During my last post I discussed the quick obvious sexist undertones in gaming. From the concentration of Jiggly physics to clothes design right down to our perception of the females who are actually playing the games. During this I very briefly touched on Men, and the sexism that is with them… so come lets venture down that road, fa la la la la la.
Men men men men manly men men men
Lets think for a second about body types.Women are portrayed in a certain light in games as we have discussed, big boobs, shaky bums but men are portrayed in a fairly similar way. Male characters have chiseled perfect faces, muscles with muscles on them tall, mysterious and courageous.
My arms are bigger than my head, is that normal?
The perfect specimen. Of course in the real world the perfect man doesn’t exist and seeing it could lead to sad crying gamers rolling around on the floor in disgust at themselves… but… we don’t..do we.
Sexy men for the lady gamer
Another argument that could be put forward for sexism to exist from the male perspective is that they are made to look a certain way for women to look at and oogle swoon over and faint.. wait this isn’t the 1920’s…Despite a large majority of gamers being women, games are still made by the man for the man.
Female gamers! NOOOOOOOO
Naughty Dog said that they’re main target market with the last of us was male and games like God of War and its main hero Kratos were definitely not made with women in mind and yet he could make a young Arnold Schwarzenegger give up on body building and so acting and then where would we be?
Soon to be in twins along side Danny DiVito
I wanna be like you hu hu
Really, Sexism to do with men doesn’t really exist. and simply this is because of how we we view the characters. Females characters are viewed as objects to be desired to want a prize to be won for the hero the victor.
I was a plumber once
The male characters are a goal to strive for. They are what the men want to be like, a goal as the women but not objects of desire. They portray qualities men want to have in themselves, big and strong with courage and nobility and so playing these characters allows a dream to be portrayed and full filled. and another point to remember is that women have been portrayed as just sex objects for a long time and are still fighting for equality.
It could be seen by some that the males in games are sexist portrayed men in an unfair un attainable light and this may perhaps be true, but that isn’t sexist it’s portraying the male character in a strong heroic light and not demeaned. But ultimately it comes down why the characters are the way they are. Male characters are something to become females characters are something to have.
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