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Post by Dju on Sept 14, 2012 15:47:10 GMT -5
Just remembered another game character who, apparently, is not sexualized! Alice from Madness Returns! At least as far as I know...perhaps she's just too creepy for that (or young?). It's not a standard beauty padron (It's pretty stylized, like a cartoon character), but from what I know, the male players aren't interested in her in an "eye-candy" way. Just playing for playing! Perhaps that's a sign that gamers are not that focused on the character looks? Alice is, in my opinion, disturbing(ed). But it's an interesting game. I'm still gathering the courage to try it, though... X]
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Post by Yoyti on Sept 14, 2012 18:10:33 GMT -5
Hmm... I'm not sure how relevant this is, but is anyone here familiar with Who Wants To Be A Superhero? It was a reality TV show that ran for two seasons. The premise was that the competitors were regular people (but this is a reality show we're talking about, so who knows?), who would design superheroes and their costumes, and they would face a number of challenges designed by Stan Lee. One by one, the heroes would be eliminated, until a winner was determined. Now, the thing I want you to bear in mind is that these heroes were designed by the same people who played them. Including the girls with the revealing outfits. Here's the pictures from season one. For the girls, on the one hand, we have Cell Phone Girl and Monkey Woman. An argument could be made for Monkey Woman's costume being justified (her shtick is that she's acrobatic and flexible). But both were eliminated fairly early. (They were the first two girls to go). On the other hand, we also have Lemuria and Fat Momma. I don't think I need to say anything about Fat Momma (although she was one of the finalists), but it's worth noting that Lemuria's costume was actually made more conservative when Stan Lee redesigned it. But there's some eye candy for the girls too. The iron enforcer is this big buff guy who goes around shirtless (his (second) costume redesign gave him a shirt. We also have Ty Veculus (muscular, bare arms) and Levity (pretty boy, eliminated early). Part of Major Victory's shtick was that he was sexy, but on the whole, he's less so than some of the others (stop me if I'm wrong about that.) Season two is generally more veered towards sexy on both sides, and so is less interesting to discuss, but let's discuss it anyway. On the female side, we have Basura and Whip Snap. Whip Snap was gone fairly quickly, and though Basura stayed around for a while, she didn't make it to the final three. We also have Braid and Ms. Limelight, who, while not unattractive, are not actually aimed towards sexy (though you could argue with regards to Ms. Limelight). And then we've got the one girl who made it to the final three, Hygena, who is dressed very conservatively (even if she's not another Fat Momma). On the male side, we've got Parthenon (who's gay, if that makes a difference), Hyper Strike and The Defuser. Neither of them show much skin, but both are rather good looking. Mr. Mitzvah is somewhere in the middle. Now remember, these heroes were designed by the people who played them, meaning that they should theoretically represent what sort of superheroes the public wants to see. Of course, this may or may not be accurate, and may or may not be relevant.
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Post by Komori on Sept 14, 2012 19:05:21 GMT -5
Not exactly sure what your point is, or what you were hoping to discuss, Yoyti. So you've got a bunch of ladies dressing up in skanky clothes on a reality show. They do that on Jersey Shore too. Plus, are these actual geeks who like comics, or people who want attention? (My guess is the latter) Because I have a feeling that that show portrays comic nerds about as faithfully as those video game reality shows portray gamers (that is, not well at all).
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Post by Yoyti on Sept 14, 2012 19:49:52 GMT -5
I have no point in particular. As I stated with my last post in this topic (the one about the "experiment") I have no desire to express my opinion on this matter, because my opinion on this matter is not worth sharing. What I've done in my two posts here is raised a few points which I feel should be noted, even if they're not dwelt upon at length. In that last post, I illustrated varying degrees of attractiveness in a "reality" show and noted how they affected the outcome. Specifically, that the conservatively dressed competitors tended to last longer. In point of fact, one competitor even got criticized for her attempt at attractiveness. She got eliminated the very next round (though for rather different reasons).
The issue isn't whether it's accurate about its perspective audience, it's about what it says about the people involved in the production. Fanservice in video games does not represent the gaming community. It represents the game makers. Maybe people like the games for their story (ha...), or for some other aspect of the game. Such as brutally slaughtering people. Correlation does not imply causation.
You see? Now I'm trying to assign a point to something which was never intended to have one in the first place.
I guess, if you had to assign a point to this, that it would be that this show systematically subverted the paradigm being discussed here.
Now, what I want to see is a game that subverts everything. A game that has a total of five minutes, spread throughout the game, with shooting and fanservice, and the ads for that game focus entirely on those aspects. Maybe in the game, those aspects are actually very important to the plot. Maybe you're supposed to notice an unusual brand name on the enemy spy (who will of course be used for ten seconds of skimpy clothing to be used in the ads), that you later use to track her down (as she's obviously subscribed to some magazine or newsletter of that brand, but I'm overthinking this). Maybe you're supposed to grab a loaded gun from the wall... to extract the gunpowder to use as a fuel to burn up a piece of paper. I'd like to see the opinion on that game. I'd also like to see the reaction to that same game, but when the advertisement focuses on the game itself, which would probably be more puzzle oriented (using an expensive and/or exclusive brand name to track down an enemy, or dismantling a gun to use it's components in radically different scenarios). What do you think the reaction to such a game would be, in either scenario.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Sept 15, 2012 2:24:23 GMT -5
uh, what? Do you have a point or don't you? I also have no idea what most of the bit about advertising has to do with the subject of sexism.
Not sure how you can make this claim. It definitely represents at least some portion of the community. Whether it is a significant portion is up for debate, but I pretty much guarantee it represents anyone who's ever used the 'tits or get out' line.
In addition, calling buff muscular guys eye candy for the women ignores the fact that super idealized male characters in comic books are generally made to appeal to a power fantasy for the male readers.
I don't feel like the show subverts anything. It looks like Stan Lee was attempting to elevate superheroes in the eyes of the public by emphasizing certain virtues. They represent the public opinion of comics as colorful, squeaky clean morality plays for children. Something that has not been the case for many decades. The show seems to have very little to do with the actual reality surrounding comics and it's fandom.
In fact, one could argue that the sexual/fan service angle was used to make the show more palatable to people who aren't even comic book nerds. The finale of the second season had nearly 1,000,000 viewers. That was September 2007. The top selling comic book of that month (World War Hulk #4) did not even break 200,000 copies that month.
So yeah, not sure the marketing of a show to people who aren't necessarily nerds is a reflection of 'geekdom'.
"Major Victory was asked if he, as a former male stripper, would be a good role model to children. He replied that he doesn't strip anymore, that it was wrong, and that, yes, he could teach the youth the lesson he learned."This is seriously killing me, because Stan Lee is the man who invented Stripperella.
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Post by Komori on Sept 15, 2012 8:43:20 GMT -5
The issue isn't whether it's accurate about its perspective audience, it's about what it says about the people involved in the production. The people involved in the production? You mean the production team behind a reality show? Who cares what it says about them? Besides Stan Lee, there's no telling if any of the camera crew or editors or producers are even geeks. Fanservice in video games does not represent the gaming community. It represents the game makers. Game makers are part of the gaming community. Obviously a biased part of the community, otherwise we wouldn't be having this problem.
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Post by Fang of the Dead on Sept 15, 2012 19:53:13 GMT -5
If anyone tells me that "Oh, big muscular superheroes are fanservice for female readers," I just point them to this comic: Also, I can add my own perspective to this; I'm a tabletop gamer. D&D and Pathfinder, mostly. And you know what? Pretty much any female character is gonna be wearing less than a male character, moreso in Pathfinder than D&D. Seoni, the iconic sorceress, is pretty much falling out of her dress... Like most sorceresses in fantasy. That said, the Iconic Cleric, Inquisitor and paladin are all dressed relatively sensibly... Then again, the Inquisitor isn't meant to be "attractive," 'cuz she's a Half-Orc.If anything, it's worse in tabletop RPGs because it's even more male-dominated than comics and video games. Of course, there's nothing to say you can't design your own female character to dress sensibly, but that has no bearing on the official artists.
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Post by Yoyti on Sept 15, 2012 21:45:38 GMT -5
Teow, in the first instance “point” was intended to mean “personal opinion on the matter,” and in the second instance, “point” was intended to mean “piece of information.” Regarding advertising, this is still my response to a few pages back, regarding the idea of “sex sells,” and illustrating various scenarios which I think could produce some interesting results. I’m sorry if I confused you.
Secondly, I’m aware of that whole conversation about Kratos on the previous page, but I only pointed out one particular big beefy guy (Iron Enforcer). Ty Veculus and The Defuser, while muscular, have that rugged thing going on (and please correct me if I’m getting any of the terminology wrong. I still use the word “gay” to mean happy and pleasant from time to time.) Characters like Levity and Hyper Strike are more like what you (Fang) pointed to. I had intended, in this, to list the varying degrees of fanservice material. I thought I made that fairly clear.
Teow, those last couple of points you made? Interesting. I hadn’t known that.
Sorry if this post seems a bit disorganized. I'm feeling a bit off today, but I wanted to get this in lest people think I'm fleeing from the conversation.
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Post by Komori on Sept 15, 2012 22:07:58 GMT -5
Mm, you talking to Teow, Yoyti? Because Nim hasn't posted anything on this thread recently. (Or at all maybe? I dunno, a lot of the early pages are old)
Speaking of old, I also don't know what you're talking about in regards to advertising. You have to realize a lot of the earlier pages are months old, and no one's really going to go back and retread that far.
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Post by Yoyti on Sept 16, 2012 8:08:50 GMT -5
Right, sorry, I got confused through a combination of me being an idiot, and strange name changes. Post is modified.
Now, my original post on this thread was on page 9, in response to another post, also on page 9. Yes, I had to revive the thread to post it, but it was still on the same page, and easy enough to refer to. No one seems to have read that post. Now, my bend on advertising in my Superhero post was a combination of me going off on a tangent, and me still being hung on the idea of marketers and advertisers being the "sexist" ones, not the geeks themselves. I hope that clears things up?
Now, back on topic... or the topic I want to hear about, how do you think such a game as I described would sell. One that was puzzle oriented, but whose advertising focused on sex and violence? What about the same game, but whose advertising focused on the game itself?
And regarding sexist female figures within games, my video game knowledge really stops at Minecraft and Portal, and there's only so much you can do to make Pong sexy.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Sept 16, 2012 8:56:43 GMT -5
There is actually a really hilarious example of sex being used to sell and entirely and utterly un-sexual game. Evony! You may have seen it's ads on this very forum.
They went from a picture of a night, to a busty lady inviting you do "Come Play, my lord", to nearly naked ladies and a tag that said "hottest game online, play discretely". None of the images ever had anything to do with the game, which was a pretty generic clone of Civilization. thesocietypages has a completely outrageous progression of the ad campaign.
And how well did that do? Well, I don't have any numbers but well enough for a sequel to be nearing release.
It's incredibly possible that marketing for games is very sexist. But the gamers vote with their wallet. They vote for games like DoA: extreme beach volleyball series, who's primary selling point is breasts with independent bounce physics and a pole dancing mini-game.
Also, having been deeply involved in nerd culture for years, I can safely say that the sexism extends to the players. Check out "fat, ugly, or slutty", a website that I can't link here. It's nothing but screenshots of terrible sexual harassment and rape threats of women over Xbox live. Check out the disproportionate negative reaction to female games journalists linked in this thread.
I find it very curious that you constantly point out your lack of experience in and knowledge about geekdom, but are content to make assertions about their behavior.
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Post by Yoyti on Sept 16, 2012 13:12:19 GMT -5
When have I made any assertions? As far as I'm aware, I've been posing hypotheses. My emphasis on my lack of knowledge on the topic is to stress the point that I may be wrong. In point of fact, I probably am. You see, you are giving me information, and I appreciate that. In point of fact, you have answered a number of my questions that I had upon coming here. Given that, I am willing to drop most of conversation here and now.
Now, regarding Evony, that's very interesting. Now I want to see a game that is nearly identical, but the advertising of which is more relevant to the game. I'm going to do some research regarding the overall success of Evony and Civilization, and see if I come up with anything interesting. With that, I temporarily depart until I decide I have something more to say, or someone asks me something or otherwise talks to me directly.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2013 11:21:33 GMT -5
I just wanted to say something about how Barbie is sexist. Yes, the very first 1959 Barbie commercial was a bit sexist, I won't lie. But I have to say that I think the company has definitely gotten better. (Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's improved) For example, take Erika (one of my favorite characters) from the movie Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. First of all, her outfits. This is her when she's disguised as a princess (wearing a blonde wig): Compare those outfits to the super-sexualized comic book characters we looked at earlier. Also, another great thing about Erika is that, at the end of the movie, her male love interest does ask to marry her, but she doesn't do it right away. She follows her dream (traveling around the world and singing), and only after months of doing that does she come back and marry him. Another Barbie example: the movie Barbie and the Three Musketeers. What happens? The leading man is the one in distress, and the girls save him (using swords!). No, Barbie is not perfect in this regard. But I will say it's gotten way beyond the 1959 way of thinking. EDIT: I'm curious to see what you guys think of this.
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Post by Komori on Jun 19, 2013 18:29:48 GMT -5
Barbie has always had princess dresses, so one character in a Barbie movie in a princess dress doesn't really prove anything. Sexist doesn't always mean scantily clad.
Also, direct-to-video movies aren't exactly the same thing as their toy property.
Also also, this thread is almost a year old, and even in the main bulk of the thread the toy was only a fringe subtopic anyway. It's a thread about geekdom, and Barbie's barely even relevant. Probably no one felt like saying anything because no one had anything to say about Barbie.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2013 19:34:55 GMT -5
Okay then! (I deleted my double post because I didn't want to make the thread look spammy, not to make someone look like an idiot)
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