Annoyed by the critics that suddenly feel betrayed by the series because they had convinced themselves the games weren't sexist even when it couldn't have been more obvious. People tried to tell them Bayonetta was misogynist as fuck but they were dismissed as "sex-negative" or whatever.
It's...very weird looking at a thread that, from what I can tell, does not have any openly fem voices calling this character too sexualized and that it's bad for women without really ever having asked a woman, and in the process very steadily erasing our thoughts.
I don't know what to think when I hear 'she's too sexualized'. Are her breasts too big? Mine are bigger. They're not unrealistic, I assure you. She looks very nice, and I enjoyed playing as her.
It feels like indirect body shaming and it's telling that it always seems to be cis dudes demanding women cover up and getting angry when women are presented as attractive. There's a difference between overly sexual hentai shit and 'sexy and attractive'. Risque shit is fine and I don't know why prudism is forced onto women.
It also feels like america's sex negativity being laundered into leftism.
Women that criticized Bayonetta were harassed for not towing the line on misogynist nerd shit so they don't talk about the character or the series as much anymore.
Examples are out there if you look.
https://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/bayonetta-and-the-male-gaze/
https://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/on-bayonetta-2-and-female-sexuality-in-video-games-tw/
https://feministfrequency.com/video/bayonetta-innovative-advertising-or-sexual-harassment-training/
https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/521778746655649792?lang=en
https://agameofme.tumblr.com/post/102909075862/bayonetta-2s-sexless-sexiness-and-the
Those that come to the defense of the character and series also ignore the obvious misogyny demonstrated by the creators. Bayonetta's only feminist or unproblematic if you buy into Naomi Wolfe's bullshit Fire with Fire feminism.
Thank you for telling a woman what to think choomfie I really appreciate it, I must have harassed all my woman friends into not disliking Bayonetta too
I'm not telling you what to think. There's no evidence that points to Bayonetta being anything but some guy's horny fantasy of what women should be but people can think what they want.
I think the point is that bayonneta can be a man's horny fantasy and also a woman's horny fantasy too and the existence of said horny fantasy isn't inherently misogynist (although statements like "i think all women should dress like her" absolutely are) and saying that it is is a slight on women who enjoy said horny fantasy as well as those who might physically or stylistically relate to Bayonetta's aesthetic
A woman having the same fantasy doesn't mean it can't be misogynist. That kind of defense only comes up when women are into something that was designed with men as the intended target audience.
These people didn't come to the defense of 50 shades of grey with the same argument. It was something everyone dunked on as sexist even though it was written for women by a woman.
We live in a misogynist culture so it isn't rare for us to have misogynist fantasies.
okay, well, I've just seen this user repeatedly express their frustration with the attitudes that it is wrong for a woman to enjoy or appreciate these things and construe it as a form of bodyshaming when they relate their own aesthetic to what's being criticized and I don't think they deserve to be browbeaten into believing they're just internalizing misogyny or whatever just because that's what you feel to be correct about it
I didn't say they women wrong to enjoy these things. I don't think we should pretend misogynist media is something it's not.
We all enjoy problematic things.
I mean saying a sexualized female character is inherently misogynistic is literally saying that women are wrong to enjoy that thing, it is an argument inherently framed that the woman enjoying those things is just naively enjoying a misogynist male fantasy and is stripped of her agency and ability to enjoy said thing, which is kind of fucked up when that thing is, to those women, related to "being sexual at all themselves"
and saying Bayonetta is a misogynist thing because this dev guy said misogynistic things isn't a really good argument
the things he said were misogynistic, the thing that was made with a small portion of his involvement (pretty sure like workers make things not just one dev guy btw) is not, especially not as a consequence of his saying or believing those things
"blah blah blah the artist's intention" the Fahrenheit 451 guy said the book was about how bad TV is
Sexualized depiction women are inherently misogynist because we live in a patriarchal society and sexualization is distinct from sexuality. Watch the lingerie is not armor video.
There are video games where women have nude sex scenes and they aren't sexualized and there are video games where women are clothed and doing something that has nothing to do with sex and are sexualized.
Saying women who enjoy misogynist things is not an attack on them. Something can be misogynist and we can have complex feelings about it. It doesn't mean we are being tricked or have no say in how we process it. In one of the links I posted, a woman said Bayonetta was misogynist and she also talked about what she liked about the game.
Your argument is essentially that if a woman enjoys a piece of media, it can't be sexist. That's a lib way of understanding things.
The workers made the character under his direction. His ideas shaped the character. He isn't a capitalist, he's an artist, and a worker himself.
This is your defense of Bayonetta:
She and the game can't be misogynist because there are women that like the character and games
The series creator, the director/writer (and another producer) of the game actually had little to do with its development (citation needed) so their misogynism regarding the development actually had no effect on the game. This also implies that all the other men that worked on the game weren't misogynist, which you somehow know.
Ignoring feminist critics that called Bayonetta misogynist.
That leads me to another question. Is there any popular art that you think is actually misogynist? Because if there's something that's enjoyed by millions of people worldwide, some of those people are going to be women which leads to popular art unable to be misogynist.
I don't give a fuck about bayonetta and you don't understand the shit I am saying, i'm done, disengage
The other main contributor to the character is the original VA, who's outed herself as blue lives matter transphobic anti-choice chud. Character doesn't have a lot on her side.
Uh, hey, I'm also a woman and always found Bayonetta sexiest and objectifying. Just like I don't speak for the women who find her empowering, you don't speak for all the women who find her disempowering. Please don't give people the false idea that it's only cis dudes that have a problem with objectified characters.
As enby woman I have always been pressured into being "sexier" and "more feminine" for men. It's given me bad dysphoria all my life. Shit sucks.
i will jump in and say it ain't great for a dude to have made a BDSM witch who wears her hair as clothes and gets naked when she wants to torture her enemies. it's ok if you like it but i think it stinks
I don’t know what to think when I hear ‘she’s too sexualized’.
She's made of 90% legs and canonically does not wear clothes, she's comically hypersexualized. It feels really sus for me to try to address anyone who ignores her obviously sexualized design
Here’s me showing my very large breasts while Chinese communist music plays. I enjoy hypersexualizing myself. I’m sorry if you think that’s sus, but I’m more sorry that you don’t understand female sexuality.
:jesse-wtf: this is one of the most inappropriate things anyone has ever said on this site, even if it's a joke.
And by god, judging by all the Discords and group chats i’m in that are mainly fems where we love posting ourselves, sexualization can be empowering.
Bayonetta is not a human who can make the decision to embrace sexuality, she is a fictional character who can only do what her (overwhelmingly male) writers and designers determine. They decided that she should be hot because it makes peepees hard. That's the start and end to her design philosophy.
You're a real living person. Bayonetta isn't.
She's the misogynist fantasy of a cis straight guy.
This isn't that hard to understand. It's feminism 101.
https://youtu.be/jko06dA_x88?t=313
I think you need to focus more on what about the depiction in particular is sexist, not the misogyny of the creator. Like, if he made tetris that wouldn't make the game inherently sexist. If he made megaman, then you could read the girl in that game doing nothing as relating to his misogyny, but not being inherently sexist. By that I mean you wouldn't necessarily get a misogynist message playing it nor is it misogynistic in behavior and reading, just in intent. It's also possible for someone who's not a misogynist to make something misogynistic by chance or background culture. What's important to your argument is the game itself. She's obviously sexualized, but is depicting a woman sexually inherently misogyny?
His sexist comments are about how she's depicted in the game. He gives an example of a scene in the game as his way of showing that women see each other as enemies. He created the character so that she's mostly nude when she's fighting because he wants to leer at women. The game is influenced by his misogyny.
She isn't sexual. She doesn't do anything sexual in 1 or 2 and the people that kept saying she was feminist are upset with 3 because she actually exhibits her sexuality in that game and it's a disaster. In 1 & 2 she was sexualized, which was a different thing as I explained already.
Just watch the Lingerie is not Armor video. It's all you need to understand why Bayonetta is sexist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jko06dA_x88
Skip to the 5 minute mark if you only want to watch the Bayonetta section. The video does use term sexuality in a negative context, but it means something different to how we've talked about it here.
We've talked about sexuality in a general sense, while the video focuses on a specific type of "sexuality".
Log off and touch grass. Your argument is right but you didn't need to post tits.
The only truly unsettling aspect about Bayonetta's design is that she has the body proportions of Slenderman
:long-corbyn:
the unsettling thing is that I can't have that :lenin-pensive:
inshallah make me into fem long-corbyn
I personally think that straight men should not be making sexy female characters and that it should only be handled by women and maybe nonbinary folks
I am a woman who always found her to be objectified in a sexist way but never said anything because people will treat you as sex-negative.
A lot of the reason you don't hear many women speak out about this kind of thing is we're shut down.
God forbid we not be reduced to sex dolls, dehumanised and designed for male pleasure. Like a product.
I do not find Bayonetta empowering. Especially as an enby AFAB.
I don't get it.
Bayonetta isn't sexy, it's so over the top that it crosses over from "sexy" to being fucking scary.
The director is a weirdo and these are absolutely his personal tastes in women reflected all over his work, but I'm not really for or against the character of Bayonetta. She's so much of a cartoon that she's practically an alien life form. It's so far out there that it's hard to even consider how it could reflect or impact reality.
Bayonetta is like Nintendo's Jojo.
Bayonetta is like Nintendo's JoJo
Someone has never stumbled upon JoJo porn I see
Or just mistook it for regular JoJo (understandable)
is jojo supposed to be bad? its just some gay mango (am gay, never read it)
Not my horny anime game nooooooo
Next you'll tell me that Dead or Alive or Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Samurai Squad aren't feminist masterpieces
And the original VA that shaped the character with her performance is a transphobic blue lives matter chud. The character is cursed.
Apparently I should have named this topic "Bayonetta struggle session".
It's a very very old treat defense for Epic G*mers to claim that whatever they're jacking off to is empowering. :soypoint-1: :hentai-free: :soypoint-2:
Hi, I'm a woman and I find strong and sexy characters empowering, and I enjoy dress up and character customization games that let me be sexy and attractive.
I enjoy dress up and character customization games that let me be sexy and attractive.
I kinda want both?
Like I want to be able to dress cute in the guild hall while dressed for fucking BATTLE in the field.
Also I like the outfits that manage to do both at once in an absurdly fantastical way.
I like when there's a choice in the matter. FFXIV is generally good about that: a character, male or female alike, can look as horny or as practical as they want. Some specific outfits are sexed up more on female characters (and a curious few are more sexed up on male characters) but mostly the choices are universal and what you see is what you get.
I don't actually have an issue with the character myself personally as much as I see the character's inception and the head developer in particular, who is a toxic douchebag, in a critical way.
Wonder Woman, after all, started as a thirsty guy's BDSM and truth-or-dare fantasies (the lasso especially) applied to comic books, intended specifically for the male gaze, starting with his own. The character didn't end there, but that's how the character began. Yes, lots of women find Wonder Woman empowering today (and I don't mean to criticize BDSM or for that matter consensual adult kink) but that wasn't really the intention or the focus for the creator.
The character, as-is, wasn't made by you, and wasn't made by a woman at all for that matter. It's nice that you enjoy that particular character but your enjoyment was not the intent or probably was thought about at all during the development process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jko06dA_x88&t=313s
As Sarkeesian put it, the character being a product of fiction was originally manufactured for and intended for the gaze and consumption of a specific :heated-gamer-moment: target audience. The "empowerment," however true it personally is to you after the fact, wasn't intentionally put there at an executive or marketing level, except maybe as a smoke screen to avert criticism, especially from women who did find the character objectifying instead of empowering.
What I was critical of, specifically, was dudebro G!mer types that claim what is empowering without the slightest hint of a woman's presence around or even wanted, but then they themselves want to define what is "empowering" anyway disingenously, when it's all about what they get off to first, foremost, and often exclusively.
Most of us enjoy problematic things (I absolutely love Dune and the gender politics alone in it are very sus). You're more than welcome to enjoy Bayonetta but the head of the game series didn't have you in mind. It just so happened that you liked the result.
wasn’t made by a woman at all
The action game "Bayonetta" was actually written, directed, and voiced by famous vocaloid Hatsune Miku :commiku:
I never played it but I always kind of thought the male gaze was so excessive and so unapologetic and so completely over the top that it could only be read as satire. Plus - Gun high heels. Who doesn't want gun heels?
I thought it was always very obviously played for laughs as well. I suppose it just turns out the male devs happened to be unironically horny and kinda creepy while making their satirically horny game
Wasn't Bayonetta's character designer a woman? Obviously she was designing a character for a game made in large part by dudes going :awooga: but still
People tried to tell them x was misogynist as fuck but they were dismissed as “sex-negative”
Many such cases!
Also no wonder this game struggled to sell, if the basis for the character is just perverse developers fantasies. Not exactly going to crack the mainstream, that already got played out to death in the 90s and early 2000s
The Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball hype wave was exhausting in its heyday.
Was this during Gamergate when the announcement that the third? entry would not get Western releases became a rallying point for dinguses who vowed they would expensively import the grindy softcore porn game to stick it to Anita Sarkeesian
(The reason it didnt get localised was because the previous game sold poorly)
That seems likely but I didn't check the dates myself.
This entire mess reminds me of that "V!v!an James" character from G!merGate that in an "empowering" way "just wants to play games" while also being a cheerleader for deliberately reinforced patriarchy, up to and including being the sockpuppet for memes about how feeemales are simply unfit for leadership in game corporations because biotruths.
I get squicked when a cishet man makes an :awooga: focused character and the pretense is "empowerment" to deflect criticism. Sure, someone somewhere is likely to see almost any individual fictional character as empowering, but does that mean all criticism must be shut down? Is my wife's opinion of Bayonetta's "empowerment" less valid than such a fan? If she less of a woman because she criticized the treats right alongside me?
And it still sold like shit lol. Clearly no one wanted that type of game anymore
Oof, also Dante’s voice actor is a fashie too.
Langdon claims to have had his first UFO sighting in the late 2000s, which sparked his interest in ufology and the paranormal.[15] He has since spent time researching extraterrestrials, and is the creator and host of the web show Interview With E.D. (Extra-Dimensionals).[15][16] In 2013, he co-produced a five-day event called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The event brought together over 40 people, mostly ex-government and military, to testify in front of six former U.S. Congress members in a mock congressional hearing about the possibility of aliens interacting with humans.[15] He has claimed that this event is the most comprehensive body of evidence and testimony delivered to the public on the subject of aliens.[15]
:jesse-wtf:
Reminds me of how a voice actor in Deus Ex Human Revolution apparently got recast because he got an obsession with gangstalking.
I honestly prefer a directer being honest about making a character look sexy because it gets his dick hard.
I still remember when people were calling Kojima out over Quiets outfit and he was like: "You guys will be ashamed about your comments when you play the game and understand the reason for her skimpy outfit."
The reason for those unaware was that Quiet breathes through her skin because of nanobots or some shit and apperently wearing normal clothes makes it impossible for her to get enough oxygen.
I mean, it doesn't change the final result obviously but making excuses that are based on the lore that the writers themselves created (especially when the writing is this dumb) is more pathetic in my opinion.
I like the guy who made nier automata because he admitted the character design was because he liked girls in heels with big boots, but wasn't as weird and creepy about it as this guy.
Rendering that :butt: probably had a significant contribution to global warming.
Also the character she got that ability from was a pasty white guy who was covered head to toe with thick military clothing.
The remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 will have The End in a bikini.
He has a shower scene if you do a non-lethal takedown. I would know, my uncle works at Konami.
He is famously cranky on the Internet. It does not surprise me he's got some interesting ideas about women
For some reason, Bayonetta and Velvet Assassin are linked in my mind. idk
