Character designs: sexism and objectification

Started by Sethala, April 30, 2013, 12:07:31 AM

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Inkidu

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on April 30, 2013, 03:45:05 PM
A woman seeing another woman in a bikini and feeling self-conscious is not objectification of women though.  That has more to do with body image.  Just as that commercial making another man insecure or wanting to be those men is about body image, not objectification of men.
Fair enough, but I believe it's awfully one sided to say that objectification is a purely female-focused thing, and that if a male that could possibly be objectified by women isn't necessarily waved off as male power-fantasy; this is admittedly my opinion.

And I don't care what comics people come back at this comment with :P
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Chris Brady

Tangent:

The real power of Spiderman is his ability to be relate-able.  He is the everyman saddled with power.  He has problems most geeks did of his era, and people, especially boys (who were the ones often shoved into the geek tribe, usually against their will) so the average reader could relate to him.

Spiderwoman (Jessica Drew) actually has some personal issues with her powers.  Yes, she's a capable fighter and thinker, but her pheromone power disturbs her.  She's often left wondering if they (usually men) like her because of who she is, rather than what she's doing to their heads.

And you know what?  That's the strength of early years Marvel, the characters are flawed, and are treated as human characters.

/tangent

Thing is, what I'm seeing here is the same BS arguments of Cheesecake vs. Beefcake and that any who likes looking at either should be ashamed because it's WRONG and EVIL and SINFUL, and I have no idea why, but I'm always reminded of the Christian Fundamentals or Born-Agains that yell and scream at us from street corners, as to why we're going to hell, because we like looking at sexy (to us) pictures of men and women.

This stuff?  Is all pure opinion.  And a lot of it is of fictional people in fictional situations and frankly, once we (as in the people in this thread)...

You know what just occurred to me?

Whomever is objecting here about this 'objectification of women' in fantasy is wrong are making a case as to why sites like E, or rather Elliquiy itself is WRONG.

This entire board is nothing more than a collection of people who wish to enact power fantasies of some sort or another, and have gotten together with others to write them out.  And some men and women like to be objectified.  Hell, there's an Non-Consensual board for those who are into that.

I understand that visuals are more powerful for us humans, because our eyes are our primary tools for interaction and socializing, not to mention dealing with danger and hazards, but writing here is in this very same category.

What makes Elliquiy OK and other mediums not? (Honest question.)
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So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

meikle

I'm starting to think some people do not know what objectification means.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

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Avis habilis

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 30, 2013, 03:53:21 PM
Thing is, what I'm seeing here is the same BS arguments of Cheesecake vs. Beefcake and that any who likes looking at either should be ashamed because it's WRONG and EVIL and SINFUL, and I have no idea why, but I'm always reminded of the Christian Fundamentals or Born-Agains that yell and scream at us from street corners, as to why we're going to hell, because we like looking at sexy (to us) pictures of men and women.

Nope. You're seeing people say that there's a substantial trend of depicting of women as aids to arousal for men & nothing but. This bears exactly no resemblance to saying that it's wrong to enjoy looking at sexy people.

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 30, 2013, 03:53:21 PM
What makes Elliquiy OK and other mediums not? (Honest question.)

The difference is that everyone involved is actively involved in setting the situation & choosing parts.

Pumpkin Seeds

So Spider-Man has the complex trials of power and responsibility.  The unenviable position of question his role in the universe and the nature of being a super hero.  He must decide how to balance his personal life with his seeming obligation to help other people because he has been fated to do so.  A tragic and epic quandary.  Spider-Woman has to question…do men really like me for me or because I smell good.  Ok.

Once more, I don’t think anyone is really condemning someone for looking at men or women.  People want to be attractive.  Objectification comes from having a character’s assets removed to the point where they are an object, not a subject of the story.  Honestly that in and of itself is not a bad thing either because not all stories have an ability to move into every character in the story.  The problem is that women have this done to them overwhelmingly and also that female leads are also done this way.  So the starring role for a woman is stripped of any contribution other than how they look in short-shorts and a bikini top. 

Elliquiy is a writing board.  Yes there are sexual fantasies being played out in writing, but nobody is trying to remove all aspects of another’s character and make sex the only important thing.  There are some stories on Elliquiy that are likened more to porn than works of fiction.  Yet I do not think Vekseid would appreciate the argument that objecting to women being portrayed as objects in media is an objection to Elliquiy. 

Chris Brady

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on April 30, 2013, 04:05:27 PM
Elliquiy is a writing board.  Yes there are sexual fantasies being played out in writing, but nobody is trying to remove all aspects of another’s character and make sex the only important thing.

Have you read some of the stories here?  I daresay that some of them ARE.  And the participants LIKE IT.  Who are we to say it's wrong?

QuoteThere are some stories on Elliquiy that are likened more to porn than works of fiction.  Yet I do not think Vekseid would appreciate the argument that objecting to women being portrayed as objects in media is an objection to Elliquiy.

Whether or not he likes it is irrelevant.  The fact of the matter is, because this is an Adult site, we get to see every kink that's legal and people are into, and some of that range from the mild romance to outright pornification of the human body.

So the question remains:  What makes Elliquiy get a pass, if we have to scrutinize other mediums?
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Pumpkin Seeds

Well, I would first point out that Elliquiy does not require the writer of a female character to make their characters sexual objects.  Once more being objectified means having other aspects removed so that the person is an object.  Elliquiy does have objectification going on and I have had characters I made objectified.  My responsibilities then as a writer for that character is to simply say, stop.  Some refuse to do so and I leave the game.  I had done this in the past and will do so in the future.   Elliquiy does not encourage people to do this or put rules into place for people to do such a thing. 

The media, especially video games and comic books, actively promotes the objectification of women.  So much so that lead female characters are taken off the cover of video games, have their stories reduced and are killed off routinely.  Elliquiy does not get a pass, but has earned a reputation for being an environment that is very friendly to female writers and very supportive of people playing strong, female characters.  Elliquiy does not attempt to constrain the creative potential or desires of writers including their portrayal of women. 

Kazyth

Here's the deal Chris... you just said what the difference is.  There are women on E who -choose- to play objectified women in their stories.  Who -choose- to enjoy it.  It isn't rammed down their throats and pushed into their faces every day that this is what women are for, this is how women should be treated and should expect to be treated.  While this isn't exact, of course, it is rather the difference between enjoying having yourself called a slut, manwhore, or whatever and having random people on the street and TV say it to you.

It's about choice, and if some women choose to be objectified because they like it, or to write characters who are, more power to them.  But when you take away that choice?  That makes it a whole different story.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


meikle

#58
Elliquiy is a place for people to practice a hobby; it's not a media power that is out there telling people how it should be.

I'm not sure if it really needed to be said, but maybe it does: this topic is a social issue, a cultural issue, not an issue where anyone is rapping people on the knuckles going, "No!  Bad!"  Nobody cares what you do in threads on a forum that's hidden from private viewing, we care about the things that are put on television, advertised far and wide across the internet, things that are targeted toward children that enforce binary gender norms and tell little girls that they should worry about being pretty, not smart, that tell little boys to be aggressive and that cooking is for girls, etc.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

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Silk

I don't think you really need to look further than Ironman and Batman for sexualized male characters.

Either dark rich brooding handsome with the dramatic tragic past
or the overtly flirtatious rich handsome playboy.

Then there's any prince charming type character out there.

Even in LoL this happens such as debonair Jayce.

just because people don't see it as the sexualisation that it is due to the accustom, it doesn't stop it being "This is the top of the gene stock guys, you should be this if you want to get laid anytime soon"

Pumpkin Seeds

I hardly think Iron Man and Batman have their stories reduced or become only objects of desire in their stories.

Chris Brady

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on April 30, 2013, 05:11:24 PM
I hardly think Iron Man and Batman have their stories reduced or become only objects of desire in their stories.
Of all the comics I've collected, I've not seen any of the female characters become nothing but objects of desire either.

Most of them have real problems usually involving the same villains the boys have to deal with.

There was an arc/graphic where Red Sonja became queen of a kingdom, and she had to deal with the very same problem that Conan did when he became King.

I'm wondering if we're just seeing the problem where we WANT to see it.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Kazyth

No, we're really not just seeing it where we WANT to see it.

This isn't just about comics, for one.  And, again, Batman and Iron Man aren't sexualized.  Or if they are, they're not sexualized to be women's fantasies (though I will admit some women may totally be into that).  Again, that's pandering directly to males.  Mostly adolescent to college-age males, who want to be the dark and missunderstood caped crusader... who also happens to be good at everything, be handsome, rich, and has had most major female baddies (and a number of the good girls) make a play for him/have a romantic arc with him.  Tony Stark?  Much the same.  Billionaire playboy who gets all the tail, has the bitchin' power suit, supergenious.  And when whatever woman they are with starts to get old, well, suddenly someone dies.  Or vanishes.  Or something else happens and then there's a new love interest.  Or at least bed partner.

Comics are, with the exception of a small group of them, geared towards a certain target audience and it panders to them shamelessly.  The men are all male power fantasies, and the women are mostly male sexual fantasies.  T&A, always in tight fitting clothes, peepholes for cleavage, bare legs, barely anything covering their tops... yes, there are exceptions to this, but they are just that.  Exceptions.  Just as some of the arcs and such in various comics you referenced Chris are exceptions.  How many story arcs are there, or backgrounds for heroes are there, that involve a man getting raped?  How many involve women getting raped?  There is a -massive- disparity with things like that, distinctly because the audience comics play to knows that the idea of a man getting raped by another man would upset and put off their target audience.  No such worries about a woman being raped.  Then, of course, the menfolk get to get all angry and go get justice for them.  It's pretty rare in the many comics I've read (and I worked in a comic store for years, I've read a lot) where the woman gets her own justice.

And that's just in comics.  We've already touched on videogames, and popular culture in general.  Rap videos where women are just there to be pretty and be fondled, rock and alternative videos of the same.  You can point out a few all-women bands or bands with female singers that do the same for men, but they are again a huge minority.  This is an issue, a real one, and a disturbing one that won't be swept under the rug or handwaved away by pointing out one or two little things where it might not be the case, and calling it "Seeing it where we want to see it".

The point is we -don't- want to see it.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


meikle

Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
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Chris Brady

Deep in the 80's to 90's there was an arc in Ironman in which Tony Stark's drinking got bad.  REAL bad.  Down to the point where he would black out, and even when he was Ironman, to the detriment of the state of New York.

Don't know about you, but I don't want to have an addiction problem as part of a power fantasy.

And there was a cute arc, where Superman gets his responsible nature stripped away from a magic kryptonite crystal.  Which was actually kinda scary, but he really ended up being like a big kid.  So Batman goes on a mission to rescue his friend by finding the opposite crystal in a Volcano.  Now this Opposing Crystal suddenly fills Batman's mind with everything he ever wanted.  And you know what?  Justice and removing all crime isn't remotely what he ever wanted.  Mommy and Daddy being alive, and a girlfriend, were his deepest darkest desires.  And in the end, even Superman never realizes that.  And all Batman wants is love and family, just like every single human being out there.  So much for being a badass.

As for Jessica Drew (Spiderwoman) she's got issues of her own, and most of them have nothing to do with the problem that her pheromone powers make going out for donuts an exercise in concentration.  She's currently (I believe) a triple agent working for S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra and the Avengers (or was at one point), she was kidnapped and replaced by a member of the Skrull alien race, and possible tortured (Like all other heroes they've caught, the Skrull aren't very nice to their prisoners, including of their own race.)  And that's not considering that her own powers make it possible to induce a fear driven heart attack into any guy if she's really pissed off.

This whole argument of 'objectifying' women in various mediums, I'm just not seeing it.  And I'm in the middle of them.  I'm a nerd and a geek, I STILL collect comics, I play video games on a regular basis, I play D&D and other table top RPGs, and the only time anyone gets upset about this seems to be when they see ONE tiny thing off the corner of their and it sets them off.  And often blow it out of extreme proportion and usually out of context.

And because I'm in inundated with all these hobbies, I scrutinize, I look for flaws, I make damn sure that what I get for my limited money is WORTH the money, and shallow characters, asinine comedy plots and other idiocies.  And I've been doing that since I was 11 years old.

Comedies are the worse things, because it's supposed to be funny, you can get away with racism, sexism and other cruelties.  I SAY NO, it's NOT OK.

Rant On:

One more thing that's getting up my craw, this whole 'Women in Refrigerators' movement lambasting the comic industry for showing women getting assaulted.  Is it horrific when it happens?  HELL YES.  And what do you think most comic reading boys think when they saw Kyle Rayner's girlfriend murdered and stuffed into an ice box.  You think we were giggling and masturbating to it?  NO.  We want to kill the fucker who did it.  We want grab Major Force and beat the living shit out of the bastard for doing it, in all the worse and most painful ways we could think of.

The sad fact of the matter is that women are often targeted the world around because they're seen as weak.  And most men have been programmed for the past several hundred thousand years to feel protective of them.  Why do you think there's a movement wanting to stop worldwide violence against women?  Because BOTH men and women see it as a worse wrong than killing another man.  Women are to be protected, and this thread is a primary proof of this.  At the same time, this is also used for a story effect, and it works.  It gets people upset, men and women.  You want to show a bad guy being really bad?  Have him target women and children.

I grew up in the 80's watching kids cartoons, and most of them had these morality plays at the end, warning us kids about dangers, like strangers, odd looking syringes and the like, and frankly, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the comic writers ALSO grew up watching G-Force (AKA Battle of The Planets) or He-Man, or She-Ra and the like, and whenever they use such a situation (the aforementioned Women in Refrigerators) it's there not to titillate, it's there to galvanize and show that beating on those weaker than you is WRONG.

But no, we'll just sit here and accuse other people of getting off on 'objectifying' women, because we decided that we're going to get offended about something, without actually looking deeper.

/rant off.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

meikle

#65
You are so oblivious, I mean Jesus Christ.

I can't even address anything you say because you don't pay attention to what anyone else actually says, you make something up and then get angry about it.

But to be totally succinct, you are blind to the problem because you are the source of it.  You are the heart of the problem being discussed, and you don't "see it" because you think the problem is a good thing.

You know what?  I'm not okay with being told, "You're a woman, so get used to being victimized, because it's just natural for us to be more motivated by seeing you get hurt!"  That's ridiculous, let alone incredibly fucked up.  I'm not okay with being told that the best way to use a woman in your comic is to kill her because it makes the men in the comic angry.  I'm fucking tired of the idea that men have to be heroes and women have to suffer to make it happen.

People like you are the reason women stay away from geek communities.  I just want you to know that when we say that there are people who drive us away, whose attitudes make us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, it's people like you we're talking about.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

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Pumpkin Seeds

At this point Chris you seem to be ignoring more than “not seeing” the problems.  Feminists are not taking an isolated incident and blowing that out of proportion; instead you are taking an exception and stretching that to fit an entire genre.  Iron Man having a drinking problem was not designed to give men a “power fantasy” but to explore the character through personal conflict.  Just as the plot lines were for Batman and Superman a way to explore the characters and draw the reader more into those complex characters.  These three male figures were allowed to become weaker so that they could later become stronger.  Their vulnerability is considered adversity.  Women on the other hand are given adversity and await the rescue of a man.

The “Women in Refrigerators” is bad because the trope continually puts women in that weaker position of being killed, hurt, beaten and then having to be avenged by male character.  A woman is hurt so that the male character can rise up and defeat the wicked villain for beating up on the poor, helpless woman.  That is the negative aspect of that trope and one which you continually state while at the same time not acknowledging as a bad thing.  Yes, I’m glad you think violence against women is bad.  Violence against women is not made better because a man took up the fight and beat up the bad guy.

Chris Brady

My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Beguile's Mistress

#68
The news industry has a motto:  If it bleeds it reads.  Readers either buy the hard print papers, magazines and non-fiction books or they read the material on websites that charge advertisers by the view.

Product testing and market research are two things I work with and know something about.  One of two things happens with almost every product on the market.  It is tested and researched for market appeal before it hits the shelves to see who will buy it or market studies are done after release to see who bought the product.  No company is going to spend money developing, packaging and advertising a product without wanting to know if it will sell.  That would be stupid.

Intellectual property is another matter.  Sales will tell you whether or not the item is selling.  Research will tell you who is buying.  The next step is to market to that group specifically but also to any fringe group in the crowd.  It's why they have pre-release showings..

Pre-release gets the word out about something new and creates desire but they also find out from the audience what they liked or dislike about the movie, game, book, etc.  There is a story/legend in Hollywood that when the movie "High Noon" was previewed the audience hated it because the opening bars of theme song for the movie were played to the point that it was ridiculous.  The movie score was redone before theater release.

The selling game has a motto of it's own.  "Sex sells."  When the studies tell the seller men are the primary market for something the female body is used to sell it.  Hence, the pinup calendars automotive and tool companies hand out.  Want to make money for your group or a charity?  Calendars again with curvy women and well-endowed men either blatantly displayed or hinted at.  That is only one example. 

The industries are slowly changing with advertising geared to single parent families, same sex couples and older parents of young children.  Viagara and Cialis commercials actually use actors who look old enough to need the stuff.

As long as the biggest market for video games, comic books or graphic novels is the teen-age and young adult male and as long as there are studies showing sex is part of the reason why there will be objectification.  I think it was Opie from "The Andy Griffith Show" who said he could tell the difference between good ladies and bad ladies in the comics he read because of the size of their chest.  That was in the 60s? 

It all boils down to money and if you want to change it you'll begin demanding more realism and stop buying the games, etc. that objectify anyone.

gaggedLouise

#69
From a review of a Lara Croft game a couple years ago: "The point of the game is to have you look at Lara's bazookas, and I'm not referring to her actual firearms."  ;)

You can certainly see that books - both fiction and non-fiction - are getting increasingly tailored for some particular class of people. Comes through both in the choice of subjects, in the key characters and in how it's written or framed. Romance books or exotic/travel books for women, books about war, sci-fi and tech adventure for the guys. The neogothic and vampire boom appeals to both sexes, but it's also mostly an adolescent/younger adults thing (Charlaine Harris and Stephanie Meyer may be older women, but I reckon fairly few people above forty read a lot of vampire books...).

It's really a downer when you sense as a reader that the author is just checking all the boxes for the group he/she's been told the book will be marketed to. Still worse when you can see that they're actually fighting the potential of their own novel to make it more strongly sellable. I felt that very strongly when I read Tell Me No Secrets by Joy Fielding. For most of the book it's a thoroughly believable, exciting and in-depth story of a woman prosecutor in an exposed position dealing both with a series of female disappearances, personal threats and her own past. And it steers clear of all the standard spiced clichés of the stalker/mad-avenger thriller genre. The women in the book are generally not objectified or used for quick thrills; the whole story is told from the angle of the lead character, who is both committed, capable, angry and sometimes vulnerable (and of course trying to come to terms with a relationship, but that's not the main point...). Then in the last chapter it essentially jumps down into all the B-movie crap the book has so far studiously avoided. Impossible solutions that don't fit with the rest of the story at all, characters turning into paper dolls. I'm sure someone told Fielding, or she felt compelled that way, that she had to have a good and gutsy sharp twist at the end, and so she went on to inject a series of shocks in the final chapter. And disrupted her own book.

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Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

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Ephiral

I'd suggest the Bechdel test as a good illustration of the sheer pervasiveness of objectification. It's intended for movies, but works in a lot of places. In order to pass the Bechdel test, a movie must feature:

1. At least two named female characters...
2. ...who have a conversation...
3. ...that isn't about a man.

Not that difficult, right? Start keeping an eye out for this in the movies you watch. Then come back and say objectification of women isn't a problem, or that men get it the same.

Shjade

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 30, 2013, 06:18:39 PM
Deep in the 80's to 90's there was an arc in Ironman in which Tony Stark's drinking got bad.  REAL bad.  Down to the point where he would black out, and even when he was Ironman, to the detriment of the state of New York.

Don't know about you, but I don't want to have an addiction problem as part of a power fantasy.

You want it as part of a sexual fantasy?

I assume you brought this up because Iron Man was held up as an example of male sexualization. I don't find alcoholism that sexy, myself, regardless of gender, so...there goes that claim, then, I guess?

@Ephiral: while it's a fun game to play, the Bechdel test is, well...let's just say "flawed."
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Ephiral

Quote from: Shjade on April 30, 2013, 08:05:10 PM
You want it as part of a sexual fantasy?

I assume you brought this up because Iron Man was held up as an example of male sexualization. I don't find alcoholism that sexy, myself, regardless of gender, so...there goes that claim, then, I guess?

@Ephiral: while it's a fun game to play, the Bechdel test is, well...let's just say "flawed."

Not holding it up as the be-all end-all, just a litmus test/eye opener. Also note that your link specifically cites something more restrictive than the original test, then finds fault with that.

Shjade

The version you posted here is more restrictive than the original test, and the faults found are demonstrative of the faults in the original as well (which, as is pointed out, wasn't meant to be taken seriously in the first place).
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meikle

I'll be happy when we have movies with all-female casts that aren't about witches or sisterhood.

Let's see some women dancing around to Stuck In The Middle With You and chopping off ears.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

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