Female protagonist? What do you think?

[Helios]

Khuutra said:

Helios said:

Of course, there are also unabashedly sexualized and objectified characters; and this is true of both male and female protagonists, with equally repugnant results (though not all of it is bad; pre-eminent examples such as Kratos and Bayonetta are so exaggerated as to be humorous and farcical critiques of their respective stereotypes - though only Bayonetta is self-aware of this fact). However, for the male, this problem is alleviated as what is 'male' has long been seen as the model of the idealized man, and the depiction of men is consequently much broader, subtler and more refined.

It probably does little more than show my background in literary studies (i.e. Making Up Shit that Isn't There), but I actually see Baynetta as being more than a parody of sexual stereotypes. She's actually a legitimately strong, empowered female character who never seeks, receives, or needs validation from any male in the story, and is empowered by her sexuality instead of simply being typified by it. She's interesting to me in that on the one hand she's potentially harmful in that she's easily misunderstood, but on the other hand there is something there to be misunderstood, and the people who misunderstand her actually play into the kind of character she is: people who ogle her doing a pole dance miss the point entirely, which is that she's doing it for herself rather than for the player.

This is especially interesting when you compare her to Father Baldr, the prototypical masculine figure of the game, but that might be for another discussion altogether.

Yes, I don't deny it. Maybe I phrased myself poorly. I only meant to say that Bayonetta does parody the objectification of women (along with many other aspects of contemporary culture); not that this was all it did. I could say a lot about the game myself - I especially find it intresting how differently people treat Bayonetta compared to Okami, and even DMC, considering how similar they all are as self-derisive, culturaly subversive, extravagantly 'stylish' experiences; and why people ostensibly fail to realize that Mikami's corpus is, in the main, notable for his use of camp as a means of legitimate artistic expression.