The title alone is going to catch me some heat but this is something I’ve wanted to talk about for a good minute now. And that is, the hypocrisy of some, I gotta stress it again, SOME of these female geeks/cosplayers/streamers and their message on how women are portrayed in games (or anything fiction for that matter).
For a while now, we’ve seen the movement, if you want to call it that, of a certain group of women advocating on the representation of women in gaming. One of their major vocal points that I’ve understood is that these groups of women do not want to see girls sexualized in any capacity. Long story short, sexy women in games is a big no-no!
Hear me out here, because this is where I get confused with the message that they are advocating for which, I would understand if their actions actually matched up with their words. A while back, Atlus released a concept art for the new character who’s a Gymnast called Kasumi Yoshizawa, that’s going to be joining the Persona 5 Royale roster. Here’s the picture below for reference, keep this in mind as we go further.
One of the main arguments in this case was that the girl is a high-school student and thus shouldn’t be dressed in the manner that she does. It even got re-edited by a Twitter user to make so type of point, to be they proceeded to claim that Atlus is back on the horny bullshit. Now, if I’m not mistaken, a leotoard is a common clothing that one wears when she’s an active practitioner of gymnastics. It was never lewd in it’s conception until the Twitter made it lewd.
This is just of the many examples out there of people having issues with how a female character is represented in games. Another one is Vampirella, a character who is usually depicted in a sexualized manner. In her case, there’s a lore that explains why she chooses to wear the type of clothing that she does in the comic. Yeah, you could say that that’s just the writer’s way to get away with drawing her like that but that’s whole other debate for another day. Still, people as you’d imagine found issue with Vapirella and made their case known.
Here is where the hypocrisy comes into question. They would condemn the depiction of sexy woman in games and comics, yet will actively portray themselves as those characters, and would even sexualize the characters originally never started out like that. You’ll see it on Twitter, Instagram, you name it. If you can post a pic on that platform, you’ll most likely find lewd content. You’ll have people lose their shit over Kasumi’s attire, yet will see girls online make lewd version of Dora the explorer, a child. Then in that same instances, you’ll hear girls who may not cosplay themselves, promote these girls by sharing and uplifting them, yet are quick to attack a company that releases a new character that happens to be slightly sexy.
There’s not a clear message here and it just looks hypocritical at this point. I’m just saying, I’m not attacking the idea of lewd cosplayer, I’m just pointing out the clear hypocrisy that I’ve seen online time and time again. Heck, these women who behavior like this and act like they speak for all women, are called out by the majority of women who aren’t for their idea of censorship.
I get that we are in a “progressive” time but there’s still some called reality and consistency. If you’re going to talk the talk, then you better walk the walk. Otherwise, you’ll look hypocritical. That’s my thoughts on it! Let me know know what you think?
