I've always been a huge comics fan growing up. It's perhaps the geekiest part about me besides my love for video games. Not only did I happily collect Wonder Woman and Spider Girl, I obsessively followed a bunch of superhero cartoons as well, including Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Ahh, the good old days.
Of course, when I heard about Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe fighter, I was thrilled right down to my toes. A chance to beat the crap out of Liu Kang with Wonder Woman? to watch the Flash run circles around Scorpian? to really kick some ass with Catwoman --
Catwoman?
Oh God, Selina Kyle, what have they done to you?!
This has become quite the chorus for me: shock and disgust followed by the sinking realization that I'm not at all surprised. This is how it's going to be for every fighting game ever in existence, isn't it? Just check out the newest crop of screens from the game. All of the dudes -- Batman, Flash, Shang Tsung, Scorpion -- are all badass and muscley and tearing shit up. However, Catwoman and Sonya Blade (complete with a very classy thong tan line) are flickering around hitting themselves in the eye with some fresh boob jobs. As usual.
Okay, I get it, video game designers. Boobs are going to keep inflating and costumes are going to keep shrinking with every new fighter that gets made. It seems I can't enjoy some good old-fashioned video game combat without staring down all the shameless nerd masturbatory material. Quite frankly, I don't know how many times I can complain about the objectification of female characters in these games, because it's the same old song and dance. There's nothing out there that's different, there's nothing out there that's fresh or inventive. There's simply new physics engines for boob movement and slavering fanboys waiting in the wings.Here, as always, is the deal. This hypersexualization in such a gross majority of fighters is nothing less than flippant misogyny. The exaggerated appearances actively distance these caricatures from the possibility of female combat prowess. Rather than competent fighters, these women pout and thrust out their jubblies like porn stars. The character designers are laughing at the thought of an intimidating female fighter and churning out nothing but wank material. At this point, every fighter is starting to mimic Dead or Alive, and I'm sick of it.
It doesn't help that female superheroes / supervillains already have a bad rap in the comics universe. Now we have everything that's wrong with video games making things worse. Poor Selina Kyle. I mean, she's already in a freaking cat suit, and she already wields a freaking whip. What a disaster.
I'll just put it this way: at this point, I don't have high hopes for Wonder Woman's splashy new design.
(If you're a comics fan like me and you're interested in feminist commentary about superheroes, go check out Girl-Wonder.org.)
This is a really neat piece, on an aspect of the comic book/gaming culture intersection that isn't covered that often. Would you be interested in submitting it to the forthcoming Girl-Wonder online newsletter/magazine?
ReplyDeleteKaren Healey.
Man, all I can say when I see stuff like this is come. On.
ReplyDeleteReally? The catsuit wasn't enough, so we need to unzip it? I really like Catwoman's new digs (the goggles are pretty sweet), but I hatehatehate the unnecessary skin. And couldn't we have at least a little muscle? Man, I really hope Wonder Woman will have some; she's one of the very few comic superheroines who's allowed to have muscle, so I really hope it translates to the game. I'm not counting on it, though.
And don't even get me started on Ivy. Comparing this image of her to the one in your other article you linked to, it looks like she got that whip sword a little too close to her. You're exactly right: for female fighters, boobs and clothing have a negative relationship.
I took off my bra the other day to go to bed and it felt like a huge weight suddenly fell on me and I bent forward in pain, and I'm a C cup.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what Ivy feels in an outfit that doesn't just prevent decent support, but pushes them down, which can only compound the discomfort.
But don't you know! We've got apologists for sexism representing women gamers in mainstream outlets to dishonestly make the case that we'd be disappointed in anything short of the worst kind of caricaturisation in our fighters.
Alexander can just speak for her own damn self, as far as I'm concerned. It's bad enough to have most male "game journalists" taking time from their very serious journalism to tell us how important triple Es are to women in games. I guess it's where they keep their weapons?
I totally agree, and I'm a man. The sad thing is, I just don't want to raise any daughters with this sort of thing becoming so common in not just our video games, but everywhere else.
ReplyDeleteI am hanging my head in shame right now.
ReplyDeleteI actually went to an extended panel at Acen which was the guys from Midway answering questions. Of course I hadn't seen these screen shots before then, otherwise I would have grilled them on why they would do such a thing to Catwoman and their female audience. Now that I've decided not to travel to Acen anymore, I'm afraid I won't get the chance to ask about it in person.
I recall that when I was but a wee one I tended to shy away from certain games for precisely this reason. Being a girl, I wanted to use the female characters but.. I was made uncomfortable by the way they were portrayed.
ReplyDeleteI'm over it now, though sometimes I can't help but wonder if some developers do this on purpose- to keep women out of 'men's spaces'.
--shoal--:
ReplyDeleteIf not purposely, then subconsciously. To them, there's no point in remembering that women are human beings if they bar women from their space in the first place.