Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[Benny]

Yeah, Kyle who?

[crisy]

"This isn't a problem for me personally, therefore it isn't a problem at all."

I do wonder for how many people it is a problem for though. I know there is a very vocal minority on the internet that do have a problem with it, but I suspect that the vast majority of women out there really aren't all that bothered by characters wearing slightly revealing outfits.

There seems to be some weird logical chasm for some people where criticising something for its design or maturity or narrative intent is fine, but criticising it on gender politics grounds is an attack on a creator designed to promote shame and self censorship.

At the risk of being patronising: because they're producing a work of art at best, or a designed object at worst, meant for the mass consumption of millions of people, in a medium that has a tradition of creative analysis and discussion? I mean, they're basically saying to the universe "please have an opinion about this thing I am doing".

If Hideo Kojima wants to sit in his office drawing boobs all day, nobody has the right to bust in and tell him off for it, but if he wants to be an auteur, people are going to discuss his work as part of a larger creative environment. That's what creative media are all about.

It's not a weird logical chasm, I don't think these types character designs are sexist in and of themselves, and so I think calling them or their creators sexist for it unjustified. Saying that calling something sexist isn't intended to promote shame and guilt over it, and that the implication isn't that that thing shouldn't be made, is ridiculous. Some things, and within videogames too of course, are definitely deserving of that guilt and shame, but not these silly character designs. I feel about it the same way I would if something that wasn't racist was being called racist. Imagine if you felt like painting a highly sexualized women, displayed it in a exhibition, and was then labelled a sexist for it!

You say that I've had a blow by blow break down of why these designs are sexist, but the only two arguments I've had are that it's sexist because there aren't men in the series that designed to appeal to women (which I still don't think necessarily makes something sexist, and after googling it, isn't even true, as apparently Raiden in MGS2 was specifically designed to appeal to women), or that it isn't sexist by itself, but because there are so many other games with similarly sexualized characters it deserves to be called sexist.

Also, if you don't find the only known female character in a game being completely devoid of voice, wearing nothing but a bikini and stockings, and designed to be erotic for the gratification of cosplay fans, as being at least a little sexist I would be kind of baffled.

But you're just making assumptions. How do you even know it was designed just for the erotic gratification cosplay fans, and that Kojima didn't just like the design himself. And even if it was, so what? Is everything that's designed for erotic gratification sexist now?

Well, lets try the litmus test for what is appropriate and what is derogatory and disrespectful - how would you feel if someone said your mother or your sister or your daughter could only attend an event if dressed like that, where all the men would be fully clothed and look at her? Would you think "that would be fun and amusing and sexy in a harmless way" or would the idea make you feel uncomfortable?

What, like one of those pimps and prostitute nights or something? To be totally honest I wouldn't really care, if they wanted to go they could, or if they felt uncomfortable they don't have to go.

[Spacehost]

But you're just making assumptions. How do even you know it was designed just for the erotic gratification cosplay fans, and that Kojima didn't just like the design himself.

Kojima said he asked Yoji Shinkawa to make the character more erotic, in order to appeal to cosplayers and their fans.

And even if it was, so what? Is everything that's designed for erotic gratification sexist now?

Not everything, but it's safe to say a character explicitly created to be an erotic mute in skimpy clothing for the cosplay community probably is.

[crisy]

fair enough, but as I said, so what? Making a character more sexually appealing, even if it is just designed to appeal to cosplayers isn't disrespecting women. And those cosplayers must be female anyway!

[Spacehost]

It's not a weird logical chasm, I don't think these types character designs are sexist in and of themselves, and so I think calling them or their creators sexist for it unjustified. Saying that calling something sexist isn't intended to promote shame and guilt over it, and that the implication isn't that that thing shouldn't be made, is ridiculous. Some things, and within videogames too of course, are definitely deserving of that guilt and shame, but not these silly character designs. I feel about it the same way I would if something that wasn't racist was being called racist. Imagine if you felt like painting a highly sexualized women, displayed it in a exhibition, and was then labelled a sexist for it!

I would love you to find, like, one instance where we explicitly call anyone who does or ever has worked at Kojima Productions sexist. I mean there's an unavoidable implication that the creator of a work may be reiterating sexist cultural tropes and ideas if their work appears sexist, but I don't think anyone here has at any point gone, "THAT KOJIMA IS BEING A SEXIST!". FWIW I think everyone carries a certain degree of sexist or racist or whatever-ist baggage around with them, we're the products of our culture and experiences and intentionally or no we often so things that reinforce negative ideas. I'm at peace with that myself and it allows me to have a certain level of introspection about it; I'm not some magic special snowflake.

You say that I've had a blow by blow break down of why these designs are sexist, but the only two arguments I've had are that it's sexist because there aren't men in the series that designed to appeal to women (which I still don't think necessarily makes something sexist, and after googling it, isn't even true, as apparently Raiden in MGS2 was specifically designed to appeal to women), or that it isn't sexist by itself, but because there are so many other games with similarly sexualized characters it deserves to be called sexist.

If those are the only things you've taken out of this thread you're not doing a terrific job of reading it, and you should probably watch the Fem Freq videos.

[Spacehost]

fair enough, but as I said, so what? Making a character more sexually appealing, even if it is just designed to appeal to cosplayers isn't disrespecting women. And those cosplayers must be female anyway!

You don't think that the fact Kojima looked at the cosplay community and went, "You know what the cosplay world really wants to emulate? A mute in a bikini with an impossible computer-generated body, that's what!", is even slightly problematic?

[Alex W.]

Posting up Jay Smooth's video about how racism is like dental hygiene, for the sake of explaining that when we say Kojima's works are sexist, we're not trying to make some damning condemnation of the man's entire existence:

[Fury4k]

Come on, a mute female character in a series known for having never ending amounts of dialogue, in a skimpy costume that we see become even more skimpy as she is tortured. In a game made by a director known for misleading the audience with his promotional material and subsequently playing with genre tropes and preconceptions within the work itself. Also known for having strong and clear messages in his games. Is there no possibility in your minds that there's more to quiet than initially meets the eye. Especially since Kojima has explicitly stated there is.

[Alex W.]

Of course there's more to her than meets the eye. Remember the Beauty and the Beast Unit? Four weird combat robots designed on sexy models, that crawl around and mewl when defeated, each with a backstory hammier and more sophomoric than the last.

I think we were able to write off the possibility that her big secret would be clever and nuanced somewhere between Kojima saying she was designed to be sexy fun for cosplayers, and him playing with the action figure's cleavage.

Although him saying that his critics would live to regret it was probably the moment my eyes rolled.

[Wiper]

Alternatively:

A mute female character in a series known for having never ending amounts of dialogue, in a skimpy costume that we see become even more skimpy as she is tortured. In a game made by a director known for filling his games (from Policenauts to Ground Zeroes) with female characters regularly undermined by portrayals of weakness and treatment as sex objects. Also known for sticking in seriously fucking creepy rapey subplots and encouraging the ogling of preteens, as mentioned repeatedly already. And now shown delighting in the creation of an action figure of his character having malleable breasts, an amusing contrast to his previous assertion that the character was totes not just there for the ogling. Maybe it's reasonable to assume that this really is as creepy as it seems, no matter how 'subversive' Kojima imagines the character to be.

[Alex W.]

That's the thing with Kojima: he's perfectly capable of putting together a really interesting, capable female character on one hand, and using her for adolescent thrills with the other. He's the curator of the curate's egg. It wouldn't surprise me if Quiet did have something interesting in her backstory, but that it didn't have a lick of relevance to her outfit apart from giving it some pat justification.

[Fury4k]

Yeah well, I'll wait until I've played the game before casting judgement.

After all, for every B&B unit we've got Boss, or Meryl, or Naomi Hunter, or Sunny, or Eva, or Mei Ling, or Sniper Wolf. MGS has some dodgy moments, but its got plenty of strong female characters and I don't think it's as simple as "Oh this character has a revealing outfit, that's sexist"

[Alex W.]

Sure, but if Kojima's going to put these characters out there we're going to talk about them. The same way we'll cast premature judgement on any aspect of every game we get a look at.

[Fury4k]

And you're free to of course.

[Fury4k]

I think it's an interesting jusxtaposition to see the series become more and more enamoured with dipicting realistic military and survival clothing, equipment, weapons, techniques and characters and then a woman in her underwear with a sniper rifle in the middle of the desert. I just can't see it being as straightforward as let's make a sexy character for teenagers to fawn over and it's a bit weird that people are so eager to jump to that conclusion.

[Alex W.]

There will be a perfectly logical reason for it which is never the less completely stupid. That's the Kojima way. Probably her skin is natural camoflage so it helps her blend in.

Edit - Remember MGS2, where we were all wondering how Liquid was back in the trailers? And maybe it was nanomachines? But then it was just magic? And then two games later it was nanomachines and hypnosis?

[Fury4k]

Well yeah, there'll be an inuniverse reason for her being like that, I just think it's likely there will be some sort of message Kojima is trying to impart with the character. Whether it's well delivered is another thing entirely. Thirty (?) years of MGS and we've never seen such a weird and overtly sexualised character, there must be a reason for it.

[Alex W.]

It's possible, but sometimes with Kojima there is no message, especially where sex is concerned. There's an audio log in Peace Walker which is literally just the schoolgirl character recounting an erotic rundown from a lesbian.

I'm cringing just thinking about it.

Edit - I do think it's more likely than not to have some thematic relevance, but Kojima's most recent foray into sexuality was the "holy shit, Kojima has completely lost it" moment in Ground Zeroes. Even with the best of intentions he is likely to fumble it.

[RubberJohnny]

The lesbian whose name is Strangelove, because being gay is strange.

Honestly, there's not really going to be much justification other than "Japan fucking loves their fanservice" - see the gigolo missions inserted into Killer is Dead by the publisher, creators intent be damned - or the FFXV demo feedback where the camera perving over their new scantily dressed lady was Japans most favourite bit, even though it polled badly everywhere else.

Thirty (?) years of MGS and we've never seen such a weird and overtly sexualised character, there must be a reason for it.

The Beauty and the Beast squad? All of whom had no reasoning other than "we put these models in the game"

[Alex W.]

I liked Strangelove. She didn't take any shit and her only weakness was one shared by Snake - a need to understand The Boss. Actually one of the characters that worked in terms of creating a character-driven story which is a rarity with Kojima, in either gender.

And then he uses her to act out a bad porno.

[Fury4k]

What is it about the Ground Zeroes forced rape that people hate so much?

[Alex W.]

For my money, it was really badly written and came completely out of nowhere. It was thrown in, like, "isn't this dramatic!" No, Hideo, you can't just go there and it'll suddenly raise the stakes. You need to be a competent writer, and you need to earn it in the story.

In a story where super-soldier Big Boss's weird army version of Thunderbirds is wiped out by Skull Face because he has a giant nuclear robot, it's a fiasco.

[Fury4k]

That's fair enough about needing to earn it. I feel like Ground Zeroes is really an advert in itself for MGS5 and hope that he'll earn it there. But I kind of feel like people are saying Kojima and MGS are not allowed to grow, or change because of their history. Again, the series is thirty years old now, times change and so do the creators and their audience. Moving forward and trying to create some commentary on sexual violence should be applauded, rather than responded to by saying the series should stick to where it belongs and not get so uppity.

[RubberJohnny]

How can they "earn it there?" the character is dead by vagina-bomb, it's not like they can follow through the consequences in a mature way.

There is no "commentary on sexual violence", it's a creepy thing earned as mission reward and acknowledged in-game by no-one.

[Fury4k]

Have you run out of negs yet? Maybe you could engage in the conversation instead of spewing hostility.

They could 'earn' it in MGS5 by telling a mature, insightful and appropriate story which leaves you feeling that maybe this fictional character's experiences and death were necessary to tell the story in an effective and meaningful manner. I mean that might not happen, but I hope it does and I do believe that is Hideo Kojima's intent. Being a bad writer (I don't think he is, although he definitely needed a stronger dialogue editor. If GZ is anything to go by that won't be a problem in the future) shouldn't preclude someone from trying to tackle controversial subjects.

[Unofficial Who]

I bailed out of the Metal Gear series at the start of Peacewalker after that weird cutscene where you could literally see through the clothes of someone presenting as a 14 year old girl. Sure, there might have been some sort of clever plot twist later but I was done at that point. It was so sleazey and out of tone that it killed my interest dead.

Speaking of creepy in games http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/12/8589553/atlus-dungeon-travelers-2-porn-calendar-pre-order-vita

Let's start with the cast: Dungeon Travelers 2 is that rare RPG that mostly stars women. 16 of them to be precise. Cool! However, like Conception 2, the main character is a dude, and the women are primarily presented as things for him to interact with; they're in the game to be rescued, fought or used in combat rather than acting on their own.

And above all else, they're in the game to be ogled. As you can see in the trailer below, Dungeon Travelers 2 presents its hand-drawn female leads in various states of undress and, beyond that, in full-on sexual situations.

"Phil, maybe you're overreacting." I can hear you saying. "That trailer doesn't show that much. Maybe the full game isn't too bad!"

I envy your innocence, theoretical friend. Unfortunately, it's going to waste. As VG 24/7 reports, Atlus actually had to make "minor edits" to the game in order to avoid an "adults only" rating from the ESRB. These changes, the publisher says, were only to four images in the game.

What's the issue? This has always been a JRPG staple right?

Of course there's one important way that Dungeon Travelers 2 sets itself apart from a game like The Witcher or even something like Dragon's Crown: the age of its subjects. While we can't say for sure what Dungeon Travelers 2's protagonists are aged, many of them sure look disturbingly young.

I'm not the only one who's noticed this, either. Even NeoGAF, a forum community that's notoriously obsessed with Japanese games — the precise audience a game like Dungeon Travelers 2 would be targeting — has banned discussion on it.

"Our research has shown us that there are many more than just four objectionable images in the game," a moderator writes. "It's very sad that we've had to take this action with a couple of games in the past, but there are certain things we just don't want to be represented here, and sexual suggestion and representation of underage girls are among them."

I reached out to Atlus to ask about the issue of age and was told that the game doesn't reveal the ages of the characters in dialogue or stats menus. In other words, it's left intentionally vague. The suggestion, however, is clear.

Also mention of Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars which seems to be on sale every second week on the 3DS.

But for as many refreshing, charming and obscure Japanese titles as Atlus brings to our shores, every once in a while it tosses out something a bit more disturbing. For example, there was last year's Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars, a role-playing game where the main character creates allies to fight for him by "classmating" with various, lightly-clothed female co-stars.

Makes Kojima look almost tame by comparison.

[matt0]

Have you run out of negs yet? Maybe you could engage in the conversation instead of spewing hostility.

They could 'earn' it in MGS5 by telling a mature, insightful and appropriate story which leaves you feeling that maybe this fictional character's experiences and death were necessary to tell the story in an effective and meaningful manner.

Vagina. Bomb.

There is no earning anything because there was a vagina bomb.

In the entire history of genre fiction across all mediums I don't think I've ever come across anything so transparently nasty.

"Maybe there'll be a meaningful payback... "

Will there fuck. Jesus fucking christ.

[Alex W.]

I absolutely agree that MGS should grow and change and deal with mature themes. Frankly it's the best thing about the post-MGS4 part of the saga. It's just that on the basis of Ground Zeroes, Kojima is making a complete dog's dinner of the most touchy parts of it. He needed to tell an ordinary story sensitively before sticking his oar into taboos.

[Spacehost]

That's fair enough about needing to earn it. I feel like Ground Zeroes is really an advert in itself for MGS5 and hope that he'll earn it there. But I kind of feel like people are saying Kojima and MGS are not allowed to grow, or change because of their history. Again, the series is thirty years old now, times change and so do the creators and their audience. Moving forward and trying to create some commentary on sexual violence should be applauded, rather than responded to by saying the series should stick to where it belongs and not get so uppity.

Please enlighten me as to the commentary on sexual violence GZ was apparently making, because it seems to be missing from my copy.

Genuine question, you think there is one, I'd like to hear what you think Kojima is saying.

[RubberJohnny]

I'd like to hear exactly how he thinks it can be turned from edgy atrocity to demonise cartoon villain into sensitive and reflective discussion of sexual violence, but I doubt such an explanation is coming.