Okay, folks. It's been pointed out to me that having links to my various posts with actual numbers might be helpful for people looking to linkspam people saying stupid things on the internet about games not being sexist. So I'm putting up this post just to collect the most useful stuff in one place. For the most part, what you'll find here is numbers based on surveys of game artwork.
My original article about sexist depictions of women in gaming can be found here. In it, I surveyed art from MMOs, console games, CCGs, and tabletop RPGs and came up with detailed numbers of sexist depictions in various sources.
There is also a followup survey done of the relaunched galleries on the official WoW site after the release of the Cataclysm expansion. The survey is the first part in a series that also includes posts on why the numbers are misleading, unbalanced class depictions, and comparisons of good and bad character design.
It's very probably that any of these links will be responded to with comments along the line of "but gaming is sexist against men too!". You may want to link them to this post about why idealized figures are not the same as sexualized figures. (Do note that since I was pretty angry when I wrote that post, it's likely that they will respond that I'm biased.)
Feel free to link to any of these posts if you feel like it. This post will be edited to add new links whenever I do something that includes actual numbers.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Re-launched WoW Galleries: Analysis, Part 2 (Numbers lie. Sort of.)
In my last post, I examined the re-launched galleries on the official WoW site according to the criteria of my original survey. The first post was just a look at the numbers as they were counted. From here on out, we’ll be looking at some of the actual images pulled from the galleries on the official WoW site.
(As such, I’ll note that all of the images used here are official Blizzard artwork; the fanart gallery was not counted, and nor do I use any images from the fanart gallery in these posts. While Blizzard is choosing which fanart submissions to post on their site, they themselves did not commission the artwork, nor did they pay for it – so I decided to err on the side of caution.)
In the last post, the significant trends that were observed was the increase in female figures, the increase in actively posed female figures, and the increase in suggestive depictions of men. Those seem like positive things, right? Even if the changes were small, they were all changes in the right direction. Well…
Why the numbers aren’t as positive as they seem
In the original survey, my criteria for what qualifies as suggestive is intended to be slightly ridiculous in that it is very easy for a male figure to be classified as suggestive while being comparatively hard for female figures to be classified as suggestive.
All of these were counted as suggestive male figures. The left-most figure is classified as suggestive male figure because he has a discernable gender (male) and isn’t wearing a shirt. Now, we can argue about whether or not it’s reasonable for some people to find giant bipedal cows sexy, but I feel a little more confident in saying that it’s definitely ridiculous for someone to find an insect sexy. (But who knows, perhaps that’s just my arachnophobia talking.)
The middle figure is also a pretty silly inclusion. This cartoonish goblin is in no way presented as a “sexy” figure, but his lack of pants automatically included him in the suggestive category. The orc on the right is the only figure with even a semi-legitimate claim to actual sexiness. A case could be made for him being a sexualized figure. But I could also put together a pretty good case for him not being sexualized, so I’ll settle for calling the running orc an edge case.
Now when it came to female figures, any female figure that was wearing a leg-covering garment and whose costume did not expose anything suggestive (cleavage, midriff, portions of thighs, butt, etc) were automatically counted as not suggestively attired, even if their outfit was clearly spray-painted on and left nothing to the imagination. Here are some of the women counted as not suggestive:
The blood elf paladin seems to be wearing spandex instead of the impossibly huge plate armor that male paladin characters usually get to wear. Furthermore, her costume has two conveniently placed straps that call attention to her breasts, since they hang right where her nipples would be.
The rogue fares a bit better in terms of costume in that it looks like actual armor and not just spandex. However, it’s every bit as tight as the blood elf paladin’s outfit, and she has the ridiculously sexualized pose to boot! Her pose has her arching her back while simultaneously thrusting out both her breasts and her ass. It’s pretty clear that she’s on display for the male viewer.
As for the two undead… During my counts, I didn’t count any undead as suggestive since they’re – you know – dead. But when you look at these undead women, they reflect what you see when you look at almost all art of female undead. Both women are pretty seriously rotten, and yet somehow their faces show no trace of rot.
Furthermore, neither do their breasts – which are still large and improbably perky given the state of the rest of them. Are women in Azeroth too poor to afford a full embalming, so they just get their face and tits done? “Well, I might be dead, but at least I’ll still have a great rack!”. Give me a break. These women are dead, and yet they’re still being designed to appeal to male viewers.
As for the last two, calling the warlock not suggestively attired is pretty ridiculous since I can discern anatomical features not normally visible through clothing. (If I can see individual ribs, she might as well not be wearing clothing at all.) The priest’s robes are pretty tight too, though not as tight as the warlock. However, there’s clearly visible underboob through the robe, and the cross is pretty clearly only there to call attention to her breasts.
Not all suggestive depictions are created equal
Second, we have to consider that there is absolutely a difference between the majority of male figures that were counted as suggestive and female figures that were counted as suggestive. For instance, look at this concept art of male and female Draenei:
Both of these characters were counted as suggestive – the male because he’s not wearing pants and the female because she’s not wearing much of anything at all. Is the male Draenei suggestive? Maybe. Is he as sexualized as the female Draenei? Absolutely not.
I’m not going to try to figure out whether the suggestive monstrous figures that were counted were meant to appeal to women. But I am going to say that there is a world of difference between this:
and this:
These women are being presented as sexual objects in a way that just isn’t true for the majority, if not all, of the suggestive male figures. Every single of one of these women is drawn to be nothing more than a collection of sexy parts, presented for maximum titillation. I mean, I think this image says it all:
By the numbers, the new gallery shows an improvement in all measureable sexist trends except for depictions of class archetypes. But looking at the images tells a different story. Even if Blizzard were to start counting the numbers of male and female figures in their illustrations and making a conscious effort to have men and women equally represented, it wouldn’t change the underlying attitude that women in Azeroth exist to be sexually pleasing to men.
What’s next
· Comparisons of male class illustrations and female class illustrations.
· Comparisons of positive female depictions and problematic female depictions
· Another gender-swap! Now with 200% more ridiculousness!
[Edit: Part 3 is now up!]
(As such, I’ll note that all of the images used here are official Blizzard artwork; the fanart gallery was not counted, and nor do I use any images from the fanart gallery in these posts. While Blizzard is choosing which fanart submissions to post on their site, they themselves did not commission the artwork, nor did they pay for it – so I decided to err on the side of caution.)
In the last post, the significant trends that were observed was the increase in female figures, the increase in actively posed female figures, and the increase in suggestive depictions of men. Those seem like positive things, right? Even if the changes were small, they were all changes in the right direction. Well…
Why the numbers aren’t as positive as they seem
In the original survey, my criteria for what qualifies as suggestive is intended to be slightly ridiculous in that it is very easy for a male figure to be classified as suggestive while being comparatively hard for female figures to be classified as suggestive.
All of these were counted as suggestive male figures. The left-most figure is classified as suggestive male figure because he has a discernable gender (male) and isn’t wearing a shirt. Now, we can argue about whether or not it’s reasonable for some people to find giant bipedal cows sexy, but I feel a little more confident in saying that it’s definitely ridiculous for someone to find an insect sexy. (But who knows, perhaps that’s just my arachnophobia talking.)
The middle figure is also a pretty silly inclusion. This cartoonish goblin is in no way presented as a “sexy” figure, but his lack of pants automatically included him in the suggestive category. The orc on the right is the only figure with even a semi-legitimate claim to actual sexiness. A case could be made for him being a sexualized figure. But I could also put together a pretty good case for him not being sexualized, so I’ll settle for calling the running orc an edge case.
Now when it came to female figures, any female figure that was wearing a leg-covering garment and whose costume did not expose anything suggestive (cleavage, midriff, portions of thighs, butt, etc) were automatically counted as not suggestively attired, even if their outfit was clearly spray-painted on and left nothing to the imagination. Here are some of the women counted as not suggestive:
The blood elf paladin seems to be wearing spandex instead of the impossibly huge plate armor that male paladin characters usually get to wear. Furthermore, her costume has two conveniently placed straps that call attention to her breasts, since they hang right where her nipples would be.
The rogue fares a bit better in terms of costume in that it looks like actual armor and not just spandex. However, it’s every bit as tight as the blood elf paladin’s outfit, and she has the ridiculously sexualized pose to boot! Her pose has her arching her back while simultaneously thrusting out both her breasts and her ass. It’s pretty clear that she’s on display for the male viewer.
As for the two undead… During my counts, I didn’t count any undead as suggestive since they’re – you know – dead. But when you look at these undead women, they reflect what you see when you look at almost all art of female undead. Both women are pretty seriously rotten, and yet somehow their faces show no trace of rot.
Furthermore, neither do their breasts – which are still large and improbably perky given the state of the rest of them. Are women in Azeroth too poor to afford a full embalming, so they just get their face and tits done? “Well, I might be dead, but at least I’ll still have a great rack!”. Give me a break. These women are dead, and yet they’re still being designed to appeal to male viewers.
As for the last two, calling the warlock not suggestively attired is pretty ridiculous since I can discern anatomical features not normally visible through clothing. (If I can see individual ribs, she might as well not be wearing clothing at all.) The priest’s robes are pretty tight too, though not as tight as the warlock. However, there’s clearly visible underboob through the robe, and the cross is pretty clearly only there to call attention to her breasts.
Not all suggestive depictions are created equal
Second, we have to consider that there is absolutely a difference between the majority of male figures that were counted as suggestive and female figures that were counted as suggestive. For instance, look at this concept art of male and female Draenei:
Both of these characters were counted as suggestive – the male because he’s not wearing pants and the female because she’s not wearing much of anything at all. Is the male Draenei suggestive? Maybe. Is he as sexualized as the female Draenei? Absolutely not.
I’m not going to try to figure out whether the suggestive monstrous figures that were counted were meant to appeal to women. But I am going to say that there is a world of difference between this:
and this:
These women are being presented as sexual objects in a way that just isn’t true for the majority, if not all, of the suggestive male figures. Every single of one of these women is drawn to be nothing more than a collection of sexy parts, presented for maximum titillation. I mean, I think this image says it all:
By the numbers, the new gallery shows an improvement in all measureable sexist trends except for depictions of class archetypes. But looking at the images tells a different story. Even if Blizzard were to start counting the numbers of male and female figures in their illustrations and making a conscious effort to have men and women equally represented, it wouldn’t change the underlying attitude that women in Azeroth exist to be sexually pleasing to men.
What’s next
· Comparisons of male class illustrations and female class illustrations.
· Comparisons of positive female depictions and problematic female depictions
· Another gender-swap! Now with 200% more ridiculousness!
[Edit: Part 3 is now up!]
Friday, January 7, 2011
Galleries on official WoW site relaunched: Analysis (numbers)
The Impetus (or: why torture myself again?)
While looking for game art featuring female characters more obviously sexualized than Vanille, I visited the official WoW website and discovered that the website had been re-launched along with the Cataclysm expansion. There had been a significant re-design and re-organization, and that included the galleries.
The old website galleries had been subdivided (if memory serves) into galleries for the various expansions with another gallery for general concept art. The new galleries still have expansion-specific sub-galleries, but the generic concept art gallery is gone in favor of a "Races" gallery and a "Classes" gallery. Overall, there was a lot of new art in the galleries that I hadn't seen before. Furthermore, the wallpapers gallery has been split into 10 or 12 sub-galleries - although there's not as much new there.
I got curious as to how numbers from the new site would stack up against numbers from the old site that I had compiled while working on my Depictions of Women article. So I decided to go through the revamped WoW galleries according to the same criteria as the original survey to see what I'd come up with.
Criteria and caveats
Again, the criteria I was examining: number of figures with discernible gender, active versus neutral poses, fully clothed figures, suggestively attired figures, and class archetypes (fighter, thief, mage). (For specific details on how I defined these criteria, follow the link above to the original article.)
Interestingly, because of the large amount of new art, I found myself having to add a few caveats to the criteria simply due to things that I hadn't come across the first time around. Firstly, undead figures showing any signs of rot at all were never marked as suggestive no matter how much skin was showing. (Because, you know, eew.) Silvanas was still counted as suggestive since her "undeath" just turned her grey and spooky. Children, for obvious reasons, were never considered as suggestive. Lastly, there were some cityscape images (mostly from Burning Crusade) of Darnassus and Silvermoon where I didn't count any figures at all because the figures were very small and elves can be pretty ambiguous.
Numbers and counting
Coming up with an accurate count was a bit of a daunting task because there are so many more sub-galleries than the old site had and a small number of images were duplicated across two or more galleries. (For instance, a particular image showed up in the Burning Crusade, Races, and Classes galleries.) So when counting images, I did not count duplicates of that exact image reposted in another gallery. If an image was in both Races and Classes, I only counted it once.
There were some images that I did count multiples of; there are several iconic race/class characters that are used in a lot of promotional art and slapped onto custom backgrounds. Each iteration of the iconic characters with a distinct background was counted. I modified that rule slightly for the Arthases (Arthasi?) that I counted, since there were so many of them. Because Arthas was in the cover art for the Wrath of the Lich King, I didn't want my numbers to be overly skewed by just one character, so I counted each distinct Arthas pose only once.
And here are the results! You'll probably want to click for the large version, unfortunately these don't shrink down very well:
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW
Okay, I know this looks really crowded, but I really wanted to make it as easy as possible to compare the two sets of numbers. Old numbers are represented in pastels, new numbers are represented in brights.
Now, when you look at the numbers here, it looks as if there have been some marginal improvements. Certainly the ratio of female figures to male figures has increased from one in four to one in three. Also, the percentage of active figures slightly increased which puts women aaaaaalmost at 50% of all active figures (from around 45%). Similarly, class archetypes haven't changed much. There were slightly more fighters depicted as women, but half of all female figures are still mages - which doesn't represent a real change from the old numbers.
The biggest obvious difference is the large increase in suggestively attired male figures. This is pretty much directly attributable to the new Cataclysm expansion which introduced werewolves (Worgen) as a playable race. As everyone knows, werewolves are ALWAYS bare-chested men.
I know it's true because Stephenie Meyer says so!
While looking for game art featuring female characters more obviously sexualized than Vanille, I visited the official WoW website and discovered that the website had been re-launched along with the Cataclysm expansion. There had been a significant re-design and re-organization, and that included the galleries.
The old website galleries had been subdivided (if memory serves) into galleries for the various expansions with another gallery for general concept art. The new galleries still have expansion-specific sub-galleries, but the generic concept art gallery is gone in favor of a "Races" gallery and a "Classes" gallery. Overall, there was a lot of new art in the galleries that I hadn't seen before. Furthermore, the wallpapers gallery has been split into 10 or 12 sub-galleries - although there's not as much new there.
I got curious as to how numbers from the new site would stack up against numbers from the old site that I had compiled while working on my Depictions of Women article. So I decided to go through the revamped WoW galleries according to the same criteria as the original survey to see what I'd come up with.
Criteria and caveats
Again, the criteria I was examining: number of figures with discernible gender, active versus neutral poses, fully clothed figures, suggestively attired figures, and class archetypes (fighter, thief, mage). (For specific details on how I defined these criteria, follow the link above to the original article.)
Interestingly, because of the large amount of new art, I found myself having to add a few caveats to the criteria simply due to things that I hadn't come across the first time around. Firstly, undead figures showing any signs of rot at all were never marked as suggestive no matter how much skin was showing. (Because, you know, eew.) Silvanas was still counted as suggestive since her "undeath" just turned her grey and spooky. Children, for obvious reasons, were never considered as suggestive. Lastly, there were some cityscape images (mostly from Burning Crusade) of Darnassus and Silvermoon where I didn't count any figures at all because the figures were very small and elves can be pretty ambiguous.
Numbers and counting
Coming up with an accurate count was a bit of a daunting task because there are so many more sub-galleries than the old site had and a small number of images were duplicated across two or more galleries. (For instance, a particular image showed up in the Burning Crusade, Races, and Classes galleries.) So when counting images, I did not count duplicates of that exact image reposted in another gallery. If an image was in both Races and Classes, I only counted it once.
There were some images that I did count multiples of; there are several iconic race/class characters that are used in a lot of promotional art and slapped onto custom backgrounds. Each iteration of the iconic characters with a distinct background was counted. I modified that rule slightly for the Arthases (Arthasi?) that I counted, since there were so many of them. Because Arthas was in the cover art for the Wrath of the Lich King, I didn't want my numbers to be overly skewed by just one character, so I counted each distinct Arthas pose only once.
And here are the results! You'll probably want to click for the large version, unfortunately these don't shrink down very well:
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
So looking at this, the new galleries undeniably display sexist trends. Women comprise only one third of all figures with discernible gender. Only one third of figures that are fully clothed are women while making up slightly more than two thirds of all suggestively clad figures. And women are twice as likely to be depicted as magic users rather than thieves/rogues or fighters.
So what happens when you stack the new numbers against the old numbers? (You'll definitely want to click through for this one)
So what happens when you stack the new numbers against the old numbers? (You'll definitely want to click through for this one)
CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW
Okay, I know this looks really crowded, but I really wanted to make it as easy as possible to compare the two sets of numbers. Old numbers are represented in pastels, new numbers are represented in brights.
Now, when you look at the numbers here, it looks as if there have been some marginal improvements. Certainly the ratio of female figures to male figures has increased from one in four to one in three. Also, the percentage of active figures slightly increased which puts women aaaaaalmost at 50% of all active figures (from around 45%). Similarly, class archetypes haven't changed much. There were slightly more fighters depicted as women, but half of all female figures are still mages - which doesn't represent a real change from the old numbers.
The biggest obvious difference is the large increase in suggestively attired male figures. This is pretty much directly attributable to the new Cataclysm expansion which introduced werewolves (Worgen) as a playable race. As everyone knows, werewolves are ALWAYS bare-chested men.
I know it's true because Stephenie Meyer says so!
Snark aside, I find it significant that 55 out of the 68 suggestive male figures were monstrous - either being orc, tauren, troll, goblin, worgen, or demon. (Illidan I counts as demon in my books, btw. I suppose if you felt like it you could ignore the giant bat wings and call him a night elf.) Out of the 13 non-monstrous suggestive male figures - 12 humans and a gnome (sounds like the punchline of a joke) - 5 were Vry'Kul, an enemy NPC faction. This leaves only 7 out of 68 suggestive male figures that are not monstrous and actually heroes.
In most of the images with suggestive monstrous male figures, it seems like the intent of the artist was to convey the savage nature of their race by dressing them in more "primitive" attire. As such, it seems to me like these figures should fall into a different category than the suggestive female figures. The suggestive female figures are suggestively attired because they are highly sexualized. The suggestive monstrous male figures seem to be suggestively attired as a way of defining something about that character.
However, since part of the point of my methods is to be intentionally ridiculous in counting male figures as suggestive, I counted them all anyway. (I'm even counting the tauren, remember, who are basically just bipedal cows.) I simply think it's a thing worth noting.
What's next
I plan on examining in detail why these numbers aren't as positive (ha!) as they seem. Also, I plan on looking at the inequality of class depictions between male and female figures. But that will have to wait for another day.
[EDIT: Part 2 can be found here.]
In most of the images with suggestive monstrous male figures, it seems like the intent of the artist was to convey the savage nature of their race by dressing them in more "primitive" attire. As such, it seems to me like these figures should fall into a different category than the suggestive female figures. The suggestive female figures are suggestively attired because they are highly sexualized. The suggestive monstrous male figures seem to be suggestively attired as a way of defining something about that character.
However, since part of the point of my methods is to be intentionally ridiculous in counting male figures as suggestive, I counted them all anyway. (I'm even counting the tauren, remember, who are basically just bipedal cows.) I simply think it's a thing worth noting.
What's next
I plan on examining in detail why these numbers aren't as positive (ha!) as they seem. Also, I plan on looking at the inequality of class depictions between male and female figures. But that will have to wait for another day.
[EDIT: Part 2 can be found here.]
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A bit of visual WTF to tide you over
Hey, folks. Thanks to a concerted campaign of vitamin C and lots of sleep, I'm getting my brain power back. It's still going to be a few days before I post anything substantial, but that's because I'm working on a series of posts about World of Warcraft that will probably be posted in three chunks. It's substantial enough that it's going to take me a non-trivial amount of time to put together, and since I'm busy all weekend I thought I'd put up some things for your, er, amusement in the mean time:
d00d, what is it with sci-fi games and ass cleavage? Mass Effect 2 has Miranda and her ridiculously cavernous ass cleavage. Was Blizzard jealous? Srsly. Come on. Spandex just doesn't work that way, peeps.
Thanks for being patient, folks. I promise the new posts will be worth the wait.
Hey look! Perfect world wants to get in on the act too! Lesbians!
GOD DAMMIT SONY. Just. Just. ARG.
To be fair, I don't believe that this is official art - I'm pretty sure it's fanart. But still. What the f*ck? Did Perfect World's Random Upskirt Tiger start some kind of "sex with tigers" trend?
This, too, I'm pretty sure is fanart. What makes me sad is that the artist who drew this has a pretty good grasp of anatomy. They're just choosing to ignore it.
d00d, what is it with sci-fi games and ass cleavage? Mass Effect 2 has Miranda and her ridiculously cavernous ass cleavage. Was Blizzard jealous? Srsly. Come on. Spandex just doesn't work that way, peeps.
Thanks for being patient, folks. I promise the new posts will be worth the wait.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
I cannot brain, I have the sick.
Hi, folks. Just a heads up. I managed to catch some sort of plague from a friend's kids over the weekend. It's kicking my ass and giving me a serious case of the stupid, so I'm going to be a little quiet for the next few days until I feel better. (Try to behave yourself in the comment threads, folks. Don't do anything I wouldn't... oh wait...)
Mayhaps I will finish the 2nd of my gender-swapped drawings whilst I am sick - coloring is about all the intellectual activity I can handle right now.
In the mean time, I didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so check out these links:
In the new DC Online MMO, you can play any type of female hero you want. As long as they have ENORMOUS KNOCKERS.
An LJ post in which a female comic fan rants about why she shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in comic stores. Substitute "game" for comic and you'd pretty much have a treatise on how I feel in game stores.
Why do women prefer anime and manga to other parts of geekdom? Hint: Because they're the parts that don't tell us to GTFO.
Mayhaps I will finish the 2nd of my gender-swapped drawings whilst I am sick - coloring is about all the intellectual activity I can handle right now.
In the mean time, I didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so check out these links:
In the new DC Online MMO, you can play any type of female hero you want. As long as they have ENORMOUS KNOCKERS.
An LJ post in which a female comic fan rants about why she shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in comic stores. Substitute "game" for comic and you'd pretty much have a treatise on how I feel in game stores.
Why do women prefer anime and manga to other parts of geekdom? Hint: Because they're the parts that don't tell us to GTFO.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Gender-swapping female characters: Vanille
Some of the arguments here about the sexualized design of female video game characters got me to thinking about how I could illustrate this more clearly, since some people just seem to understand that idealization of male characters JUST ISN'T THE SAME as the sexualization of female characters. I got to thinking about a post I saw several years ago on LiveJournal in which a female blogger photoshopped hypothetical comic covers with extreme male fanservice.
I wanted to do something along those lines, only with game art and perhaps a bit less extreme. When discussing sexualized character design, people seem to focus on the body parts - perhaps just because distorted anatomy is very easy for us to recognize. But posing plays just as big a part - even when it's not the subtle-as-a-brick "take me now" posing that all of us are pretty used to seeing. So I decided that I'm going to start doing a series of gender-swapped female game characters, starting with Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII - mostly just because that's the game I'm playing right now.
So here's female Vanille:
CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW
I did contemplate leaving Vanille's ridiculous bikini top and mini skirt combo intact, but I decided that instead I would swap the clothing for their nearest gender equivalents - which is why Van is in a wife-beater and shortish shorts. Van here comes off as pretty gender-inappropriate by conventional standards, and not just because I kept the pink shirt. According to what we're conditioned to expect, everything about the pose is incredibly inappropriate on a male figure.
Vanille's spine is arched in such a way that her breasts are thrust forward. Her legs and clothing are arranged in such a way that your eyes are drawn to her ladybits that are just barely covered by the arrangement of her limbs. And despite this being a somewhat action-y pose, the posing of her arms doesn't suggest strength or action - they suggest softness and femininity. Everything about Vanille's pose is designed to be inviting and appealing to the male viewer. And yet a lot of that gets lost in the gender-swap. Van isn't that much more covered than Vanille, but you don't get the "collection of parts" impression looking at him that you do looking at Vanille.
So all in all, I consider this a pretty successful experiment, and one that I'll definitely repeat. My only regret in that trying to go less extreme than the photoshopped comic covers, I think I went a little too far. Next time I'll pick a character and pose that are a little more obviously sexual and see what happens. (Suggestions?)
Lastly, as recommended reading I'll suggest you check out this great LJ post here with lots of scans from a book on how to draw comic characters that highlights a lot of what I'm talking about. Especially check out the first three scanned pages which highlight pretty much what I'm talking about here.
I wanted to do something along those lines, only with game art and perhaps a bit less extreme. When discussing sexualized character design, people seem to focus on the body parts - perhaps just because distorted anatomy is very easy for us to recognize. But posing plays just as big a part - even when it's not the subtle-as-a-brick "take me now" posing that all of us are pretty used to seeing. So I decided that I'm going to start doing a series of gender-swapped female game characters, starting with Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII - mostly just because that's the game I'm playing right now.
So here's female Vanille:
And here's my genderswapped "Van":
CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW
I did contemplate leaving Vanille's ridiculous bikini top and mini skirt combo intact, but I decided that instead I would swap the clothing for their nearest gender equivalents - which is why Van is in a wife-beater and shortish shorts. Van here comes off as pretty gender-inappropriate by conventional standards, and not just because I kept the pink shirt. According to what we're conditioned to expect, everything about the pose is incredibly inappropriate on a male figure.
Vanille's spine is arched in such a way that her breasts are thrust forward. Her legs and clothing are arranged in such a way that your eyes are drawn to her ladybits that are just barely covered by the arrangement of her limbs. And despite this being a somewhat action-y pose, the posing of her arms doesn't suggest strength or action - they suggest softness and femininity. Everything about Vanille's pose is designed to be inviting and appealing to the male viewer. And yet a lot of that gets lost in the gender-swap. Van isn't that much more covered than Vanille, but you don't get the "collection of parts" impression looking at him that you do looking at Vanille.
So all in all, I consider this a pretty successful experiment, and one that I'll definitely repeat. My only regret in that trying to go less extreme than the photoshopped comic covers, I think I went a little too far. Next time I'll pick a character and pose that are a little more obviously sexual and see what happens. (Suggestions?)
Lastly, as recommended reading I'll suggest you check out this great LJ post here with lots of scans from a book on how to draw comic characters that highlights a lot of what I'm talking about. Especially check out the first three scanned pages which highlight pretty much what I'm talking about here.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Fanart Hall of Shame: Stregatto10
I'm getting kind of tired of arguing on the internet of what is and isn't sexist when it comes to men in video games. I mean, has anyone noticed that the trolls in the previous post's comment thread (and on See Page XX) have us arguing about depictions of men? Heaven forbid that I should talk about the feelings of a marginalized minority on a blog devoted to talking about sexist depictions of women! That just won't do!
Whatever. I'm tired of beating my head against the wall for today, so I'm going to tackle something more cut and dry - improbable anatomy and big fake breasts!
So as always, legal boilerplate: All images you see here are the property of Dorotea Gizzi (Stregatto10). I don't own a thing. The artist's website can be found here and her DeviantArt profile can be found here. If you click on an image, it will take you to the DeviantArt page that it's linked from. (I should have done this previously. I will fix previous Fanart Hall of Shame posts when I have some time to go back and re-dig stuff up.)
Now that that's out of the way...
So Stregatto10 is proof that men don't have a monopoly on creating sexist art. She has quite an extensive gallery of commissions, as well as a long list of commissions in process - so she looks like she has quite the side business going. While not all of her commissions are video game characters, it looks like about half of them are, and out of all of those (there were quite a few) there are only TWO that I can show here, since the rest are pretty much entirely naked except for strategically covered ladybits.
As such, most of what I'm posting here is non-commissioned fanart (at least from what I can tell). But if you log into DeviantArt and investigate Stregatto10's profile, you can see for yourself that the commissions I'm not posting here are much, much worse than what I'm showing here.
First up is one of the two commissions that isn't too raunchy to post here - Zoey from Left4Dead:
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINK)
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINK)
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
Whatever. I'm tired of beating my head against the wall for today, so I'm going to tackle something more cut and dry - improbable anatomy and big fake breasts!
So as always, legal boilerplate: All images you see here are the property of Dorotea Gizzi (Stregatto10). I don't own a thing. The artist's website can be found here and her DeviantArt profile can be found here. If you click on an image, it will take you to the DeviantArt page that it's linked from. (I should have done this previously. I will fix previous Fanart Hall of Shame posts when I have some time to go back and re-dig stuff up.)
Now that that's out of the way...
So Stregatto10 is proof that men don't have a monopoly on creating sexist art. She has quite an extensive gallery of commissions, as well as a long list of commissions in process - so she looks like she has quite the side business going. While not all of her commissions are video game characters, it looks like about half of them are, and out of all of those (there were quite a few) there are only TWO that I can show here, since the rest are pretty much entirely naked except for strategically covered ladybits.
As such, most of what I'm posting here is non-commissioned fanart (at least from what I can tell). But if you log into DeviantArt and investigate Stregatto10's profile, you can see for yourself that the commissions I'm not posting here are much, much worse than what I'm showing here.
First up is one of the two commissions that isn't too raunchy to post here - Zoey from Left4Dead:
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINK)
So, pretty classic example here of boobifying one of the rare non-sexualized female characters in video games. (If you're not familiar with Zoey, check out this image. She's pretty cool, design-wise.) Sexy "please bang me against this wall pose", check. Big fake perfectly spherical breasts, check. Passive expression, check. This is pretty much a how-to for everyone looking to dis-empower female characters with agency. But this is just the tip of the iceberg:
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
On the left we have the Taki picture that originally linked me to Stregatto10's profile, while on the left we have the only other commission that I could show here - Shura (also from Soul Calibur 4). So in both cases we have a pretty giant case of yuck, though Taki is inarguably more freakish than Shura since both her boobs and her ass look like over-inflated balloons. But Shura winds up being just as perplexing since it's a commission; clearly someone ASKED for this picture and paid money for it. But in what universe is either of these women even remotely sexy? Srsly, a universe of yuck.
And of course, things wouldn't be complete without Ivy:
And of course, things wouldn't be complete without Ivy:
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
Some days I can't decide if Samus' Zero Suit was the worst thing to happen to fanart or if that honor should go to Ivy's SC4 redesign. These are all just so, so wrong. Like so much other art of the Soul Calibur women, all of these Ivy's seem to have some sort of organ TARDIS, since their rib cages are clearly not large enough to contain her internal organs. And what's with the boob strap? That thing must be made of titanium to contain those ta-tas. Either that or it has an anti-grav field build in, because there's just no way those boobs should stay in that top.
Lastly, I just have to ask. What is the obsession with having female fighting game characters rub boobs? I seriously don't get it.
Lastly, I just have to ask. What is the obsession with having female fighting game characters rub boobs? I seriously don't get it.
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINK)
And here we have another one of my least favorite characters ever - Morrigan. Amazingly, while her boobs are very, very large, they look like they might not be implants (it's kind of ambiguous). But I guess that's made up for with the completely ridiculous ass cleavage. This one is a pretty classic example of the "please bang me right now" school of posing.
(PROPERTY OF STREGATTO10, CLICK FOR LINKS)
Lastly we have yet another entry in why I will always hate the Dead or Alive girls now and forever. Morrigan's breasts miiiiight not have been fake, but these breasts definitely are. Ayane (left) is just... so... passive. And Kasumi - what the hell is with that hand placement? I mean, I can't help but wondering what she's doing with that right hand, which I imagine is probably the point.
The thing that makes me sad is that Stregatto10's coloring skills blow mine out of the water, even if she seems purposefully ignorant of how female anatomy actually works.
The thing that makes me sad is that Stregatto10's coloring skills blow mine out of the water, even if she seems purposefully ignorant of how female anatomy actually works.
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