this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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I'm gonna be real with you: Bayonetta was created by a man, and don't give me that "designed by a woman" bs bc we all have a job to do and we all need to put bread on the table. Hideki's comments about women being "intimidating" and "competitive" especially put things into perspective with Bayonetta's design. It's just another form that the male gaze and heteronormative sex appeal can take (dominating and competent instead of the usual submissive and helpless woman). A better example of a dominating and competent female vg character would be Karlach. You can have a "sexy" character without making them sexist.
I say this as someone that played and loves the first 2 games (I'm not supporting a Zionist voice actress that hates the living fuck out of people like me, so I'm not playing 3).
I think this meme is mostly correct. Maybe a case can be made for 2B, but I personally stand by what I said about all of them. People have no reason to hate on Eve (or stellar blade for that matter), unless they also find Bayonetta and 2B's design problematic as well.
She's probably going to be just as "well written" as the other two characters, you don't know until you've played the game.
She really is no different than the other 2 characters in design philosophy as well, if we're being honest.
All 3 were developed and designed (or had to undergo design approval) by men, all 3 are sexualized on purpose to cater to a mostly male-hetero fan base, all 3 have had (and in Eve's case currently have) a toxic "gamer gate" crowd that's blaming feminists and feminism for "taking away their hot women" and replacing them with "ugly women"
I strongly disagree with this comment.
Bayonetta is not a sexualized character, she is a sexual character. A female character being sexualized means that there is external emphasis on her sexuality when the character herself does not define herself by her sexuality in a major way. My go-to example for this is Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 9, who is supposed to be a tough, no-nonsense military woman but who wears skimpy clothing for no reason other than
, despite it making no sense for who she is as a character. Bayonetta does define herself by her sexuality, she's flirty and sexy because she wants to present herself that way. And sure, you could argue that that is still imposed on her by an outside entity because she is a fictional character, but you can guess where that line of reasoning would lead you.
There are plenty of women who enjoy being sexy and who define themselves by their sexuality as Bayonetta does. It only becomes a problem when women who don't want to be (primarily) perceived as sexy are forced to do so by outside entities to appeal to the male gaze. That is when someone who isn't "sexual" by themselves becomes sexualized. This is absolutely not the case for Bayonetta, she has full agency over her sexuality and expresses it out of her own volition.
Karlach is a completely different character archetype than Bayonetta is. Karlach's sexuality is not a primary aspect of her character the same way Bayonetta's is, a better comparison from BG3 would be Mizora. A competent, dominant character who presents herself as sexy. Mizora is not a sexualized character, but if you put Shadowheart in Mizora's outfit while making no changes to who she is as a character, that would be an example of sexualization. If there was a scene where Mizora gives the player a lapdance it wouldn't be much of an issue because it makes sense for her character to want to do that, if there was a lapdance scene for Shadowheart it would be a very different thing.
You can criticize Bayonetta for being a man's idea of a female power fantasy character, but you can't criticize her overt sexuality as an inherent flaw. Plenty of women do enjoy being perceived as sexual beings, they enjoy the idea of being a succubus or a seductress, and the idea of only women being allowed to create characters like that is ridiculous. Sexy, seductive female characters in games are not inherently misogynistic.
Such a "sexual" vs. "sexualized" character is just someone with a modicum of skill going "Nah, it's cool, she is into being hot."
I don't care, for the record. I think it's fine to make characters that are hot and enjoy that.
Because the writers chose to write her that way. Dominatrix is a fetish, that's what Bayonetta is. A fetish. She is literally wearing a cat suit in the first game she has a whip that has a mask with thigh high belted heels and an enemy punish animation that solidifies all of this.
I can write a character, make her a middle eastern woman, and then write her to be utterly helpless and in need of a white man to save her from her "evil" culture.
I can do all of that, and if someone calls me out for reinforcing harmful and problematic stereotypes I can simply say:
Which is why I talked about who made Bayonetta, because that is what separates a character like Uncle Ruckus from being an actual Uncle Tom and a straight up minstrel show act.
And just to add:
This reminds me of the "no black elves" argument. In fiction you can write whatever you want. There are no rules that you have to follow aside from grammer and punctuation. Bayonetta could have been written to be able to do what she does without nudity being used a reward for executing a certain combo or beating a boss.
The problem with talking about Bayonetta is that it's a video game character, and the over represented majority of gamers are horny chuds, and when it gets to things with actual nuances like if a character is sexualized or is representing women sexual liberation you get bullshit thrown in, I've noticed this in I have the misfortune of witnessing a discussion about Bayonetta.
Im sorry but who designed the characters asside theres no way that SB is going to have anywhere near the narrative depth of Nier Automata or even Bayonetta. Its just not going to happen. Ive heard the gameplay is good and thats nice i suppose but this is about charachter depth.
And Nier and Bayo have not been championed by chuds to anywhere near the same extent SB has, and have huge queer fanbases. Its never been the same.
Personally I read Bayo's sexuality as being positive, nonobjectifying, and empowering but like your allowed not to. But ive met plenty of women who agree with my take so I stand by it. Seems subjective to me.
2B is not that, she's sexualized in an objectifying way, but I will reiterate the massive queer fanbase the game has, as well as there being much much more to 2B than a nice butt.
(Also i just fucking hate SB's visual presentiation/art style and like Bayo and Nier's so).
Also i dont think "designed by a woman" is entirly irrelevant unless she had no input and just followed directions?
Nope. If anything, those were worse. Especially during Bayonetta 2's release. As for having queer fans, wait till SB comes out. You don't know, maybe she is well written and maybe she will have a fan base that's just a big if not bigger than Bayonetta's and 2B's.
Implying those games have depth. I skip the cutscenes in Bayonetta 1&2 for a reason. They're not worth my time, and the gameplay is really why I replay these games.
Metal gear solid has narrative, BioShock has narrative, TLOS has narrative, Stardew Valley and Fae Farms have narrative.
Action hack and slash games rarely have anything to offer, beyond gameplay. I'm saying this as someone that's played ninja Gaiden Sigma/Black, DMC 1, 2, 4, 5, Bayonetta 1&2, and the full GOW series.
You must not have been online in the past few months sorry. Theres no way Bayo or Nier had the same degree of reactionairy circlejerk around it that SB has had. SB has been supposedly the cure for wokeness for capital G gamers for months now. I was online for those other games release and dont remember anything even close to that. Some controversy over Bayo, but people on both sides including feminist defenders like the other person who replied to you. And quiet frankly I remember nothing at all like that about Nier. Maybe I just didnt see it lmao but I can't imagine it being as vitrolic as the SB stuff has been. That shit is a dumpster fire.
I have my doubts, but sure I guess. One of my queer friends is already defending the game because she has cute nonsexualized alternate outfits so that could be the start of something. But I dont think its going to make ripples like those other games. For one thing, she doesnt really have a design that appeals to queer women really? At least in the default outfit??
Uh, yeah no. Going to strongly disagree that Bayonetta and especially Nier Automata dont have narrative depth. The fact that you skip the cutscenes is a you thing lol.
You compare it to Stardew but Stardew and Bayonetta have about the same level of narrative depth lol. Stardew is good and I love it but its not actually very deep? I think people got fooled into thinking it is because you take down an evil coporation? (Some of) the marriage candidates have some hidden depths, the non-candidate NPCs are fairly shallow though. Its good, I like Stardew a lot. I made a post gushing about an aspect of Stardew's narrative just the other day. But to say Stardew has narrative and Bayonetta doesnt is????? They both do and they're about equally as deep.
You mention GOW, and the semi-reboot games have narrative depth and the old games didnt have nothing. You mention DMC5, and that game had narrative, and again the old games didnt have nothing.
I think you're just not into those games for the narrative and think that means that its not there.
I said most hack and slash games don't have narrative. GOW 5 and DMC 5 are obvs exceptions. But like having a captivating character that grows and develops overtime isn't really the MO of the vast majority of those types of games.
As for Stardew vs Bayonetta, I think Stardew valley's characters are what captivate me and keep me anchored to the game overall, whereas with Bayonetta it's the gameplay bc I don't see the characters grow and I don't know anything about them beyond bff witches that fight angels and save the world. If they gave us more to work with, I'd like the story more. But Bayonetta as a character is pretty flat compared to the characters out of Stardew.
Anyway my main problem is when people try to make it like Bayonetta's sexualization has any more of a purpose than Eve's without even giving the game a chance.
Wait i thought it was the orignal voice actor that was the terf reactionary, whats wrong with Jen Hale
You know what's crazy? First one was a terf, the rumored one is a MASSIVE Zionist, and this one is not as big of a Zionist but still is.
Bayonetta is just cursed to have shitty va
Bayonetta 4: new voice actress announced
spoiler
JK RowlingShe liked a tweet that was about "standing with Israel and the victims of Oct 7" and has said nothing to my knowledge about Palestine or Palestinians as of yet.