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qarbone@lemmy.world 1 month agoMy issue with “porn in nonporn” is it almost always feels objectifying. Like the gooner Supergirl in the OP image: if her character liked the look of a battlethong and owned it, then that’s fine. It might even factor into the story. But if she just looks like that and acts like things are normal, then it’s like she is being sexed up solely for some nondiegetic viewer. It gives me the same sort of voyeuristic ick as invisible people peeping in locker rooms or perverts abusing X-Ray glasses.
I don’t mind Skinemax; like softcore porn is fine. Because everyone understands the assignment.
I can only think of maybe a small handful of positive instances of “porn in nonporn”. For example, Bayonetta as a character is very much aware of her sexiness, and approves of flaunting it. Compare that to something like Stellar Blade, where the Eve is just “accidentally” super hot, with zero self awareness.
I agree, is what I’m saying.
And that makes a huge difference imo. Both are designed to be hot and gazed at, but Bayonetta is at least given watsonian agency. The character is in this way believable, because yeah the people in real life who dress super skimpy in a fashionable way are typically doing so on purpose.
The realistic version of the “hot chick who just happens to be dressing skimpy” would probably be just dressing plainly for hot weather. But it would be a distinct and interesting character design choice to have a major character in a video game just wearing cutoff shorts, a tank top, and practical sandals. That character design feels much more aimed at female players than male ones, and like if in a genre with lots of skimpy outfits would be an intentional rejection of the trope.
Yeah I think there’s this huge gap between the image on the left and say the way the parents acted in Malcolm in the Middle. The former is sexually suggestive in a sterile way. It’s like if your accountant was working in their underwear. The latter is sexual without being sexy. It’s a married couple who has a major character trait of trying to fit some boinking into any gap in the schedule they can. It doesn’t try to titilate the viewer, but instead just depicts sex as a normal part of adult life.
I’m not saying one shouldn’t have sexy characters, but when it’s emphasized the sexy should always serve the character. None of this “she breathes through her skin” nonsense. No you want a superhero in a blatantly sexual outfit, then tell us about how they’re insecure and showing skin to deal with it, or that they’re using sexuality to cope with the stress and difficulties of their job, or even just that they really like feeling hot. Have them acknowledge the sex behind the sexual choices the designers made.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I get what you’re saying and I agree to an extent but even shit like that doesn’t really exist anymore. Like I said it feels like something over corrected when moving away from objectification and right into puritanism. I don’t quite have the verbage required to quite explain what I mean, it just kinda feels like a lot of media and even culture is outright sex averse in a weird way.
qarbone@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’d say that is a US-centric concern (and media that expects the US market), maybe even more broadly a Western concern. Japan at least, uh, has not had much of a concern with sexifying…pretty much anything.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Sure but that’s one country. Mind you I’m more or less referring to the anglosphere but I’ve noticed it as a general trend overall, it may also be effecting other western nations as well I’m just not aware on that front. Don’t get me wrong I’m kinda happy the Japanese are so open with that shit but it’s still frustrating when they seem to be the only ones, also localization censorship is still a thing and can get fucked six ways from Sunday.