[ SECRET POST #3318 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3318 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 026 secrets from Secret Submission Post #474.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The only thing that bothers me is I don't think all styles REQUIRE realism. That's not to say I don't want more diverse body types, because I do, but arguing "but but but reality!" in terms of favoring either a skinny, muscled or overweight body is not a great argument the more cartoony a style is. And a problem with some of the photoshop modifications people do is that they lose the sense of design that the original character had.

Diversity within an established style is what is important. Elsa shouldn't be a clone of Anna and they shouldn't both be a clone of their mother who is a clone of ever other cg Disney character. Designers need to challenge themselves to create women of all body types (though to be fair I won't put the blame entirely on the designers as it's often the higher ups who won't let diverse body types go to market.)

But I do think body type diversity is important, even in cartoony styles. This doesn't mean we need to lose the "fantasy" or that we can't have skinny characters, of course we can! But we can also have characters with muscle and characters with a few pounds on them, everyone doesn't have the same "fantasy" so we need to stop acting like we should.

[bio_obscura]

I agree 100%. "Realism" isn't the problem because, realistically, Rikku wouldn't look like the image on the left, either. She'd probably have a muscle or two somewhere. The issue is that her body is pretty much interchangeable with any other JRPG female (except sometimes giant tits) and it's damn near the only image of female beauty ever presented in all of media.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah the fact that there is a very narrow definition of beauty is the biggest issue. I know that things like video games, cartoons, tv, movies etc etc CAN effect how we view beauty as well, there have been several studies to suggest so.

But I don't think the answer is throwing cartoony styles out the window. A character having a tiny waist doesn't bother me if it fits the style, it's more when ALL the characters look that way is when it's an issue. I've seen many artists draw super cute cartoony overweight women that aren't at all realistic, but having more of those sorts of characters would be extremely beneficial.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah this

[erinptah]

She'd probably have a muscle or two somewhere.

Seconded so hard.

And if you're going for body type diversity -- it's not like big buff women have a ton of representation either!

[(Anonymous)]

Women can be muscular without it being very visible. I'm 5'3" and about 105 lbs and I can do arm curls with 15-lb weights but you'd never know it by just looking at me. My build is pretty similar to Rikku's, actually.

[bio_obscura]

The point is that every single female character looks like this and there is little to no body diversity in beauty representations. Even if all of them had the same exact daily activity routine and eating habits, they wouldn't all look like that.

[(Anonymous)]

You're also forgetting that a lot of games are made in Japan where the majority of women DO look like that. Japanese women are, for the most part, very petite, very slim, and not very busty/curvy. I do a lot of shopping on Asian clothing sites specifically because their clothes are tailored for people my shape and size.

Characters are going to reflect the people who designed them - it's why so many male characters in Japanese media seem so short to us Westerners. In Japan, 5'7" is the average male height, so you see a lot of male characters who are 5'6" - 5'10" or so. To them, that's just the norm. To us, it seems really short.

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't say the majority of Asian women look like video game characters or anime characters, it's certainly where they get their inspiration but they are still idealized and exaggerated. Anime characters are often very guilty of having legs that go on forever (their height chart might say they're 5 foot but if you actually do the math they are more like 7-8 foot tall.)

Asian women, even some on the petite side, often have visible fat on their bodies. They also have all different body types, even if they are slightly more homogenized then other countries it does not mean they are all the same.

A lot of the reason characters look the same is because just like in some Western countries, there is a very narrow view of what is beautiful in Japan. There are many women there who could probably tell you they don't feel like they fit into that mold of video game/anime beauty.

[bio_obscura]

Uhhh yeah no, Japanese women definitely have body diversity. They do not all look like Final Fantasy characters.

Either way, JRPGs are certainly not the only medium where this is a problem.

[(Anonymous)]

asian women tend to have a lot less body diversity than western women in general, though. my family hosted a few chinese exchange students when i was in high school and one of them was extremely tall (about 5'9") by chinese standards... she was so happy that she could buy jeans here that fit her because she said it was impossible to get ones that were long enough back home in china. they just didn't make jeans for tall women there because there were so few of them.

[(Anonymous)]

What women can buy in stores is not an accurate reflection of body sizes of the population, even in the States where there are a number of tall and overweight women, you can not always find those sizes in stores (I am tall and I often have to buy online because most stores will only put their tall section on the internet.)

They are still ignoring a large population of women when they only have one go to body type for characters. Something being made in Japan is not an excuse.

[(Anonymous)]

maybe it's a regional thing, because i'm a fat girl and i can go into pretty much any department store and find my size with no issues. anyway, she herself said she was abnormally tall compared to most chinese girls, so i'm going to take her word on that since i've never been to china myself. i don't see why she would lie about something like that.

i guess i just don't really see why it matters. fiction has always been about the ideal, and i know that my body type isn't considered the attractive ideal. it doesn't particularly bother me because, well, it's fiction, not reality. i mean if we really want to be realistic, there shouldn't be so many conventionally attractive characters on tv and in games as well because most people you encounter day-to-day aren't drop-dead gorgeous like most actors.

[(Anonymous)]

Compared to most still doesn't mean she's the ONLY person of that height though, or that there aren't women taller then her or more overweight or less overweight. One body type can't possibly represent a whole population no matter what country you look at.

And do you ever wonder *why* your bodytype is not considered the attractive ideal? We aren't all born thinking that a certain body type is best, it's something we learn as we take from the environment around us and that includes things like video games. That's why body diversity in media is important, because it leaves more room for people to have all sorts of fantasies rather then having the same boring fantasy type over and over again.

[(Anonymous)]

it's not the attractive ideal because it isn't healthy? i need to lose some weight and get my blood pressure down for the sake of my own health so i'm not at risk for heart problems later on. but even if and when i do, i still won't be considered the "attractive ideal" because i'm rather plain-looking, and i'm fine with that. i'm comfortable with myself, ideal or not.

i fully admit to being shallow. i want to look at pretty people in my media. if i wanted to look at average-looking people, i'd go to the mall.

[(Anonymous)]

It's fine if you're shallow what I'm questioning is why you think only *one* type of person should define beauty. It's actually extremely unhealthy for most people's mental states (there have been studies to suggest as such) and not everyone wants just one type of person in their media.

And health is not really the best definer of what is beautiful, because people can be extremely unhealthy and still be considered conventionally attractive. Hollywood is notorious for this because many men and women in the industry have eating disorders and drug habits.

I'm not proposing "attractive" people be taken away, just that we expand what we consider attractive and give people who want to see other types of people options. I think if you had grown up in a world where different types of beauty was appreciated, you might feel differently about yourself then you do.

[(Anonymous)]

i think you misunderstand me. i feel just fine about myself because i'm not personally hung up on physical beauty and whether or not i'm considered conventionally attractive. the fact is, every society in every corner of the world has their own standards of beauty and certain traits that are held up above others. what those traits are may vary, but there is always going to be a particular group of people who are considered to be more beautiful than everyone else for whatever reason. it's just human nature and it's not going to change.

what would be more productive would be working on getting people to stop caring so much about whether or not they fit societal standards of physical beauty because it IS such a shallow thing. how pretty you are has no bearing on what kind of person you are or what you're capable of accomplishing.

[(Anonymous)]

Nothing of what you're saying is an argument against body diversity or it's importance though. I agree that we put too much emphasis on physical beauty, but if we didn't don't you think people would be more inclined to put in a more diverse roster of characters in their media? If people cared about beauty less, then they wouldn't feel the need to always have the conventionally attractive dominate every aspect of entertainment.

Whatever your opinion on what really matters in a person, what we do *now* is extremely harmful to people. Whether the definition of beauty needs to be expanded or people need to start caring about it less, either way the best way to accomplish that is to allow for more diversity.

[bio_obscura]

No only that, having only one beauty ideal to look at all the time is fucking boring. Especially when you get into editing and photoshop where they're actually trying to erase all of a person's uniqueness so they look the same as every other conventionally pretty character/celebrity/figure.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000000

[bio_obscura]

Even "a lot less body diversity than western women" is still a fuck ton of body diversity, certainly more than is depicted in Asian media (or any media, which, again, is the point).

[otakugal15]

Eh, cartoony doesn't exactly mean we can't have fat characters. I've seen some great stylized chubby and fat characters that convey the sentiment, but still look awesome.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes and I expressed that sentiment. I just don't think having fat cartoony characters means we need need to get rid of the exaggerated skinny ones, I want both (as well as many other body types, as long as it fits in with the established style.)

[otakugal15]

Ah, well then, I agree with you. I kind of skimmed your comment earlier and missed that part. >_>;