So yeah, muhsoggyknees in vidyagams. I think it's a thing that does exist, but definitely not on the scale that most people would imply with their sensationalist horseshit outcries.
I'm not going to be just limiting this to 'objectification', but let's touch on the whole sexism thing as a whole because I'm already torturing myself with the typing and why the fuck not go all the way with it?
So, the easiest way for me to tackle this is to use examples and go off of that.
Bayonetta. Is she a sexist character because of her body shape and personality? Not really. You can totally claim that she conforms to some male ideal, and y'know what, perhaps she does. But nobody is saying that regular women have to look like Bayo. Shit, a large majority of the point of that character is to be unrealistic and over the top for fun. And therein lies the point: she's not sexualized just for the sake of giving teenage males boners, she's sexualized because that's who her character is. She's a dominant predatory person and hell of an intimidating motherfucker. You can't really claim it to be a male power fantasy when she spends the entire game sexually torturing enemies and basically being a huge fucking perving creep towards the male supporting character. So no, she's not a sexist character. The game isn't saying "THIS IS WHAT FEMALES ARE", the game is saying "Hey look, there's this chick named Bayonetta and she's a fucking over the top weirdo, now go have dumb adventures." So, when someone calls that portrayal sexist, I ask why are we not allowed to have this character? Again, she was never a statement about women, she is just one character who looks and acts a certain way. Saying she isn't allowed is like saying Salvador from borderlands is sexist towards men because he's a short hulking brute who likes shooting things. But Salvador, much like Bayonetta, was never intended to be a statement about a gender as a whole, they're just singular fucking characters.
Without going into other examples, what's the overall point? Things that one could claim as sexist or simple objectification are not so if they serve an actual purpose in the plot or in the characterization of an individual in the story.
So what IS sexist?
Look at games like Dead or Alive. Every female has huge tits and are as forgettable as a character could be. It's pretty fucking obvious that they're tits for the sake of tits and nothing more. Which is a pretty shitty thing to do and sexist in my opinion, but then again, it's their right to sell their game, is it not? That's another tricky part of this that I really don't want to get into, but still relevant.
And y'know, most of the things I'd claim are sexist in games really have little to do with appearance. I don't care if a character looks attractive, male or female, because they're not fucking real so what the fuck ever. It's personalities that are off putting to me. Example time. As idlehands brought up, that Lara Croft torture porn game, but then again the argument can be made that it's an origin story and thus blah fucking blah. Yeah, DmC is a psuedo-origin story as well, doesn't mean I think Donte is any less of a retard.
Let's see, oh yeah, every fucking David Cage game ever. Hilariously enough a few feminists apparently praised Beyond Two Souls, despite it being, y'know actually sexist unlike most of the things they bitch about. It's a movie about a weak dumb broad, void of personality and without any interesting traits, who constantly gets put into rapey scenarios for the sake of rapey scenarios because women can't be strong unless they're avoiding the rapes, y'know? And of course she doesn't even get out of the scenarios herself and constantly has to be saved by her decidedly male gary sue invincible ghost.
And feminists praised that game while bitching about shit like Bayonetta. Dear fucking fuck.
Ooh, to close out, thought of another example of both personality and physical shit without a purpose. Fucking Other M, made by the same cunts that make Dead or Alive. Yeah, giving Samus high heels and making her obsessed with THE BABY. Oh, and her inability to use her established powers until her daddy figure that she wants to fuck tells her she is allowed to not die. And then she shits herself for no reason when she fights Ridley for the billionth time and suddenly develops ptsd even though she's killed him a billion fucking times.
But I digress.
Point in summary: Physical shit is only sexist if it's there just to be there, and mental shit is far more important in making something a sexist portrayal.
I didn't proofread this so fuck off.
