Rivalry

Sometime ago a game like Marvel Rivals emerged and quickly endeared itself to many gamers, or did it? It turns out some gamers and especially female gamers have objected to the way the superheroines are portrayed there, if I was honest most of the female characters there are ridiculously busty. They also tend to be leaner than their male counterparts, which makes them seem more palatable to certain male gamers. Though it’s true not all male gamers are sexist perverts, let alone for life, but a number of games in the past have set the tone for certain things. Not just in depicting helpless women a lot, but also sexualised heroines fairly often too. In the cases with characters like Kitana, Sonya Blade, Cammy White and Lara Croft, though these characters are ostensibly admirable heroines this is undercut by unnecessary sexualisation at times, well until recently with newer games featuring the three of them appearing to be less sexualised than they did in recent memory. Though unfortunately this isn’t well-received by other male gamers, despite their respective developers’ sincere attempts to concede to feminist criticism.

Actually even in games that don’t sexualise female characters a lot, either that they simply don’t show up in the games at all, are made functionally interchangeable with their male counterparts in gameplay (though this is a grey area), and are also glorified NPCs as well. Based on my meagre gaming experience on PBS Kids of all things, but it’s kind of telling that when it comes to depicting and creating female characters in video games with most game developers being male that it’s going to be a hit or miss at times. Sometimes it gets complicated that even when the game doesn’t seem to be outright sexist, it’s subtly sexist in that the female characters either simply don’t show up at all or are practically NPCs at most. Conversely speaking, especially in the Japanese video game industry, there are games that technically fail the Bechdel Test but are highly aimed at the female gamer demographic in terms of the ways the male characters are portrayed as to appease to them (something like Ensemble All Stars).

Although the Japanese video game industry isn’t any better, this is something the US counterpart missed out on. Well for most of the part as it’s going to be hard naming what is the US equivalent to the Ensemble Stars game that the US equivalent would have to be created instead, but this implies the US equivalents to these games are either nonexistent or very rare at most. In the sense of a video game that’s unabashedly aimed at women that objectifies male characters a lot, that it may not necessarily be a popstar raising game the way Ensemble Stars is, but something that’s kind of upfront about pandering to cishet female preferences a lot. Or if there ought to be a way to push the envelope with male character designs that is somewhat closer to what their female counterparts get, like what would happen if you were to chance upon a male character who goes about pairing an Italian suit with a dog collar, it wouldn’t seem particularly that sexualised compared to what the womenfolk get.

But it is pushing things when compared to the way male characters are usually depicted, that does speak volumes about the rampant sexualisation of female characters in ACG media a lot. Where if you have a male character going about in a suit but where the tie’s replaced by a bondage collar/choker, it is pushing things in a way that’s barely if ever done to male characters. Or that it’s been done to male characters before but not for long (mind you I’ve seen Hank Pym wear bondage clothing before), whereas it’s painfully commonplace to see female characters go about in skimpy and really sexualised outfits, to the point where Super Mario’s Princess Peach stands out more for usually wearing more modest dresses. There are some people who feel that young girls shouldn’t wear skimpy clothing, to the point where it makes the character designs for early-teen characters like Misty feel iffier in this light. She’s supposed to be in the 10-14 age range so far, but dresses in a crop top and short shorts that make one wonder if she’s going to risk injuring herself more if she does something by accident when going out on a trip.

Princess Peach is very much an adult woman but she usually is more covered up, which goes to you show you given her prominence in the video game canon that a female character needn’t to be too sexualised to have any renown or impact. One other contender within the early video game canon would be Princess Zelda, who in her official appearances, barely if ever dresses this skimpily either. Though it could be argued that the sexualisation of female characters in the video game industry also started out early, it seems to have surged in tandem with having more agentic female characters around, that it feels like an attempt to compensate for having potentially emasculating fictional womenfolk around. Marvel Rivals seems like a more recent permutation of this meme, surely there are a lot of playable female characters around. But they tend to have absurd proportions, a number of them dress in a very sexualised manner and fewer still are stuck with the same colour scheme, despite being ostensibly very different women respectively.

If characters like Aloy are any indication, if you have a female character who’s both strong and not that sexualised, she’d intimidate some guy gamers a lot. Further compounding the problem is that even when the female character is sexy, but if she doesn’t have certain proportions then she’s not sexy enough. There’s this blogger who insinuated that such players aren’t even interested in good character design, they’re more interested in wanting the womenfolk to be as arousing as possible. Believe or not, I actually know of somebody who’s attracted to redheads, fat women, muscular women and giantesses, but the same fellow draws the line at ugly women and short-haired women that he seems to prove her point right. Sound character design might as well be traded for whatever that’s immediately arousing, especially in female characters, that contributes to an unnecessarily sexualised environment. I suppose if it were possible to push the envelope with male characters, that even when it doesn’t seem provocative compared to the women, it would still be daring compared to the way male characters are usually portrayed.

Let’s say that the upshot politican Colin Sallow wears a mustard-coloured Italian pantsuit with a very tight shirt that ironically leaves practically nothing to the imagination, despite being coloured black, then there’s forensic scientist Fabrice Tientcheu who also wears something similar. Then comes financial adviser Ilmar Tuglas who’s the most modest of the three men, if because he wears a buttoned up bottle green trenchcoat that’s paired with a violet dress-shirt, bottle green trousers and a violet choker with an emerald gem at the centre. He doesn’t seem that particularly provocatively dressed when compared to a female character, it would still be a rather odd character design choice despite not being this sexualised either. It’s not just that he wears a choker and jewel-toned garments, but that he also actually wears jewellery at all. When it comes to something like body dysmorphic disorder, this is kind of exacerbated in the ACG canon where such character designers can readily whip up the ideal woman. I even argued elsewhere that such depictions might even be more harmful than fashion magazines.

One can appreciate a well-done dress, but it’s kind of hard measuring up to a cartoon heroine with more sexualised proportions than you, goes about in a very sexualised manner despite appearances to the contrary and is sometimes depicted as if she were a porn star, that would be much more drastic than if she were confronted by a woman wearing a modest but nice gown. It’s easier for others to let these ACG depictions slide but in the sense they either think it’s imaginary or a mere mistake, without knowing it could be even more harmful as it more effectively communicates a certain message. With clothing you could learn to make something that suits your likings, or to create something for somebody else. But with cartooning and the like, one could cook up the ideal woman. It’s like if somebody’s so exposed to a near lifetime of looking at naked and scantily clad women in artbooks, comics and video games that it feels unfeminine for a woman to dress much more modestly, to the point where it might even be more provocative for a woman to go about dressed in a roomy abaya in public.

This isn’t always the case for Muslim-majority characters like Malaysia and plausibly Iran, Turkey and Morocco where you’re bound to have women who’ll find ways of undermining the modesty mandate in some other way, pushing things despite appearances to the contrary, though not for long. But supposing if things like Malaysian folk clothing, hanfu/traditional Han Chinese clothing, Indonesian folk clothing, precolonial clothing and Burmese folk clothing were to get popularised in the Philippines, especially after America collapses, that Filipinas might dress more provocatively if many of them went about in panlingpaos, changaos, baju kurung, ruqun and the like in public, than if they wore short shorts and leggings just the same. If because it would be really odd seeing more Filipinas dressing much more modestly than they did, where it would surely freak out a lot of people if a lot of young Philippine women wore panlingpao and baju kurung to the streets. There could be issues of cultural appropriation, but it’s essentially no different if white women went about in sexualised versions of Native American clothing.

But it does bring up the question if women in sexualised clothing is so normalised, what does it take to dress provocatively then? Could it be that the sight of say Sonya Blade in a more modest outfit be more provactive than if she went about dressed as if she were a dominatrix? Going back to the other example, because it’s so common seeing Philippine women in short shorts and leggings, that they’d dress more provocatively if they went about dressed in baju kurung and sarong in public. If because what they’ll be wearing would be so shocking and strange that it polarises people at first, because it’s something the Philippine public’s not particularly this used to. It would be similarly bizarre if something like Swedish, Danish and Finnish folk clothing get so popularised among Canadian women, that it would also draw in accusations of cultural appropriation at any point. Even if these same garments don’t get sexualised at all, it would still be weird seeing Canadian women going about in Danish folk clothing in public spaces like malls and restaurants.

A lot weirder than if they went about in American clothing, because it’s been popularised for years. So it would be super strange seeing a character like Kitana go about wearing a Song dynasty panlingpao with Song dynasty trousers to boot, especially if others are more used to seeing her in more form-fitting or skimpier outfits before. It would be really strange seeing Tanya go about wearing a boubou/kaftan in Ankara print whilst finishing her opponents in kombat, one would only wonder if players have (to develop) the patience to put up with seeing Sophitita in a modest Norwegian bunad (or even Ivy Valentine wearing the same garment). It would be pretty controversial for many reasons, but the fact that so many people are desensitised to highly sexualised depictions, that it would be super out of the blue seeing more women (both fictional and real) dress much more modestly than they used to. Marvel Rivals seems like the latest iteration of an earlier but ongoing phenomenon when it comes to sexualised depictions of women, that it would potentially serve to normalise/popularise these things again.

Is sartorial impracticality in character design objectifying?

I feel when it comes to what constitutes as a practical character design and whether if sexual objectification has anything to do with it, at other times it doesn’t seem to be what it ought to be. One could be dressed modestly and still dress impractically, speaking from personal experience wearing really baggy sleeves that get in the way of eating. In the context of superhero stories and the like (i.e. a good number of video games), it usually refers to highly sexualised character designs that get in the way of fighting or whatsoever. From my personal experience, it might be possible to dress demurely yet also impractically, that it does make one wonder if our understanding of impractical dressing’s largely limited to just dressing sexily.

But that would mean the subject matter’s more nuanced than the dichotomy of sexy/ugly, even this has shown up multiple times in video games before in some way. Most notably what both Princesses Zelda and Peach wear, though from a certain standpoint what they wear’s positively anodyne compared to the more sexualised likes of Samus Aran (even before she wore a catsuit, she kind of dressed skimpily and also the way some illustrators depict her catsuit risks pushing things), Lara Croft, Cammy White and Kitana. Actually with Lara Croft, it’s a more complicated by now. Especially when you have lots of women dressing like her in real life, whether the leggings or the shorts, that at this point the way Lara Croft dresses is very unremarkable.

Not necessarily any less sexualised, but highly unremarkable in this day. It would be all the more provocative to see another female character dress in a more demure yet stylish manner, given we’re practically desensitised to sexualised female designs both in ACG media and in real life, especially if it’s a character design that’s barely seen in years that it’s kind of monstrous in its own right. In the sense of being very out of the ordinary, like say supposing if this character named Jemima Szara goes about in a demure black turtleneck blouse and red maxiskirt paired with black tights and red shoes, it wouldn’t exactly be monstrous. It would (still) come off as kind of unusual, because we’re not used to seeing a civilian dress this way.

Let alone an investigative journalist a la Lois Lane and also Insomniac’s Mary Jane Watson, but that’s got to do with American culture favouring both sexiness and comfort in dress over ornamentation and demureness as it is in Japan. Especially among Japanese women in real life that makes the differences between them and their ACG counterparts all the more drastic, but it also means that sometimes dressing impractically doesn’t necessarily mean the character’s sexualised. Princess Peach could be seen as dressing impractically despite dressing modestly, especially if she does certain things contrary to the way she dresses. Lara Croft could be seen as dressing comfortably, despite also dressing skimpily, especially if she starts going about in hot, damp places as there are women who do dress like her for this purpose alone.

It kind of upends one’s understanding of what it means to dress in such a manner, since sometimes dressing impractically might sometimes mean the character dresses too fancily for something. Princess Peach is generally like this and there could’ve been instances where she did dress too impractically for the occasion, just by wearing a nice gown alone and one of my sisters point out that I dress impractically because I habitually wear blouses with baggy sleeves a lot. I don’t play video games much but just by going from my own experiences dressing in such a manner that sometimes dressing impractically might also mean dressing in a way that’s too fancy or gets in the way of eating in my case, not necessarily because the character’s outfit is sexualised.

Not necessarily always because the character’s outfit is sexualised, which means our understanding of what it means to dress practically is kind of context-dependent. Somebody like Lara Croft might actually tend towards comfort over dressing fancily, the sort who feels more comfortable wearing shorts or leggings over a super nice dress, when she’s out looking for adventures in far off places. It happens to be rather skimpy or sexualised, given how they risk coming off as at inopportune times. A hypothetical character like Jemima Szara could be seen as dressing impractically, because she opts to dress in a black blouse and long red skirt with red shoes and black tights, as to look kind out of place and too fancy for the occasion.

Characters like Zelda and Peach, both Nintendo princesses by the way, do upend one’s understanding of what an impractical character design’s like, in that they needn’t to be sexualised to be impractical for the situation they’re put into. They also upend the sexy/ugly dichotomy so falsely assumed by a number of gamers when it comes to coming up with nonsexualised female character designs, similar things can be said of Lara Croft herself who dresses quite practically for the situation, despite being also rather sexualised at the same time (favouring shorts or leggings), there are even women who dress like her in the real world by the way. So it seems what is impractical needn’t to be sexualised, since this can involve dressing too fancily for the circumstances they’re in.

But one that fundamentally upends our understanding of things like these.

Treating certain characters as incompetent

I do think there’s the problem with how some writers, at the very least, treat characters where they don’t just lack the finesse and empathy to depict them going through something but also seemingly don’t respect even their own creations or the characters they’re made to write for.

(Actually this also gets coupled with bad character design where it gets even harder to take certain characters seriously, to the point where any degree of tweaking’s needed.)

As if a certain character tends to depict a certain character as often incompetent, that it’s if they don’t believe in the later’s potential even if the character could do that. (With Super Mario, they often assume Peach to be incompetent even if there are cases where she does fight back or save others.)

The inability to trust a certain character’s potential, even if it does show up in canon, can hurt characters in the long run unless if it’s done if people do commit to the remedies to the characters they do.

Not much confidence in characters’ capability

Something like in the Super Mario games, there are some games where Peach (a character usually used as a damsel in distress) does save somebody else (even Mario) and games where she doesn’t want anybody’s help but there are some developers who aren’t confident about her becoming more independent and stronger in later games, even if the character’s capable of it some aren’t that confident about it.

I guess this would be like saying DC’s Stephanie Brown might be a better athlete than Tim Drake ever was, even more mature than him but despite the untapped potential or rather because of it, not too many writers consider this (perhaps because nobody wants Tim Drake to be outshone by somebody else in some fields) or for another matter, Cassandra Cain being mentally ill (natural because she wasn’t raised in a normal household and was taught to be violent, before becoming disgusted with it).

Even if the character is capable of something, some writers and developers will not consider this for later games even if the character could do it anyways.

Not much confidence

I think if there are some writers and creators at Nintendo reluctant to make Princess Peach more independent and also a playable character that even if it shows up in some games, some really don’t have much confidence in her potential (like say she might give the irascible Daisy a run for her money, supposing if the trend of her powers ruled by emotions as in the Super Princess Peach were to continue).

Like the fear of making her out of character when in reality it’s right up there in her own titular game, not that she should be exactly like Daisy in demeanour but that she could get really angry as to attack her enemies as it was in Super Princess Peach. I guess the closest analogy to would be that DC’s Stephanie Brown might be a better athlete than Tim Drake and even as angry as Jason Todd is never mind it could’ve shown up in canon to some extent.

Or almost any other character, for fear of emasculating their male counterparts and I would say this also extends to the matter of race and disability where nobody wants the thought of Cassandra Cain being mentally ill and with a low self-esteem never mind that this was addressed to some extent, considering that she hadn’t much of a normal childhood and was raised to be violent.

Rao help if CW’s Flash has the guts to turn racial stereotypes on its head where Iris West is very girly and satisfied to be a housewife type whereas Caitlin Snow is hot-tempered, animalistic (as she’s a werewolf) and androgynous (as a shapeshifter she can appear as a man) or if Wally West might have mental health issues (he might be highly anxious).

I guess that’s still saying if it were to happen, even if some writers pull it off and let it happen others might not have the confidence to turn stereotypes on its head and in the case with Peach, some aren’t that confident about her becoming more independent and forceful or for another matter, Cassandra Cain’s and Wally West’s mental health issues.

Not so peachy for her

Admittedly I don’t play video games but considering the Mario video game’s history of having one of its characters (Princess Peach) be in distress that it shouldn’t be surprising that some games did try to address the problem or even turn it on its head in Super Princess Peach where she actually rescues Mario despite the games’ flaws as well as rescuing others.

(It could be argued that in the Super Princess Peach where Peach’s emotions grants her different powers might be an attempt at making her more aggressive or forceful especially if she uses anger, though that might not be the right word for it.)

Whilst not any better if her powers are governed by her emotions, it could be argued that for some writers (especially cishet males) they don’t have much confidence in depicting female characters as being more capable than their male counterparts in some fields (albeit not in ways one expects), perhaps why some don’t have much confidence in Peach’s capability.

(Like I think if one game gave Peach’s emotions specific powers, which if she uses one of those to torch enemies it would seem unthinkable even if she’s capable of it*.)

Even if the character is capable of doing those things in some games or stories, some writers don’t have much confidence in them for whatever reason.

*Perhaps the other problem’s that nobody wants her to usurp Mario in some regards.

Nintendo’s toy days

Nintendo is quite a company with a storied history. For a long time and it still does to an extent (club cards and the Pokemon cards in a roundabout way as it’s co-owned by Game Freak), Nintendo makes cards. These ranged from hanafuda cards to Western cards and sometimes cards based on Disney and Popeye characters. (If I’m not mistaken Mario and Donkey Kong were based on Popeye.)

One employee had a knack for creating amusing gadgets that inspired Nintendo’s prior toy lines (actually Nintendo still produces toys, whether if it’s Amiibo or merchandise in a roundabout way). These ranged from the Love Tester to the Super Hand and finally some of Nintendo’s earliest video games. Some people say that the toys are the missing link between Nintendo’s card-making past and gaming present.

I’d say Nintendo still produces cards and toys in some fashion or another, as if the past’s not entirely forgotten.