Oooooh, you know I commented on that blog.Originally Posted by NeoCracker
To repeat one simple example I've given several times in this thread, the oldest playable female in a Final Fantasy game is Lulu at 22. There are no less than 23 playable male characters older than Lulu, up to age 70+. If your "fantasy" is that males can be whatever as long as females are all young and pretty, then that is sexist as all get out.
No one's promoting an eradication of pretty people; the issue here is balance.
Art and media both influence and reflect the culture which creates and indulges in them--if you can't recognize that then I feel you're missing the entire point of art and media. I don't want to leave you hanging though, so here are a few published studies:
http://link.springer.com/article/10....-9695-4#page-1
http://link.springer.com/article/10....-9250-0#page-1
http://utpjournals.metapress.com/con...ut85g663gr605/
http://link.springer.com/article/10....-9278-1#page-1
http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uplo...5150.15436.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10....-9637-1#page-1
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/early...41078.abstract
A lot of people jump from this to "but that's like saying video games cause violence, which we know is untrue!" I don't think that's an unreasonable jump to make at first, but you have to consider 1) saturation and 2) ...effort levels? I'm failing to think of a phrase for that last one.
In regards to the former, we are just knee-deep in sexualization and objectification all the time. We are all raised from birth to value women based largely on their appearance, and that is constantly reinforced. We do this to everyone, of course--pretty people tend to have it better in general--but we do this to women far more. We are not exposed nearly so much to violence. Think of people who live in areas with a lot of gang activity; people living in those kinds of culture find that getting shot may just be a normal part of life. Or something to be proud of. For me, if I got so much as a superficial bullet wound is would somewhat smurf me up for life. I think if I got mugged I'd never leave the house again, but in some areas this is normal.
In regards to the later, there is a big difference between thinking sexist thoughts and shooting someone. Or even just hitting someone. I am not more likely to commit a violent act after playing GTAV, but I sure am more likely to be amused by the thought of running people over in my car. Seeing women in video games as primarily young and pretty, and often made to look like outright smurf dolls, influences how we see women.
Again, it's not about eradicating sexy, it's about balance. Balance both within the female gender and between the two genders.
Also again, my issue with Cidney isn't that she has boobs. I think I've illustrated the issue at least six times now though, and everyone else has said the same thing, so the next person to accuse anyone of hating on Cidney because "it's just some boobs" or something similar will incur just unrestrained wrath. Wrath, I say!
