So, nobody ever talks about men's body depiction in media...

silverharp

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Bit of a long one for me there, nothing compared to that behemoth posted by Wibbs though. I think beks is right in that women have it much worse than men in regards to expectations of appearance. I could do with a bit of exercise myself but the only form I seem to enjoy is long walks. I've a bit of a beer belly (odd since I barely drink at all) but I don't think I'd get judged too harshly for that by the opposite sex. What does bother me is that some men, like a friend of mine seem to think that they have to look big and buff and doing so entails hours upon hours spent in the gym with severe constraints placed on their diets and activities outside it. I'd rather have a good book and a wee snack myself.

I always got the impression that most of the pressure that women face is from other women right? beyond the basics it starts to over our heads whereas on the whole guys dont really go around judging each others appearances that much.

on a more general thought on the thread I was wondering all the nonsense about female game characters etc is because they are drawn by men whereas men dont mind seeing outlandish "He Man" type characters in entertainment because it fits in with our imagination better.

ancapailldorcha

Deleted User wrote: »

That's something I found crazy, ancapaill. Just how much emphasis they place on regimes with regards to exercise and nutrition. It's important to look after yourself, sure, but sometimes it borders on near fanatical status; I was in a gym before, talking briefly to one of the instructors that was doing some exercise during his off time and he said sheepishly that he had eaten a slice of cake. Part of me thought that he was being absolutely serious and now needs to do hours of exercise to undo the damage of a cake.

In some regards, it really feels like it is a new kind of eating disorder. OK, yes, exaggeration, sure, but it can be worrying. You eat something and now need to purge it through cardio and weights. Again, exaggeration.

Regarding the depiction of women - absolutely. It is utterly ludicrous how there's some games, movies, and TV shows (I'm looking at you anime) that depict women as nothing but big breasted, loosely clad pieces of flesh.

For me the perfect example of a fantastic depiction of women is the reboot of the Tomb Raider series.

+1

The chaps I knew seemed to feel like they had to prove something. I remember there was a thread on this site a good while ago about a guy who had panicked because he had deviated from his diet of brown rice and turkey. That was his whole diet and he had one meal which wasn't brown rice and turkey and seemed to be freaking out a bit. As I said above, I could do with a bit of weightlifting but these chaps seem to be on a different level altogether. A bit of what you fancy now and then...

To be honest, I just don't get why female characters are made to wear as little as possible. I've not played the new Tomb Raider series as my laptop won't handle it but she's fully clothed which seems a good sign.

orubiru

Deleted User wrote: »

That's something I found crazy, ancapaill. Just how much emphasis they place on regimes with regards to exercise and nutrition. It's important to look after yourself, sure, but sometimes it borders on near fanatical status; I was in a gym before, talking briefly to one of the instructors that was doing some exercise during his off time and he said sheepishly that he had eaten a slice of cake. Part of me thought that he was being absolutely serious and now needs to do hours of exercise to undo the damage of a cake.

In some regards, it really feels like it is a new kind of eating disorder. OK, yes, exaggeration, sure, but it can be worrying. You eat something and now need to purge it through cardio and weights. Again, exaggeration.

Regarding the depiction of women - absolutely. It is utterly ludicrous how there's some games, movies, and TV shows (I'm looking at you anime) that depict women as nothing but big breasted, loosely clad pieces of flesh.

For me the perfect example of a fantastic depiction of women is the reboot of the Tomb Raider series.

Hm. On the cake thing, you'd probably have to do a 5km run to burn off the calories from that piece of cake. So, if you were on a strict diet to attain a particular goal then, yes, a piece of cake would be pretty annoying.

If you were trying to save up for a new car and you got a 250 euro parking fine you would feel the same level of annoyance right?

The only time I would really say it's a problem is if the person genuinely hates going to the gym and working out but still spends many many hours doing that. That's their problem though. Not societies problem.

I'd say that in 2015 I've spent several hundred hours playing video games (maybe even over 1,000!). Now, if I had spent that exact same time working out? I'd be feeling amazing and looking amazing. I chose video games. As long as it's a choice then what's the big deal?

I think the key is that there are SOME games, movies and TV that depict women in a particular way. Not all of them. The creators of those things choose to depict the women that way. Again, that's their choice and the consumers choice.

orubiru

silverharp wrote: »

I always got the impression that most of the pressure that women face is from other women right? beyond the basics it starts to over our heads whereas on the whole guys dont really go around judging each others appearances that much.

on a more general thought on the thread I was wondering all the nonsense about female game characters etc is because they are drawn by men whereas men dont mind seeing outlandish "He Man" type characters in entertainment because it fits in with our imagination better.

One of the things I had been thinking was, if you look around at the people next time you are on public transport or just walking through town or when you are on a night out, does it REALLY look like society is obsessed with body image? I would say no. Most people, it seems, don't really care that much.

I really wonder if the number of people who have a problem with "body depictions" is actually rather small but they are the only people making noises about this. Everyone else is just getting on with their lives.

If we took Bayonetta, a video game famous for causing uproar about depictions of women, as a example. The game was released at the end of October 2009 and had sold 1.35 million copies worldwide by the end of March 2010. So, the question is how many people are actually making noise about how this game depicts women? How many of those people have actually even bought or played the game?

One of the traps I fall into with this kind of conversation is to say "sure, guys probably don't care about He-man type characters but women are causing uproar when they see a flash of boob on TV". That's really incorrect though. Most people, men and women, just don't care. They probably aren't even aware that there is a discussion on the issue.

beks101

orubiru wrote: »

I really wonder if the number of people who have a problem with "body depictions" is actually rather small but they are the only people making noises about this. Everyone else is just getting on with their lives.

I don't think the general upwards trend on our collective western weighing scales is indicative of people not caring. Conversely, I think it's the opposite - the cultural references and the endless onslaught of the diet and fitness industry to meet said references just generally leave people in a state of confusion, frustration and with all kinds of body image and eating distress issues.

Most of the overweight women I know are "on a diet." That usually means, restricting some food group or another or "juicing" or existing on meal replacements or any number of retarded things that is making trends on social media/online. It's not sustainable, it doesn't promote strength and fitness, it messes with their metabolism and it doesn't deal with the emotional issues that caused the weight gain in the first place so the end result = long-term weight gain.

I would actually say IME the obsession with dieting and the endless stream of contradictory information/misinformation we're fed on a daily basis that does nothing to educate us about our bodies is a major contributory factor in the growing obesity epidemic.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

To be honest, I just don't get why female characters are made to wear as little as possible. I've not played the new Tomb Raider series as my laptop won't handle it but she's fully clothed which seems a good sign.

It isn't just that she's fully clothed, it's that she's actually a fully rounded out character, who is also unbelievably kick ass too. Also the fact that the character was modelled after an actual living breathing woman and that the story was actually written by a woman (Terry Pratchett's daughter, no less!) lends a lot to the success.

I do feel that a lot of Western AAA titles are moving towards positive portrayals of women; Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us being two that I can think of right away.

Something I never understood is why a lot of fantasy video games sexualize the clothes their female characters wear. Even creepier when you see a lot of Eastern (primarily Japanese) video games and movies essentially sexualizing characters that are supposed to be quite young.

ancapailldorcha

Deleted User wrote: »

It isn't just that she's fully clothed, it's that she's actually a fully rounded out character, who is also unbelievably kick ass too. Also the fact that the character was modelled after an actual living breathing woman and that the story was actually written by a woman (Terry Pratchett's daughter, no less!) lends a lot to the success.

I don't want to go too far off topic here but I inferred the first bit from your post. Interesting trivia though.

Sleepy

Wibbs wrote: »

An ancient Greek woman may have bemoaned extra weight, but the ideals in the statues she saw around her were well within normal women's range and reality. The men's were generally much more the exaggerated ones.

Would it be fair to say that the gender roles of the time would play a large role in this though?

Men would have obtained physiques we'd now only see on gym rats through military service and the subjects of statuary of the time would have favoured the martial classes. Even in modern armies where battle is conducted with weapons requiring little physical strength (compared to the swords / spears / bows of the Greco-Roman era) you'd be hard pressed to find many men who weren't in admirable physical condition if not quite the "god-like" physiques depicted above. In fact, if you look at the gym routines the actors in the 300 went through to look as they did in the film, they were specifically focused on developing their musculature to be "warrior-like", developed from fluid motions working entire muscle groups rather than the more cartoonish body-builder look obtained via targeting individual muscles with weights.

Women, on the other hand, would have been most valued in that time for their role as mothers, hence the Venus having what looks like a relatively normal post-pregnancy body?

Wibbs

Deleted User wrote: »

Something I never understood is why a lot of fantasy video games sexualize the clothes their female characters wear.

Because the target audience is adolescent males? Never mind that women's fashions in general sexualise women far more than men's fashions do men and that starts young with it. Basically B that's what sells and it has been selling for a very long time. Indeed about the most distorted body images one can find in our culture is in women's fashion, an area of our culture where straight men would be in the minority of the prime movers and shakers.

Sleepy wrote:

Would it be fair to say that the gender roles of the time would play a large role in this though?

Aye that would play a big role alright. Then again if we look at "primitive" cultures today where the warrior caste is strong they tend towards wiriness rather than the bulk seen in films like 300 and comic heroes and I suspect actual Spartans would have too(plus they wore armour, they weren't daft ). Though over the centuries and cultures the female ideal tends to swing in a much wider arc than the male(though circling around a basic "healthy" size that would work in most times).

Potatoeman

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It isn't just that she's fully clothed, it's that she's actually a fully rounded out character, who is also unbelievably kick ass too. Also the fact that the character was modelled after an actual living breathing woman and that the story was actually written by a woman (Terry Pratchett's daughter, no less!) lends a lot to the success.

I do feel that a lot of Western AAA titles are moving towards positive portrayals of women; Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us being two that I can think of right away.

Something I never understood is why a lot of fantasy video games sexualize the clothes their female characters wear. Even creepier when you see a lot of Eastern (primarily Japanese) video games and movies essentially sexualizing characters that are supposed to be quite young.

Tomb Raider was always fully clothed. She just had exaggerated assets like many male characters. It was titillation for teenage boys. There have been plenty of good female characters and plenty of badly written eyecandy characters. There has also been plenty of badly written male characters too.

As for the second point, they sexualise female characters because sex sells and it's young men that are their target market.

While watching a show on All4, there was an advertisement in the middle for a show called My Male Body Handbook, which is a show seemingly about the male body and its many forms.. however.. every single shot was of muscular or toned men.