Topic: Are Japanese developers just misogynistic pigs?

[X]

hehe, that's cute uzo    Those hamsters remind me of Boo from the Yaoi House web comic. And congratz on your game man.

[K.K. Drunkinski]

I've been hearing both sides of this same damn argument for years. The thing is, to me at least, the problem lies in people not being able to get over their own insecurities and hangups. It's a weird thing, that people act like a woman character can either be ONLY a sexual object, or ONLY a tough hero, but NEVER both. That sort of thinking implies that a strong, tough woman, can't also be hot and attractive, and, dare I say, even a bit "slutty" if she wants. Before anyone wants to get uppity about what I said, I suggest reading about Wendy O. Williams and watching a few of her concerts.

[Gunlord]

OMG Uzo...that game was made for me, prunyuu~ *_*

[Intersection]

The issue's not as clear cut as it's usually made out to be.

For one, it's only natural to have different sets of standards for men and for women. Think, for example, of a "dominant, independent and aggressive" man: push the stereotype to the extreme, and chances are you'll think of someone like John Matrix (or, for that matter, any of Schwarzenegger's roles  ). But think of a dominant, independent, aggressive woman, and you'll probably come up with someone like Nikita. Same description, but very different archetypes.

Naturally, not everyone has a similar mindset. But for those who do, it's less a case of blatant misogyny than it is a case of simple character dissociation, and it's as much the result of our considerable cultural baggage than it is the result of a simple morphological assessment: women simply don't have the physical build to permanently vie for the role of the tough muscle man we've learned to idealize. And of course, from a historical standpoint, women have never really been associated with strength or aggressiveness. The opposite is also true, for the same reasons: men don't really have the same presence as women in roles that require more subtle or seductive qualities. It's not that they don't, but it's not of the same kind. Hence the common denotations of 'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities.

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Of course, you could tell me that what I've just written precisely describes misogyny. Yet all I've established are the most common distinctions people habitually make between men and women. You could tell me, then, that this was because the general societal outlook on gender was in itself misogynistic: and to this I wouldn't really have an answer, because I really don't know whether or not it's true. But you could go even further, in fact, and tell me that it was precisely why traditional norms of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' should be replaced, since they are inaccurate and fail to convey a necessary sense of equality.

Well, in that case, let's replace them. But replace them with what? Replace them with nothing? Of course not -- you can't pretend that men and women are absolutely identical. So we have to replace them with something, in a sense, better. But how do we know that the new norms we've chosen are better? What do we base ourselves upon? Our culture? No, because we've just said that our cultural views are inaccurate. What, then? Scientific fact? But what's scientific about all this? Does science really have a criterion for what qualities are 'feminine' or 'masculine'? No, it doesn't. So, in essence, we have nothing to base ourselves upon. Strip away our cultural baggage, detach us from our age-old interactions with women, and we really haven't got any idea of what we're doing. We're just throwing shots in the dark.

So, you see, this is when the line finally blurs. When we stop making the difference between gender equality, and gender identity. Between innocent differentiation and harmful discrimination. Confuse the two, and you've gone past the point of no return.

I've gone far, far off topic here, but it's only to prove a very important point: misogyny is an incredibly relative term. I'm not saying that misogyny doesn't exist: it absolutely does, and it is something that must be fought against. But there's just a point beyond which the word barely means anything anymore. You could call any man-woman distinction a case of misogyny: you could keep arguing for and against it, but you'd still have an entirely meaningless discussion in the end.

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Time to actually answer the question  .
Are all Japanese developers just misogynistic pics? No -- at least, not all of them. But I think you expected that, so I'll give an example.

Metroid: Other M was caught in a whole string of more or less accurate accusations of misogyny, but I don't think that was what made the plot seem so lackluster. After all, Other M was made by the same man who had created Samus in the first place. Instead, I think it was simply the result of a failed attempt to give some added depth to Samus's character; in the end, though, her poorly-managed characterization just came off as unnecessary, and the game's relatively convoluted plot only made this worse. The game tried to humanize her by giving her a sense of vulnerability, but the latter aspect was overblown at the expense of the former.

The 3rd Birthday? I can't really speak about the plot, since it's not exactly very conventional. But I can tell you that the clothing damage that was implemented makes this a very Japanese game, and not in a very good way. I can promise you that clothes don't actually get damaged like that.

And yes, pretty much everything related to clothing damage, breast physics, panty shots, and overall fanservice could go down as misogynistic. But remember that the devs aren't the only perpetrators here: they're only including what their general fanbase would enjoy. Food for thought.

[uzo]

That's some pretty good insight, and well written at that.

I think that you are generally confusing misogynistic with sexisim and or gender stereotyping though. Misogyny is quite literally the hated or distrust of women. Modern games tend to fall more in the realm of sexisim, and usually there by gender stereotyping.

As an example, if the developer was misogynistic, they would likely show women being beaten for fun, or somehow acted upon poorly because the author wishes to do that, or wants to see that happen to women. Or, all the female characters in the game are 'badguys', or betray the male lead.

Having the female character be the mage always, while the male is the knight always, is pretty much sexisim if it's not intended to be harmful. It's more of the author having the belief that women can't realistically be knights, or they are weaker physically ergo must be mages. Inclusive of the above, having the female character be the cook, or cleaner, or wear all pink, fall more into the gender stereotyping territory. It's more of a narrow point of view, as opposed to an intentionally hurtful one.

Not to say that either is OK, or justified in a way, however they are definitely not the same degree of terrible. Gender stereotyping is usually born of inexperience, or closed minds. I personally believe the vast majority of it falls into this category. I have a hard time believing that developers sit around and plot ways to be misogynistic in their games. I think some developers can be hurtful, even to their own female staff (a topic for another day), but perhaps more so through social inexperienced and insensitivity as opposed to full on hatred or malice. At the very least that is not the case at my company, Skylance Studio.

All of the above in the proper scenario can be hurtful, even if unintentionally. Arguably it can be culturally reinforcing the continued belief of such stereotypes, or even worse, causing the spread misogyny itself.

On the other side of the fence some gender stereotypes, and stereotypes in general, can be helpful in helping characters have recognisable identities. After all, a lot of stereotypes have had, or still do have, some truth behind them. Groups of people do usually have some stand out or recognisable common traits. Some hurtful, some not. You can use positive, and light hearted, stereotypes to help viewers identify with characters, and to give them a base line identity.

As an example, in my game Hamster Drop the designs of the human characters were deliberately invoking musical themed stereotypes. You can tell what kind of music that Raye, Alex, and Bo would listen to just by looking at them. In a way, it helps the player connect with the character if they have similar musical tastes. I would consider these positive stereotypes that help bridge the player to the characters. It speaks a lot about the characters by first visual, and makes them easier to understand and relate to.

I think it's really a case of the tool can be good or bad, depending on how you use it. You certainly need to be aware of the public's perception of things, and just common courtesy in general.

Another sub-topic thats highly related is also the application of gender norms by one gender to another, where it doesn't really fit. It sounds like you briefly hinted to it in your post too. I don't have time to get too far into it, but the basic idea is pretty much that men and women view different traits as desirable.

As an example, men tend to value raw strength, and so making a female character who can go all DBZ on her enemies tends to be a quality thats looked at more favorably by men. In a way you can see how this may feel 'wrong' or even upsetting/insulting to a the opposite gender. As if the authors are men who 'don't get me/women'.

To the men however this kind of backlash can be confusing, as from their point of view being able to go all DBZ on people is one of the coolest and highly prized ways to empower someone.

These mismatched expectations cause a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding whenever the sexisim thing is brought up.

The opposite, where a male character written by a female author, can also come off as off putting to men. However this doesn't happen nearly as much in the games industry, as the vast majority of works are made by men, typically created with a man's understanding of what is desirable and the world's view from the male perspective.

In the end it's a giant mess to which I don't have much of a solution to. Every time I think about it, I see a new piece to the puzzle and the whole thing gets that much more complex. All I can do here is practice what I preach,  and give you the 'current state of affairs'.

[X]

After all, Other M was made by the same man who had created Samus in the first place

To my knowledge (and I just looked this up) Hiroji Kiyotake was the man behind the Samus Aran character and has had nothing to do with the development of Other M.

[Super Waffle]

I don't know what you guys are talking about.

[KaZudra]

When Tomb Raider was written by Men, She was a adventurous badass and women can be villains too (Underworld)
When Tomb Raider was written by a woman, she was a weakling underdog and men are evil and can only be evil

[K.K. Drunkinski]

I've brought this up in another thread on here, but once again, the Japanese "objectify" men as well as women in alot of games. Simon Belmont's appearance in CV Judgement is a prime example. And ya know, it's not mentioned much in this context, but I wanna say something about Zangief from Street Fighter. People complain about female video game characters having giant tits, but, have you ever noticed the ENORMOUS size of the package those developers gave Zangief? I'm afraid it's gonna pop out of his little undies and slap me whenever I play that game. But, ya know, that's TOTALLY different, right?

[Sonic_Reaper]

The issue's not as clear cut as it's usually made out to be.

For one, it's only natural to have different sets of standards for men and for women.

I don't agree with this, nor do I see how it is "natural".  Descriptive traits disassociated from literal sex are socially constructed.

And of course, from a historical standpoint, women have never really been associated with strength or aggressiveness.

Depends on how far back in history you go.  If we're talking ancient history, women were very much revered at one point and took on the role of leaders.

The opposite is also true, for the same reasons: men don't really have the same presence as women in roles that require more subtle or seductive qualities. It's not that they don't, but it's not of the same kind. Hence the common denotations of 'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities.

I also don't agree with this.  This stated belief is an outdated one.  It's not uncommon for both men and women to cross both the sex and gender line, especially today.  Society is more moving towards a blending of the sexes, and a greying of the traits stereotypically associated with men and women.  Also, see my first point with regards to masculine and feminine qualities (ie:  they don't actually exist).

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You can't pretend that men and women are absolutely identical. So we have to replace them with something, in a sense, better. But how do we know that the new norms we've chosen are better? What do we base ourselves upon? Our culture? No, because we've just said that our cultural views are inaccurate. What, then? Scientific fact? But what's scientific about all this? Does science really have a criterion for what qualities are 'feminine' or 'masculine'? No, it doesn't. So, in essence, we have nothing to base ourselves upon. Strip away our cultural baggage, detach us from our age-old interactions with women, and we really haven't got any idea of what we're doing. We're just throwing shots in the dark.

Uh, you've basically undone what you've just said in the first two paragraphs.  But I guess this is your point?  I understand what you're trying to do here, but you're basically contradicting yourself, as you first said this wasn't a clear cut issue.  So replacing the norms makes no sense, nor is using a biased system as a basis. Associative personality traits are neutral, neither feminine nor masculine, I don't see what the problem here is.  You're learning awfully close to "label" territory, and a fear restrictive mentality that personality traits needs to be defined by masculine or feminine in the first place.  Either way, I don't think you've made a point here at all besides creating circular logic.

The 3rd Birthday? I can't really speak about the plot, since it's not exactly very conventional. But I can tell you that the clothing damage that was implemented makes this a very Japanese game, and not in a very good way. I can promise you that clothes don't actually get damaged like that.

SPOILERS

Apparently you don't play as Aya, but as Eve, the little girl that's essentially her clone from the 2nd game.  It just so happens that Eve grows up to be a typical Japanese stereotype of what men view women as.  If you've played the game, you'll notice that misogyny is definitely present, in that the male characters treat "Aya" like absolute shit.  She shrugs off sexual innuendo and smug remarks, without ever saying anything about it.  And these comments come from the people she works with on an everyday basis.  In what reality does that fly?  Oh, right, Japan.

And yes, pretty much everything related to clothing damage, breast physics, panty shots, and overall fanservice could go down as misogynistic. But remember that the devs aren't the only perpetrators here: they're only including what their general fanbase would enjoy. Food for thought.

I don't necessarily agree with this.  I think they include what they enjoy first and foremost.  You can certainly pain through the misogyny and enjoy a series, but that doesn't make it any less egregious.

I have to admit, and no one caught it, but Lara Croft was a trap.  At least, the first entry in the series (and still far into the game series, ending with with the latest one at the moment).  I don't feel Lara Croft is an example of misogyny or sexism.  The reason being?  She's the main character.  Now, usually this isn't directly connected with the topic (ahem, 3rd Birthday), but in the case of Lara Croft, no matter what happens, she's in control 98% of the time.  And this is meant in more ways than one.  If you notice in the first few (four) games, she never responds to or reacts to lewd remarks.  The reason being in that, she realizes she's attractive and has, uhm, rather prevalent assets, but she is uses it as either a distraction, or a form of manipulation to get what she wants.  She plays on men's predictable behavior, and uses it to her advantage.  So basically, she's pretty smart and cunning.  Sure, the giant gravity defying breasts act as fantasy fuel, but it also plays into the story, which tells me the devs are cognizant of this very fact.  Also note, as KaZiz pointed out, the main villain in the first game was female.  Lara's assets had no effect on her.  This was another smart move by the developers.

[Intersection]

I think that you are generally confusing misogynistic with sexisim and or gender stereotyping though. Misogyny is quite literally the hated or distrust of women. Modern games tend to fall more in the realm of sexisim, and usually there by gender stereotyping.

That's very possible. The terms tend to be used interchangeably these days, so I didn't really try to set them apart. If you took every mention of 'misogyny' in my post and replaced it by 'sexism', its meaning wouldn't be drastically changed.

To my knowledge (and I just looked this up) Hiroji Kiyotake was the man behind the Samus Aran character and has had nothing to do with the development of Other M.

Yoshio Sakamoto, co-creator of Metroid, was director of Metroid: Other M.

I don't agree with this, nor do I see how it is "natural".  Descriptive traits disassociated from literal sex are socially constructed.

But that social construction must have come from somewhere, right? It's that simple: from the physical and behavioral differences between men and women, we've naturally learned to derive certain traits that we feel are more likely to be found in one or the other.

I also don't agree with this.  This stated belief is an outdated one.  It's not uncommon for both men and women to cross both the sex and gender line, especially today.  Society is more moving towards a blending of the sexes, and a greying of the traits stereotypically associated with men and women.

It's not a belief, it's an observation. The same general attributes are often perceived differently when applied to men or to women. It's what I had described earlier: for example, the 'dominant' and 'independent' attributes will tend to vary in connotation when applied to male or female archetypes.
Also, this 'blending of the sexes' is part of an entirely different debate. Misogyny is a behavior explicitly directed towards women, and doesn't concern any of the 'gray areas' of gender.

Also, see my first point with regards to masculine and feminine qualities (ie:  they don't actually exist).

I disagree. Men and women are physically and behaviorally different, hence they're qualitatively different, hence there exist qualities inherent to one but not to the other, hence specifically masculine and feminine qualities exist. What these qualities are is subject to debate, of course, but not their existence in itself.

Uh, you've basically undone what you've just said in the first two paragraphs.  But I guess this is your point?  I understand what you're trying to do here, but you're basically contradicting yourself, as you first said this wasn't a clear cut issue.  So replacing the norms makes no sense, nor is using a biased system as a basis. Associative personality traits are neutral, neither feminine nor masculine, I don't see what the problem here is.  You're learning awfully close to "label" territory, and a fear restrictive mentality that personality traits needs to be defined by masculine or feminine in the first place.  Either way, I don't think you've made a point here at all besides creating circular logic.

I think you misunderstood me here. Think of my reasoning as a "what if" thought process; I went to the end of it, found a problem, and concluded that the original premise was itself problematic. Here's the point I was trying to get across: claiming that our societal gender norms are entirely inaccurate isn't a feasible solution in the long run, since once we discount our cultural standards as a viable frame of reference, we have no way of validating any new set of norms we could propose. In other words, our cultural norms are, unfortunately, the closest things we have to an objective basis for defining masculinity and feminity; take them away and you'll be, in a sense, left floating in space.

[Ratty]

I've been hearing both sides of this same damn argument for years. The thing is, to me at least, the problem lies in people not being able to get over their own insecurities and hangups. It's a weird thing, that people act like a woman character can either be ONLY a sexual object, or ONLY a tough hero, but NEVER both. That sort of thinking implies that a strong, tough woman, can't also be hot and attractive, and, dare I say, even a bit "slutty" if she wants. Before anyone wants to get uppity about what I said, I suggest reading about Wendy O. Williams and watching a few of her concerts.

The problem isn't really that women characters can't be tough and sexy, it's that they always have to be sexy. Or in the rare cases where they're not their un-sexiness is usually a central part of their "arc" or their personality. Like "the fat girl" or "the unhygienic nerdy girl" in a lot of low-brow comedies. This severely limits female characters as actual characters since one of their primary traits always has to be "unusually attractive" or be the butt of a joke. And a character that's not really a character is at best a plot device and at worst purely there for decoration. And it's a problem when women, over half the human population, are hard-pressed to find examples of themselves in popular media who can't at least partially be described as "there for decoration". Think of the message that sends to women and even little kids every day, women are largely if not only around to look pretty, it's their duty and they better not fail it.

It's not like women have been totally ignored by the market though, it's just that the AAA industry has been too afraid of stepping outside the dudebro comfort zone to court female customers. And the casual market has swooped in. Extra Credits: Overlooked

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I've brought this up in another thread on here, but once again, the Japanese "objectify" men as well as women in alot of games. Simon Belmont's appearance in CV Judgement is a prime example. And ya know, it's not mentioned much in this context, but I wanna say something about Zangief from Street Fighter. People complain about female video game characters having giant tits, but, have you ever noticed the ENORMOUS size of the package those developers gave Zangief? I'm afraid it's gonna pop out of his little undies and slap me whenever I play that game. But, ya know, that's TOTALLY different, right?

LOL LOL LOL **pulls out Male Privilege Bingo card** Yup, B1 or B3...

[K.K. Drunkinski]

Whoa now, I can see how I can come off sounding that way, Jorge. But to put my comments in proper perspective, ya gotta understand, i'm a tiny, bony, long haired sissy man with more than a few bisexual tendencies. I'm the last dude to be about some male privilege. Hell, my wife can totally kick the livin' piss outta me. She a tough 'un, and I don't feel no shame about that. Maybe my personal life makes me look at it all in a different way than most. Also, I was raised by my momma, my dad ditched out when i was 2, and, my little sister and me have always been way cooler with each other than me and my little brother. I only point all that out to make it clear I'm not the type you think I am, but I do understand how my comments could be taken in that context. I'm just supplying some background info so you can maybe see my comments in the light i meant to say them in.

[K.K. Drunkinski]

And I forgot to add, about the Zangief thing, I wasn't complaining about it. My thing is, I don't get offended at people making fantasy characters all sexed up, whether it's a male, or female character. It's entertainment, and shit, sex sells. I like my women AND men to look sexy in a game. I could possibly be accused of being a pervert. I can accept that. But I ain't on either side of the feminism vs. male privilege argument.