Will Final Fantasy XV's Cid be a Lady?

[Shlup]

First, Shlup, if your going to cite a source, you should do it properly and not have the link embedded in a sentence in the middle of long paragraph. Very easy to miss.

Are we going to argue about the appropriate way to cite things in a forum post? Nobody likes a pedant.

I also have a small issue with the fact that are no sources cited for her(the female speaker in the video) research in the video description. Did any of you research her claims any farther than watching said video? I doubt it. And you people call my scientific method into question..

You can doubt it, but you would be wrong. Caroline Heldman is a PhD, a professor, and highly published. I've read a bit of her work, though it's mostly political (she's worked in politics), which I both enjoy and really don't enjoy at the same time. She got that number herself analyzing media in 2010--because, like, that kind of stuff is part of her job. You can decide to dismiss a respected professional and her work based on nothing but your "feelings" on the topic if you want, I suppose. I appreciate that, instead of offering something that proves anything I've said wrong, you're just saying "Nah, I choose not to believe this information, therefore you're wrong." You sure put me in my place.

I mean FFS.

Your original statement was-

Originally Posted by ShlupTo be fair, according to video games, 90+% of women have large breasts without the trunk and thighs to support them.

This is what I took issue with. This is factually incorrect, and not even supported by the evidence you gave. The woman in the video said "96% of sexually objectified images are of women". 96% of the images they deemed sexually subjective. That is quite subjective in it's self, but we have no way to check her methodology b/c their are no sources to check her research. Also, that doesn't support your claim that "90+%" of women in video games have large breast.

You're right, it's not supported by the evidence I gave. What you're doing here is taking the one exaggeration I made (which is not related to Caroline Heldman's research) and using that to dismiss everything I've said, including things I've offered citations for, based on that one thing. Though I do apologize that it wasn't obvious that I was being facetious with that comment. If I state something specific like that as fact, I wouldn't post it without a citation.

What you've done, is to try to put everyone that doesn't agree with your view that Cidney's attire is inappropriate on one side of the fence(the one where your are a misogynist/sexist), and yourself & those who agree with you, on the other side(the side of righteous).

You would be hard pressed to convince me that Cidney's attire is appropriate for her role as a mechanic. I don't appreciate you putting the words "misogynist" and "sexist" into my mouth though; I never called anyone any such thing.

I never said women aren't objectified more than man(see previous post). My argument was only that Cid's outfit is not inconsistent with with how FF characters are portrayed in the past(male & female). And you agreed, but yet you seem to have an issue with the fact that she has cleavage even though she's a mechanic. Why try and make this an argument about the unwarranted sexual objectification of women, when we know almost nothing about Cidney's character/personality? And, yes. It does sorta come-off as slut shaming.

You can't simultaneously make the argument that female characters in games aren't oversexualized all that much, and also the argument that oversexualizing a female characters is consistent with how characters in FF games are portrayed.

And I don't agree that male characters in FF are sexualized even a fraction of the amount of the female characters. Even if I do agree that female characters are consistently sexualized, that doesn't come anywhere close to meaning I'm then somehow okay with that. The point I'm making is that the frequency with which female characters are objectified actually makes me the opposite of okay with it, so telling me her titties are consistent with how characters are treated by the series would be actually proving my point.

I know enough about Cidney's character to know her outfit makes the opposite of sense. It's a very cheap and forced attempt to give males something to oogle. The very idea that you're pretending otherwise is just insulting. I understand that you may be completely unable, to understand disparities in how men and women are treated by the media, how that reflects society, and how it influences society, but you can't possibly be dense enough to think there is a context where that outfit makes sense for that character, even if you are willing to completely ignore the implications of the first female Cid being hyper sexualized in a culture where sexual objectification of women already far outpaces men. I don't believe you are unable though; you seem really unwilling though. I don't understand your personal investment in defending an obvious cheap trope.

Shlup: Neither Cidney or FF exist in a vacuum, but I'm one of "those people" that don't think a game should try to balance out the rest of the world, I believe a game should be the fairest it can be, the best it can be. Final Fantasy is completely entitled to have a cast of attractive characters. I don't believe that Final Fantasy games are designed 100% for males. I do believe that the characters are designed to be as attractive as they can be and I don't think there is this huge imbalance in character models depending on the gender. So far I think FFXV has had "healthy/fit male" and "healthy/fit female". I don't live in a vacuum, nor does Cidney, nor does Final Fantasy. But that doesn't mean Cidney, Final Fantasy and myself all need to overcompensate to make up for the 96% out there. I think Final Fantasy are one of the few out there who are doing it right, or extremely close to right, and I'm not the kind of guy that believes they have to be the ones to add in a complete cast of ugly ladies with two sexualised men to attempt to balance out all the inconsistencies the rest of the media world has.

Yes, they are entitled to objectify women in a cheap attempt to sexually thrill male players. And I'm entitled to criticize that cheap attempt. I'm entitled to feel disappointed that a franchise I enjoy would choose to make Cid female for the first time ever, but also make sure she's sexy and her clothing exposes her to the point where it's a ridiculous and dangerous outfit for her profession.

You don't need to overcompensate. Maybe you could just, like compensate. No one's saying make a game with all ugly people on purpose to counter-balance all the attractive people. I mean, really, you can save this really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. martyr for the titties bulltrout. No one's saying she has to be ugly, just that her outfit is stupid. It's cheap pandering at the expense of a group of people who are already treated as sexual objects to the point where people see men as whole people and women as a sum of their parts. Do you understand how much this kind of culture affects everything? And yet, someone opens their mouth and says "Hey, that outfit is stupid," and we have to spend multiple pages defending why we think it's stupid to perpetuate a cliche that already has many well documented negative effects on men and women alike. Because you want to be one of "those people" who says "Hey, it's not my responsibility to care," even though caring costs you very little. Like, literally all I'm doing is saying is "that outfit is stupid" but that's just too much effort for Daniel! Not your responsibility to take seven seconds to acknowledge the outfit is cheap pandering!

Hell, the only reason we're even having this conversation is because, as soon as one person made a small comment criticizing the outfit, people had to come in to be sure everyone understood that sexual objectification is totally no big deal. I don't understand the motivation. Is the idea that women should be displayed for your sexual pleasure maybe a little less frequently threatening somehow? I don't think that's the case but it's all I can think of.

Don't call me "purpopsefully dense". You're going around insulting my intelligence or attitude or integrity and I don't appreciate it. Debate the details, not the person, or stop debating at all.

Regarding your reasoning for calling me purposefully dense: I do believe that unattractive males barely exist in Final Fantasy, and I do believe there is the odd unattractive female in Final Fantasy, so while unattractive (males AND females) columns will be near-empty, they will not be empty. You yourself mentioned Brahne like... four sentences earlier as an unattractive female, negating your point. Despite this I don't believe you are purposefully dense at all.

Oh for goodness sake, it's not like I called you a name. I called you out on your behavior. I apologize; I thought you would have to be purposefully dense to say "It's fair and equal" with a straight face. That was my mistake, unfortunately.

Anyway, I specifically stated playable characters, not that I believe the ratio would be much different, if any different, if we were to take the time and effort into expanding it into all named characters. Regardless, you think is equal? Fine, I'll tally that trout up for you right now.

Playable characters in FF3-13 (I skipped 1 & 2 because they're pixels FFS):
Attractive males: ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 29
Unattractive males: |||||||||||||||| 16
Attractive females: ||||||||||||||||||||||||| 25
Unattractive females: ||| 3
Non-gendered: | Quina

That makes 35.5% of male playable characters unattractive (I counted Sazh and Shadow as attractive, for example) and 10.7% of females (Porom, Freya, and Eiko). A male character is more than three times more likely to be unattractive than a female character. You think this is equal? There are several (four or five? I didn't count) elderly male characters, but zero female. I did not count whether or not they were sexy, mostly because I just kind of want to go to bed, though the project I'm working on will include that kind of information.

No, not really. We can free the titties of their bondage if we just believe hard enough.

I think it'll take more than just a few people 'believing' and I think you know that. You can't walk down main streets of cities with your boobs out without either acting out against the law and (much more likely) being looked upon by hundreds of people with all kinds of unwanted attention. As I say... we have to deal with the culture we're given.

Sorry, I'm one of "those people" who doesn't believe in doing more than just believing. How're you gonna come at me as one of "those people" who thinks calling an outfit stupid is too much effort and then preach at me about doing more and "believing"? I'm the one who's speaking out against stupid sexist bulltrout here. I'm the one with my boob exposed in public because I will not be sent to a booth or wear an uncomfortable blanket to feed my kid. How about you try doing more than just "believing," like just smurfing acknowledging that Cidney's outfit is sexually objectifying and that is a problem? Even if you still like the series and the game and the character, that outfit is trout for more reasons than it just being ugly.

I agree it's excessive in general, like films, advertising, etc. I can only assume that this is down to marketing and that sexy men just don't make people want to buy things nearly as much as sexy women. That's a whole different discussion though and I haven't put much thought into it, but my general feeling is that it's a problem to which I don't know the solution without restricting freedom of an artist. And it's worth noting that in my experience, girls freakin' love creating art of girls rather than men. I think it's something about the generally more aesthetically pleasing curves on a woman as opposed to a man, I dunno.

Yes, we can tell you haven't put that much thought in it. And I don't say that to come down on you, but I do think you should put some thought into it, for goodness sake. You want a solution? I'll give you a hint: simple things like saying "Hey, I don't appreciate the cheap pandering of a mechanic in a nonsensical costume for the sake of being sexy" is participating in the solution. That is literally all I require of you. The TeDx talk I posted also has quite a few of the answers to the questions you're asking.

Here is another good link, if you have the time. You could save it for later if you want. Or save it for when you have a daughter and these issues really start to mean something because you don't want her to value herself primarily based on her looks.