Question about sexism using games as a popular example

[YUPPIE]

Basically:

If you have a female character wearing default (nothing of costumes or customization) scantily clad attire and even being subject to clothing damage, how is that alone considered sexist if their personality or the narrative has nothing correspondingly sexist in tone? I'm not insinuating it isn't, I'm just wondering how or what makes it so. Like no one in-universe is telling them to wear that, comments on it, or tries to lower that character verbally. Just the outfit alone.

By comparison, why does no one really cry sexist when it's a male character wearing nothing? Going shirtless is one of the most popular depictions of male warriors and there's not much say over it. Most of the men in Mortal Kombat like to go shirtless with huge muscular bodies.

[Justpassing]

The definition of sexism is not one of the commandments - everyone has an opinion on what it is and there's internet, so.

[TheImperios]

Basically:

If you have a female character wearing default (nothing of costumes or customization) scantily clad attire and even being subject to clothing damage, how is that alone considered sexist if their personality or the narrative has nothing correspondingly sexist in tone? I'm not insinuating it isn't, I'm just wondering how or what makes it so. Like no one in-universe is telling them to wear that, comments on it, or tries to lower that character verbally. Just the outfit alone.

By comparison, why does no one really cry sexist when it's a male character wearing nothing? Going shirtless is one of the most popular depictions of male warriors and there's not much say over it. Most of the men in Mortal Kombat like to go shirtless with huge muscular bodies.

The problems are manifold.

First, from an artistic standpoint, it may create a dissonance with the female character's storyline and disrupt the work's themes. For example, in Michael Bay's Transformers, the character of Megan Fox is actually supposed to defy the sexist prejudices of her surroundings, and her story arc is supposed to represent that. However, Bay's focus on her appearance, coupled with his general poor directing skills, cause this aspect of the character to be blurred, and thus Mikaela is remembered as nothing but fanservice.

Second, there is the fact that the clothing and appearance of the female character may be unpleasant to the straight female player, which actually are an important part of the demographic in many games such as World of Warcraft or Overwatch. When the opposite happens - where the male characters are considered to be too sexy to be comfortable for the straight male player - the authors often change the character in question's appearance to make him more conventionally manly. For example, the oversexualised male lead of one of the Final Fantasy games has underwent such a change, and although technical issues were also to blame, the original, more elegant and sexy blood elf male model was changed to be more "manly". If such changes can be made to accomodate the male demographic, why not the female one too?

That is not to say that the female characters can't be sexy and appeal to the female demographic, of course, but that would require a more careful, and often tasteful approach. I only have anecdotal evidence here, but a (female) friend of mine who played Overwatch said that, while she did not like how characters like Tracer and Widowmaker looked, she found Sombra's exotic appearance to be appealing and associated herself with her more strongly than she did with other female characters.

Third, there is a matter of diversity of appearance. Sure, you can have one female lead who's all sexed up, but what of other female characters in your media? If they all conform to the same narrow standards of sexual appeal, you get a very visually bland cast of characters that are hard to distinguish between each other - take the female ninjas in Mortal Kombat, for example, or, again, the early characters of Overwatch, which all had hourglass figures and looked the same. Compare that to the male characters - buff guy, fat guy, skinny guy, short guy - or the new female characters - teenage girl, chubby girl, buff girl, androgynous lady, old lady, robot lady. That's sexist (as male characters are allowed more freedom) and also bad design.

Fourth, the one thing which you can consider is how the female and male characters are presented. Why is the female lead often made sexy? For many reasons, but one of them is the fact that the female lead is often presented from the third-person perspective, while the male lead is presented from the first person. This is done because of the assumption that we associate ourselves with the male lead, but not with the female lead. This spreads to the story as well. Often, the male lead is being made more bland, in order for the player (which we assume to be male) to associate themselves with more easily - while the female lead is given a more complex backstory and overall presented as separate from the player (which we, again, assume to be male, and therefore incapable of connecting with the lead as easily).

This situation makes some sense as the majority of the playerbase is male, but it is obviously sexist and overall discomforting to the female player (for whom the situation is reversed) and even to the male player (as the developers assume them to be idiots incapable of associating themselves with a person different from them).

So, these are the pitfalls you may consider. You can make a game that features a sexualised female lead and is also non-sexist, but it will take a certain amount of effort. Consider making a character design that's appealing to the viewers of all sexes, genders and sexualities. Add different female characters with different appearances - in fact, many male players will appreciate it as well! Do the same for males - add a few sexy ones for the fangirls and gay fanboys as well! And, well, try to give the player a way to associate themselves with the lead. It will be an interesting experience, it will be artistic, and it will certainly gain you a fanbase amongst the horny Tumblr fangirls.

[paragraphgorilla]

I can't take you seriously after reading your "latest started threads", OP.

[Rennadrel]

The only people who are offended by scantily clad or sexually attractive female characters in video games are either ugly women, third wave feminist Twitter warriors and men who lie saying that they find those kinds of characters unappealing. Turns out though that you can make attractive characters that have good stories, ala Lara Croft. Or you can have zero story, big titty bouncing chicks in fighting games. There is nothing wrong with fanservice in gaming and since men are the significant majority of gamers, I don't why something we enjoy should be abolished because someone else was offended by it.

[Rendark]

I can't take you seriously after reading your "latest started threads", OP.

Reading them makes him look like a alien trying to learn about the humans.

[Rennadrel]

It's also worth noting that there's more female gamers who aren't offended by certain depictions of women in video games than those that are. During the height of Gamer Gate, there were plenty of women on Twitch, some with thousands of daily viewers, biting back against whiney hacks like Anita Sarkeesian and Lacie Green (thankfully she eventually figured it out). A loud but vocal minority of what effectively became the way many initially defined SJWs and white knights on Twitter and YouTube. It just became this huge back and forth, a giant pissing contest, all because a small group of losers felt entitled to pushing their agenda on the gaming industry. And since then, not a whole lot has changed. There's still tons fanservice and Japanese devs in particular don't give a fuck about some whiners who won't buy their games anyway. But more companies are hiring female developers. We have also seen growth in how characters are developed through better story writing.