The Gaze in the media - writing task

As the entertainment industry and communication media is based on the distribution of visual images and being a culture mainly controlled by men, the circulation of imagery of women has become an obsession.  Taking sexual pleasure by observing rather than being close it is consider voyeurism, and the contemporary society has portrayed women and their aesthetic sex under constantly changing values depending on the society and moment in time.

This are some stereotipical character designs for some MMORPGs where the male armor is proportional to its function while the female is ...not. 

Women are now a day attacked from every angle with images of other women; with concepts that alter the idea of beauty day by day, and in opposition of men who look at this women as desirable,  but women identify themselves.  This ideal women streamed all over the media creates a narcissistic damage and it fires in every direction the idea of a passive woman that does not desire, one that only waits for men’s attention. 

With this last criteria, the media has created hundreds of stories where the female character becomes the victim and the male character fights for her safety. Videogames in particular have been quite characteristic for having this goal among the different genres. Having men as the primary user for the industry, it is easy to target aesthetically speaking some pleasant parameters for the female roles in games. Whether they’re weak and fragile as the female character in Lost in Blue for Nintendo DS or strong fighters like Samus Aran, the female idealisation of the body clearly seems affected by either the behaviour of the character or the sexual desirability it needs to portray to the audience.

Lost in blue (above) is a survival game where first you play as a male character helping a delicate injured girl. The roles are completely stereotypical and there are many points where she is helpless yet tries to fix everything with cute smiles. On the other hand Samus Aran (below) had its beginning from the franchise of Metroid, where people didn't even realized it was a woman inside the suit. It was until it became well know that Nintendo decided to give Samus a "Zero suit" appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl that the character and the franchise became quite popular.   

In videogames, like in cinema, the role is played on the straight and socially established perception of the sexual difference of the characters. The desirability level of the character seems reflected on female characters and the pleasure this takes in being looked at. Among some visual media, the term Fan Service is used to defined those moments, images or scenes that are designed to attract the audience; focusing on part of the body that are private and forbidden  to make sure the audience gets excited. Knowing that a videogame character has no physical body or ego, the creators take part of creating this possible pleasure creating this contrast between the libido and the ego in a fantasy world. This is noticeable in franchises where the evolution of the character is clearly affected by the trend that happens at the moment of its development.

There are many cases in games where male characters can be represented in many shapes, ages and with different visual attributes as a variant. In the case of Tekken as a franchise you even get male bears fighting while all the woman are skinny and delicate looking. 

An example of the voyeurism is Sophitia, a recurrent character from the fighting game Soul Calibur. Despite the background created for the character her visual development has been adapted to make her more attractive to the audience but maintaining the innocence and purity characteristic of her.  

Another way in videogames to create this male phantasy is by enhancing her eroticism but in relation to the male character himself. It means that identifying with the male character thought his power, the user indirectly can possess her as well. This is fetishistic scopophilia where she becomes the objects of satisfaction. Such is the example of Tidus, the main character of Final Fantasy X which fights, among other things, for the sake of saving Yuna, the trophy girl of the game.