237 réponses à ce sujet

[Plaintiff]

In regards to the specific issues outlined by this thread, showing different standards of beauty is not any less objectifying than showing the "usual" standard of beauty. Either way, you're still designing your characters to appeal to the opposite sex, even if it is a subset of that sex.

[imbs]

Sex sells, and majority of games do aim at the young(16-25) male demographic, so I don't understand why people are suprised that people use pretty girls to sell their products. It's a tactic that has been employed since the dawn of time.

Before anyone rages at me yes I am aware Female gamers make up a significant portion of the market, but whilst I am not up to date on the latest statistics males still dominate the typical PC/xbox games on the market as far as I know - Females have a larger presence in Wii games, casual games (like farmsville, angry birds etc). This is pure memory-work from ages ago tho so take this post with a grain of salt.

Modifié par imbs, 28 février 2013 - 05:21 .

[brushyourteeth]

Barneyk wrote...

The Woldan wrote...

I guess you skipped the part when they showed hammer throw, javelin throw and discus throw.

You don't even have to go there:

Susanna Kallur, 100 metre hurdles:


Look at the boob to waist ratio and muscle definition.
That is a generalization of female "peak physical condition" that is way more accurate than what we see in the pic in my OP if you wanna use that argument.

I really find it troubling that someone claims that an hour-glass figure = peak physical condition.
You are only fooling yourself if you actualy argue that.

So wait... women with breasts larger than these can't be in peak physical condition? 

I mean, I'm sure Aveline wishes she could get rid of hers (it'd make it much easier to swing a sword) but since they're there, I don't think we should be shocked to find that she hasn't given up her warrior lifestyle and taken up knitting instead.

I have to be honest: I think this argument is getting sillier and sillier. In DAII there were generally two female body models used throughout the game. We've already established that Aveline's and Isabela's body models aren't unrealistic. Out of the total two general body models that exclude those two, how much diversity of body shape did you expect to have?

Say "I'd like to see/have the option of selecting for myself some more varied body types," sure. But to accuse the DA team of objectifying women simply because two out of two female body types are *attractive*? Lolwhat?!

Keep it an "options" conversation, because the whole "the man is trying to shame-stomp women" argument isn't holding any water in this case. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've seen the evidence at hand and I don't find Bioware to be guilty.

Modifié par brushyourteeth, 28 février 2013 - 06:14 .

[Gyrefalcon]

craigdolphin wrote...

Of all my criticisms of DA2 this is one that never rang a bell for me.
*snip*

We know what humans /typically/ find attractive.
Human males generally find women with small waists and large breasts to be attractive, as you've noted.
And generally speaking, human women find large men with obvious musculature to be attractive too.

Why?

Well, evolutionary biology holds many of the answers here.

For a superficial example: it should be pretty obvious that small waists are an important visual clue that a woman is not already pregnant with someone else's child. The law of probabilities suggests then that, over evolutionary time and all else being equal, men who exhibit a heritable preference for small waists in their choice of mates are more likely to produce offspring than a similar man with the inverse preference. 

Actually, small waists were not desirable in the distant past.  People did not know how children were created and being pregnant or having children was extremely desirable as it meant you were able to reproduce.  That was very important in agrarian societies where more children meant more hands to work the fields, as well as a better chance at having them survive to see adulthood.  I will suggest checking out the Venus of Willendorf as evidence of what early generations held as desirable.  Even the Greeks ideal of beauty featured more of a waist on women, they did not look like they had ribs removed to achieve the "wasp waist".  They had proportions that were visually pleasing but realisitic to those of an adult female.  For this I refer you to the classic Venus de Milo statue.  

And indeed, when food was equated with wealth, heavier bodies were more desirable.  It was also believed that women who were waifishly thin did not have the physical stores to handle pregnancy.  This has been passed on to even recent generations.  It is only very recently that the very small waist has put forth once more as desirable.  (Yes, it has had its day in the past as well, but only periodically in the 19th and 20th centuries as the attempt to achieve it led to damaged internal organs and miscarriages.)  

Small waists were never popular as it was more likely to cause complications in birth.  Females have been judged for years on how large their hips were for giving birth.  Likewise, large chests and large hips were the standard visually.  That is what created the "hourglass" figure.  So while much of your argument is sound, there is some that is well-reasoned but not accurate.

 The small waist is a modern desirable concept, where children are expensive to raise and large families are not as desirable.  This has really come from around the 1970's onward.  But the rest of your post was pretty good.

Someone else brought up the "heavily muscled men" not being argued against.  And you suggest that women must like large, muscular men because that is how the game portrays them.  The problem is that heavily muscled men is more of a male ideal for men.  Thus you see men reading muscle magazines but not nearly as many women.  They are geared towards men.  This is an argument of false equivalence.  The males are depicted as men wish to see them, not necessarily as women do.  Our society is not ruled by brute force, thus there is no need for huge muscles on everyone.  What a lot of women would like to see does not appeal to men.  The best example I have of this is here:

http://img.photobuck...Equivalence.png

We are dealing with Thedas and a harsh environment, so there would be good definition on most people.  They have to work outside and walk most places, etc.  But that is not the same as the body builder style of muscles.  I would expect them more in dwarves who are wielding hammers and mining or for blacksmiths.  But I would likewise expect the SAME in the female dwarves as the males.  That the female dwarf pictured is half the size of her counterpart does not make sense.  The female dwarves work just as hard and are just as tough as evidenced by Branka.  And having such a petite size causes a disconnect when one considers trying to birth the stocky dwarven body.  I don't expect dwarves to have to have Caesarian sections to give birth like bulldogs and often times pugs do.  But they have to have the build to carry it off.  The one pictured does not.  And these things can affect the sense of immersion.

It would be nice to have good sliders on body selection for DA3 since they are switching engines.  Likewise, it would be nice to see some variation in the heights, weights, and builds of people in the world.  It makes it easier to spot who you need to talk to and makes the world feel more real.  (Think of how all the "children" so far are the same ages and heights.  No babies or toddlers to be found.  It winds up feeling weird seeing a city with no children under 8 years old.)  Okay, enough said.

[Oberkaiser]

Plaintiff wrote...

The fact is that, despite the mountains of proof indicating the contrary, the assumption in videogame marketing is that the audience consists almost entirely of men. So in msot cases, they're not going to use advertising tactics intended to target women.

The "assumption"? Bubba, that's a fact. The infamous "47%" statistic that gets thrown around here a lot fails to mention that it includes casual games like Farmville and Angry Birds. Women who play proper games are so few they might as well be nonexistent as far as marketing is concerned.

[9TailsFox]

[Gill Kaiser]

Yeah, that's not misogynistic at all.

[imbs]

seems like an awful lot of writing/effort for such a predictable joke gotta say

[IST]

Emzamination wrote...

Could be worse-- the models could be fat with small breast.

Pretty much this.

+1.

[Noviere]

Barneyk wrote...

And look, I wouldn't see a problem worth posting about if it wasn't for the notion that its representing different standards of beauty.
They are all quite reasonable and not exaggerated to a point where I would object to it and it is a representation that is better than in the vast majority of games.
It could be better though, but I wouldn't have reacted to it if it wasn't for that comment.

Then when I read Blair Browns reasoning I find even more reason to bring this to attention.

Trying to justify the idealization of the hour-glass figure with talks about "peak physical condition" and a simple statement that "women have boobs" and then picking out other things that is different is such a classical example of self-justification.

They are all representing the same standard of beauty where the ideal female body is an hour-glass figure.
The qunari is taller and has wider shoulders, the dwarf is shorter and wider, but the same standard applies for all of them.

The thread is also full of ignorant comments about completely unsupported hypothesis about evolutionary biology and other nonsense that is just plain wrong and they follow the same pattern as the comment about peak physical condition, they are justifications for reproducing something as truth when it is fact is simply an opinion.

Of course it is just not an opinion, it is the ideal image in your society, so it is also a justification for that, which is really wrong and dangerous.

And yes, there are many other details one could focus on and the male characters have their kind of representation to that can be problematic when looked at from certain perspectives.

But compared to the representation and reinforcement of the hour-glass figure as a female ideal they are very small and if I can't even get a point through about something that obvious and simple I really can't motivate myself to get into lesser issues.

So basically you are on a crusade, not because you find the image objectionable, but because you find the phrase at the bottom of the image to be untrue. Right?

Yeah... moving on.

[Kidd]

brushyourteeth wrote...

So wait... women with breasts larger than these can't be in peak physical condition? 

I mean, I'm sure Aveline wishes she could get rid of hers (it'd make it much easier to swing a sword) but since they're there, I don't think we should be shocked to find that she hasn't given up her warrior lifestyle and taken up knitting instead.

I have to be honest: I think this argument is getting sillier and sillier. In DAII there were generally two female body models used throughout the game. We've already established that Aveline's and Isabela's body models aren't unrealistic. Out of the total two general body models that exclude those two, how much diversity of body shape did you expect to have?

Say "I'd like to see/have the option of selecting for myself some more varied body types," sure. But to accuse the DA team of objectifying women simply because two out of two female body types are *attractive*? Lolwhat?!

Keep it an "options" conversation, because the whole "the man is trying to shame-stomp women" argument isn't holding any water in this case. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've seen the evidence at hand and I don't find Bioware to be guilty.

How come you always keep on winning, dear? =)

[Wolfva2]

It's ludicrous to think that people living in a medievalist world would be 'ripped' because of the hardships they undergo. You get ripped by doing repetitive exercises designed to make you look 'ripped'. That's the 'desired standard' of today. Want to see how it was in the not so distant past? Watch old episodes of Superman, or the '30s Batman. They were...shall we say...barrel shaped. Because THAT was the idea of strength in those days. Because, back then, people didn't work out to get strong. People worked...period.

The muscles you get from working in a field, or a foundry, or a smithy are MUCH different from those you get in a gym. Heck, let's take a modern example. Take a look at the average front line soldier. These guys are humping 60lb packs, weapons, extras like mortar tubes and rounds, etc for days at a time. If not longer in some cases. Yet, strip any of them and you won't see an oiled Arnold Swartzenegger 'Conan' physique glistening in the sun. You'll see a pale, average looking body. Sure, won't be much fat on it, but you're not going to see 6 pack abs. You won't see finally defined delts and quads. You'll see...well, pretty much what you'd see if a real life Grey Warden or Templar stripped down. An average looking body with powerful muscles that don't show clear body builder deliniations.

Which, after all, is why they're called BODY BUILDERS. Because they build and shape their bodies. People who work at jobs requiring physical labor, or who fight for real for a living (as opposed to competition) tend not to look like that.

As far as boobs go...some people seem incredulous that a woman who burns a large amount of calories wearing heavy armor and swinging heavy weapons might actually NOT have big boobs. Well, they won't. Unless they have Dolly Parton's genes. But then again, due to the physiological differences between men and women, most women actually wouldn't be able to wear that armor, or use those swords. Not effectively anyways. However, this IS fantasy, and not reality. So heck, let the HNGs have their stripper doll warrior babes. I just wish Bioware also had realistic looking women.

[GodWood]

Goddamn the posts in this thread. Just god, ****ing, dammit.

simfamSP wrote...
Can you guys just let this feminist bull**** go.

See now this need not be some feminist issue. As a matter of fact this thread should have nothing to do with that.

The problem is not a feminist one, it is a "Bioware did a ****ing ****ty job of differentiating the different standards of beauty across the races/cultures". As a matter of fact they barely did anything at all. Bioware could have done something interesting with each individual culture's preffered cultural and physical aesthetics but no instead they went with the most bland and unimaginative representation of beauty and made every single culture in Thedas conform to it.

Not too long ago in the Western world this was the ideal female body. Up until the Meiji era (1868) women in Japan shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth to make themselves beautiful. In Mongolia it was thick thighs. In some Mesoamerican cultures crossed eyes were seen as desirable. Hell even in the modern world we have different preferences in beauty such as Korea preferring pale skin and North America preferring tan.

Now to ask for such distinctions and uniqueness between the cultures is not out of a desire for some PC bull****. Rather it's because I want the setting to actually feel like an alive organic setting unlike our own that is genuinely interesting that I can lose myself within.

Not all cultures would need to have such standards of beauty that are alien to the modern gamer pleb, but for Christ's sake at least some of them could. Like look at the male dwarf. He's got a big arse beard, that could be seen as what's desirable for males in dwarf culture. Sure it's not unique for dwarf lore but at least it's something.

Now of course this isn't going to happen because the majority of Bioware's leftover fans are simply the type who pick personal sexual titillation over creating an actual cohesive, organic, setting.

Thank **** for Project Eternity.

Modifié par GodWood, 28 février 2013 - 02:05 .

[Barneyk]

brushyourteeth wrote...
So wait... women with breasts larger than these can't be in peak physical condition? 

That is not what I said.
I said that generally women who are in peak physical condition have smaller boobs than those who aren't.
There are exceptions of course, that is why I thought I was clear to point out that I was making a generalization.

My whole point was an answer to the statement "women have boobs", and referring to the kind of well defined curvy boobs we see in the picture.
My point was not saying that no physically fit women have boobs, my point was saying that some physically fit women do not have boobs in the way the women in the original picture have them.
But by making all of the women having those kind of breasts you are reproducting the same standard of beauty, and claiming that you are exploring different standards of beauty in that case is dishonest, ignorant and destructive.

I hope this clears up your misunderstanding.

Modifié par Barneyk, 28 février 2013 - 02:35 .

[SpunkyMonkey]

Wolfva2 wrote...

It's ludicrous to think that people living in a medievalist world would be 'ripped' because of the hardships they undergo. You get ripped by doing repetitive exercises designed to make you look 'ripped'. That's the 'desired standard' of today. Want to see how it was in the not so distant past? Watch old episodes of Superman, or the '30s Batman. They were...shall we say...barrel shaped. Because THAT was the idea of strength in those days. Because, back then, people didn't work out to get strong. People worked...period.

The muscles you get from working in a field, or a foundry, or a smithy are MUCH different from those you get in a gym. Heck, let's take a modern example. Take a look at the average front line soldier. These guys are humping 60lb packs, weapons, extras like mortar tubes and rounds, etc for days at a time. If not longer in some cases. Yet, strip any of them and you won't see an oiled Arnold Swartzenegger 'Conan' physique glistening in the sun. You'll see a pale, average looking body. Sure, won't be much fat on it, but you're not going to see 6 pack abs. You won't see finally defined delts and quads. You'll see...well, pretty much what you'd see if a real life Grey Warden or Templar stripped down. An average looking body with powerful muscles that don't show clear body builder deliniations.

Which, after all, is why they're called BODY BUILDERS. Because they build and shape their bodies. People who work at jobs requiring physical labor, or who fight for real for a living (as opposed to competition) tend not to look like that.

As far as boobs go...some people seem incredulous that a woman who burns a large amount of calories wearing heavy armor and swinging heavy weapons might actually NOT have big boobs. Well, they won't. Unless they have Dolly Parton's genes. But then again, due to the physiological differences between men and women, most women actually wouldn't be able to wear that armor, or use those swords. Not effectively anyways. However, this IS fantasy, and not reality. So heck, let the HNGs have their stripper doll warrior babes. I just wish Bioware also had realistic looking women.

There's definitely a lot of truth in that, but I'd also say an ancient style warrior's (Spartan/Roman/Medival) work would get them far more "ripped" than someone in the 30's working a factory job, or indeed a modern day soldier.

I've worked various jobs and within 6 weeks of working a fencing/gardening job I'd developed a 6 pack simply because it was all involving core strength. 7-8 hours a day working your core does that lol. I'd say that would be the case for olden sword & sheild style warriors too. Modern day soldiers don't spend days on end using core strength to move weight around in the form of weapons and sheilds, whereas old style ones would have.

We also need to remember that in ancient times food wasn't as abundant as it has been in more recent times - hence a very practical reason for a lack of fat people amongst working class citizens.

But I largely agree and think general citizens would have that "tempered" look, as opposed to a ripped one. 

And just on a side-note I also think the OP's pics look awful, and would much rather have DA:O style characters.

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 28 février 2013 - 02:51 .

[Oberkaiser]

Why am I not surprised that people on this forum have no idea what actually makes muscles grow.

[SpunkyMonkey]

Oberkaiser wrote...

Why am I not surprised that people on this forum have no idea what actually makes muscles grow.

Is this about boobs again?

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 28 février 2013 - 02:55 .

[Oberkaiser]

SpunkyMonkey wrote...

Is this about boobs again?

Yes. The male variety.

[Zkyire]

Blair Brown wrote...

When I look at this I also think to myself about the world of thedas, it's harsh, most people do hard manual labour all day, war is constant, food is very healthy, exercise almost constant (theres no cars).  So most people would be in peak physical condition imo.

Most people are poor peasants and thus don't have access to much food, sparkling clean drinking water, proper hygeine and medicine. Repetitive strain injuries from having to do so much manual labour, bad backs, bad knees, etc. Look at any third world country today and look at the average person's lifespan, health and general condition. That's what the majority of people in Dragon Age would look like.

They'd be far from peak physical condition. They'd be.. peasants.

Modifié par Zkyire, 28 février 2013 - 04:52 .

[Battlebloodmage]

While there should be more variety in looks, NPC usually have the same body types, actually, it's true for the companions and PC as well. It's easier to have a standard body than making several different models and wasting resources. That is the reason why female dwarves didn't make an appearance in DA2. This usually comes at the cost of making every race looks the same. 

Modifié par Battlebloodmage, 28 février 2013 - 05:48 .

[cindercatz]

Barneyk wrote...

And look, I wouldn't see a problem worth posting about if it wasn't for the notion that its representing different standards of beauty.
They are all quite reasonable and not exaggerated to a point where I would object to it and it is a representation that is better than in the vast majority of games.
It could be better though, but I wouldn't have reacted to it if it wasn't for that comment.

Then when I read Blair Browns reasoning I find even more reason to bring this to attention.

Trying to justify the idealization of the hour-glass figure with talks about "peak physical condition" and a simple statement that "women have boobs" and then picking out other things that is different is such a classical example of self-justification.

They are all representing the same standard of beauty where the ideal female body is an hour-glass figure.
The qunari is taller and has wider shoulders, the dwarf is shorter and wider, but the same standard applies for all of them.

The thread is also full of ignorant comments about completely unsupported hypothesis about evolutionary biology and other nonsense that is just plain wrong and they follow the same pattern as the comment about peak physical condition, they are justifications for reproducing something as truth when it is fact is simply an opinion.

Of course it is just not an opinion, it is the ideal image in your society, so it is also a justification for that, which is really wrong and dangerous.

And yes, there are many other details one could focus on and the male characters have their kind of representation to that can be problematic when looked at from certain perspectives.

But compared to the representation and reinforcement of the hour-glass figure as a female ideal they are very small and if I can't even get a point through about something that obvious and simple I really can't motivate myself to get into lesser issues.

My point was that you're correct in all of those drawings being one standard of beauty, the modern western cultural standard, but you're incorrect in it coming from any reinforcement of some male ideal. Those are unisex, designed to be ambiguously attractive to both sexes, by which I mean those females are supposed to appeal to the female hero image, not the male sexual ideal. That is not the male sexual ideal. It's not even an hourglass figure. It's supposed to look strong and athletic, but also feminine, which is the female western ideal. There's no pooch, no hint of a typical woman's pelvic angle and general reproductive distinguishing features (other than 'Oh wow, average boobs. oh joy). It's designed to be inoffensive and meet the general expectations of an action hero in our modern culture. The male standard image there is exactly the same in the inverse. Neither is realistic at all. Neither one is designed to appeal mostly to the opposite sex or the same sex. They're media generalities designed to catch the eye in an inoffensive, familiar way.

Now peasants and craftspeople having that physique makes no sense, but it's a game. So if resource or engine limitations mean everybody unimportant has to have the same basic build, I don't mind it. I don't find it all that inspiring or all that attractive, but I'm fine with it, precisely because it is the modern media standard body.

Blair's comments are incorrect rationalization, sure, but I wouldn't call it justification, because there's no sin there that needs to be justified. It's not worth beating anybody over the head trying to get everybody to take notice and change their mind, though you're welcome to it, I guess.

And science. This is the reason I responded again. Those comments aren't ignorant and insubstantiated. There have actually been scientific studies about this, and craigdolphin largely laid out what they found (not entirely, but the gist). There are also cultural studies, which is also a factor but an entirely different angle. So saying anybody bringing up science is ignorant.. is ignorant, and biased. We are genetically, by and large, drawn to the female hourglass and the male V. That's what science says. But like I said in my post, there are also other cultural and societal factors, yes. Those factors don't invalidate biology. They just wrap on top of it and in some cases override it. If you're constantly starving, somebody fat might be living better than you, and thus you are desirous of what that fat represents, not the fat physique itself (by and large, not universally). Then there's ritual and tribal distinction. Some cultures value the most possible rings around a neck, flattened skulls, black teeth, different kinds of piercings, etc. Those things aren't biologically driven. Psychology doesn't only take biology into account.

People keep bringing up Greek art, but what they don't mention is that a lot of that art used male models, and a lot of those desirous features were derivative of male bodies (the straight V-ish incline from shoulders to hips, for instance). They also don't take into account that those are cultural artifacts, from highly advanced societies, and a cultural beauty standard is not the same thing as a biological sexual standard. The latter is always there, however.

Last thing is that no, the female sexual ideal is not somehow worse than the male. That bias is a product of living in a mainstream feminist society that's still fighting our culture's patriarchal (to an extent) roots. Men and women both suffer from pressures linked to our standard beauty images. But those images aren't bad. They just are. Basically, more variety and more naturalism is good because it's more immersive and more reflective of what we encounter in the real world, but any crusade against our particular unisex beauty standard on anti-sexism grounds is unrealistic and unfounded. That's not your main point, I know, but it comes up a lot in your rationales.

And we're probably never going to agree, so I'll leave my 2c and move on.

[Wolfva2]

Zkyire wrote...

Blair Brown wrote...

When I look at this I also think to myself about the world of thedas, it's harsh, most people do hard manual labour all day, war is constant, food is very healthy, exercise almost constant (theres no cars).  So most people would be in peak physical condition imo.

Most people are poor peasants and thus don't have access to much food, sparkling clean drinking water, proper hygeine and medicine. Repetitive strain injuries from having to do so much manual labour, bad backs, bad knees, etc. Look at any third world country today and look at the average person's lifespan, health and general condition. That's what the majority of people in Dragon Age would look like.

They'd be far from peak physical condition. They'd be.. peasants.

Yep.  I spent a few years of my childhood growing up on a small Portuguese farming island, Terceira.  The people there worked hard and were poor.  Since it was a volcanic island, the most common building material was rock.  So, fences and pens were all stacked rock.  Often terraced into the sides of hills.  Transportation was on foot along coblestoned streets.  The standard drink was wine (historical note: people didn't drink much water because of parasites; alcohol kills parasites.  So, most water had alcohol added to it. In England it was Gin; Portugal and Spain, wine.)  Between maintaining the fences, tending the cattle, plowing the fields with oxen, etc, the people were strong.  But thin.  Muscles were wirey, not body builder ripped.  Of course, the..errr...matronly women were fat as well.  Why?  Because in poor cultures being fat is a sign of wealth.  You get fat from eating fatty meat; you get fatty meat from tended cattle, which requires MONEY.  Poor people, on the other hand, rarely ate meat, instead subsisting on grains and legumes. 

So, let's have realistic NPCs.  Fat noblewomen, wirey, filthy peasants, and scabby companions from picking nits in their off time.  

Heh, one thing I noticed from the DA games is everyone has brownish teeth.  At least THAT is sorta realistic.  I say sorta because everyone has TO MANY!  Guess healing potions have calcium and flouride....<LOL>.

[Neoleviathan]

Thinking about it some more, besides design limits I can see why they'd keep to a certain type. If you think about elves for example, if they moved to represent them in a realistic way. The appearances of many city elves would probably be pretty horrific, something like that would change the tone of the game completely. I'm sure in some ways that has also effected both men and women have been depicted so far. With Origins especially, you'd just feel different about a noble, an elf, or even a class like a rouge if everyone looked closer to reality. Imagine starting out an origin & seeing the terrible reality of the people around you. How would you feel? Also how it would effect clothing and armor. The thread's been pretty focused with bodies, things like dress and language also fit the topic. Maybe it doesn't really have to be taken in a way that suggest some catering to a stereotype.