You too. I definitely enjoy these in-depth discussions.
Your analogy refers to social conventions grounded in the well-meaning desire not to offend anyone and which only apply to the public and semi-private spheres. That destroys any potential parallels with the act of playing a videogame in the reclusion of your living room.
Strolling down the avenue with nothing on has the potential to offend pedestrians who do not wish to be graced with such view but need to pass by nonetheless.
You have to willingly buy the game and willingly expose yourself to it to even open up the possibility to be offended. There is nothing else you might need to do that requires you to play that videogame along the way.
So again, when is less cleavage appropriate, according to you, and how would you frame the suggestion? As your personal opinion? As a moral assessment? As a matter of taste, of social decorum?
Sounds like we basically agree here, but to be fair when you originally brought up paying someone a compliment, we hadn't really established a at-home-vs-out-in-public scenario. Which is why I said context matters.
In a general sense, I have no idea why or when I would suggest less cleavage. I guess if I was a manager at a bank? I don't know. Depends on the cleavage. On the clients. If it was job related that would probably be a matter of taste (situational, not personal) and/or social decorum.
I would never tell someone to do something like that purely out of personal opinion or moral assessment. The former because I think "morality" asserts "right" or "wrong" which I don't really like. I'd prefer to frame something contextually against a scenario.
Yet all of the above amounts to you evaluating how successful the game's stylistic choices were. In the context of the present discussion, I have nothing to object. But please bear in mind that's not how the anti-objectification campaigners tackle the matter.
Fair
By definition, these people attack the topic this way. By their definition reducing someone to a sex object - I reject their take - is bad. But would they feel the same way about reducing someone to, say, a charity object?
My main point I think is that "these people" is a simplification, and that some may object to certain content while also not wanting to ban said content. I think you and I both agree that reducing someone to a sex object is also a simplification. Reduction in general tends to be bad for conversation, debate, and interpretation and appreciation of art.
I object to "all feminists are X" just as I object to "all consumers of fan service are pervs" (or whatever).
Would it be immoral though?
If the parallel you're trying to draw is that sexiness is not immoral per se, but sometimes inappropriate, I would agree. But, again, this is a stylistic take, not a moral pronouncement. The two are very different.
No. I am not a fan of objecting or advocating for something on "moral" grounds for reasons stated above.
Some certainly have and will object to things on moral grounds, that is an inevitability (unfortunately).
The point is those activists seldom miss an opportunity to depreciate sexuality. I'm still waiting for their case as to why it ought to be done,
Those activists maybe, but the activists presented here seem to be a worst case scenario (not saying they don't exist).
Yes. I would rephrase my claim by including a few caveats.
Could you point me to a piece of fiction which successfully handles Representation, in the intersectional sense? Please share why you think it's successful.
I guess to me successful intersectional representation happens when representation exists in cases where the fiction allows for flexibility. This covers the spectrum from something simple like being able to pick your name (Legend of Zelda) to picking to gender and/or race (Mass Effect). Nothing about those worlds requires one thing or the other. And, whats cooler, is that I can get different things out of the same game. I can make me and play as a straight white guy because it's the most "immersive", or I can be a women and seduce Miranda (that's what I did because Jennifer Hale and for, well, Miranda).
Failure to me means that the story being attempted does a disservice to whatever representation it's trying to tackle. The unfortunate truth here is that this is very subjective. But I think that's true of art and fiction in general.
Yes. This would be one of the caveats I would have included.
But ponder this: what sort of character a given protagonist would have to be in order to qualify as an adequate representative of all latinos, or of all pansexuals, or of all queer people? Do the members of these groups share anything more than the trait - ethnicity, sexuality or other - by which they have been divided up? If your answer is yes, them your opinion is that membership of these groups is the defining characteristic of such individuals, billions of them, which in essence is the intersectional worldview. In this sense, representation would carry deep consequences, namely that any flaw you'd imbue the protagonist with would also constitute an indictment on the whole group, an indictment on billions of people.
Doesn't this ring a bell? The view that billions of people of a certain complexion or a certain ethnic background or of a certain sexual orientation share other specific traits as well?
Alternatively, you could deprive your protagonist of any flaws, just to avoid the problem and then create a bigger one: flat, insipid cardboard fiction.
My answer would not be yes, but this also seems like an exaggerated scenario to me. I don't think anyone really argued that CJ in San Andreas needed to represent all black people. Or that Ellie represents all lesbians. Those stories are about specific types of people in specific scenarios.
On the flip side, in a game like Mass Effect, race of a character is a non-issue, so it makes sense that you have customization options there. Only being able to create white men would be kind of weird (again, we're assuming the game has no story beats which need you to be white and/or a man).
Fair enough.
My question then, which I've asked before, is how would you frame your objections? Specifically, how would you define objectification and why and when is it objectionable?
As noted above my objections would be situational - I'm not going to shut down anyone's sex party, but I don't want people fucking next to the food at a restaurant.
Objectification is a tricky subject in art. In the real world I would say objectification exists when the "object" lacks agency. In art this is particularly subjective and quite honestly I think the lines vary by person. For me I think it comes down to how fleshed out (no pun intended) a character is OR what the purpose of the art is. I don't have a problem with DOAX because it doesn't really pretend to be anything other than DOAX. I have a bigger issue when something seems unnecessary or out of place. I loved Dragon's Crown because the art style, IMO, was consistent and cohesive. But random bikini armor in an otherwise high-fantasy type game would seem out of place to me.
My point is that if representation were the driving impetus behind purchase, AAA videogame companies would be better-off aiming at representation of the majority. You might argue indie developers would be well-advised to seek niche markets, and play the representation of minorities game, but it seems to me the anti-objectification pressure is consistently put upon mainstream studios whose big budgets require an audience to match.
This is anecdotal but I doubt that many people only really purchase games which represent them, only that a game could be appealing because of it. And I think many of the biggest games this year have a defined protagonist.
Again that's anecdotal so you may have better points here.
Until they can provide motives that transcend what their heart yearns for, there is no reason besides limitless and therefore hollow empathy for a developer to follow though on their wants.
Yeah I'd never argue that a developer
needs to bow to pressure just because - but if something speaks to a developer then they can ultimately do whatever they want.
