Male character designs and sexualisation of women

When it comes to the way male characters are designed in video games and other media, it’s rare to find them being anywhere as sexualised as their female counterparts are, rarer still is if they wear something as racy as their female counterparts do. I’m thinking in the lines of making somebody like Graham Knightley wear a bondage-inspired suit, where it’d be really odd seeing a salesman wear bondage trousers. But in reality they should’ve been just as incenced with Cammy White being a female soldier who used to go about in a thong leotard for a long time, though I feel it speaks volumes about how desensitised people are to rampant female objectification that male objectification feels more remarkable and shocking in this regard.

I suppose if you have a male scientist like Fabrice Tientcheu pair a fashionable version of a lab coat with a really tight shirt and tight trousers to show off his muscles, you’d think he’s pushing it and what he’s wearing is inappropriate. But then again Abby Sciutto has been shown wearing skimpy dresses and she’s also a scientist, like as if sexualised femininity’s the sugar made to sweeten medicine. One would only wonder if people can take to a politician like Colin Sallow wearing not only a tight shirt and tight trousers but also a jacket short enough to showcase his muscular bum, the way they would with Lara Croft being an archaeologist who goes about in booty shorts. As if being sexualised is a way of indicating that characters like Abby Sciutto and Lara Croft are female/feminine, because dressing otherwise would either make them look unsexy or unfeminine.

It’s as if femininity with these characters is communicated by dressing in a very sexualised way, instead of being feminine in a less sexualised manner (something like long and loose, floral garments or think Supergirl in a Chanel suit). If because I suppose it would make both Abby and Lara look frumpy, imagine if Abby Sciutto had the same personality and job but swapped miniskirts for a Gothed up version of the Chanel suit that she’d risk looking matronly. Maybe she has dressed more modestly before, but as it stands, the way characters like her, Cammy and Lara have been portrayed risks communicating a message that to be feminine in occupations like science and the military is to be sexualised. Ironically when Goths do enter certain occupations, they tone down their looks to be accepted and not draw too much attention to themselves.

Supposing if we have a police officer like John Zelensky who’s also Goth like Abby, but the fact that he dresses like a leather gay would make one wonder why she has to wear skimpy dresses whilst working in forensics in the first place. The argument that she’s Goth wouldn’t work when actual Goths have to tone down their fashion sense to get employed in more respectable occupations, so John Zelensky dressing like a leather gay is no different from what she wears onscreen: wearing sexualised garments in occupations that would preclude those. But that would involve realising how sexualised she actually is (from time to time), that they wouldn’t do at all to her had she been male. It still communicates a certain message that to be feminine is to be sexualised, even if one could be feminine without being sexualised.

It’s sexist because it’s not done often with menfolk, let alone without questioning the male characters’ sexuality (sort of like how the Jobros are seen as gay in the west, even when they could’ve been straight and aren’t seen as gay in Japan) or that men are ugly. But it’s not hard to see how the rampant sexualisation of women in the media would have other women turn to slash and the like to objectify men in earnest, if because being compared to an idealised version of femininity could risk being harmful to them in some way. That perhaps not being represented at all’s preferable to being misrepresented and objectified at every turn, it’s even more terrifying to think that there’s not a single western equivalent to Ensemble All-Stars despite things like Backstreet Boys being popular back in the day.

Having a lot more video games tailor-made for women’s tastes would be nice, though it remains to be seen if the western video game industry would be open to game developers creating something in the lines of Ensemble All-Stars. Or even male equivalents to the likes of Ivy Valentine, Cammy White, Lara Croft and Abby Sciutto in terms of attire, something like salesman Graham Knightley with his BDSM inspired suit or politician Colin Sallow and scientist Fabrice Tientcheu with their tight shirts and trousers paired with more respectable jackets and coats. But this involves realising how sexualised these characters are regarding why nobody bothered to outfit a male Abby Sciutto in a tight shirt and trousers coupled with a stylised lab coat, because that would look too fruity even when he doesn’t show much skin.

I suppose in this society and world, women are meant to be seen and not heard. They’re there to be looked at, even when they shouldn’t and needn’t to be. One would only wonder how would people react to Graham Knightley appearing in a BDSM inspired suit without questioning his sexuality, motivations or very existence, but turn a blind eye to a female soldier going about in a thong leotard until recently. Which goes to show you how desensitised we are to hypersexualised visions of women.

It’s No Good

It’s not wrong to like video games, sports, films or anything else for as long as you don’t turn them into idols, same goes for anything Christian which is something I’ve done before. But I feel the problematic part with secular video games and sports is how ridiculously long they play, especially if/when people should be worshipping God at crucial hours. It’s not wrong to play video games or sports, it’s not wrong being a professional game developer or a professional athlete. But there still needs to be time for God, even if the Devil does a lot to find a way to delay this. There are times where I’ve delayed something, whether by accident or due to my sins (hard to say).

Sometimes God delays something to make us wait and to appreciate the answer when it arrives at his time, but the problem with the way some games (both video games and sports) are done is that they’re made more addictive than they should be. Loving one or both of them isn’t bad for as long as you don’t turn them into idols, but the way the games are played (especially for long hours) makes it harder not to. It’s not wrong to mourn what games you’ve missed, but games shouldn’t be an idol and neither should video games. At any point where people would’ve taken the time to listen to sermons in any medium or format, others choose to have idols and this is something I’ve done before and risked the consequences of doing it.

It’s not wrong to play games, whether if it’s a video game or football, but they shouldn’t take priority over God. They’re not inherently wrong but in the case with video games, some have ridiculously long session hours that make it harder to take the time to read the Bible and devotionals and listen to sermons. Similarly enough, sports games get played longer than they should, eating up whatever time athletes, fans and coaches need to worship God when it should’ve been done. Similar things can also be said of secular films and music, which is something I’ve learnt with the former. The more I take the time listening to a sermon and waiting for it, the less time I have for secular music.

Sometimes I miss a sermon due to my own sins (this has happened before with some stations I like), but I’m doing my best not to let it happen again and my way of passing the time is to play multiple sermons on other channels and stations, just so I wouldn’t lose my cool even if it doesn’t always go as expected. It’s weird but I don’t want to throw a fit and get super-anxious, so it’s something I do my best to avoid letting my emotions get the better of me. It’s imperfect but I don’t want to lose my cool, so bear with me here. But even then at this time, with myself getting more addicted to listening to sermons that I end up listening to less secular music as a result.

In waiting for sermons to happen, I end up listening to more Christian music this way. I listen to secular music less and less often, when a social media channel starts livestreaming sermons I start paying more attention to it. I do take breaks from listening to sermons and Christian music by listening to some secular music every evening, but even then I still take the time to listen to sermons and Christian music when I have to. I have less time to listen to sermons the more I get closer to God, so I end up having less time to watch sports games or play video games. It’s not wrong to play football or video games, for as long as they don’t take priority over God.

But if they play longer than they should, they’re effectively eating up time needed to worship him. They’re not inherently wrong, they can be enjoyed for a few minutes or a maximum of several minutes before it’s time to read the Bible and listen to sermons again. Just as secular music can be enjoyed for several minutes before some social media channel starts livestreaming sermons/church services, as it is with me these days.

Cyril Rabeholm and the shadows

Yup, I renamed him from Cyril Darkholme as the former sounds too cartoony and this was inspired by a thread about writer Chris Claremont giving foreign characters names that sound ridiculous for their own ethnicities/cultures, so Cyril’s given the more plausible sounding Rabeholm by now. It’s not that there aren’t any characters who make shadow constructs, but that they also get to teleport or move through shadows. As if they’re rather ghostly themselves in some way, in the same way that characters who create light also fly for no reason. What if making shadow constructs is all that Cyril Rabeholm does, but one that he makes good with it when it comes to both offence and defence?

Like he’s largely restricted to both force fields and shadow items, with the latter often being weaponry, that he puts these to good effect like undermining police activity and to attack victims with. Not only that but he often transduces electromagnetic energy into darkness, often like the force fields in one of Larry Niven’s stories. It’s pretty weird why DC Comics has a character that transduces heat into cold with Killer Frost, but not something similar with say Nightshade, which is odd as anything dark absorbs a lot of light*. So it should be logical that a character who manipulates darkness should be able to create brownouts as to disable electronic activity, should somebody else want to use electronic devices and equipment at all.

But there’s more to him than meets the eye is that he’s actually blond-haired, though he usually conceals it with a black beanie. Then again if you know something about the Japanese indie game series Touhou Project, there’s a character pretty similar to him called Rumia in that they’re both blond-haired and manipulate darkness themselves. Cyril also looks like Nick Carter, oddly enough, as if the latter habitually dresses in industrial rivethead clothing when he’s doing criminal activity and outside of it. This could change since this is just a draft of what he is and what he could turn into, as influences change over time in game development. He’s also very short-tempered, moody and brutal towards his victims, though he does show moments of calculating brilliance.

He did have something of a sidekick who merely just moves through shadows, though he committed suicide upon hearing that somebody like Jemima Szara is catching up on him. Kind of like what Pesci did to himself, since he has the same ability as he does. I kind of forgot his name but gameplay wise, he’s his miniboss so it sort of makes sense for him to be his sidekick/henchman/whatever. It’s weird how characters who manipulate darkness also have to emerge from the shadows, but characters who manipulate light needn’t to make themselves invisible. To the point where in here moving through shadows is separate from darkness manipulation, which makes sense as Scott is Cyril’s miniboss henchman. Something that not many considered.

*He’s very useless and powerless either at night or in the dark.

Prodigies and Games

As I said before, the characters of Colin Sallow and Fabrice Tientcheu are based on Liam Howlett and Maxim Reality of the band The Prodigy, but also among other things. Although Colin Sallow does look like a younger Liam Howlett, he also shares traits associated with other people (both fictional and real). Same goes for Fabrice Tientcheu, but the thing with Colin is that he enjoys bird watching. This is a hobby that two of my relatives are involved in, especially when they go to the university parks from time to time. He even owns birds himself, though these are chickens. He also takes the time to feed them, often to keep them from destroying the plants. He also feeds pigeons and ravens, which he also uses them to undermine police activity.

He’s also based on how Björn Andrésen portrayed the character of Tadzio in Death in Venice, wearing similar outfits and even the same sailor suit as he did. (Oddly enough, Fabrice went undercover as a marine janitor to better spy on him.) Of course, Colin Sallow’s also based on Dio Brando, even wearing a similar outfit to his and stopping time (however in a localised area) enough for him to throw knives at his victim. Then we move onto Fabrice Tientcheu, where he could be the Trish Una to Colin Sallow’s Dio Brando, if because both characters have the ability to soften things. Let’s not forget that Trish Una’s stand Spice Girl is actually based on cats, though it’s not particularly obvious compared to Killer Queen at first, but it’s been known to leave claw marks (something Killer Queen doesn’t do to my knowledge).

Fabrice Tientcheu and his family keep cats, there are black people who do own and care for cats. This is even a thing in countries like Ghana and Cameroon, the latter is where he and his family come from. Also his father’s afraid of dogs, much like the Cameroonian rapper Mink. He apparently passed on his distrust of dogs onto his son, and if I’m not mistaken there’s an early 1990s Cameroonian study on dogs where a number of Cameroonians don’t like them either. Things might have changed for the better or worse since then, though this could make them relatable to certain black people really. That’s not to say those in the African diaspora don’t own and care for dogs at all, but when dogs are used to harass and attack innocent black people, or that white people seem more obsessed with dogs than they are with people of colour, it shouldn’t be surprising why some black people feel this way around them.

And also towards white people who don’t seem actually interested in them and their cultures, as they would around animals, not that there aren’t any black people who do care about them. Though I feel you’re more likely to find the latter in countries like Ghana, Cameroon and Cote D’Ivoire, sometimes in ways that do match their white western counterparts. Also Fabrice resembles a younger Maxim Reality, well with short hair the way many black African men do to look respectable, as dreadlocks are kind of stigmatised among them there. Not that there aren’t any dreadlocked black African men at all there, but that black African men are often socialised to look respectable with their short hairstyles. It even starts in school that schoolboys are expected to either have short hair or be bald, whereas schoolgirls can be short-haired or have braids.

As they enter the workforce or do something else as they get older, women are also free to either have their hair straightened or dreadlocked. But the menfolk are often expected to have short, natural hair because anything other than that risks looking suspicious in some way or another, not just dreadlocks but also straightened hair. Then we get onto the other sources of inspiration that are more unexpected than the first, namely that Fabrice’s also based on that of both Freddie Mercury from Queen and David J from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. Fabrice dresses like Freddie Mercury, shares his interest in cats and also knows how to box.

He’s also like David J in that both of them like reading books and were aspiring footballers until both of them got injured, so David J became a musician and Fabrice became a forensic scientist. Back to Trish and her stand, he kind of shares the former’s toffishness and the latter’s dual (and contradictory) characteristics of both politeness and cruelty towards enemies. He’s even really nasty to Colin, once he turned out to have killed somebody, even attempting to gauge out his eyes though Jemima Szara stopped him from doing it.

Or if Colin Sallow stops time enough to escape this, since he’s something of an escapologist himself depending if the player wants to play as either Jean-Louis or Jemima (if she becomes a playable protagonist herself). In the case of Colin Sallow, it would be particularly odd seeing a buff, young Liam Howlett dressing up as Dio Brando. Or Fabrice Tientcheu being a young Maxim Reality who dresses up like Freddie Mercury, whilst the two surviving early members of the Prodigy did inspire these characters, they’re far from the only inspirations behind them. Or for another matter, Dio Brando and Trish Una when it comes to their abilities. There are other sources of inspiration behind them, sometimes in ways that feel rather jarring or unexpected.

Cultural backgrounds and male character design

Whilst a country like Japan might not be any better either, given its own struggles with misogyny and sexism, but it seems the west is kind of peculiar in the sense that its own idea of masculinity is so hypermasculine that it rests on caricatural machismo. Case in point would be Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure where the characters come to dress quite flamboyantly, though westerners see them as gay even if the Japanese don’t see them this case. It should be noted that the bar for dressing well is higher in Japan than in the west, where the Japanese are even required to dress in suits when going to work at all. But then again Japan is a collectivist society, where people do things to go with the flow to avoid standing out like a sore thumb.

If something is trending in Japanese fashion, then it really is trending and the Japanese follow suit. Americans don’t just dress more casually but that American women are more inclined to dress quite provocatively, so from this standpoint that the bar for male objectification in western culture is going to be low. Though Japan itself might not be any better in this regard to a possible extent, but western culture’s sort of peculiar in that men are deliberately desexualised. Which would explain why K-Pop boy bands seem gay in comparison, even if they don’t necessarily go about in leather trousers and fishnet shirts, but seem more effeminate and sexualised in a way that puts a bad taste in westerners’ mouths.

This could also be applied to the Jojo characters for similar reasons, where they do dress in a way that’s not too out of place in fashion shows and magazines. If because Hirohiko Araki himself is inspired by those, in addition to the Japanese requirement of dressing well to impress others. Whilst the Jojo characters do dress well and may in fact dress fashionably for the decades the stories are published in, they’re also seen as gay by many westerners who are unaccustomed to actual fashion sense. Befittingly, I have a couple of characters inspired by their Jojo counterparts, these include the forensic scientist Fabrice Tientcheu and criminal political science student Colin Sallow.

The former’s based on Trish Una and also her stand Spice Girl, the latter’s based on Dio Brando. Right down to similar clothing, habit of using knives and the ability to stop time, though Colin only does that to a specified place but enough for him to do whatever he wants and also to make an escape. Fabrice Tientcheu’s a scientist but he dresses in a really tight shirt and tight trousers that highlight his muscles, Colin’s no different with his own shirt and trousers doing the same, despite technically wearing a suit himself. You might say it’s pushing it because of their occupations, but the fact that the bar for male objectification is so low that dressing like a Jojo character would sexualise them in an uncomfortable way. Not that it’s deliberate at all in Jojo, but it comes off this way to westerners.

When the bar for male objectification is either a man in a suit or a shirtless muscular man in western media, it’s really low and the former is also why the bar for stylish men’s fashion is really low in western culture. Say what you will about South Korea and Japan as well as Jojo again, but the bar for stylish men’s fashion is higher in the former two. Thus explaining why Jojo’s the way it is, even when somebody isn’t in the mood to wear a suit, he’s still expected to dress well in both Japan and South Korea. Though the Japanese know that the Jojo characters dress flamboyantly, they’re not seen as particularly gay to them.

It kind of speaks volumes about the expectations for male fashion in a way that’s not highly prioritised in western culture, like how men are not expected to care about it at all. It’s kind of telling that Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is authored by a Japanese and not an American, especially given that he’s not only into fashion, but also because Japanese men are also expected to dress well to impress others that a number of Jojo characters may’ve dressed in a way that trended in Japan and still is so to some extent today. If superhero movies are any indication, these characters would be expected to dress in a quasi-militaristic fashion.

It’s not hard to see how culture plays a role in the way character design’s done. Whilst there are cases that do converge, there are those are do and it’s particularly evident with things like Jojo, JJK and others, compared to superhero media. As for Jujutsu Kaisen, whilst the characters don’t seem to dress like their Jojo counterparts, they’re also disinclined towards quasimilitaristic dress as you see in superhero media, despite using superhuman abilities in combat a lot. So culture does play a role in character design, perhaps in ways we don’t expect nor realise. Sort of like how western culture tends towards a peculiar form of masculinity, not that Japan and South Korea are any less masculine and sexist.

But as both Japan and South Korea are influenced by China, even both using the same orthography in the past, though as of know only Japan and Taiwan still use Chinese characters a lot, whereas Korea moved onto Hangul. So inevitably, the Japanese and Korean conceptions of masculinity resemble the Chinese version more, relative to the west, even if these two went in their own directions over time. There’s something in Chinese culture called civil and military service (wu-wen), which are both masculine but one has been prioritised more over the other. So inevitably, the masculinity displayed in Jojo (and possibly JJK) adheres to the Chinese model more.

Maybe not exactly but this should give you an idea of where this is coming from, as this is also shared by South Korea too. I remember this study by Lawrence Monocello that whilst male beauty ideals overlap to some extent in both America and South Korea, they still differ in most other regards. According to that study, tallness is associated with manliness and also the expectation of being domineering/dominant. So logically it’s possible that being really muscular is also associated with manliness, thus it’s also domineering. Not that muscular male characters don’t appear in Japanese comics at all, but they’re far from the default and I remember reading somewhere that Japanese animators were instructed to draw more muscular characters.

Even if muscular male characters do exist in anime and manga, there’s also a great variety in male body shapes, that a skinny male character could still be the star of the show. He could even attract a lot of women, if harem anime stories are any indication. Though it does seem puzzling to think that whilst bands like Duran Duran and Bay City Rollers were widely popular among girls, despite not having bulging muscles and tattoos in sight (though they both came from an earlier generation), for some reason this didn’t get translated into muse material for western romance novels. Especially once their female fans entered adulthood, which should’ve deeply imprinted onto them by then.

Or for another matter how a good number of women got into geek culture because of Harry Potter and anime, the former doesn’t even have this many muscular men and there were people who did gay pairings between the titular protagonist and Draco Malfoy. But for some reason this mostly didn’t carry over to romantasy, a cross between fantasy and romance, where you’d expect a stronger Harry Potter influence by now (maybe outside of young adult fiction). Maybe not exactly with HP but rather something like Lord Of The Rings, which even has a blond character in the form of Legolas that some people have paired him up with Aragorn. Though the cultural difference thing seems more plausible, which explains a lot of things.

Especially regarding the expectations for a very attractive male character, that in Japanese anime male characters can still be attractive, even if they’re not olive-skinned, muscular or have blond, red, pink, grey/white and blue hair. Whilst in western romance books and the like, though male romantic leads can have tattoos, they’re generally not going to be blond or red-haired. Maybe this may not be the case with M/M romance stories, but I suppose in other romance stories there’s still the expectation of making romance heroes dark-haired. It still hints at a difference between cultural expectations for male beauty and also masculinity in general, even if they converge at times.

In the sense that when it comes to making male characters attractive, in western romance novels they adhere to western expectations. Whilst something like anime offers more leeway in allowing a lot more attractive male characters with blond hair, red hair, pink hair and the like, it also hints at male characters having to live up to Japanese expectations. I remember somewhere that Japanese women prefer the thin macho look in men, thin macho meaning that they have muscles but it’s not bulging, a rather wiry look at that. And back to Monocello, in South Korea it’s not necessary for a man to be this muscular in order to be seen as attractive, whereas in America (and other western countries) it’s imperative.

Considering that Korea’s been influenced by Japan before and that both of them were also heavily influenced by China, that they’re going to share similar masculine ideals despite a degree of westernisation also having taken place. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the masculine beauty ideals held by both South Korea and Japan are rather similar, in which the menfolk could have muscle tone but not particularly bulging at that. The fact that both bodybuilding and muscular Christianity originated in the west, so I feel this might be partly culpable for influencing masculine beauty ideals there. So it’s not a surprise why the male ideals in both western romance novels and superhero media parallel each other.

To some extent but moreso than it is with between Japanese girls’ media and that of Japanese gay media, where when it comes to making male characters in the former they’re not going to have bulging muscles and tattoos. They don’t even have body hair, whereas there’s a fetish for this among gay men. They could be tall but not necessarily muscular, not even close to what’s touted in western romance novels.

It looks costumey

I suspect why superhero costumes don’t translate well to live action is because a lot of them look rather costumey, as in they obviously look like costumes and not something someone would actually wear in the real world. Whilst it’s true that particularly among certain fashion houses and musicians, there is a tendency to wear really outrageous outfits but even then they still more presentable than what cartoon superheroes wear. Or at least in a way that’s meant to be worn, which says a lot about clothing construction really. But this isn’t unique to cartoon superheroes, as it can apply to other kinds of cartoon characters. It’s not just a matter of designing clothes, but rather a knowledge of clothing construction itself that matters.

This may not always be the case but if we were to pick a DC Comics example, John Constantine might be one of the few whose character design holds up well in live action. But despite being kind of dated since it’s not the 1980s anymore, it’s not too odd looking and not too costumey compared to the other DC characters onboard. Similar things can be said of Death of the Endless, despite complaints over a black woman who got chosen for the role. No surprise why costume designers working on the Flash, Arrow and the like scramble to make those outfits presentable for live action, whereas there’s not much of a need to do so with both Death and John Constantine. It might be possible to do tight outfits that don’t look costumey.

But even then you’d have to not only study skintight garments that are worn fairly often in real life, but also learn to construct one yourself (if you’re willing to take a step further). That way you can create something that’s actually feasible and wearable in the real world, whereas a lot of superhero costumes tend to ignore real world logic. Why would the Flash wear a pair of rainboots to run with when a pair of sneakers would’ve sufficed? Why does the Flash catsuit even have to have a hood and gloves? The outfits worn by womenfolk tend to be really sexualised, like how and why they’re expected to bear cleavage, wear skimpy or really tight outfits and stuff.

Sort of like how so many cartoonists feel compelled to not unzip Catwoman’s outfit, but also how she doesn’t seem to wear a bra even. This may not anger all female readers and viewers, but given how women are more likely to develop body dysmorphic disorder, that the way female characters are portrayed often risks being kind of unsettling to them. Then we get to video games where we have a selection of costumey and not so costumey character designs, as evidenced by their cinematic adaptations. In the case with Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, her outfit’s not too impossible/implausible since there are those who dress like her in the real world. No surprise why her outfit remain unchanged in the film adaptation starring Angelina Jolie.

Not so much with something like the ones in Fallout where the same outfit made from plainer, less textured fabrics and made with a simpler pattern would look really costumey, which implies that these outfits are far removed from the real world. Being far removed from the real world would often make such a garment look costumey, especially in the way it’s constructed regardless of the fabric, that a well-made garment created with something like cotton would look better than something poorly constructed made from the same fabrics used for film and television sets. Maybe not always the case but it takes more skill into making something look good, despite being made with something like cotton, I suppose.

I feel even with the best of what cosplayers do with those garments, they still look like fancy dress because they’re very far-removed from the real world. Farther removed than some intended them to be, not helped by not having a hand in making garments themselves. A lot of superhero costumes seem to be made by people who have no talent in making regular garments, for want of a better wording, so that’s why they look wrong and still look like fancy dress when done in the real world. It’s not that people don’t wear tights at all in the real world, but a cartoon superhero outfit is bound to look wrong in the real world. Not necessarily impractical as much as they’re terrible-looking really.

Maybe somewhat impractical in the sense that people need to wear something convenient should they ever take a dump or similar, when the timing calls for it, that it would be more sensible to put superheroes in similarly skintight but two piece outfits instead. Easier to do when somebody has to go to the bathroom, but that would mean that superhero costumes are often designed for form rather than function. But in the sense that there’s a big emphasis on making it look good on page, instead of something that somebody would actually wear to let’s say wrestling or sprinting. If things like football and rugby are any indication, one could dress both practically and skimpily (in a way).

Though for some odd reason, the Flash doesn’t dress like an actual sprinter, even if it would’ve made sense and enough for him to get away with that. But I suppose having him dress like a sprinter would’ve ruined the whole ‘superhero thing’ for other people, even if he does dress somewhat more modestly like say a tight shirt and tight trousers with sneakers, it wouldn’t look kind of cool on page which is part of the problem. A Flash that dresses for function than form risks looking uncool on page, even if it would actually look kind of nice and interesting in the real world. Stylish even, but then again the average superhero cartoonist doesn’t seem that into fashion either.

Neither with sports too, which often results in worse-looking outfits in live action. Whilst there are fabrics out there that do approximate the body paint look in superhero cartoons, something like micro-modal for instance (it’s for real), but it could risk oversexualising the wearers a lot. Especially regarding certain areas that they also steer away from it, even when it could’ve given us the superhero look that others yearn to see. This only compounds the problem with actualising superhero costumes onscreen, if they don’t look comically ugly they’d look too sexualised. Consider how Ben Affleck felt about his Daredevil outfit, he said that it’s a look that one would wear to something BDSM themed.

Though it’s not made of the same fabric, it still hints at the same problem. A micromodal live-action superhero outfit is possible, but it’d also make the wearer look as if they’re body-painted, even when it’s pretty close to the way superhero outfits are drawn in the funnybooks. This goes double for the way women’s outfits are portrayed in the same stories and medium, where sometimes it looks like they’re actually wearing body paint themselves. So this is possibly why superhero costume designers avoid micromodal, there’s the risk of oversexualising the wearer like they appear to be wearing next to nothing. So a thicker, harder fabric’s often used in its place instead.

Even when it’s possible to actualise superhero outfits in a way that makes them nearly identical to their cartoon representations, if a fabric like micromodal’s any indication, it’s going to be fraught with unnecessary sexualisation. Otherwise we’d get a repeat of things like the Joel Schumacher version of Batman and the early 2000s version of Daredevil, especially if it seems more like body paint due to its second skin nature. So if superhero costumes risk looking goofy in live action, they’d also risk looking too sexualised for similar reasons. Like how some female characters appear to dress in either body paint, bondage clothing, underwear or swimwear.

Consider how Laura Vandervoot felt uncomfortable dressing up as Supergirl in Smallville, because those outfits were often skimpy, that this is possibly why many (if not most) superheroine outfits don’t resemble their cartoon counterparts much. If because those cartoon outfits are too sexualised, in addition to being too costumey to wear with a straight face. So the near-perfect live action superhero outfit isn’t going to happen much, even when you now have the right fabric to get it right like micromodal. But it’s a pipe dream for now.

Something about our detectives

Jean-Louis Lumiere—The Professional

When he was younger, he was the protege and understudy of the department’s previous detective Richard Sorm, but since his retirement he became the main detective around. Believe or it, I came up with a similar character in 2016, sometime after David Bowie died. He’s kind of based on David Bowie too, especially during his Ziggy Stardust days and stuff. Much like Mr Bowie, Jean is also a natural blond. He even has the same hairstyle as Bowie did in his Ziggy Stardust period, dressing in a more modest, two-piece version of the Woodlands Creatures outfit even. Just replace the rabbits with stars and moons and you’d get his outfit. But he’s also shown to dress in other Bowiesque outfits too, especially in later game generations.

As for his hobbies and preferences, he shares at least some of those with Bowie. Including reading, owning/caring for dogs, a love for fashion (being an orphan, one of his parents worked in dressmaking) and some boxing. But he also does very unBowie things like wrestling, hunting (he worked as a professional hunter for awhile), playing football/soccer, cooking meat and fishing. Though he is particularly harsh towards criminals, often beating them up whenever they do something bad, but he’s also loving towards his closest friends and family. He’s even something of a surrogate parent to Richard’s son Ian, caring for him when his real parents failed to (Richard’s drunk and depressed, Emma Havisham frequently cheats on him).

He is good friends with Akosamesew Kanewopasikot, somebody he knew since middle and high school. They share several hobbies together, so they often hunt and fish together. He actually learnt some martial arts from him as well, though he often gravitates to wrestling more. Additionally, Jean-Louis manipulates light himself. He uses it to either mostly render himself invisible or anything else invisible as to sneak upon something/someone, create strobes to either light one’s way around or to blind somebody else with, create devastating lasers or cast holographic illusions often to trick somebody else with in some way or another. He uses this to disguise himself as somebody else from time to time. And due to his hunting experience that he’s bound to have good marksmanship.

Jemima Szara—The Amateur

She’s essentially a synthesis of Nancy Drew and another one, Jemima Shore (that’s where she got her name from), though with elements of Marianne Faithfull thrown into her. For those who don’t know, Marianne Faithfull is a singer who at some point or another got into affairs (like Jemima Shore until lately, where there’s a new story depicting her as a married wife of 3 or something), survived a miscarriage and drug addiction and stuff, she’s still around making music and is possibly a grandmother and even a great-grandmother by now. She also came from an aristocratic family on her mother’s side, had to endure jeering from her classmates because she didn’t have a car and her grandmother being a misandrist due to rape-induced trauma.

So alluding back to Marianne Faithfull, Jemima’s middle name is Ewelina (the Polish form of Marianne’s own middle name, Evelyn), she came from a gentry background from both her parents’ sides, got sneered at for not having a car and her aunt’s a misandrist due to her rape trauma. Much like both Shore and Faithfull, Szara also got into affairs with other men. Like Faithfull, she endured a miscarriage and was involved in a love triangle between two men. Then again, like I said before, Jemima Shore probably doesn’t do that anymore. She’s possibly a married mother in a new story this year or into the future, due to my intercessions to have her author stop her from cheating and have her get married instead, it’s a true story as to put an end to the heroine’s bad habits. So it eventually worked in the coming months and possibly in a future installment, what I said about her might come true in some form or another.

Jemima Szara, like her namesake, works as a journalist and her uncanny sense of direction helps her and others find cases to solve and something to report on, that she’s something of a valued ally to Jean-Louis even if she repeatedly calls him out for his ruthlessness when handling criminals. Likewise Jean-Louis finds her too intrusive and often has Akosamesew keep an eye on her, should she get into trouble by chance. Also Jemima Szara has the same hair colour as both Nancy Drew and Jemima Shore, strawberry blonde hair. Actually Szara also has something in common with Drew, like both of them have a white cat and a dog, have widowers for fathers and loving surrogate mothers to fall back on. (Szara also has a younger brother in Filip Szary, just like Marianne Faithfull.)

Body dysmorphia, video games and comic books

This isn’t commonly brought up and speaking from my own experience with my late mother not objecting to the overly buxom characters in animation, but objecting to skinny women in fashion magazines that among women who can’t get into comics/video games/whatever, it could be the other way around when it comes to self-dissatisfaction. In the case with comics and video games, it would be this easy to conjure images of the ideal woman in practise. It’s like wondering how and why so many cartoon women lack cellulite in their legs, aren’t hairy for long (especially when it comes to Marvel’s Tigra, who’s supposed to be covered in fur) and some don’t even have saggy breasts, let alone without being old.

Cartoonists and game developers (though not all of them, thankfully enough) will often come up with very idealised and sexualised images of women, perhaps in ways that risk making someone else feel worse about herself, especially regarding how women are more likely to develop body dysmorphia than men. The lack of any positive role model in whatever they can easily find could further put them off of things that should provide strong female role models, but it’s often undermined by constant idealisation and stuff. Tigra could easily be a role model for hairy women, since there are portrayals of her being really hairy and she’s technically covered in fur. Here you have a woman who wears little and is shown as quite hairy, though unfortunately she’s usually drawn as if she’s painted.

This would be very discouraging to those seeking a role model to relate to and aspire to be, one who’s not ashamed of her hairiness and owns it real well. Conversely speaking, I don’t think I’ve encountered superhero cartoonists giving female characters cellulite, which is odd as women are more likely to store fat in their thighs than men do. I guess it seems unsightly seeing a female cartoon character with flabby thighs, more often than not they either have muscular thighs or skinny thighs. Not to mention it’s not uncommon for them to have thin waists, as to provide the illusion of having wider hips because women often store fat in their hips as well.

When combined with bigger breasts and cellulite free thighs, you get a rather idealised image of women. Far more idealised than that in fashion magazines where one could always easily focus on the well-made garments, given so many women in the world of superhero cartoons and video games tend to either dress skimpily or look painted on, which only magnifies other people’s insecurities. I kind of think that it’s not other people’s fault why they’re more put off by depictions of women in comic books and video games, moreso than they would with fashion magazines given the way they’re portrayed in the former two is far more extreme and more male biased in some way. (Fashion magazines tend to have more women onboard so.)

I remember somewhere in an academic paper that the idealisation of women in fashion magazines wouldn’t give into the same hyperreal sexist expectations of what women should be the way anime productions do, since fashion magazines tend to have more female editors and writers onboard so this would be true for superhero comics and video games really. This makes a lot of sense that the prototype for Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreal woman’s that of a drag queen, in the sense that the female characteristics are ridiculously exaggerated and enacted by a man. So this would be true for the way superhero cartoonists and character designers depict womenfolk, this may not be true for all of them, but it does play out the way they’re described.

I suspect if we were to restrict it to the writing side of things, the sexism angle will still play out in some way. Sort of like how in both superhero comics and video games, there’s a tendency to create female versions of male characters. This is what Anita Sarkeesian termed ‘Miss Male Character’, where it’s particularly obvious if you look at a handful of DC and Marvel characters. With Batman there are Batgirls and Batwoman, with Superman you have Supergirl, with both Hulk and Red Hulk there are She-Hulk and Red She-Hulk. I remember reading somewhere in a study stating that female characters are also often subordinated to their male counterparts, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise why Catwoman doesn’t have Catman as her sidekick.

Or why not a lot of superhero writers would bother turning Black Canary and Supergirl into actual mother figures for both Robin and Superman, since Supergirl’s now depicted as being actually older than Superman himself. This is made evident by the fact that in some recent stories, she was already a teenager when Clark was sent to earth as a baby. (My Adventures With Superman has both of them start out as babies when they get sent elsewhere.) There’s an even more irritating tendency to give muscular female characters naturally big breasts, not that these don’t exist in real life but when there’s only one who qualifies (Rasa von Werder/Kellie Everts), then such depictions are going to be statistically unrealistic.

Very muscular women usually tend to have square breasts/more defined pectoral muscles, though these tend themselves to a rather androgynous character that not many cartoonists and designers go for. Even if these kinds of depictions have toned down lately, as well as the existence of flat-chested female characters out there somewhere, it’s kind of surreal to think that some can’t do without a fictional buxom woman out there in their stories. It’s not that being buxom is a bad thing, but rather the preponderance of such would easily make someone else feel insecure about the way she looks. Like it communicates a message that those with smaller breasts aren’t attractive, not feminine and stuff.

So it shouldn’t be hard to see why agentic and empowered female characters are undermined by unnecessary sexualisation, which puts some women off of those who’d otherwise be role models in some way.

What if it’s a guy?

When it comes to the way women are portrayed in such media, which made worse by the sort of occupations they work in that would preclude such attire. Considering that Cammy White is something of a soldier, it wouldn’t make sense for her to wear a thong in combat. Not to mention she doesn’t seem to be a particularly flirtatious character at all, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to dress this way until recently. One would only wonder why Abby Sciutto would dress like a sexualised little girl from time to time, whereas if she were male and often wore tight trousers and a mesh shirt you’d say that she looks perverted or unprofessional. Supposing if I have a character called Fabrice Tientcheu and dresses in a tight shirt and trousers, despite being a scientist, you’d say this is inappropriate.

But that’s what people have been doing to Abby Sciutto from time to time, if it doesn’t make sense for a forensic scientist like her to dress like a sexualised schoolgirl, then you should know this by now when I’m proposing Fabrice’s presentation to you. That’s not to say there aren’t any male characters that wear mesh shirts before and the like, one example would be the one found in the Ali G movie and another in the X-Man comics (I think). Though I don’t think these kinds of appearances are recurring to the extent that both DC’s Black Canary and Zatanna get, even though oddly enough the former herself isn’t actually and exactly so flirtatious and promiscuous. She’s only ever involved in just two relationships with men, that’s about it really. Well to my knowledge, but you should get where I’m coming from.

Supposing if somebody has the audacity to publish a game featuring a man wearing bondage trousers, despite appearing to wear a suit, that he’s also a salesman makes one wonder why he’s dressed this way. You’d think he might risk tripping onto something, or whatever you think would befall him. But this is what people have been doing to female characters before in a way, some of these outfits also put them into unwanted accidents if you think about this. Graham Knightley might seem perverted and strange to you, because he actually wears bondage trousers with a suit. But when you have Cammy White, who’s supposedly a soldier, yet wore a thong leotard it should give you an idea of how bad this is for years.

It’s not that there aren’t any male characters who wear these garments before, though not very often because people would think these are too kinky/fruity/whatever, despite doing the same things to their female counterparts. These may not be directly equivalent but let’s say Colin Sallow is the son of a politician and studies political science himself, yet he dresses in a tight shirt and tight trousers with a suit that one might wonder why he dresses this way. You’d say he doesn’t look respectable, well at least some of you would feel this way. But one would wonder why somebody like Lara Croft would wear crop tops and booty shorts to work in archaeology, it’s essentially no different really.

Add to that both Fabrice and Colin have very muscular physiques, their shirts are almost kind of like body paint that one would might wonder why do they have to show off their bodies in some way despite being a scientist and a politician respectively. But then again Lara Croft was shown as particularly buxom before, like she has to show off her breasts in some way despite being an archaeologist herself. Or for another matter, Cammy White showing off her bum for years despite being a soldier. You might argue in here but the point I’m making is that if you make a male character dress in this sort of way to show off his physique, despite being a scientist/politician or why he’d wear bondage trousers (despite being a salesman), this is to give you an idea of what’s been done to the womenfolk.

Not to mention I feel these portrayals of women might even contribute to body dysmorphia for some people, like they feel inadequate looking at these characters. Like they could never ever be them in some way, despite people’s insistence that they are strong female characters. It’s like their good qualities and strengths get undermined by dressing and appearing in such a sexualised way that it would be unthinkable had they been men, like if you’re fine with Abby Sciutto dressing in a minidress then you should be fine with a male Abby Sciutto dressing in a tight shirt and trousers. Even if Abby Sciutto doesn’t always dress this way and neither does Fabrice Tientcheu, it’s still strange dressing her as if she were a little girl beyond her years.

It’s something one would never do to a man really. Why on earth would a professional grown woman working in forensics dress like a little girl? Would you be fine with her if she was a man who dresses in fishnet shirts, tight trousers and sometimes tight shirts? That’s what people have been doing to womenfolk, like they often dress provocative for no reason at all. If you have Graham Knightley wearing bondage trousers with a suit, despite being a salesman, you’d wonder why he dresses this way but that’s practically what people have been doing to Cammy White for years. If you’re weirded out by him wearing provocative trousers, you’d have to be weirded out by a female soldier in a thong really. It’s like they’re putting out their sexual fantasies in the open.

That’s not to say there aren’t any menfolk in video games who dress kind of scantily, though not very often because it would seem pervy or something. But that’s what people have been doing to the womenfolk and why it should be strange seeing a female soldier out and about in a thong, if you’re weirded out by a salesman wearing bondage trousers.

Would this fly if it were a guy?

I feel when it comes to the way male and female characters are portrayed in popular fiction (video games and crime media included), at other times it’s kind of unequal in the sense that many womenfolk are given outfits contrary to their actual intentions and personalities. It wouldn’t make sense for a character like Cammy White to wear a thong in combat, until recently if Street Fighter 6 is any indication given her stern personality. Morrigan Aensland, being a seductress, would gleefully moon around in this outfit. Imagine if you have a male character dressed up in what appears to a suit until you realise that his trousers have bondage ribbons to each side, making you wonder why on earth would he dress like this?

But the thing is that similar things have been done to female characters over the years that it’s obvious people are going to be desensitised to nearly naked women in some way, as if women are there to be looked at constantly and if they’re ready for sex or something. Not to mention I even argued that these kinds of images may even trigger someone’s body dysmorphia in a way it wouldn’t be with fashion magazines, especially when it comes to the female characters’ proportions and tendency to show more skin than needed. When it comes to clothing, one can always conceal their faults with some article of clothing. But when it comes to the way female video game and cartoon characters are portrayed, they’re almost always kind of perfect.

Maybe not necessarily perfect but given this is drawn that one can easily whip up the ideal woman, whereas with fashion you have to mold yourself to fit this. It’s like how a number of these cartoon characters rarely have cellulite in their thighs, even though women are more inclined to store that than men do, or why it’s pretty rare to find a hairy female cartoon character at all. The closest that I can think of would be Marvel’s Tigra, though she’s usually portrayed as if she were body-painted. So any depiction of Tigra as being actually hairy, as it is with her own eponymous miniseries magazine and a brief appearance in the She-Hulk stories, is occasional at best.

It’s not hard to see that female characters that consistently don’t have much body hair to begin with are going to be the majority, not just in the worlds of DC and Marvel but also something like Street Fighter, Tekken and Mortal Kombat, among many others. It’s not hard to see how this communicates the idea that the ideal female body (especially in most video games and comics) has to be without cellulite, not much body hair (which would be unfair to those who’re predisposed to being hairy) and almost always there to be gawked at. This is changing for the better in some games, something like even Concord for instance. But the backlash towards Concord points out at something.

Sort of like how there’s a lot of complaints towards this game having a fat character as a playable character, whilst this isn’t even unique to it as Overwatch has it too. But it still communicates the message that can alienate or harm those with body dysmorphic disorder, the more I think about and consider it. As for the more successful Marvel Rivals game, the only female character with a smaller bust is Peni Parker. But then again she’s a young girl, though it does communicate the message that women with smaller breasts are less womanly looking. Not helped by that most of the female characters in this game tend to have bigger breasts, coupled with narrow waists and wider hips as to impart a more zaftig figure.

Given my own struggles with body image, it’s not hard to see how and why these games could be off-putting to certain women. Instead of celebrating the female form, these images reinforce their inadequacies. To make matters worse, it’s more common for women to develop body dysmorphia so such portrayals are going to rub them off the wrong way anyways. The fact that both comics and video games struggle with female audiences should suggest that when it comes to those with body dysmorphia, which women and girls are more prone to, the way these characters are drawn often make them feel worse about themselves. It’s kind of easier to excuse these as they seem to be imaginary.

But I feel this could be even more harmful since people like Freja Beha Erichsen and Kate Moss don’t sport enormous chests, whereas Ivy Valentine and Sophitita often do which could easily trigger one’s insecurities about her breast size. Not only that but there are instances of female cartoon characters who are technically fully-clothed, but wear such skin tight outfits that could easily be body paint. It’s like they wanted a naked woman without making her actually naked, but then again it could be argued that female nudity in drawn art might be more off-putting than a photographed fully-clothed fashion model because the former could reinforce one’s insecurities about their body image.

Whereas one could appreciate the craftsmanship put into a well-done garment, though from my own experience fashion magazines are seen as kind of insubstantial. But I guess it’s easier to overlook the faults in the things you’re more biased to, even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise why these kinds of things are off-putting to others. Especially to those suffering from body dysmorphia that the stark contrast between men and women reinforces their inadequacies.