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[Thad]

Well, I added the Kirby bit for a reason; it's perfectly possible for a costume that has no real-world practicality to still work perfectly well in a fantasy setting.  I went with superheroes as my example because it's so easy to look at the past 25 years of attempts to make superhero costumes work in movies.

While it's true that a practical outfit is (presumably) inherently not sexist, that doesn't mean a not-sexist outfit has to be practical.  Or that impractical outfits are out-of-place.  There are a whole lot of different styles that are at home in the fantasy genre, and not all of them look like the Lord of the Rings movies.

[Pacobird]

Hasn't the standard for the sort of hyperkinetic art that's dominated DnD since Tony DiTerrlizi been to throw up your hands and hypersexualize everyone, men and women alike (provided they are humans, elves, or tieflings)?  That's been my impression, at least, or maybe I just see Planescape's art style everywhere.


Anyway, I'm always a little tickled when people complain about a thin patina of sexism over the most overtly, incurably, pervasively racist genre of fiction ever created by human beings.  It's delightful.

[LaserBeing]

If we're going to go down the "practicality" rabbithole I feel like I should point out that hardly anyone wore full plate, historically. Encumbrance issues aside, the reason one thinks of knights and kings wearing it is because they were the only ones who could afford the damn stuff. See also: horses. In real life you were lucky if you had a frumpy chainmail dress and a good pair of boots.

Nobody wore those big stompy musketeer riding boots either. There's a reason nobody cares about practicality: it ruins everything.

[Pacobird]

See but that's the whole thing: this is all hyperreality anyway, so to do anything more than acknowledge hypersexualization of a woman in fantasy with a cluck of the tongue is a little misplaced.

The real story here is the degree to which people internalize hyperreal images, which they certainly do, but Baudrillard this woman ain't.

[Beat Bandit]

While it's true that a practical outfit is (presumably) inherently not sexist, that doesn't mean a not-sexist outfit has to be practical.  Or that impractical outfits are out-of-place.  There are a whole lot of different styles that are at home in the fantasy genre, and not all of them look like the Lord of the Rings movies.

this

There's a reason nobody cares about practicality: it ruins everything.

also this

I don't mean practicality as in historical accurateness, just common sense. If you feel the need to cover your stomach / shoulders / what have you in hard leather / chainmail / what have you again, then not bothering to cover your cleavage (AKA: where your heart is) is just plain bad design or decision making. On the other hand if you're a mage and only wearing cloth anyway, feel free to have your tits or a nut hanging out. That flimsy layer wont do much good when it comes down to it.

Neither of those examples are sexist either. It really shouldn't be considered sexist until you get to the point where the rules of your universe are that men wear normal armors and women are only allowed to wear silks with no shoes.

That shit is sexist as hell.

[Pacobird]

I don't mean practicality as in historical accurateness, just common sense. If you feel the need to cover your stomach / shoulders / what have you in hard leather / chainmail / what have you again, then not bothering to cover your cleavage (AKA: where your heart is) is just plain bad design or decision making. On the other hand if you're a mage and only wearing cloth anyway, feel free to have your tits or a nut hanging out. That flimsy layer wont do much good when it comes down to it.

Well, if you really want to get into it, the lovely woman in Reply #15 would be defeated by a strong wind.  Metal armor stops a slashing blade.  It basically serves no other purpose and that particular type of protection is as easily achieved by a relatively lightweight and flexible mail shirt as it is by interlocking metal plates. 

There was a point when people thought metal armor was more useful than that, but reliance on that belief cost the French knighthood so much that eventually trusting the entire army to an illiterate 18-year-old farmgirl who claimed to be receiving messages from God actually seemed like a good idea, so that's pretty much all she wrote on that one.  Plate armor looks scary (and is really good for looking scary and keeping the peasants down) but is essentially a death trap if you aren't on a horse.

I guess what I'm getting at is taking fantasy images at any greater value than a signaling effect is kind of silly and is going to get you into all sorts of trouble.  Cue 20th Century French philosophy.

[LaserBeing]

I'd also like to note that the Roman legions conquered the known world and they didn't even know what pants were.

I guess my beef is just that I don't know why people always go to "practicality" as the root of this issue. The problem with a sexually-objectifying costume isn't that it's impractical, it's that it's sexually-objectifying. It's disingenuous to pretend that everything will be fine if you just add a sports bra.

[Thad]

Anyway, I'm always a little tickled when people complain about a thin patina of sexism over the most overtly, incurably, pervasively racist genre of fiction ever created by human beings.  It's delightful.

It's not like the two things are mutex, or like nobody's ever talked about racism in fantasy.  Want a thread where we talk about the biases of Lovecraft and Howard?  It's over there.

See but that's the whole thing: this is all hyperreality anyway, so to do anything more than acknowledge hypersexualization of a woman in fantasy with a cluck of the tongue is a little misplaced.

I'm not even sure that hypersexualization per se is the problem; it's more that it's so consistent and shallow and always the same thing.  It's perfectly possible to express sexuality through something besides GIANT DISTRACTING CLEAVAGE.

(There's a reason, for example, that the Thomas/Windsor-Smith Red Sonja is legally distinct from the original Howard version.  And it's not the chainmail bikini.)

I don't mean practicality as in historical accurateness, just common sense. If you feel the need to cover your stomach / shoulders / what have you in hard leather / chainmail / what have you again, then not bothering to cover your cleavage (AKA: where your heart is) is just plain bad design or decision making. On the other hand if you're a mage and only wearing cloth anyway, feel free to have your tits or a nut hanging out. That flimsy layer wont do much good when it comes down to it.

A fair point, though on a more fundamental level "impractical" costumes serve a purpose of evoking certain emotions.  A giant antlered helm raises questions of being able to walk through doors conveniently, but it evokes fear.

Cleavage evokes sexual titillation, and sometimes (not always!) that's the only reason it's there.

[Classic]

It's also modern stuff, so maybe it's not accurate, but you can move in nice, articulated full plate. But it does cut down some of your maneuverability, take a lot more energy to move (once you break 40 or so lbs. of gear, the increase in difficulty stops being linear), and is dependent on being well cleaned and greased. I wouldn't say smashing up the articulation is easy, but there's a reason maces were chosen over spears or swords.

Also, it turns out steel plate you can move in can't turn crossbow bolts or bullets. Key failings.

I'd also like to note that the Roman legions conquered the known world and they didn't even know what pants were.

They knew what pants were. They were women's wear.

[Beat Bandit]

P. Wordy

That is... basically what I'm saying? Holding fantasy armor concepts to real life standards by basically any amount is dumb. Beyond that I guess you can argue that if you're suspending your disbelief a bit why stop ever but I stand by leaving important (read: center of mass) parts exposed if you bother to reinforce any part of you is stupid.

Cleavage evokes sexual titillation, and sometimes (not always!) that's the only reason it's there.

I wont try to argue against this for a second. Just getting back to the original point, personally it doesn't feel like the outfit or even artist is being sexist, intentionally or not. Just that they think "how do I give a female character sex appeal?" And the only thing comes to mind is tits. Even beyond that there are most likely pretty common cases where the artist wants more but thinks anything else would be lost on the audience, especially for the WoW crowd.

Don't hate the playa', hate the game.

[Brentai]

Speaking of MMOs, Guild Wars is a fun example.  I don't know about the game in its current form but in the early days the emphasis on arena PvP meant that armor didn't really have that much variance.  Instead of making "better" armor more expensive, they decided to make "more aesthetic" armor more expensive.  For females this has the amusing effect of giving every armor tier a pair of sets: one relatively sensible, and one that looks borrowed from an S&M club.

Play the game with a real female sometime and see how fast she rockets off to shop at the fetish booth.

[LaserBeing]

Cleavage evokes sexual titillation, and sometimes (not always!) that's the only reason it's there.

[Thad]

Even beyond that there are most likely pretty common cases where the artist wants more but thinks anything else would be lost on the audience, especially for the WoW crowd.

Don't hate the playa', hate the game.

Covered in my first post:

There's also the issue of going directly after the artist and not spending much time acknowledging editorial pressure.  Sex sells, and there's a whole lot of pressure from editorial/marketing/the target audience to play it up.

Also: Almost sent a screenshot to my agent that had this thread title in the taskbar.  That would have been...well, not embarrassing per se as I am basically immune to that particular emotion, but maybe a bit awkward.  Like that time Brent was reading the Osama's Homobortion thread.

Who's the prick who names these threadsplits, anyway?

[Kayin]

I've always found this argument to be silly. If I was an artist who drew nothing but naked women, would that be sexist? Maybe they're classy, maybe their not. What if a woman did it? What if I drew only nude men? What if I did that and was gay? It really doesn't matter. What if I liked cars a lot and drew nothing but cars? Artists draw what they enjoy drawing. Just because Hyung Tae Kim draws sexy, voluptuous women isn't sexist. IT can very well be (and this is an opinion I probably share with him) that he finds drawing such women to be REALLY FUN and visually pleasing. I'm a dude. I like boobs. I like excuses to draw boobs. I have another friend who just loves drawing muscles and finds whatever excuse he can to draw guys without shirts on. Or I have several female friends who draw porn for a living (or at least as an alternative source of income) and enjoy their work. A lot of artistic style comes from the fact that different people enjoy drawing different things and different kinds of lines. You can question an artist for having a limited amount of variety in their work, but drawing boobs is not inherently sexist. Hell, I'd be willing to argue that drawing tentical rape isn't inherently sexist either. You'd have to argue that having the fetish is inherently sexist. All the artist is doing in that case is visualizing their fetish physically. If someone draws nothing but sexy slaves, there might be a lot of correlation with sexism, but the act of making the art isn't inherently sexist. Maybe he's a sub with gender issues. Maybe the artist is a female who is venting what she thinks is some horrible desires? You can't know, and for the most part, it's not worth it to really care.

Now removing the artist from it, character design in a consumer product can definitely be inferred as sexist. Personally though I don't think the examples given are worth anything. DnD accepts a lot of impractical nonsense and a lot of 'rule of cool' stuff. You can say it's stupid and dumb, but that's different from sexist. What if it's all guys? It's still dumb for the same reason.  Some series embrace this dumbness successfully. Many games and shows successfully pull off the hyper stylized aesthetic. Others 'keep it real'. If Caska in Berserk wore boob plate and had her underwear sticking out, I would find that terrible. It's out of place and is clearly not equal treatment. But in something where everyone looks ridiculous (for lack of a better example off the top of my head, lets say King of Fighters), it really doesn't bother me. One of the things I like about Dragon Crown's art is EVERYTHING is super crazy and silly, proportionally (well... besides the elf?).

On the other hand, what's the most famous example of a sexist character of late? Samus, in full on armor and everything. Sure you got the zero suit, but it has nothing on a lot of outfits. It's the character and the setting that makes the decisions with the character 'sexist' or not. Even if boob windows are somehow sexist, they are still far less egregious than a lot of other examples.

[Joxam]

man i love when you say boob windows

[LaserBeing]

Who's the prick who names these threadsplits, anyway?

might I suggest renaming it to "Gor Make Me a Sandwich"

[Disposable Ninja]

One of the things I like about Dragon Crown's art is EVERYTHING is super crazy and silly, proportionally (well... besides the elf?).

Nah, the Elf's got some pretty thunderous thighs. The Wizard is probably the only one without hyper-stylish proportions -- subsequently, he's also the most boring looking.

But yeah, pretty much everything Kayin said and a bag of chips.

[Büge]

I know that targeting one's spelling and grammar is one of those things that people frown on during an ongoing discussion, but...

Maybe they're classy, maybe their not.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THAT MISTAKE?

[Kayin]

Because I was a late reader who was in special ed all the way until college and think about writing phonetically and didn't get proper schooling in grammar and writing until college which left me with over 10 years of bad habits.

So there you go.

[Bongo Bill]

There's undoubtedly some Death of the Author shit going on, but that road can't be followed too far. A painting of cleavage does not have much of a message on its own, and it certainly doesn't have an opinion. If you can't ask why it was drawn, then the question is: How is it being used? And if you can ask why it was drawn, why aren't you asking that instead?

It's clear the criticism is based more on (imagined?) social consequences of the image, or the (assumed?) ambient social factors incentivizing the disbursal of images of its type. In more self-aware criticism of the phenomenon, images like these are mostly used as catalysts or examples of the phenomenon, but this guy keeps dissecting the paintings as if the fictional tits themselves were the problem. I don't think he knows what he's mad about.