I wasn't talking about you mate, but the general sentiment of that statement.
I really like Bayonetta, but I have seen posters on this forum where it was seemingly okay to compare them to neo-nazis or other extreme analogies.
Bayonetta can be as exploitative as any other character depending on the experiences, and personal viewpoints of their own sexuality, which seems to be projected outwardly in a sort of "oh-you-don't-get-it-because-your-sexual-perception-is-not-like-mine".
I can agree with this, not in terms of what I have witnessed on GAF (I have mostly stayed away from such debates) but insofar as such outright blanket condemnations tend to arise in regard to the topic in our society.
Display of sexuality, no matter how subtle or extreme, is not inherently servility. It need not be passive to be self-possessive. It is true that an aspect of sexuality is interplay of gratification, and a large avenue for this exchange is in visuals, both of body language and direction of presentation. Yet gratification does not hold exclusive power over the avenue of visual exchange, and the narrative space can also be used for communication, for personal expression.
Both can be active in the avenue at once, so a view of sexual attributes and expressions can be something given to serve another, and a such viewing-upon can also be something demanded of another to serve oneself, even within the gratification it gives others. It can be both at once, and if it serves one or the other party or both mutually is determined by context. Context also determines the measures by which these benefits distribute to admiration or degradation, to the opening or narrowing of perspective of identity and respect between
both parties (viewing
all sexual gratification as inherently manipulative/animalistic/evil is an undue assumed coloration no matter how often such things are the case) in their minds and desires.
The simple fact of presentation in itself does not provide all the information required for a full and truthful conclusion on these matters. In real life productions involving real people there are even further complications between the influence of society and power of employers in entertainment, both "honest" and corrupt, and the actual personal ambitions and self-directives and philosophies of performers and where they got them from and how. Even dark negative realities in such realms do not wholly invalidate the positive realities possible.
So, in a creative work such as this where no actual person is the character conveyed and our greatest concern is how it might impact the minds of those who look upon it, which is something primarily directed not by the work itself but by the conversations we have around it, I find outright condemnations exceedingly narrow-minded, simplistic, and dishonest to the full spectrum of how we all as humans end up actually treating our sexuality in our self-esteem and in relating to others.
