Ah, the rallying cry of every privilege denying male who is being told that their geek hobby of choice (comics, vidya games etc) objectifies women to an obscene degree regularly. “But men are sexually objectified too. They are all look like walking tanks, with bulging muscles.” they will retort in smug indignation. You know the drill.
These people just are not able to understand that male protagonists in these media are not a female sexual fantasy, but rather a male power fantasy. I.e. such presentation of the male gender is tailored to a male audience. Unfortunately, even though this has been refuted in depth, this annoying reply persists in practically every conversation about objectification of women in geek culture.
Perhaps it might serve to provide a sample of how male protagonists would look and act, if they were in fact crafted to appeal female sexual fantasy. But how could we craft an accurate such example? Well, as luck would have it, the Nostalgia Chick has posted a video about the 10 “Hottest” Animated Guys, which provides a democratic answer to this question.
Take a look and now consider that if video games wanted to appeal to women sexually, your protagonist in games would be far more like Aladdin than Kratos.
I really like what you guys are usually up too.
This kind of clever work and reporting! Keep up the good works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to my personal blogroll.
The issue of how men are portrayed in video games isn’t so much about SEXUAL objectification to cater to women. The comparison is more about the unrealistic and unattainable body types that men have in games. This type of objectification is different from sexual objectification, but still has lasting implications on males and how they perceive body image.
How do you think males are effected by the constant bombardment of extremely muscular imagery of men?
Ahh, double standards. But please continue to pretend that looking like a Disney princess isn’t a fantasy to almost all women.