kroonermanblack: But we can still openly mock the white male right? It's not like every TV show and commercial in the past 5 years hasn't had the 'too stupid to live' dad who couldn't figure out how to pour water out of a boot with the directions on the bottom and the emotional maturity of a downs syndrom regect, while the supermodel mom of 5 kids did everything, was a super genius, had common sense, and was in general the god among men.

Psst - who owns the advertising agencies and television production houses? It isn't minority women, y'know.

Also, what's the message of those TV shows and commercials? "Gosh, I'm sure too stupid to do things like dishes and laundry and mopping. I guess I'll just have to stick with leaving the house and having an income-producing job and rich social life. Have fun cleaning up my messes, honey!"

Lanadapter: Thing is, a black man with a bone through his nose that throws watermelons is not a huge turn on for either half of the population.

So yeah, comparison is not even close.

It doesn't sell because most of our society has evolved past the point where this:



is entertaining. Eventually, society will move beyond the point where degrading depictions of anatomically impossible females like this:



will also not be entertaining.

The point is that if a degrading depiction of women is a "turn on" for you (or anyone else), then YOU (or anyone else) has the problem. Why in the hell would you be turned on by seeing a woman who, in reality simply cannot exist without extensive cosmetic surgery? Are you attracted to women like this:



or this:



That shiat isn't natural. It requires extensive surgery. It also isn't attractive (not even the young Ukranian chick in the first picture). Women have body image issues because the media says that this:



or this:



is attractive. Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy. Video games like DoA are a large part of the problem here.

Lanadapter: Since when is attraction to good feminine looks Misogyny?

It isn't, in and of itself. Unfortunately, there is a segment of the population that isn't psychologically prepared to deal with said "good feminine looks," and when confronted with it they channel their immaturity into some very unhealthy attitudes and practices. That has a nasty habit of getting into a self-reinforcing cycle.

This cycle is something that marketers have, over the past few decades, figured out how to exploit in order to sell just about anything: in not so many words, boobies sell stuff. Even mediocre games. That's not a problem for people who can handle it, but the entire point of this sort of marketing is to manipulate the people who can't.

fluffy2097: I'm not sure how you can call a fighting game known entirely for it's realistic breast bounce physics as marketed to children.

That's easy: just look at the marketing. Your so-called "realistic breast-bounce physics" -the core selling point for the series- is in fact anything but realistic: you can even get a better simulation with no engine at all. The only people who would be fooled by DoA's implementation -and thus, the people these games must truly be intended for- are people who lack sufficient experience to know any better.

If you're buying DOA 5 for your little snotflake, you're a bad parent and that's not the games fault.

Also true, but we face a dual problem here: the multitude of disinterested parents and the multitude of people who are over 18 but still lack maturity. Team Ninja (among others) counts on these groups to sell these games, because without the kids and manchildren there would be no market to speak of.

Vegan Meat Popsicle: Lanadapter: Since when is attraction to good feminine looks Misogyny?

I have never heard a woman wanting to look at a hot guy called a misandrist, so why would a guy wanting to look at hot girls be misogyny?

It's a matter of objectification and scope. You have a substantially weaker defense against the misogyny attack when the point of the characters starts to become looking at their bouncy boobies and you're working in an industry that seems to be hellbent on doing this with nearly every female character in everything it produces.

The video game industry thinks women are nothing but T&A because they've been successful selling to male video game players who believe that women are nothing but T&A. The fact that so many video gamers are uncouth anthropological throwbacks, however, should hardly be news to anybody and it's hardly limited to their views on women and I'm getting tired of people throwing a hissy fit every single time a character is rendered with large breasts.

It sells. It's not going away because some people just don't have very developed intellects or social graces. Get the hell over it. It's not like the majority of the people who'd pay extra to add swimsuit models to a fighting game are going to be stumbling out of the basement long enough for them to (poorly) interact with you in public anyway.

/ plus, it's not like male characters are generally rendered with a particularly healthy body image either
// no, really, my shoulders are totally as wide as a school bus and my biceps are as big my head... yea, that's perfectly normal....

Well, yeah. The problem is when the video game industry is blind to the self-fulfilling prophecy they've created: "Only men buy video games, so we'll make video games that are only appealing to men, and hey look, only men buy video games!"
Make video games that you think only appeal to men, if you want. But don't try to pretend that you're only following the market, rather than helping create it.

Plus, it's shortsighted. Almost half of the gamers out there are female- except, they're not "true gamers" or some such, so we can still dismiss that market, right? Wrong... They also account for the majority of dollars spent on games.

Vegan Meat Popsicle: If you don't like it, don't buy it, but can we please stop pretending that it's not perfectly normal for human beings to at least occasionally enjoy guilty pleasures that aren't 100% healthy or politically correct?

It is perfectly healthy up and to a point, but there are degrees beyond which it ceases to be normal or healthy. That's especially true when something that crosses the line is marketed directly and almost exclusively to the very kids and adolescents it claims to be unsuited for, and uses that same unsuitability as a primary point in its marketing.

Lanadapter: Since when is attraction to good feminine looks Misogyny?

I have never heard a woman wanting to look at a hot guy called a misandrist, so why would a guy wanting to look at hot girls be misogyny?

It's a matter of objectification and scope. You have a substantially weaker defense against the misogyny attack when the point of the characters starts to become looking at their bouncy boobies and you're working in an industry that seems to be hellbent on doing this with nearly every female character in everything it produces.

The video game industry thinks women are nothing but T&A because they've been successful selling to male video game players who believe that women are nothing but T&A. The fact that so many video gamers are uncouth anthropological throwbacks, however, should hardly be news to anybody and it's hardly limited to their views on women and I'm getting tired of people throwing a hissy fit every single time a character is rendered with large breasts.

It sells. It's not going away because some people just don't have very developed intellects or social graces. Get the hell over it. It's not like the majority of the people who'd pay extra to add swimsuit models to a fighting game are going to be stumbling out of the basement long enough for them to (poorly) interact with you in public anyway.

/ plus, it's not like male characters are generally rendered with a particularly healthy body image either
// no, really, my shoulders are totally as wide as a school bus and my biceps are as big my head... yea, that's perfectly normal....

You cannot have a nickname TWAT_WAFFLE and expect to be taken seriously about feminism.

Q.E.D.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Lolthien: Keizer_Ghidorah: Lolthien: Keizer_Ghidorah:
If people are so fundamentally weak-willed and impressionable that video games can tell them how to think and act and view others, then the problem is far worse than previously thought, and most of it has nothing to do with video games.

If women become so stressed out about not being able to have the impossible figures portrayed by Barbie dolls and Lara Croft, or men become angry and misogynist because of it, the root problem is a lack of ability to separate fiction from reality, which is either a fundamental cognitive malfunction or a lack of being taught this difference by their parents or other adults. The same for someone who shoots up green-blooded alien snipers in a video game and thinks "This would be AWESOME to do at my school!", though far darker things are likely at work too.

I know personal stories are the least regarded, but I'll offer my life story. I've played video games since 1985. Never once have I entertained the idea to jump on people's heads and throw turtles at things. I played pretend about being able to throw mind-created fireballs, but I've never seriously considered it possible. When I look at the figures of fighting game hunks and babes I think that they look hot and sexy, but I don't look at real people with disgust for not looking like game people, nor do I blame them in any way for not trying to look like them. I've never played Halo or Castle Wolfenstein and then had the urge to try it for real at my school or mall, because I know the difference between fiction and reality, have empathy for my fellow humans, and know what the consequences would be.

I do not disagree, and I've been playing games just as long or longer myself. The extremists who shoot up their school or get 17 plastic surgeries in a single day obviously have serious mental health issues and should not be taken as purely the product of their chosen entertainment. But to suggest that pervasive national media has no affect on the national mores and norms in America just seems ridiculously naive to me. As media tries to push the limits, society tends to follow suit and the next 'shocking' thing has to up the ante, etc etc.

Control the message, control the conversation and you control the culture... that is Propaganda 101 for the last thousands of years. And never has there been a more efficient means of distributing the message than current electronic media.

omeganuepsilon: That's a false concept... Others don't, either because they don't care...

So it's not a false concept. Glad you agree. Probably should've started with that, rather than contradicting yourself.

By overwhelming majority, men are the staple players in shooter and fighting games.

(i) You have a citation or statistics for "overwhelming majority" or is this one of those "everybody knows it, we don't need actual data" things?
(ii) Even if true, that doesn't in any way disagree with what I said. The fact that you don't understand that is probably why you contradicted yourself and agreed with me. As noted above, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy: we assume women don't play games, so therefore we will design games that don't appeal to women, and then we're surprised when women don't play our games. The mistake they - and you - are making is in believing that this is somehow innate or inherent to gender, without any evidence for that. It's the same sort of pseudoscience that evolutionary psychologists fall into.

Oh christ, when will you idiots realize that the games industry isn't shaping what the public wants, what the public wants is shaping what the games industry creates! Stop whining about how horrible it is to see a little bit of skin, you prude twits, and start realizing that they're creating something based on MARKET DEMAND. If you wanna blame anyone for jiggling boobs in video games? Blame the people that BUY THEM.

kroonermanblack: twat_waffle: It is a difficult issue to understand,

Not really. You can keep saying that though, if it makes you feel better. I've done, if not your 'approved reading list' some reading on the issues.

I've got my racism and sexism all under control. I deal with them as best I can, because I'll be the first to admit I have prejudices which are unfair and make me uncomfortable. So I deal with them.

Repeatedly saying 'it is a difficult issue' is a very sly way of saying 'you're far too stupid to understand what you're saying and why it's stupid, so I won't engage you until you are worthy of it according to my standards, which means you don't matter', and is extremely patronizing, and diminishing of my statements and opinions.

And I don't think white men are villified, persecuted, or so on. I was just making an absurd point that apparently was too close to reallity for people to realize it was a deliberately absurd point. I'm also not sold on male privelege, white privelege, or many of the similar concepts, despite reading up on them. They're simply too open, and easy to manipulate with emotion and words, with very little hard fact that can't be twisted, and that goes both directions.

I also can't spell privelege for shiat for some reason.

My "approved reading list" was Wikipedia articles, not Womyn Power Quarterly.

You are never done dealing with your hidden biases. The fact that you don't have a problem with how women are objectified in some games shows that you still have some issues to work out.

"It's a difficult issue" means that it's hard to understand if you've never been the victim of race or sex based oppression. That's why I brought up the N-word paradox. I was acknowledging a reality, not patronizing you. I apologize for my choice of words. I meant no offense.

Let me ask you something: Has a cop ever stopped you for some obviously bullshiat reason? If they did, were you free to go after minimal hassle? Has a car salesman or mechanic ever patronized you and then tried to add bullshiat to the price of the car you were buying or the repair work? There. White privilege and male privilege.

/seriously, last one for the night

twat_waffle: If you need help understanding why such imagery is degrading

It's not my lack of understanding, it's your delusional reading into other people's preferences.

To help with your understanding from your own link:

Sexual objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument (object) towards one's sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification or who is sexually attractive. Objectification more broadly is an attitude that regards a person as a commodity or as an object for use, with little or no regard for a person's personality or sentience.[1][2] Objectification is most commonly examined at a societal level, but can also arise at an individual level.
___________________________________
Video games are not real people, nor sentient(are you trying to say that "no regard for the video game's sentience" is a bad thing?) All video games, in essence ARE objects, there is no such thing as being degrading to them. Games are not teaching people how to act, if they were, the 3 million Call of Duty Players would be out shooting eachother, and millions of other people would be killing hookers to get their money back, etc etc.

Even so, plenty of personality is written into these parts, in addition to fighting styles. (as needs be to add variety to the game) The core attribute of any game like this is about competition, if it can be made visually appealing to the masses, so be it.

The game is not ABOUT sex, but sexiness is icing on the cake(for some).

Newsflash, games are shallow entertainment for those of us who ARE able to separate them from reality. It's sad when we find people like you who cannot make that distinction between fiction and reality, and have to protest what boils down to normal supply and demand.

Give it up already, you're not recruiting here...

omeganuepsilon: twat_waffle: omeganuepsilon: Yeah, Poe's Law got over-run. Typically only a genuine zealot replies with such fervor and obsession, not to mention all the verbal obsfucation and irrational tie-ins to racism and whatever other tricks he/she/it thinks it's being clever with. I bet he/she/it would love Micheal Moore.

Michael Moore is a joke.

Bigotry is bigotry, whether it takes the form of racism, misogyny, homophobia or anything else. One form of bigotry is comparable to another. Why do you think the gay rights movement draws parallels to the civil rights movement?

This shiat bothers me because I have to deal with it. Most men who have been in relationships have dealt with it at one point or another.

Selling a beautiful(disclaimer: eye of the beholder) image to one who will appreciate it is not bigotry, does not teach or propagate bigotry.
Even your black face examples, haven't you seen Ghost World with the bit about Coons Chicken?
It is a service, on par with paying a landscaper to sculpt your garden, or a painter to do a mural of a sunset.

Shouldn't you be out picketing a Hooters or something?

/really bad feminists always remind me of Lexx
//the badly made propaganda video of an "ideal" woman represented by a lumpy potato and straggly carrots for legs
///Link

It is bigotry to portray women in such an overly sexualized and degrading manner. Some people appreciate lawn jockeys. That doesn't make them any less racist. You are, of course, free to consume such imagery, and I am free to point out how it degrades and objectifies women. If you need help understanding why such imagery is degrading, here you go (NSFW images).

I don't picket. I also don't eat at Hooters. I try not to patronize businesses whose policies and practices I don't agree with.

omeganuepsilon: Yeah, Poe's Law got over-run. Typically only a genuine zealot replies with such fervor and obsession, not to mention all the verbal obsfucation and irrational tie-ins to racism and whatever other tricks he/she/it thinks it's being clever with. I bet he/she/it would love Micheal Moore.

Michael Moore is a joke.

Bigotry is bigotry, whether it takes the form of racism, misogyny, homophobia or anything else. One form of bigotry is comparable to another. Why do you think the gay rights movement draws parallels to the civil rights movement?

This shiat bothers me because I have to deal with it. Most men who have been in relationships have dealt with it at one point or another.

kroonermanblack: twat_waffle: I know that it's hard to understand

Not really.

You're a condescension spewing sexist/racist/chauvanist.

Basically 'all these things I point to right here? These are social injustices. Nothing else.'

I was baiting you, and you responded to the T how I expected. Which is disapointing, because if you're trolling you're losing points, and if you're serious...well, that's more disturbing.

I was trying to keep it civil, dude. It is a difficult issue to understand, much like how some of the finer points of race relations are also somewhat difficult to understand (like avoiding "you people" when talking to minorities, even if you don't mean it in a racist context). It takes time, commitment, patience, and humility to understand how other people see things if you grew up without ever being disadvantaged because of the color of your skin, your religion, your sex or gender, your sexual orientation, or your nationality.

I didn't say that only the things I was addressing were social injustices. I didn't provide an exhaustive list at all. If knocking that straw man down makes you feel better, though, who am I to tell you to stop.

You weren't baiting me. You were making a tu quoque argument that wasn't even entirely relevant, and you expected my response because you've made that argument before and it's been shot down by other feminists. White males have complete power over how they are portrayed in the media because the media is run by white males. White males also don't have the historical struggles against oppression that other demographic groups do. Context is everything. You want to ignore that context and act like the portrayal of white males in sitcoms and some commercials is degrading when it isn't really based on any historical oppression.

Read up on white privilege and male privilege. THAT'S why we don't get to complain about degrading imagery in movies, commercials, TV shows, etc. That imagery doesn't do anything to hold us as a group back. Reducing women to sexual objects does hold them back.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Forgive me for not making the mental vault from "a Burger King commercial makes you hungry for fries" to "playing a video game where the women are scantily-clad turns you into a women-hating misogynist". Especially when the same tire dold bullshiat gets trotted out with every single popular trend that's occured for the last few decades. It's time we stopped blaming people's misbehaviors on what's popular and focus on the people themselves. A person doesn't turn into a women-hating psycho from playing a couple of video games, he already had an existing problem.

No, but a person may learn to objectify women through how they are portrayed in the media he consumes. This will then influence how he interacts with women on a day to day basis and could cause problems for him and for the women he comes in contact with.

/most misogynists are not "woman-hating psychos"

Last Man on Earth: Going by the possibility that you're not trolling, or just looking for an excuse to post images like those (highly unlikely, I know): First, physical attractiveness isn't a conscious thing. The brain isn't consulted. As such, unlike racist portrayals, there's a heavy instinctive component that can't and won't be eliminated by getting rid of the sort of pictures you don't approve of.

Second, the last two pictures you showed echo something I've been wondering for a while: How SHOULD women be portrayed? The stereotypical thin, waifish build you see in supermodels and the like are typically responded to with comments like "real women have curves." Okay, fair enough. Then, though, you see voluptuous women, large-breasted and the like, as with the "hourglass figure." People like yourself get pissed about that too, so clearly those aren't the "curves" in question. What is actually MEANT by that, I'm forced to conclude, is " real women have rolls of fat." If I'm wrong, I'll ask again: How do you want women portrayed? Give the rest of the world an actual positive goal, not just "whatever you've done isn't good enough."

Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy.
Now THAT I'll agree with. If you have these body-image issues, that sounds like kind of a personal problem to me, and in most cases it's about as undeserved as most other forms of self-esteem issues. Also like most other self-esteem issues, it's neither the fault of external forces nor is it the responsibility of an entire society to accommodate them. If you've got issues with insecurity, that's something you need to fix for yourself.

I'm not trolling, and I'm not looking for an excuse to post those pictures. I was using them to make a point. I have no problem with the "hourglass figure", so long as everyone is on the same page regarding what that actually means. Bra cup size really isn't a component of body type. Women should be portrayed how they are, not how some farking 13 year old at heart video game developer thinks they should be.

Body image issues are a huge problem for a large segment of the female population of this country (at least). Of course, free speech is free speech, and that extends to video games (as it should). I just see something wrong with promoting ideals of feminine beauty that are unattainable for a vast majority of women, particularly when it leads to the consequences listed in the linked article.

omeganuepsilon: twat_waffle: Not too long ago, these things were pleasing to a large segment of society:
Now, why do you think that those aren't as popular anymore?

Why are YOU equating beauty with race?

You've got to be a troll.

Beauty can be in a woman's form, a man's, or a sunset, or a snowflake. There is nothing discriminatory in appreciating beauty, nothing insulting to those who are not beautiful. You should take time out of your busy day to smell the roses....oh, wait, is that illegal in your feminism/racism handbook too?

I'm not equating beauty to race. I'm equating degrading depictions to other degrading depictions.

kroonermanblack: twat_waffle: TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: twat_waffle: omeganuepsilon: It was bad enough that feminists and such complain about everything, now people tired of hearing feminists(or whoever) are complaining and trying to get crap shut down too?

Bad Subby, BAD.

You are not helping.

Guess what? Feminists still have shiat to complain about. The media's portrayal of women gives a lot of women body image issues. This is a problem.

Let me ask you a question: Would you think that there is nothing wrong with a fighting game that had a black character who had a bone through his nose, threw watermelons and spears as a special attack, had huge lips and a comically broad nose, and spoke with no regard for the rules of English grammar (or who spoke in an African Bushman click language) bother you? Would you find a video game character like that racist? I sure as hell would.

So, basically, what you're saying is, in the end, the only types of depictions that should be allowed in fictional works should be as totally accurate and as non-offensive to every single possible person who could ever possibly be offended by and facet of that work.

Essentially, you want every fictional work to have the presentation and content of a My Little Pony episode.

Man. What a boring, boring world that would be.

/except for the Bronies, I suppose

So... Do Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 have the presentation and content of a MLP episode? How about Skyrim?

I have an issue with degrading caricatures, not with honest depictions.

But we can still openly mock the white male right? It's not like every TV show and commercial in the past 5 years hasn't had the 'too stupid to live' dad who couldn't figure out how to pour water out of a boot with the directions on the bottom and the emotional maturity of a downs syndrom regect, while the supermodel mom of 5 kids did everything, was a super genius, had common sense, and was in general the god among men.

Or, is it OK to degrade one segment while championing others ...

Yeah, and why can black people use the N-word amongst themselves but white people can't?

I know that it's hard to understand if you aren't a member of the affected group. It was hard for me to wrap my head around at first, too. I made the same arguments that you are now making. The best answer I have is this: Do you see reinforcement of negative stereotypes that are then used to hold white males back in those commercials and sitcoms? Honestly, I can't answer your question in a way that you would find satisfactory. I can only ask for you to look at the historical context. It may not be "fair", but it doesn't have to be. How we have treated women in the past means that we have to be sensitive with regards to how we depict them now. It's the same reason that a lot of people had a problem with this movie:



It isn't that the content of the movie was overly offensive, it's just that there is a history of minstrel shows involving white performers in blackface, portraying black people and playing on negative stereotypes of the day.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: twat_waffle: So... Do Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 have the presentation and content of a MLP episode? How about Skyrim?

I have an issue with degrading caricatures, not with honest depictions.

I *guarantee* you that someone finds things degrading about Skyrim and Fallout 3 and Half Life 2. I *guarantee* it.

And even if I couldn't guarantee it, there's a high likelihood that someone would be offended by *something* in the game. Your thought process, logically, requires that I make the presentation and content as milquetoast as possible in order to avoid that.

/or do you mean people should be sensitive to YOUR sacred cows, but other peoples' objections don't matter so much, because yours are Goodthink?
//yeah, that's what I thought

Slippery slope, anyone?

There is a world of difference between positive portrayals of women and minorities, or at least portrayals that aren't caricatures, and Pit-Pat, the magical, pansexual, nonthreatening spokesthing:



Alyx Vance is an example of a positive portrayal of women. The idea isn't to keep people from being offended, but to not reinforce negative images. Is it acceptable to portray Jews as money grubbing spendthrifts? Is it acceptable to portray Muslims as being stuck in the 13th Century (by our reckoning)? These are things that we need to think about in our media, without compromising the stories being told. If an anatomically impossible, scantily clad woman is essential to your game or story, then go for it. If it isn't, why not go for a little realism.

LindenFark: twat_waffle: Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy. Video games like DoA are a large part of the problem here.

Mmm. No. While part of the problem, I would say they are the smaller part. Like Maxim magazine, they teach frat boys how to think about girls. Cosmopolitan teaches adolescent girls how to think about themselves, which is more often taken to heart and is much more destructive. Media targeted at boys is easier to ignore. Let's fix the media targeted at girls for the bigger win.

Yeah, I realized that after I posted it. However, those games do cause problems with the way that boys think about women and how much they respect women.

twat_waffle: Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy. Video games like DoA are a large part of the problem here.

Mmm. No. While part of the problem, I would say they are the smaller part. Like Maxim magazine, they teach frat boys how to think about girls. Cosmopolitan teaches adolescent girls how to think about themselves, which is more often taken to heart and is much more destructive. Media targeted at boys is easier to ignore. Let's fix the media targeted at girls for the bigger win.

omeganuepsilon: twat_waffle: omeganuepsilon: It was bad enough that feminists and such complain about everything, now people tired of hearing feminists(or whoever) are complaining and trying to get crap shut down too?

Bad Subby, BAD.

You are not helping.

Guess what? Feminists still have shiat to complain about. The media's portrayal of women gives a lot of women body image issues. This is a problem.

Let me ask you a question: Would you think that there is nothing wrong with a fighting game that had a black character who had a bone through his nose, threw watermelons and spears as a special attack, had huge lips and a comically broad nose, and spoke with no regard for the rules of English grammar (or who spoke in an African Bushman click language) bother you? Would you find a video game character like that racist? I sure as hell would.

Well, you've got the right username.

Feminists don't have much to complain about, that's why they harp on video games and such things. This "media" you talk about, makes it sound like you're a conspiracy theorist. Video game developers(which are not the media, but a medium), develop what sells. Feminists have a problem with society that buys things that are pleasing to it, ergo.....wait for it....

[1.bp.blogspot.com image 582x625]

Product makers don't make demands, they deliver product more or less at the demand of the populace.
Psychosis/deluson(or whateverthefarkiswrongwithyourbrain) misinterprets that as a demand upon one's self, and pushes for an over-reaction in the most inflammatory means possible.....Rage Junkie.

Ergo, Fark Feminist Brigade
/or you're trolling, whatever
//Poe's Law
///What's next, video games caused the Colorado movie shootings?

Not too long ago, these things were pleasing to a large segment of society:



Now, why do you think that those aren't as popular anymore?

twat_waffle: Lanadapter: Thing is, a black man with a bone through his nose that throws watermelons is not a huge turn on for either half of the population.

So yeah, comparison is not even close.

It doesn't sell because most of our society has evolved past the point where this:

[kpopkollective.files.wordpress.com image 300x326]

is entertaining. Eventually, society will move beyond the point where degrading depictions of anatomically impossible females like this:

[1.bp.blogspot.com image 400x518]

will also not be entertaining.

The point is that if a degrading depiction of women is a "turn on" for you (or anyone else), then YOU (or anyone else) has the problem. Why in the hell would you be turned on by seeing a woman who, in reality simply cannot exist without extensive cosmetic surgery? Are you attracted to women like this:

[sitchnews.com image 640x360]

or this:

[nunetherlands.files.wordpress.com image 450x452]

That shiat isn't natural. It requires extensive surgery. It also isn't attractive (not even the young Ukranian chick in the first picture). Women have body image issues because the media says that this:

[3.bp.blogspot.com image 228x360]

or this:

[static.gamesradar.com image 418x300]

is attractive. Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy. Video games like DoA are a large part of the problem here.

Going by the possibility that you're not trolling, or just looking for an excuse to post images like those (highly unlikely, I know): First, physical attractiveness isn't a conscious thing. The brain isn't consulted. As such, unlike racist portrayals, there's a heavy instinctive component that can't and won't be eliminated by getting rid of the sort of pictures you don't approve of.

Second, the last two pictures you showed echo something I've been wondering for a while: How SHOULD women be portrayed? The stereotypical thin, waifish build you see in supermodels and the like are typically responded to with comments like "real women have curves." Okay, fair enough. Then, though, you see voluptuous women, large-breasted and the like, as with the "hourglass figure." People like yourself get pissed about that too, so clearly those aren't the "curves" in question. What is actually MEANT by that, I'm forced to conclude, is " real women have rolls of fat." If I'm wrong, I'll ask again: How do you want women portrayed? Give the rest of the world an actual positive goal, not just "whatever you've done isn't good enough."

Women should not be uncomfortable with how their bodies look if they are healthy.
Now THAT I'll agree with. If you have these body-image issues, that sounds like kind of a personal problem to me, and in most cases it's about as undeserved as most other forms of self-esteem issues. Also like most other self-esteem issues, it's neither the fault of external forces nor is it the responsibility of an entire society to accommodate them. If you've got issues with insecurity, that's something you need to fix for yourself.

TheBeastOfYuccaFlats: twat_waffle: omeganuepsilon: It was bad enough that feminists and such complain about everything, now people tired of hearing feminists(or whoever) are complaining and trying to get crap shut down too?

Bad Subby, BAD.

You are not helping.

Guess what? Feminists still have shiat to complain about. The media's portrayal of women gives a lot of women body image issues. This is a problem.

Let me ask you a question: Would you think that there is nothing wrong with a fighting game that had a black character who had a bone through his nose, threw watermelons and spears as a special attack, had huge lips and a comically broad nose, and spoke with no regard for the rules of English grammar (or who spoke in an African Bushman click language) bother you? Would you find a video game character like that racist? I sure as hell would.

So, basically, what you're saying is, in the end, the only types of depictions that should be allowed in fictional works should be as totally accurate and as non-offensive to every single possible person who could ever possibly be offended by and facet of that work.

Essentially, you want every fictional work to have the presentation and content of a My Little Pony episode.

Man. What a boring, boring world that would be.

/except for the Bronies, I suppose

So... Do Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 have the presentation and content of a MLP episode? How about Skyrim?

I have an issue with degrading caricatures, not with honest depictions.

omeganuepsilon: It was bad enough that feminists and such complain about everything, now people tired of hearing feminists(or whoever) are complaining and trying to get crap shut down too?

Bad Subby, BAD.

You are not helping.

Guess what? Feminists still have shiat to complain about. The media's portrayal of women gives a lot of women body image issues. This is a problem.

Let me ask you a question: Would you think that there is nothing wrong with a fighting game that had a black character who had a bone through his nose, threw watermelons and spears as a special attack, had huge lips and a comically broad nose, and spoke with no regard for the rules of English grammar (or who spoke in an African Bushman click language) bother you? Would you find a video game character like that racist? I sure as hell would.

Keizer_Ghidorah: It's a video game. Video games do not influence people. If they did, millions of kids would have been jumping on people's heads and throwing turtles at things back in 1985, or running as fast as they can and rolling into balls to slam against cars back in 1991.

Pixel women with huge ta-tas don't cause misogyny any more than pixel guns shooting pixel bullets at pixel monsters causes gun violence. If you're unable to distinguish fantasy from reality, it's not the fault of game makers, movie producers, or television CEOs.

It's amazing that after six decades we're still attacking recreational activities as the causes of every ill under the sun.

If you believe this, you are hopelessly naive.

I agree, media shouldn't be censored. And I'm an avid gamer myself, but to suggest that video games aren't AT LEAST as capable of influencing people as television or print media (which is the basis of all the billions of advertising dollars spent each MONTH) shows that you really don't understand how the real world works.

Unless of course you're trolling. In that case: Bravo.

Vegan Meat Popsicle: Lanadapter: Since when is attraction to good feminine looks Misogyny?

I have never heard a woman wanting to look at a hot guy called a misandrist, so why would a guy wanting to look at hot girls be misogyny?

It's a matter of objectification and scope. You have a substantially weaker defense against the misogyny attack when the point of the characters starts to become looking at their bouncy boobies and you're working in an industry that seems to be hellbent on doing this with nearly every female character in everything it produces.

The video game industry thinks women are nothing but T&A because they've been successful selling to male video game players who believe that women are nothing but T&A. The fact that so many video gamers are uncouth anthropological throwbacks, however, should hardly be news to anybody and it's hardly limited to their views on women and I'm getting tired of people throwing a hissy fit every single time a character is rendered with large breasts.

It sells. It's not going away because some people just don't have very developed intellects or social graces. Get the hell over it. It's not like the majority of the people who'd pay extra to add swimsuit models to a fighting game are going to be stumbling out of the basement long enough for them to (poorly) interact with you in public anyway.

/ plus, it's not like male characters are generally rendered with a particularly healthy body image either
// no, really, my shoulders are totally as wide as a school bus and my biceps are as big my head... yea, that's perfectly normal....





See also: the Fallout games, the Elder Scrolls games

I'm not saying that misogyny doesn't exist in some video games. It has been my experience that the games that have the worst misogyny are also the ones with the fewest redeeming qualities (the DoA series, for example). In fact, Halo is about the only game I can think of that was good despite the sexism in the game.



Anyhow, games like the DoA series are abhorrent. I believe that, as a society, we are moving to a place where admitting to liking those games will be akin to admitting that you are a member of the Klan or that you are a member of Stormfront.

/the next problem that video games need to overcome is racism
//I'm looking at you, Mass Effect

People should not get up in arms about pixellated tits.

BUT

Video gaming does seem to have some serious gender issues.

Since when is attraction to good feminine looks Misogyny?

I have never heard a woman wanting to look at a hot guy called a misandrist, so why would a guy wanting to look at hot girls be misogyny?

"Misogyny, sex, senseless violence and crude humor sells entertainment products to certain segments of the population, more at 11".

If you don't like it, don't buy it, but can we please stop pretending that it's not perfectly normal for human beings to at least occasionally enjoy guilty pleasures that aren't 100% healthy or politically correct?