Probably a similar level to when LeBreau kicked in.
Probably a similar level to when LeBreau kicked in.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
There'd be one less argument to present, that's it. Removing her connection to Cid wouldn't change people's perspectives on the outfit.
True. It would still affect fewer people in the first place. The fact that she's a Cid causes more people to care about it.Originally Posted by ToriJ
Just watch the first 50 seconds of this (note things like the camera angles used etc)
And you're right, more people probably do care because she's Cid. One of the "recurring" characters who has had some sort major role in the majority of main-numbered Final Fantasy games, and the first time Cid is female - she is unnecessarily over sexualised. The real kicker here is that it is especially evident when taking her in comparison to the rest of the known XV cast. Though to be quite honest, I imagine any character posed as a mechanic dressed in a similar way would elicit a similar reaction regardless of the namesakes history.
I didn't say reasonable, I said believable as practical (if high-market) everyday fashion. Again in relation to the rest of the known cast, so far Cidney sticks out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else. The guys are wearing what you could reasonably believe teenage/early-20s would be wearing. Is what the guys wearing suitable for combat, not really, but that's pretty much something that falls into suspension of disbelief when their attire would otherwise look relatively normal for who they are.this being a "fantasy based on reality" doesn't mean all the clothes are going to be reasonable. I'd say the guys don't all have reasonable clothing, one girl so far doesn't, and I'm pretty confident we'll see more characters with stupid clothing before we're done with 'em.
Luna is from nobility and is dressed modestly, like wise from the very little of we've seen of Stella since the re-design she's pretty modestly dressed. The Regis looks formal, the leader of the empire looks regal. Cidney, however, looks one jacket zip strip away from being a pole dancer at a roller disco, not something you might reasonably believe someone who works with machines all day would be wearing. Have you ever worked with oil? It's an absolute bastard to wash off your skin and clothes, no-one in their right mind would dress like Cidney is if being a mechanic was their daily profession.
She is so out of place stylistically with the rest of what we've seen thus far. On that note, watch the later footage of them running around the town and tell me how many people you see who are dressed similar to Cidney.
If everyone was going around dressed like they were at a high school roller disco, or all the guys were in leather pants and their pecs showing and all the girls were in frimpy frilly mini skirts and too-small/tight-to-contain-their-boobs-tops, then yeah, it would probably be given more leeway as an "oh Japan, you so crazy" aesthetical choice (not that it's necessarily an any better situation, but that's something for another thread).
But in this case, Cidney is the odd one out, and that's what people are crying fowl over. While character development story-wise, SE don't always have the greatest track record with major female characters (see Raistlin's sexism series) - at least the majority of them post-VI, design wise, haven't fallen into the male voyeurism bracket that plagues the RPG genre.
Perhaps, maybe, people have come to expect (or at least hope for) more from Final Fantasy than needing to show off an over-sexualised token eyecandy female?
Last edited by Aulayna; 12-25-2014 at 03:25 AM.
I think SE have made it abundantly clear that the whole "taking on significant sociopolitical issues" thing was just a phase they were going through with FFVI, and they really have no intention of taking the player any more seriously than the series did at that point.
Things like the cheap eye-candy Cid we've been given show that they're not paying as much attention to the story as I would like, which I find troubling. I've always had a red flag go off in my mind whenever an entertainment program (or commercial, as it were) tried to use sex to get my attention (and presumably my money, too). I make it a point to treat what I am about to hear/see/do with extreme scrutiny whenever a sexy image is used as part of the hook.
It's pandering to the lowest common denominator, and I wish Final Fantasy would grow up along with me, but it's been made clear by those who gatekeep for the series that they do not want to "grow the series up," as it were.
:/ One of those things in life that just needs to be accepted, dealt with, and moved on from, I guess.
For the next two days I`ll be awkwardly typing on a tablet, so please forgive the lack of citations. If you want a citation I woul consider it a personal favor if you would try google first, but if you request a citation I will of course find one.
I appreciate the clarification.
Aside from Gladiolus's open shirt, I have no idea why you'd consider these characters sexualized. Please be specific.
I've acknowledged already that the age thing is something they can work on.[/quote]Keep in mind these objective facts: The oldest [human] female character is Lulu at 22 and oldest male is Strago at 70. At least 23FFIV Cid (54), Yang (35), Tellah (60), Edward (24), Fusoya (?), Edge (26), Galuf (60), Locke (25), Edgar (27), Sabin (27), Cyan (50), Strago (70), Setzer (27), Barrett (35), Vincent (27), Steiner (33), Amarant (26), Auron (35), Wakka (23), Basch (36), Sazh (40) playable male characters are older than 22-year-old Lulu; not counting temporarily playable characters over 22 (Laguna, Kiros, Ward, Seymour), characters of unknown age other than obviously elderly Fusoya (Shadow and Gogo), and non-humans 25-year-old Kimahri and 46-year-old Red.
What happened to "fair and equal"?
I would call Freya humanoid but Can't With non-humanoid being that he's a cat.
Men have many secondary sex characteristics, they just aren't sexualized as women are. Women's bodies are sexualized to the point where women are being shamed out of feeding their babies and told that they need to cover their shoulders so as not to "distract the boys." The most noticable secondary sex characteristics on boys are increased muscle tone and widened shoulders, yet boys are not told to cover their shoulders or biceps to avoid distracting the boys, and a man can walk down the street without a shirt on freely. In some places women can be assaulted or killers for exposing something deemed sexualized to that culture, while many places will laugh at you for thinking boobs are sexy because they're "for babies." Where in the world is a man slut shamed for showing a body part?It's a bit unfair as males don't have boobs or any kind of "secondary sex characteristics" I can think of according to society. We've just got the genitalia, which to my knowledge isn't exaggerated in either gender beyond that seen in Kuja.To my knowledge, no male characters pose in a way designed specifically to expose their secondary sex characterstics.
I understand you get that inequality exists and that all of the above is bad, but you seem unwilling to apply that knowledge to the world as you live in it. Men are harder to sexualized simply because men, as a whole, are less sexualized.
Yes, I understand you feel women buying into this as well justifies the disparity. Both videos I posted address this briefly... We are socialized early and often that a female's value is her body. Do you believe women are somehow immune to socialization? This is not an issue with men; it's an issue with all of society.
I feel like I'll need to expand on how socialization leads both genders to sexualize/idealize/"appreciate" the female body, but I'll leave it at that for now.
That last bit would refer to such things as Cidney working on cars in smurf me boots and Tifa kick boxing in a microskirt with her painfully large cans. It does mean people wearing clothes that don't make sense for the reason of appealing to someone else.
Well apparently you think Barrett is dressed for the express purpose of arousing me, so you're right to not trust you judgment.
You're confusing exposed skin with sexualization. A skirt with a slit up the thigh is sexualized; a gymnist running toward a vaulting horse in her leotard is not sexualized, despite showing more leg.
Note that you're often dismissing examples because a hyper sexualized male seems ridiculous; this kind of proves the point--you said yourself that you don't even blink at hypersexualiuzed female character, yet this just looks silly:
...That's all I have time for; it's present opening time.
I feel you on that one. I think this is exactly why Type-0 is resonating with me more than XV currently is. I mean yeah, they're in school, which is Japanese Fiction 101 these days, but other than that, the story seems intended for a more mature audience than your average FF, the characters (though girls in school uniforms may get a rise, but its Japan, they don't know any other type of uniform for girls) nobody seems all that sexualized, and the story, setting, atmosphere, all seem to take both the characters and (more importantly) the player more serious than the FFXIII saga, and possibly XV.
But again, I'm only half following things, and I've probably made that a little too clear by my ignorance on certain things. I still don't know what this girl's name is. People are switching between calling her Cidney and Cindy, and I'm not sure why we went back to calling her Cindy
Late, but I just saw this video and it made me think of this post. It explains why boycotts don't really work and provides actual examples (Mass Effect 3 for one!) where having a massive online bitchfest actually does influence things.
Strong language, kiddos.
Heh, I like that video.
Anyway, now that I'm home I want to clarify what "sexualization" means. For the sake of this, and because we're talking about general sexualization and not sexual objectification, we'll go with the basic dictionary definition of sexualization: "to make sexual; endow with a sexual character or cast," as it kind of encompasses all of the APA's definitions anyway. This can come in the form of the subject suggesting a receptiveness to sexual advances by use of clothing, poses, facial expressions, environment, narrative (for example, an innocent enough picture with a sexual innuendo as text). There's also, as BoB has noted, the audience imposing sexuality on a subject without any of the above.
These are a few of People's "Sexiest Men Alive." They are not at all sexualized in these photos--we see their face, smiling charmingly, and they are fully clothed.
These are a few of Esquire's "Sexist Women Alive." They are showing skin for the purpose of being tantalizing. They are posed the way they are for the same reason. No charming smiles--they're all giving you bedroom eyes.
Showing skin in and of itself doesn't make someone sexualized. For example...
Here are some women who are showing skin but not sexualized because their outfits suit their activity and aren't designed to be tantalizing.
Obviously the audience often chooses to objectify women in these outfits, but that's their own personal issue and may or may not be a problem depending on degree and frequency.
I will note, though, that men's volleyball players don't seem to "need" tiny shorts in order to do their sport. Though I suppose their balls would fall right out of them anyway. You could also make the argument, for the swimmers, that women's swimwear being designed to be more revealing than men's is an issue. You could also make the argument that women being forced to cover their breasts because they're so sexualized is an issue.
Here it's men who're showing skin, but it's to show their strength. Look at their poses and their expressions; they are showing their power.
This man is also showing his body, but he's clearly doing it to be tantalizing. This is is so rare that it only became a "thing" in like 2013, and it has a name, "hunkvertizing." Objectifying women is just advertizing--it we're sexualizing men then it's so care it gets its own name!
I mean, yeah, things like fashion and cologne have always used sex to sell, both men and women, but salad dressing?
Note that I'm not saying it's automatically bad to be sexualized. We all like to sexualize ourselves from time to time--we enjoy being sexual subjects. I'm also not saying objectification is always bad--it's certainly unavoidable, to say the least. But it does matter that women are sexualized and objectified far, far more than men (by both men and women, so it really doesn't help to say "but women like the sexy characters too"--yes, we are all socialized to value women for their looks more than men). You can make the argument that FF isn't as bad as... whatever else, but that doesn't earn it a pass. It's certainly not fair and equal, and hypersexualized characters like Cidney don't cease to influence players' perceptions just because she's part of a game that has... another female character somewhere who's pretty but mostly clothed. Or something. I'd be surprised if the game even passed the Bechdel Test.
Being honest, Cidney just pisses me off. They had the opportunity to do something simple but cool but they turned it into cheap pandering. It's insulting.
For fun, here are some things I came across while looking for pictures of objectified men (NSFW):
10 Times When Comics And Movies Sexualized Male Superheroes
Le sexisme inversé - Many of these aren't equal because the men are less attractive than the women, but I thought they were funny.
If this and your last post don't finally make some people understand what you're arguing here then there's no hope for some people. Literally no hope for any of them.You're confusing exposed skin with sexualization. A skirt with a slit up the thigh is sexualized; a gymnist running toward a vaulting horse in her leotard is not sexualized, despite showing more leg.
Note that you're often dismissing examples because a hyper sexualized male seems ridiculous; this kind of proves the point--you said yourself that you don't even blink at hypersexualiuzed female character, yet this just looks silly:
...That's all I have time for; it's present opening time.
Oh yeah, I forgot I was going to talk more about crotch bulges! I would like to make sure all the men here are aware of this inarguable fact: David Bowie's crotch bulge ushered my entire generation of ladies into puberty.
For more information, see this Reddit thread.
One of the things that it's important to remember about things like this is that the argument of feminism is very sound and utilitarian. Practical, even. If you judge people based on their gender you will avoid picking the best person for a job...it has been enormously beneficial to our society (I wager) to have a mixed workforce.
Teaching people that it's ok to regard someone as less of a person due to their gender is a largely counter-productive thing. I wonder how this figures into the "Peter Principle?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...m0GlAlls#t=915
Link is to the part of the trailer analysis that covers Cidney. Rolling my eyes so hard.
Did you see the part at 26:38? It shows another scantily clad female NPC. He assured the audience that she dresses that way because it plays a very important part in the game :P
This is just ridiculous. You know I remember defending the all male cast in another thread: "It's OK, you can do this from time to time, I don't think it's sexist if you have a particular theme you want to explore".Did you see the part at 26:38? It shows another scantily clad female NPC. He assured the audience that she dresses that way because it plays a very important part in the game :P
The more I see though the more I think the creators just figured girls would just be too distracting for the men as they try and save the world.
Come on: "Guys, guys. The reason why she's dressed like that... she plays a very very important role in the game. You'll find out." Is there some weird rule I'm not aware of where the more important a role a woman plays, the less they must wear?
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