culture, by objectifying her for the entire movie.

Dude you could have made that point by having her show up in the outfit then coming up with a way to swap her into something different. 

Then Karen Gillan had to defend a choice that she didn’t make:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Star Karen Gillan on the Controversy Surrounding Her Jumanji Outfit

When the 29-year-old actress stopped by PEOPLE Now to talk about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, she also shared her response to the backlash from moviegoers over her “super sexualized” costume.

“I was a little surprised just because it was quite extreme, but I understand gender equality is very much at the forefront,” she says. “It’s a very big topic of discussion, which is great, then along comes a picture that kind of encapsulates that visually a little bit.”

It turns out, however, that Gillan’s character is also perturbed by her wardrobe choice.

“My character is having the same reaction as everybody else in the movie,” the actress explains. “She’s like, ‘Why am I wearing this? This is not fair!’ ”

She continued, “It really is [intentional]. It highlights the issue more than anything.”

TL;Dr version: “technical” or “origin story” reasons for female characters to be sexualized and objectified is still 100% sexualization and objectification. 

Watching the live E3 coverage on the G4 network these past four days has proved simultaneously exciting and depressing.  Why?  For a lot of reasons.  One, because for every Beyond: Two Souls or Watchdogs there are a million Black Ops clones and forty-five developers all with the same key-phrases in regards to "innovations".  "Emotional content", "player choice", "really feel for these characters".  If I heard one more director/developer mention how you could "solve problems in various ways, for instance, you could go in guns blazing or be a little more stealthy", I was sure my eyes would roll out of my head.  Guys.  Guys.  GUYS.  Look around.  Everyone's wearing the same dress.  Turquoise is very in this year.

But let's talk about what really pissed me off this year.  Lollipop Chainsaw.  Observe this interview with James Gunn, the writer of Lollipop Chainsaw, along with some really charming game-play footage. 

(Gunn wrote this charming wad, for reference.)

Beyond the crotch-slices getting way old, even over the span of a five minute demo, can we talk about how this writer seems to think that rainbows and hearts coming out of zombies is the most "unique" design concept he's ever seen?  Can we talk about how Juliet has been designed obviously with sexploitation in mind, or how her specials are inspired by pole-dancing moves?  Can we talk about how this game is unapologetically chauvinistic, and not for the right reasons (irony, commentary, etc.)?

To be fair, everything I have seen from Lollipop Chainsaw is what pisses me off about it.  The game isn't out yet and for all I know, this could be a really interesting story that actually challenges our preconceived notion of the hyper-sexualized female action hero.  

But I doubt it.

The creators of Lollipop Chainsaw are proud of the fact that they've created a pseudo-stripper as the heroine for their hack-n-slash game aimed at adolescent boys.  They're proud of the "retro", giggle while you have a peeing contest style fun they've conceptualized.  Well, fine.  Be proud all you like.  But don't expect me to like it and don't expect me not to talk about it.   

I'm allowed to be bothered by this.  I think female/feminist gamers in general have a right to be bothered by this.  Is there something titillating and fun about T&A?  Of course.  When you're thirteen.  And I'm not saying exploration of sexuality has no place in games.  But this is nowhere near close to the maturity with which such issues should be addressed at this point in the gaming industry's development. Honestly, we're half-way through 2012, and the leaps and bounds that have been made in terms of female characters has been massive.  (eg: Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Beyond, the Tomb Raider remake, etc.)  So why, why, why hasn't Grasshopper gotten on the bandwagon?  Why has Gunn decided this is the story that needs to be told right now?

I mean, for Christ's sake.

I know what story needs to be told right now.  The story of the hyper-sexualized male character.  The story that is a direct response to so many of the games that rely on T&A to break even. 

So here's the question: what does the animated hyper-sexualized male actually look like?  And would he make men as uncomfortable as women feel when looking at games with heroines like Juliet or Ivy of the Soul Calibur franchise.  

Comic book fans are no strangers to the "stop making my superheroines dress like street walkers" issue, not to mention the idealized bodies that litter the pages.  We're not talking fit, athletic women.  Giant tits, tiny waists, asses that won't quit, the whole shebang.  And of course, a million shots of all of them.  If I see ONE more random butt shot in my comic books, I'm going to put on some steel-toed boots and practice my fan kicks. 

The response?  It varies, but a lot of the time you get "Oh, c'mon, the men have idealized bodies too!  I mean, do you think any dude really looks like Superman?  He's got a twenty-four pack and thighs as thick as a horse's neck."

Sure.  Idealized.  But not hyper-sexualized. 

All that chiseling is actually kinda scary, right?  Like in "oh my God, the sinews!!!" way.

Men are idealized in comic books to look like what average men would, in their wildest dreams, want to look like.  Women are idealized in comic books to look like what average men, in their wildest (ahem) dreams, want them to look like. And therein lies the difference between idealized and hyper-sexualized.  I'm not saying either is good.  I'm saying they're different.  And that difference is relevant to my "quest for the hyper-sexualized male".

In my next few posts I'm going to try and explore what I truly feel the "hyper-sexualized male" in animated/3D mediums would look like. I'll be pulling up examples and trying to discuss just why these images would make (and have made) men just as uncomfortable as women are with their hyper-sexualized equivalents.

At the end of it, I'm going to dilute my findings into a single character and present him on my blog.  Hopefully I'll be able to draw comparisons between him and some the biggest female offenders in AAA video game titles.