An eating disorder support website, Bulimia.com came up with the idea of shaping video game characters into images that represent the average woman’s body measurements. According to the educational website that provides information and support to people struggling with eating disorders, video games have grown hyper-realistic over time, yet they still haven’t managed to portray women – or men for that matter— quite right.
Time to get real about women
“Video game designers and their companies have complete control over the female bodies in their games. So why is it they so often opt to make these characters into unrealistically idealized versions of their human counterparts?,” the company asked.
With this query in mind, they “photoshopped” some of the most popular female video game characters, in order to portray women’s bodies in a more realistic way.
Reverse Photoshop
Mostly, they added some meat on the bones of ultra-slim waistlines video game characters, which tend to look very similar. They are designed with huge breasts, curvy hips and little-to-no clothing.
With more normal measurements, video game icons such as Jade from Mortal Kombat and Cortana from Halo 4, look like they could still kick some butt. However, some have argued that although the company’s heart was “in the right place”, the results are pretty offensive as they amount to a form of “thin-shaming”.
Although it is difficult to define what’s a right or wrong way to portray men and women in video games, the conversation is worth having.
Why are sexualized female bodies a problem?
Jesse Fox, an assistant professor in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University, found evidence that interacting with hyper-sexualized women in video games causes people to feel sexist.
In another study, women who played with a sexualized avatar were more likely to self objectify. Shockingly, when women played in sexualized avatars of themselves, they were more likely to believe that women deserve to be raped.
Sexism hits men too
The portrayal of both men and women in video games is a subject of research in gender studies. If female characters are often designed as “damsel in distress” or semi-naked sex bombs, even for men it is difficult to identify with male video game characters, research suggests.
In fact, the “idealized hero form” is something that’s existed long before video games, originating in modern pop culture in the form of comic books, expert Paul Tassi argued on Forbes.
This anatomy representing the “pinnacle of human perfection” applies to both men and women, yet only one of them is ever viewed sexually to outsiders, the women. Tassi claims “men simply are not viewed as sexual objects in games, despite similarly preposterous anatomy”.
Earlier this year, the Bulimia’s creative team designed superheroes with average body shapes, which you can check out here.
What do you think of gender representation in video games? Does the portrayal of video game character bother you or do you think it’s normal? Share your views in the comments section below.
