| seiya19 said: Those of you who are judging that female character from Metal Gear Solid V purely on its looks are jumping the gun, regardless of the argument... Here's Kojima's response on the subject, after the controversy: In response today, Kojima tweeted, “There appears to be some misgivings concerning Quiet, but don’t worry. She was created as an antithesis to the overexposed female characters of old fighting games. In the same way, she without words will be teased like this by those around her in the story. But when you understand the secret of her exposure, you will be ashamed of your remarks.
He continued, “The theme of Metal Gear Solid V is ‘Gene’ ⇒ ‘Meme’ ⇒ ‘Scene’ ⇒ ‘Peace’ ⇒ ‘Race.’ It touches upon the difference of language, race, customs, culture, and preference that come from discrimination, hatred, and conflict. The reaction towards Quiet incited by some of the net is exactly what Metal Gear Solid V itself is.” http://gematsu.com/2013/09/kojima-responds-to-criticism-of-metal-gear-solid-v-quiet Interestingly enough, this is actually a great example for this discussion... A good reminder of how looks can be deceiving, whether we talk about a fictional character or a real life person. Anyway... I'm kinda saturated with this whole discussion by now, so I'll just say this. I see a lot of baseless generalizations and double-standards from those who regularly complain about "sexism" in gaming and other media, making their arguments flawed from the start. It's as if men could never be "objectified" in any way regardless of how we define said concept, or women being incapable of "sexist" attitudes, or even feel sexual attraction at all. All this while constantly ignoring cultural differences, individual preferences/views within genders, homosexuality, etc. If the argument were about how we need more variety in gaming and more games/characters that cater to women's preferences (regardless of what those are), then I would agree with it, just like I've agreed with Nintendo's attempts to expand gaming to new demographics with Wii and DS this past gen. But as it is now, the criticism seems to be all about questioning the existance of pretty much any game/character that has sex-appeal directed at heterosexual men, and appealing to self-censorship and the creation of "politically correct" games that try not to offend anyone (except those who are offended by violence, apparently...). As someone that believes in freedom of speech/expression/thought, I'll never agree with this. As a form of expression, I want gaming to be as free as possible to challenge my mind, inspire me, excite me, and anything in between. And I find this freedom to be good for everyone, regardless of what you personally want from the medium. The only way to cater to everyone is letting everyone create whatever they want. So no, I don't think that catering to men's preferences or sexual desires is inherently discriminatory or problematic in any way, and the same applies when women are the ones being catered to. It only becomes discrimination when we consider the preference of one group to be inheretly less valuable or unacceptable. And that's all I have to say about that... I think... |
