this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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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.