I have to disagree with that. Most girls who "want to change a bad boy" fall in love with a bad boy that treats them like shit and hope he'll change one day, Belle doesn't even like the Beast until he starts changing and stops being a short-tempered asshole. My biggest problem with the movie is the end where he changes into the ugly prince. He was cuter as the Beast, and I'm not even a furry!
I'd love to see a remake of Aladdin that gave Jasmine a personality. I love the setting and how sassy she is as a princess and the tiger and the songs but she's basically just an idealized cloud woman for Aladdin to chase down.
The Powerpuff Girls is pretty awesome in general, but it does have one awful episode where the villain is a straw feminist who turns the girls against everyone else because FEMINISM.
I ended up looking at the Wikipedia entry for Ponyo just now and saw, "The plot centers on a goldfish named Ponyo who befriends a five-year-old human boy, SÅsuke, and wants to become a human girl." I read "and wants to become a human girl" as "who wants to become a human girl". Had to read through the whole plot description before realizing my mistake and that Studio Ghibli wasn't quite that progressive.
I'm handing out likes like Elyscape in this thread! Hmmm. I never thought about it like that, but it's still pretty muddy on this account. Or at least in my head. I will think (it'll be a nice change!) before I form an opinion. I know right! That prince guy was so weird.
I had a Mulan action figure when I was a kid. You had two sets of clothes for her: the lady clothes and jewelry she wears at the beginning of the movie, and the warrior's armour plus sword. That was probably my favourite toy as a kid. Dammit, Aeon, now that song's stuck in my head again. (Let's get down to business, to defeat, the hunnns. Did they send me daughters, when I asked, for sonnns?)
I think that's a very important point but I think there's a corollary or parallel issue. Games are also going for "more involved" stories (more detailed, more movie/book like, more everything). I don't know of any reason why Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord would necessarily have been yet another male power fantasy centric story if it had been made in 1998, even though you could make female ninjas in it. The leading ladies of FF VI were better done female characters than many later FF examples both because they were just little pixel people and because there wasn't enough time and space to ruin them via a story that might actually have made things worse than if we just make them hot and dress them in golden bikinis. I don't recall any women in in FF IX being absurdly, visually represented (granted, IX included something of a style shift in terms of art; these were "little pixel people except now we've got 3d engines!". Or that's what I felt like they were going for). OTOH our protagonist the rat-tailed boy treated the princess lady like dogshit, and more or less told her at one point to shut the fuck up and go bake him a pie, and did so in a way that was at once familiar to old Eric Cartman but also very different from it. I got pretty far into that and never finished. Did the rat-tailed boy ever grow up? I would suppose that he did but I found it all to be very poorly done, and thus if there was a message there it was probably too trite or hackneyed to be worth paying attention to. We were never supposed to like Cartman. The Rat-tailed boy minus his absurd misogyny didn't appear to be any more worth while to me. Let's talk about Fall-From-Grace. In 3d-land, she's probably rendered ridiculously. But she's supposed to be ridiculous because she's a freaking succubus. What I rather liked about her is that her appeal extends so far beyond the physical that I would hope her 3dvatar wouldn't matter. TNO's scars run much deeper than his flesh and so do hers. His quest at this point is looking grim (and and it's going to get grimmer still), and yet here is someone whose situation was at one point not unlike his. She very clearly never really cared about the Blood War or who was winning it but she was trapped in it's vicious cycle, just like TNO was trapped in his. And yet she snookered her way out of it, almost certainly with Great Brain(tm) power (and not just casting 9th level spells or throwing +5 vorpal dancing giant ninja stars at people). I think she was awesome because the fact that she was a hotty-hot was the least of her, and I don't think she was some sort of absurd male fantasy in this respect (such a character certainly could be that). I've dated some (whichever)dictorians in my day and a couple of them were super hot by any reasonable standard (alas, my penchant for smart women has always been my undoing; too smart to keep dating me. Just like I like them). Fall-From-Grace has the freedom and peace of mind TNO so desperately craves. She's probably seen several thousand lifetimes worth of shit and she's wise beyond them to boot. She's a match for him not because he's hot, but because she completely understands what he's going through. I thought she was an exceptionally well developed character (lagging beyind only Ravel, perhaps. But then everyone in that game was a step behind her at best). Towards the end of my first playthrough, one of the absolute shining moments was her vow to my TNO that she would find him and effect his release from the Blood War. That's totally boss. I would be completely ok with FFG being visually absurd (I mean, she's a succubus and she runs the Sensate guild; she's going to be ridiculous by a lot of standards) if her character is what it is. I'm less ok with Miranda's amazing skin-suit featuring unobtani-ass. It's not that Miranda is a bad NPC - she's decent (I enjoyed her story segments in the second game and that wasn't true for the majority of the companions), but she can't hold FFG's jock-strap. And yes, Yvonne Strahowski is still going to be super hot wearing appropriate sheppard gear, and she would be better still as is with a less ridiculous visual design. As is she's way better than Lara Croft spending time getting raped and shit. In closing, Grace Hopper is tits but COBOL fucking sucks and she should feel bad about it.
The Little Mermaid contained two female stereotypes. A young dumb girl (who literally becomes a dumb girl) who needs to catch a man because she's so lonely and a treacherous evil sea witch bitch. She also lives in a very special underwater castle:
Once I sang that bit of the song while playing League of Legends with FrankA. He had never heard it. I was very disappointed with him.
Interesting. I always found Fall-from-Grace to be kind of a one-note character myself. I also kind of feel like dismissing the appearance thing (ironically she may be the least ridiculously rendered female character graphically in PS:T other than Ravel - that game has perhaps the worst, most-ridiculously proportioned 3D models I've ever seen in its codex) with "well, she's a succubus" ignores the entire problem of she's a succubus. Not so much her specifically - but just the idea of a succubus is already deeply, deeply problematic from a portrayal-of-women standpoint. EDIT: So I guess, yes, from a certain standpoint it's a good thing that she's subverting that portrayal, and it helps that she's not presented as a romantic interest at all as well. All in all she's still the most boring companion in that game, I think, and ultimately is just another 'well here's a girl healer' in a lot of ways.
Oh, and speaking of League of Legends: Jesus Christ, Riot. Knock it the fuck off already. Sure, once in a while you give us someone like Diana or Leona, but mostly it's shit like Arkham Asylum!Poison Ivy Zyra or LeBlanc. I was going to say something complimentary about Valve's track record with women in their games, but then I remembered DOTA2 which is at least as bad as LoL, if not worse. Not to mention TF2 which, y'know, doesn't have women at all, but whatever. Are you sure about that? It's been quite a while, but I've a vague memory of there being a frission of romantic tension there as well as a very short and shallow "romance" path. Or at least guides describing her as one of the two romances in the game
I don't really see PS:T has having much in the way of romance at all; even Annah can barely be described as such. There might be some tension I'm forgetting, though, yeah.
What exactly is Valve's track record with women in their games? Alyx and a mute girl with leg braces and a portal gun? Oh, I never played L4D, but apparently that has a token female character.
Relatively complimentary, then; that's better than most manage. Which is pretty sad, yes. Eh, I don't know what I was thinking. You're right, of course.
There's a lot of teasing about how maybe the Pyro's actually a woman under that suit, which is pretty sad in and of itself.
It's "short" but I would hardly call it shallow. I wouldn't characterize FFG has one-note either. I guess it takes all kinds. She, Annah, and Ravel are all romance options to so speak. I didn't find Annah as interesting (as a character or romantic interest), and if memory serves hers is the most "traditional". Bioware romances are usually a version of the romance from Speed; of course, romances in many games (and other works of media) are this romance and this is a particular sort of thing that doesn't actually qualify as a "romance" per se. Also, Speed actually lampshades itseld before following through, which it deserves credit for. The good Torment romancing is not "well, we seem to have some sort of contrived thing to bond over and I find your feelings for me to be of value and would also like to offer you valuable feelings in return and then let's do it I guess". Which was a refreshing change of pace; the best parts of FFG were those talks, by far. Ravel's is a more subtle situation; She loved you because lots of reasons and you used that to your advantage to properly kick off the whole mess. It's clear she still has feelings for you, but I don't recall her ever saying "I still care about you Sheppard"; she's too proud to say that. You can basically come out of that "mid game boss fight" with her having her not only not hate you, but she actually respects you. Ravel gets the short end of the stick insofar as TNO uses her pretty badly, but she does a lot of vile things herself (she's an interesting mirror for him, in that respect). Deonarra (not spelled correctly) is not a romance option due to that thing where TNO sacrificed her like a pawn and then she died and turned into a ghost who lacks cool powers. She doesn't hate TNO, and while there might be something to say about that in light of this conversation (but then again, maybe not), it's just not going to work out at that point. "We maneuvered the humans, like pawns" is not as healthy for relationships as mutual respect and all of those other things that are actually healthy for relationships. Who knew. Also, seriously, Bioware I don't care if you write a great version of the Speed romance or not (some were better than others, and some were better than speed romances. but not many). STOP SHOWING SEX SCENES. They're bad and everyone at Bioware should feel bad about it. Don't think "I bet eventually we'll do a good sex scene". Think "less is more and we should stop being bad". Please.
To be fair, that's not in small part due to rarity of "strong, independent co-lead" in games, period. Which is because players are sensitive unique snowflakes who hate feeling merely equal to a NPC, let alone the second fiddle -- while you might've liked the NPC managed to shoot something you couldn't, there's fair odds events like that would piss off people, especially if it happened more frequently than just once. So you'll usually have the companions dumbed down on purpose, and to similar extent regardless of their gender.
This thread made me go back and look at some old Valkyrie Profile stuff (largely to make sure that Lenneth really was the stone-cold badass I remember her being) and I was disappointed to discover that after her initial success she actually got rather fanservice-y. At some point, official art of her starts involving a lot of unnecessary skirts flying open and just... fuck you, Japan, for ruining a good thing. Anyway. It's been years, but whenever people mention "heroic women in video games" I still picture Lenneth first.
It also has a half crab tranny who sneaks into little girls bedroom and possesses their toys, so I honestly wouldn't read to much into that -Or maybe Mr McCracken just felt especially passive aggressive against his wife that day...
God, yes, someone else who was bothered about this. Is that picture from Covenant of the Plume? Certainly, Lenneth's official art grew worse with each game. VP1 Lenneth's artwork was not fanservicey at all (as you just showed), VP2's added an open skirt and that stupid unrealistic boob armour, and that one is just... urgh. That said, I don't think the games themselves - the in-game models, the stories, the characterisation - were sexist at all. I really liked Valkyrie Profile 1; and Valkyrie Profile 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. Certainly VP2 has influenced me more than almost any other game I've played. So if anyone reading this is thinking about playing the games, please don't be scared off!
And I immediately flipped out over it's football-related connotations. I still play it before old firm matches.
Oh, yeah, absolutely - some of the fluff surrounding Valkyrie Profile is eyeroll-worthy, but the games themselves are fantastic. Especially VP2, in which all the major characters are women, and the love interest is charming and heroic in a way that doesn't overshadow the main character. Alicia herself grows noticeably - and naturally - throughout the course of the story, and the stronger women around her obviously acted as role-models for her. VP2 was my favourite RPG on the PS2, hands down.
*sigh* I love some Japanese games but a lot of them are some of the creepiest shit I've ever seen. For example, this...thing actually exists and there's a rumour that it might actually get localized.
Nebty, while I cringed at the thought of this game existing, as far as potential for awkward hilarity in a review goes, it's at the top.
It does, actually, I have seen many, many, many close-ups of my trooper and smuggler's respective asses. MANY. And they're both wearing the tightest pants money can buy, so it's extra "Whoa. Uh. Hello there, my own ass." I don't know why they frame so many shots that way, but I assure you, there is a lot of man-ass on display. I also have to admit, I appreciate that they have male body types that are actually attractive to people who are attracted to men available, rather than all roided out horror shows, all the time. No, where SWTOR gets creepy for me is all the dudes running around with their female companions in that fucking slave girl outfit. Squicks me right the hell out, especially if it's a character like Dorne, who should be wearing a fucking trooper outfit. She is indeed curious about people, but she also gives up her voice, which was as definitely one of the things we are told makes her who she is. It's her big talent, she clearly loves to sing, and it's, you know. The main way she communicates with other people. Hell, Poor, Unfortunate Souls (and I fucking love that song) goes so far to say "hey, who gives a shit, dudes don't like mouthy chicks, just use your looks, sweetheart." Yes, the evil seawitch is saying it and she's also hoping to set Ariel up for failure, but sure enough, her pretty looks are all it fucking takes. I mean, the movie does try. It TRIES to show the two of them having a great time together during their one full day of hanging out, but ultimately all she can do is smile prettily at him and hope, as she (understandably) doesn't really know how to communicate non-verbally with someone, let alone someone who (also understandably) doesn't really know how to understand someone who cannot speak. I didn't notice this thread explode until just now, I am sad I missed a bunch of the discussion. :P
Yeah, that part always squicked me out a bit as well. Ariel also acts quite childlike during that sequence (i.e. not getting all the strange human things) and Eric seems to find that charming, which squicks me out even more. YES. I understand exactly what you mean. I rage whenever people talk about how men in videogames are just as sexualized as women because if that's the case then why aren't any of them sexy? People give me Kratos as an example, and I...well, just look at the guy. Just look at that homicidal expression. Makes me go all weak in the knees, lemme tell ya. This comic perfectly sums up my feelings on the subject.
That comic is great, and reminds me of all the fuss people (who am I kidding, it was almost certainly all dudes) made over the original male blood elf models being "too gay." Which, alas, resulted in them bulking the models up. :(((((((((((((((((((((((( Also Kratos made me laugh out loud. Jeez-us.
I remember that. :( For reference, here's what happened to male Belfs. Bah. But also, the whole attitude of "here is a sexy character model, now appreciate it" is quite foreign to me. If a character looks good but personality-wise might as well be made of cardboard...that's not very appealing.
Uhm, what was gay about the old one? I mean, that second pose from the rear is a bit odd, but it looks just as odd when the elf is more muscled, and well, top knots? Really? Like that's a straight Elf thing?
