Good Female Leads? The Deconstruction of the Artificial "Strong Female Lead".

[Shin Muramasa]

That's just how it is. People look and make judgements. I don't know if it will ever change.

What bothers me when it comes to female characters are the comments about judging her purely on looks, wanting to have sex with her, jokes about how she should be in the kitchen, rape fantasies, or how guys want to fap to her; not to mention the weird 'fanart'; I use that term loosely, involving bondage, rape and other messed up situations.

What the heck makes people want to make comments like that at all, especially about a fictional character? It's just inappropriate and messed up on so many levels.

Seems like even if a female character is made to be more than eye candy and a sex fantasy, there are still the same comments reducing her to a piece of meat.

It's like Elizabeth from Bisoshock. There were a few articles about the size of her chest and a lot of weird fanart. Levine basically said that if you play the game, Elizabeth is like a sister. So anyone focusing on the size of her chest and thinking that sort of thing about her after playing the game has issues, and it says more about the person playing the game than the way the character looks.
On the whole, I'm inclined to agree with that.

It's like the recent article up on IGN about a female game producer. Most of the comments were about how she looked, if she was attractive, wanting to sleep with her and a few jokes about getting back in the kitchen. :facepalm: What on Earth makes these kind of comments acceptable?

All I can say is I hope these people don't behave like this in real life and are just using the internet to act out under the cover of anonymity.

Well, it's said or perhaps proven that our brains and, by extension, our eyes make up everything we see. Our brains get lazy and fill in familiar details, like, if I saw a red Lego piece and was familiar with it, my brain could lie to me and say it's the same red Lego piece even though it might be worn down and have bite marks. Peripherally and probably when glancing at things, that will happen. If I focus on something and force my brain to actually work, then I will see more of a real thing. So, that's our brains lying to us in a less harmful way.

Now, let's add growing up around stereotypes and other accepted ideas. People who still accept and treat each other equally still have to try to ignore what's on the cover or what's been implanted in their brains. Growing up, I saw tons of media shots of blacks, African Americans, or let's not label people and just call them people, going to jail, having mugshots, doing violent things. etc. Now, my father is accepting of others, but he still slips out the whole certain people do this and that. My mom is pretty much a racist, but in an old, traditional, "our culture is supreme" sort of thing that older Chinese people have not the "I hate others 'cause they're different". I'm generally friendly with pretty much everyone, but there is still that feeling whenever I look at certain people who just happen to not look like Asians. I absolutely hate that feeling because it feels so wrong. Now, that's our brains feeding ideas in a more harmful way.

Anyway, I doubt anyone... Scratch that, I doubt many, decent people would say stupid things like that to anyone. They might in their heads, but if they actually did say it, then at best you would get slapped or punched in the face. The more likely outcome would having to be deal with sexual harassment or assault on your record. I'd be fine with having speeding, parking, and reckless driving tickets, theft, or even murder. Yes, murder. Sexual harassment could turn turn into being a sexual predator or child molester. And, like they say: even criminals have standards. You go to jail and the inmates find out you've done stuff to kids or people like that, then they will tear you up. Also, you might get by in life with people knowing you've killed someone, but you will never get by with people knowing you've sexually assaulted someone.