FairFriend
Member
EDIT: duh, sorry for the double post, I though the thread wasi going faster...
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Kojima: Overly sexualized women in DS will be given a deep background story"
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
That the entire thing is absurd? A lot of those themes in the comic are displayed constantly by media, the artist is just drawing them out in the most absurd way for the reader to see how stupid they are.
Kojima himself is guilty of the long winded exposition to try and pass off a sexy character as normal and it looks like he hasn't learned anything yet?
BossDarkseid
Member
He's a great games designer, imo, but MGS4 onwards seems to be "sexy first, story later" and even then its so trite and poorly done. Like Quiet's backstory is MGS-style intriguing and cheesy on its own but her design and the way the camera treats her betrays any pretense that she's more than just fapbait.
Im almost interested if Shinkawa ever looks at Kojima sideways, wondering why he can't do a Meryl or EVA again.
chromatic9
Member
baby got background?...
I like big backgrounds and I can not lie.
17 Seconds
Banned
i'm glad i don't play any of this creep's games
You think Quiet backfired on him? MGS5 was the best selling game in the series and his studio is more popular than ever.
There's a reason half of this argument is perpetrated by the same few people quoting eachother ad nauseum.
theshape31
Member
I personally don't play his games because of characters like Quiet. At the end of the day, evelopers are going to create whatever content they want for their games. And the only true voice you have as a gamer is to vote with your dollars.
the_milkybar_kid
Member
I ddn't play MGSV for Quiet either, but when she's pushed to the fore, you're given no choice but to have an opinion. Especially when you're expected to swallow the completely guff reason as to why she's got T&A out all the time.
For the record, Quiet's reasoning and Kojima's stance were fucking weak. If you're going to be a sleaze, just own it. Don't put up garbage answers like he did.
FairFriend
Member
I generraly agree. I mean, it's not like his previous games were completely devoid of fanservice. But as I was saying, fanservice is fine for me as along as you don't pretend it to be anything else, especially when you are upfront about its being featured in your product (think Dead Or Alive or shows like Gurren Lagaan). I'm not arguing that it can't possibly be offensive, but at least people who don't tolerate it are not forcibly exposed to it. On the other hand characters like Quiet and Naomi in MGS4, whom we are supposed to take seriously, given the semi-realistic presentation and and their dramatic backstories, turn out to be much more ridicolous.
Inferno313
Banned
It's a joke, jfc.
Attractive women are fine. But objectifying them and then justifying it with some lame 'backstory' is straight embarrassing horndog stuff. It's clear he made Quiet's character model first: Big titties, all exposed, and then thought 'how do I justify this', rather than writing a compelling character and then making them look attractive afterwards.
bishopcruz
Member
One thing that always does bother me in these arguments is the "Just admit you're a perv Kojima!" line I see over and over.
I mean, one, hasn't he already shown this in his words and deeds over the years? His purile sexual humor and gaze has been a part of his work pretty much forever. He's often tempered by realities of the market so we don't get topless Boss, or totally naked Beauty and the Beast squad. He said he did the Quiet design for sexy cosplay.
Second, what will admitting things actually change? Kojima can chant "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa" all he wants it won't change anything. Is it just about getting someone to admit to their crimes? Who cares if he comes out with an excuse? What actual difference will it make? The boobs will still be just as big, and just as offensive to people.
In other words, would Kojima just saying "Fuck your worlds and deeds. Ass and Titties!" in response to Quiet criticisms changed anyone's mind as to whether or not she is a problematic character, or is sexist, or has agency, or any of the myriad arguments of the GAF sexism merry-go-round? I doubt it.
I mean, one, hasn't he already shown this in his words and deeds over the years? His purile sexual humor and gaze has been a part of his work pretty much forever. He's often tempered by realities of the market so we don't get topless Boss, or totally naked Beauty and the Beast squad. He said he did the Quiet design for sexy cosplay.
Second, what will admitting things actually change? Kojima can chant "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa" all he wants it won't change anything. Is it just about getting someone to admit to their crimes? Who cares if he comes out with an excuse? What actual difference will it make? The boobs will still be just as big, and just as offensive to people.
In other words, would Kojima just saying "Fuck your worlds and deeds. Ass and Titties!" in response to Quiet criticisms changed anyone's mind as to whether or not she is a problematic character, or is sexist, or has agency, or any of the myriad arguments of the GAF sexism merry-go-round? I doubt it.
the real bummer is that his game design is god-tier. they're all amazing experiences and adventures. there's just this vein of rot through them
Me: *sees thread title* oh boy, I can't wait to dive in and talk about the endemic objectification of female characters in gaming!
Me: *comes into thread*
GAF, I thought you were better than this. I feel like I've wandered into a Reddit thread by mistake.
I'm surprised there haven't been more bans.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You've never worked on a art project in a collaborative setting for a single moment in your life if you even remotely think this is true. Also lol at modern day puritans. I like how the litmus test for how much someone enjoys sex is obviously dependent on how much they enjoy being pandered to via virtual non existent tits. Yes, it you don't like overly sexualization virtual women then oblviously you just MUST be some sort of Puritan. You don't realize how stupid and pathetic that sounds?
Let's have a quiz, is this because of Trump or because of bishop?Me: *sees thread title* oh boy, I can't wait to dive in and talk about the endemic objectification of female characters in gaming!
Me: *comes into thread*
GAF, I thought you were better than this. I feel like I've wandered into a Reddit thread by mistake.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
meltingparappa
Member
These are also the same circular arguments that have been going on since Quiet was first revealed, years ago.
Here is a quick and dirty photoshop to celebrate the 5000th thread of earnest appeals, undirected emotional outrage, shit post spectacles, a genome army of strawmen killed without regard for stealth, the a mutual naivety that there'd be a mutual respectful exchange of opinions.
...all from one throwaway clickbiat quote in a single interview for a game four years from now.
It is we who are the true Guillermo Del Toro's in his meta-fiction.
TheKastorian
Member
Eeeexactly. What a waste of thread.
Spring-Loaded
Member
What about the quoted part in the OP? That matches up with the title
DwightSchruting
Member
It's people like him who Miyazaki doesn't respect.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Like I said. 3 words quoted out of context.
The first female character of DS hasnt even been revealed lol.
Please stop reposting this terrible study.
Did you read what it says?
A video game is not a brand advertised in violent media. A video game is not a brand advertised in sexual ads. A brand is Tropicana "premium orange juice." A brand is Volkswagen and its reputation for safe vehicles. You are not ineffectively experiencing a brand via playing a game and encountering a bosomy NPC in an action game and feeling it's off-putting. The findings in this study are not applicable to the titallation of videos games, shows and movies drawing their audiences in and bringing them back over and over. In fact, services like Netflix have discovered that sex does sell due to data that shows viewers fast forward to, rewind and rewatch scenes of nudity and sex. Violence and sex sells when it comes to media consumption, which, again, is not about brand recollection.
Furthermore, do you know anything about the authors of this study? Because I question its integrity and that its author didn't premptively have a conclusion and then work backwards to prove it and bolster his media presence in his niche. Brad J. Bushman is a fearmonger of sex and violence in entertainment. Look at this shit and tell me with a straight face he's credible and unbiased (some of the stuff he has posted, supports and retweeted):
Look at the creepy, blood-dripping scare letters in the presentation slide behind him:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mjbeers1/status/757980026734338048/photo/1
This guy believes that all forms of venting, including some proven activities like hitting a bag, are ineffective and increase aggression, based on his own study.
https://youtu.be/ASKXG4kf4n4
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbushman/PSPB02.pdf
http://www.news-press.com/story/lif...yth-nancy-loughlin-yoga-living-well/84982840/
A common thread through his work is that violent video games are bad and lead to violence (despite any actual sufficient evidence of such claims).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-...and-theft-auto-v-for-christmas_b_4440477.html
More of his shitty research and conclusions about games
http://www.ithp.org/articles/violentvideogames.html
Perfectly line with his bizarre anti-video game crusading, he disagrees with the APA that while video games lead to some increased feelings of aggression (and there's a counter article further down that even the APA's conclusion is flawed), they did not find that games do lead to real life violent acts. Why does he disagree? Obvious, because it runs counter to his life's work, his own personally conducted biased studies and personal ideologies about media consumption and aggression.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx
This counter-argument summarizes how APA and guys like Bushman do poor research, omit studies in their meta anaylyses that dobt agree with their predetermined conclusions, and conduct poor studies to reach these self fulfilling answers.
http://pixelkin.org/2015/10/12/a-ps...nt-apa-report-on-video-game-violence-studies/
And here's something he retweeted which I think points to his weirdly conservative sentiments.
http://support.parentstv.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15921&killorg=True
Oh no, teens in high school are exposed to sex and the naked human body. The horror, sign the petition, save the children blah blah.
This is a person who thinks overall that sex and violence in media are bad, period. He has a boner for fearmongering and a major incentive due to the years he has devoted to his career to prove at all costs that his theories are correct. I regard turning to someone like this for proof that "sex is bad and doesn't sell" as no better than looking to a teen abstinence expert to help guide and retool a school's sex ed program.
And to cite a real world example, I can find several "credible" studies that eggs are a perfect super food, great for everyone, etc. There's maybe some truth and health benefits. But you can dig a little and find all these studies are biased and overstating their findings, if not lying sometimes, because they are indeed funded by the American Egg Board which has a vested interest in reaching a specific conclusion (this is real, not hypothetical btw).
With that in mind... please, stop reposting this one dumb study from this questionable individual who despises video games and makes a living vilifying sex and violence in entertainment across the board. This particular study doesn't apply to games and frankly the person who conducted the meta analysis has iffy motives and comes across being biased as hell.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
After consecutive flops in terms of writing women do you really have high hopes for the writing in DS in that regard? It would honestly be genuinely surprising to get a serious mature game that goes in line with the advertising and without the juvenile shit.
While that dude's history with violence in media is telling, I don't think he was disingenuously conducting studies about whether not sex actually sells. The advertising industry is different in the sense that the women in advertising at least have something to do with sex when being objectified i.e. a product in a commercial depicting an intimate setting. It wasn't just one study posted ITT btw, others posted multiple studies. Again, the history of this medium says otherwise. The funny thing about the "sex sells" argument is that often times, (99% of the time), actual sex isn't even involved, dehumanization and objectification however, is. So again, sex doesn't actually sell, and frankly, objectification rarely leads to success stories either considering how niche games solely based on objectification are and how increasingly niche the stagnating games industry in Japan is becoming. And you realize that teens in high school constantly being subjected to objectified depictions of media end up viewing women like that irl? You realize there's a clear correlation between the constant sexism and misogyny in this industry and the objectification of women? That's undeniable compared to whether or not contextualized interactive violence ,(that is becoming less and less encouraged overtime as more games introduce non lethal options as well as turn down gore content despite increased fidelity), has an effect on an individual.
I'm not disagreeing with your overall sentiments.
I just think it's clear that this Bushman guy is indeed disingenuous with strong motivations that guide his work and compel him to force his meta-analysis of handpicked studies into the logical conclusion he sought in the first place. And I've seen it used on GAF now several times as unshakeable proof that sex in media doesn't sell when that's not even the focus of this study -- it's whether or not advertised brands wrapped in a layer of unrelated sexual imagery can sell and their message effectively be recalled by the audience.
I'm not disagreeing that niche games based around sex don't sell. I agree, that's obvious hardly anyone buys that stuff. I'm saying this data isn't relevant or in support of that statement; use better, relevant studies.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Will do, honestly had zero idea about the violence studies.
Messofanego
Banned
If games were like TV/movies/music, there'd be a lot less sexualised and objectified female character designs.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
What youre asking is a far cry from the statement of "Kojima is going to give overtly sexual women deep backgrounds."
If you really want to discuss the maybes and hows of Kojima writing a chatacter, opening up the conversation with the assumption that he has already terribly written the character due to the misleading title is not the way to do it. Ill happily discuss potential written women done by Kojima for DS, but not in a thread where people just read the out of context and misleading title, and where people are already going "you lost a sale for DS" over a character that hasnt been revealed or may not even exist.
QuantumZebra
Member
Not this time, Kojima... just outright admit if you're gonna sexualise the characters... don't hide behind a shield of white armour.
Prepare your words and deeds for shaming
You think if people noticed her "pretty nice story" that they would stop criticizing her design?
Fried Food
Banned
I like that's it's already a foregone conclusion that there will be oversexualized women in the game.
Superkewl
Gold Member
Not this time, Kojima... just outright admit if you're gonna sexualise the characters... don't hide behind a shield of white armour.
Wow, I don't play these games, but if that's real, that's pretty bad.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
I think the idea is that critics tend to place a disproportionate amount of weight on the appearance of female characters, often at the expense of success in more substantial facets of those characters.
That's not to say that character design and criticism thereof aren't important, but that even-handed criticism carries more weight and is more likely to be taken in good faith.
SuperEpicMan
Banned
I really hope he doesn't fill Death Stranding with a bunch overly sexualised characters. The way Quiet is presented in MGSV was pretty tacky and embarrassing and put me off buying the game.
For all the high esteem he's held in, and given his obvious talents, deep down he can't help displaying his baser, shallower insticts. The guy can't help it. I fully expect him to continue in the same direction. It'll be interesting if he decides to ebrace equality and present a male character in the same way. I'd be really interested to see what response that would get.
I'm sorry, Kojima. You're a dinosaur, whose penchant for titilation, will bring your games down, and you'll be left on the scrapheap of history as a creator who couldn't trandscend his own inner flaws. Rip.
4 is a cutie
Banned
Thats about as "equal" as me creating a mayo loving yuppie character for every Aunt Jemima I have in my book
ienjoyrawfish
Member
Don't know what all the fuss is about personally
the disparity is not sexism, is just the result of the total of the games on the market.
every single game is made indipendently from the others and it's not pushed by a single mind deciding that there should be 90% of fanservice aiment toward men and 10% of fanservice aimed toward women. you can't force developer to balance what others do, everyone is just thinking for their own games. and if they want to do it, they're obviously going toward the safest one
I really don't understand how any of this is even still an argument anymore. Regardless of the explanations, it's become obvious that the hypersexualized female character is the most important part of the equation to him and that's a problem. If people want to play games with hypersexualized characters, that's totally fine as long as we're all honest about what everyone's intentions are, like the DoA games. They're not for me, but that's fine if someone wants to make/play those games.
What I can't understand is when people try to rationalize this stuff as anything more than fan service. At some point you have to be willing to take a step back and look at the big picture and realize that when you are having to defend so many games for the same problem, you can't explain them away with individualized excuses anymore.
What I can't understand is when people try to rationalize this stuff as anything more than fan service. At some point you have to be willing to take a step back and look at the big picture and realize that when you are having to defend so many games for the same problem, you can't explain them away with individualized excuses anymore.
quoting so you can't edit this
Phatosaurus
Member
Like he already did with Raiden in MGS2 and Raikov in MGS3?
To throw in my 2p, Kojima is trying too hard with the "deep" backstories for the characters that he creates for sexual fan service.
It was bad in MGS4 with the codec calls after killing each of the BatB squad, but he's only gotten worse with it.
I'd have more respect for him if he dropped the bullshit and just did the fan service for the sake of it without a contrived sob story to back it up, because at the end of the day it is nothing more than shallow fan service.
Not this time, Kojima... just outright admit if you're gonna sexualise the characters... don't hide behind a shield of white armour.
That gif is hypnotizing...
meltingparappa
Member
You bumped the thread after two weeks just for this?
Thabass
Member
Not this time, Kojima... just outright admit if you're gonna sexualise the characters... don't hide behind a shield of white armour.
I'm pretty sure he did, but he's going to add more backstory.
I don't believe he will, but here we are.
