I am woman, hear me BOOP BEEP BOOP
Jan. 11th, 2010 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI don't have any particular dog in this fight over Bayonetta's feminist icon status. I haven't looked at trailers or played demos or the game itself. I've seen a picture of the lead character, which only makes me wonder if the developers managed to bang this game out after Sarah Palin rose to national prominence or if the resemblance between Palin and Bayonetta is purely coincidence. So I haven't got much of any interest in joining the fray over her feminist icon status.
I can, however, respectfully disagree with the following from a pro-Bayonetta statement without weighing in on Bayonetta specifically:
As a woman, I haven't often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to "the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail." Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that's made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.
What the author is implying, if I read this comment right, is that she objects to games that are feature ungendered protagonists--that is, the gender of the protagonist never comes up or is not essential to the story (like in Portal--or where the protagonist could have been male but just happened not to be (Tomb Raider, Metroid even). But I also think she's targeting games like Mass Effect or the RPGs like it that allow you to create a male or female character who more or less works through the same story. That character is never treated differently by the story for being male or female, though his/her romantic interests do vary somewhat. That's just putting boobs on a man, and to this author that's not feminism.
Now, obviously, "putting breasts on a dude" sounds like a very bad thing, and it can be so far as it becomes a reduction female-ness to a bare minimum to make a character tolerable (on top of possibly objectifying that character). This is indeed a Very Bad Thing because a) it assumes a mostly male audience and b) that this mostly male audience is so immature they cannot possibly stand a female avatar unless she is as little like a woman to the point that breasts are the only difference between her and a player. Very insulting that.
But? There is also a lot of power in relegating breasts themselves into that "no big deal" category. If I might stay with the example I know best, in Mass Effect, making Commander Shepard's gender one of many features you can tweak--alongside much more personality-shaping ones like his/her personal history, facial disfigurement, and overall attitude--is a good thing, feminism-wise. Sometimes, Shepard is a dude. (Notably, in all the promotional pictures and videos for the game and the sequel, Shepard is male.) Sometimes, Shepard is a woman. Sometimes s/he is a Biotic; sometimes s/he is a tech. It's just one thing to change to enhance gameplay, to encourage you to play again. It certainly worked on me. I played a female Shepard the first time through, mostly because of the novelty of being able to create a woman player character but also because the male characters? UGLY AS SIN. I did, however, play a male Shepard, if only to see what was different. Know what was? One of my choices of mate and my voice actor. Otherwise? Good old Shepard.
I have always felt that there is a lot to be gained by writing characters first, genders second. Story writers are crippled by their own unknown privilege and prejudice and by the ignorance and low expectations of their audience. Video games, even more so than movies and television, continue to be dominated by male creators--writers, animators, developers, etc.--and it's not easy to jump into the heads of people they are not: women, minorities, non-humans (just to name a few). Which is why I'd rather they focus on creating a character worth learning about and spending time with--someone noble, possibly a bit ruthless, efficient, determined, special--and worry about drawing that character's body second. This is not always an option when a story depends on biological sexual differences, politics of sexuality and gender, etc. But when your story is about a member of the universe's elite space police force, what does having breasts or lacking them have to do with anything? And doesn't relegating that decision to a second-tier priority (if not lower) actually further the true cause of feminism--which is general recognition that women are human and every bit as prone to fits of heroism or villainy as men?
I've no idea what the author at that link means by this other line:
I already know that women can do all the same things men can. This time, I get to see a woman do plenty of things men can't. And I love it.
Does Bayonetta give birth in this game? Does she suckle an infant? Does she get her period? What, exactly, besides those things, can she do that men cannot? (Is it because she's a witch? There are male witches!) This tips me off to wondering what it is that a "girl" can do that a man cannot because this is going to be more indicative of the writer's bias than of the game's contribution to or destruction of feminism...
I can, however, respectfully disagree with the following from a pro-Bayonetta statement without weighing in on Bayonetta specifically:
As a woman, I haven't often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to "the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail." Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that's made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.
What the author is implying, if I read this comment right, is that she objects to games that are feature ungendered protagonists--that is, the gender of the protagonist never comes up or is not essential to the story (like in Portal--or where the protagonist could have been male but just happened not to be (Tomb Raider, Metroid even). But I also think she's targeting games like Mass Effect or the RPGs like it that allow you to create a male or female character who more or less works through the same story. That character is never treated differently by the story for being male or female, though his/her romantic interests do vary somewhat. That's just putting boobs on a man, and to this author that's not feminism.
Now, obviously, "putting breasts on a dude" sounds like a very bad thing, and it can be so far as it becomes a reduction female-ness to a bare minimum to make a character tolerable (on top of possibly objectifying that character). This is indeed a Very Bad Thing because a) it assumes a mostly male audience and b) that this mostly male audience is so immature they cannot possibly stand a female avatar unless she is as little like a woman to the point that breasts are the only difference between her and a player. Very insulting that.
But? There is also a lot of power in relegating breasts themselves into that "no big deal" category. If I might stay with the example I know best, in Mass Effect, making Commander Shepard's gender one of many features you can tweak--alongside much more personality-shaping ones like his/her personal history, facial disfigurement, and overall attitude--is a good thing, feminism-wise. Sometimes, Shepard is a dude. (Notably, in all the promotional pictures and videos for the game and the sequel, Shepard is male.) Sometimes, Shepard is a woman. Sometimes s/he is a Biotic; sometimes s/he is a tech. It's just one thing to change to enhance gameplay, to encourage you to play again. It certainly worked on me. I played a female Shepard the first time through, mostly because of the novelty of being able to create a woman player character but also because the male characters? UGLY AS SIN. I did, however, play a male Shepard, if only to see what was different. Know what was? One of my choices of mate and my voice actor. Otherwise? Good old Shepard.
I have always felt that there is a lot to be gained by writing characters first, genders second. Story writers are crippled by their own unknown privilege and prejudice and by the ignorance and low expectations of their audience. Video games, even more so than movies and television, continue to be dominated by male creators--writers, animators, developers, etc.--and it's not easy to jump into the heads of people they are not: women, minorities, non-humans (just to name a few). Which is why I'd rather they focus on creating a character worth learning about and spending time with--someone noble, possibly a bit ruthless, efficient, determined, special--and worry about drawing that character's body second. This is not always an option when a story depends on biological sexual differences, politics of sexuality and gender, etc. But when your story is about a member of the universe's elite space police force, what does having breasts or lacking them have to do with anything? And doesn't relegating that decision to a second-tier priority (if not lower) actually further the true cause of feminism--which is general recognition that women are human and every bit as prone to fits of heroism or villainy as men?
I've no idea what the author at that link means by this other line:
I already know that women can do all the same things men can. This time, I get to see a woman do plenty of things men can't. And I love it.
Does Bayonetta give birth in this game? Does she suckle an infant? Does she get her period? What, exactly, besides those things, can she do that men cannot? (Is it because she's a witch? There are male witches!) This tips me off to wondering what it is that a "girl" can do that a man cannot because this is going to be more indicative of the writer's bias than of the game's contribution to or destruction of feminism...
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Date: 2010-01-11 11:58 pm (UTC)Also, it's not un-feminist of you because you're a lesbian, so that makes it another social issue altogether.
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Date: 2010-01-11 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-12 01:09 am (UTC)