Body Language and the Male Gaze... 'Nita rides again!

Well, she's back and that's the title of her new video... of the Altered Deal Truncated second half of the series...

Let's a go!

Movement can be a powerful thing. Most of us who play games can appreciate the importance of a well-timed jump in a platformer, or a skillful dodge in a fighting game, but sometimes it’s the seemingly ordinary movements that actually tell us the most about a character. The way they do simple things like walk, or sit down. And like anything else about a character, movement can be used in ways that resist tired gender stereotypes, or in ways that reinforce them.

How did that Nita not a fan of videogames video show up!? SPIKE!! You got some 'splaining to do!!

Right out of the bat I'll have to say this: Biologically Speaking Men and Women are different. Women have Wider hips than Men. On the other hand Men have broader shoulders than Women. wider hips means more obvious sway IN ADDITION THAT WOMEN ACCENTUATE THAT SWAY when wearing heels, due to the changes in their center of gravity. That's not taking into consideration that some women exaggerate their sway for sex appeal... but let's discard all that and blame the patriarchy.

Why is this Basic Instinct Parody clip here? Mostly because I can't show Sharon Stone's vagina here. But if you recall that movie, her character was using ACTUAL LANGUAGE AND BODY LANGUAGE to manipulate the police. I am mentioning this because, 'nita will try to say that female characters "being sexy" is wrong. Nevermind that many of these characters are motion captured by women. One paragraph in and I already smell the BS that she is cooking.

In Bungie’s hugely successful online shooter Destiny, players start by creating their own character, a Guardian who will fight to protect the last remnants of humanity. As with character creation tools in other games, this one lets you choose from different genders and races. In most ways, Destiny treats its playable female characters almost identically to how it treats its male characters; for instance, the armor you acquire when playing as a female character isn’t sexualized, but looks just as practical and stylish as the gear equipped by male characters.

 Buuuuuuut, they did something that offended the almighty 'Nita... They used women to mo-cap women and the women walk like women, therefore sexism!

However, there is one way in which the male and female characters are differentiated by gender, and it has to do with their movement. Watch how a male guardian sits down, taking a load off after a long, hard day fighting the forces of pure evil. It’s simple. It suggests confidence. When a female character sits down, however, it’s a completely different story. She sits like a delicate flower. This is supposed to be a hardened space warrior and yet she is sitting around like she’s Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

Aand there we go! If she sat like the Male Character, you'd wine how that position makes her virtual vagina easier to be seen... Do I need to point out Strategic Butt Coverings and the fit you had over Virtual butts? Maybe, just maybe, that delicate pose is there to show that besides the killing machine tough exterior, there still is a nurturing woman inside... but what do I know?

A character’s animation and movement is just as much a part of who they are as their appearance and their clothing. And like any other aspect of a character, game designers use movement to communicate information about them to the player. This isn’t inherently a bad thing; expressive character animations are just a way for the game to contribute to our understanding of who a character is and what defines them. How a character walks, jumps, even how they sit down can tell us a lot about them.

 But, not the butt! Remember Butts don't talk. So, which is it? You can gather info from body parts via non-verbal cues or you can't? Your flip-flopping is confusing, woman!!

For instance, Ryu Hayabusa’s precise and graceful movement conveys that he is a highly trained ninja, while the way Nathan Drake scrambles and fumbles in dangerous situations is meant to suggest that he’s more of a relatable, ordinary guy who just keeps finding himself in extraordinary circumstances.

Or Team Ninja decided to make sure the movement was Stylized, while Naughty Dog went for a more Realistic Approach. What I mean is look at Metal Gear Solid vs Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.
Same game, different art direction.
And you're using a Bayonetta pic while you'll complain about women... Remember that you had to make that video private after people debunked the hell out of it... It's almost as if you don't learn about your mistakes, 'Nita!

By contrast, the way that women move in games isn’t just used to suggest their confidence or their skill or some other facet of their personality. It’s very often used, in conjunction with other aspects of their design, to make them exude sexuality for the entertainment of the presumed straight male player.

This again? Well, it IS a 'Nita video, I should expect this, just as Jared should expect to get his ass kicked in prison every day... What the Hell, indeed, Bats!

Catwoman from the Arkham series has a deeply exaggerated hip sway when she walks. In combination with her clothing and the game’s camera angles, all of this is meant to drive the player’s focus to her highly sexualized butt. In Resident Evil: Revelations, Jill Valentine somehow manages to wiggle her whole body while she runs. In Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Evie Frye is a character who avoids falling into many of the sexualizing traps that some playable female characters do. But she still walks with an exaggerated hip sway.

 It's almost as if 'Nita doesn't get biology: Bigger hips, bigger sway. I'm letting this link here for no reason at all. Talks about body language, body shape, attractiveness, non-related stuff to Sexy Women are tools of the Patriarchy that 'nita wants to convince us of. When reviewing Strategic butt coverings and being critical about it, the Focus on the butt for the camera angles was debunked. ALSO YOU'RE THE ONE MOVING THE CAMERA ON CATWOMAN!!
On Jill Valentine: Try running downstairs WHILE holding a gun two-handed.
On Evie: That is because of her body type. Her hips being wider than her waist NATURALLY accentuate the swaying.

In Saints Row: The Third, you can change your character’s gender at any time. If you go to the clinic and swap your gender from male to female, you also come away with a newly sexualized walking animation, even though you’re literally supposed to be the same character.

That is because the FEMALE ANIMATIONS ARE DIFFERENT THAN MALE ANIMATIONS.
Just go to 4:34 on the following video: smash Bros. Moveswap and you'll see Pikachu with Ganondorf's moves.

watch the video. Once you see Pikadorf, you'll understand WHY the same character gets different animations if the character model is changed... Of course this is something 'Nita wouldn't understand.

Male heroes are allowed to simply walk like normal human beings, in ways that are “average” or strong or graceful or goofy. Meanwhile, motion-captured animations for female characters often make them look as if they’re walking down a runway at a fashion show in stiletto heels, even when the characters are actually in combat situations. Watching these characters in-game movement animations, you’d think that the director of the motion capture session directed them to walk like a model instead of a hardened warrior or master thief or bioterrorism agent or crime boss or vampire or assassin.

Maybe it's because MOST FEMALE MO-CAP MODELS have a *gasp* background in modeling! Now if we want to go into character specifics: Bullet witch and Bayonetta are both games with powerful female characters, but that's not the point: they both have hips that are much wider than their waists. Also, Bullet Witch? Wasn't that game panned for being super crappy with bad AI and super short? Eh... Let's talk Karin Kanzuki... She's supposed to be filthy rich, and I mean Bruce Wayne levels of money. She's got access to the best education and all the stuff the highly privileged have access to. This includes Modeling classes. A girl of an influential family in the SF World as Karin, would need to know how to behave herself in the highest circles of society... not like that uncouth Kasugano girl who is obsessed with a vagabond.
Really? How to walk like a vampire? How DO YOU walk like a vampire?

Of course, in the real world, people do walk with a sway of the hips when wearing high heels. If we want to get really technical about it, this slight hip sway occurs in order to maintain balance. This in and of itself is not a problem, other than generally being deeply uncomfortable, but it raises an important question: why are these female characters in combat roles wearing high heels!? With all the fighting, running, and climbing these women have to do, dressing them in heels is clearly a decision rooted in sexualized aesthetic pleasure rather than believability.

 Yes, but you're ignoring the waist to hip ratio. BTW, nice to know that you don't like heels. It allows us to see some of the disdain you have for them and how it has an effect on your views.
To answer your question: Because Heels are impractical. Showing off what THEY CAN DO IN HEELS showcases how powerful they are. I mean, look at Bryce Dallas Howard's character fro Jurassic World. It's doable and according to the actress who played the character IT MADE SENSE TO HER that the character would NOT GET OFF THE HIGH HEELS. They kick butt in high heels. That is empowering, just like Leia kicked ass while wearing a Metal Bra. But cue 'Nita with more buzzwords to make this non-issue an issue.

In fact, animating so many female characters in games to fit into this very gendered, sexualizing walk pattern is an example of one of the ways the male gaze manifests in video games. The term “male gaze” was coined in 1975 by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey and refers to the tendency for the visual arts to assume, and be structured around, a presumed masculine viewer, or in this case, player.

AGAIN, The Characters have wider hips than males, this causes them to walk in a different manner to men. Taken from Tara's Resources a Transgender help site post on how to get a feminine walk.

Females have wider pelvises and a higher fat distribution on their hips. This gives them the characteristic feminine swaying hips that's so attractive. Males generally have smaller hips and less fat in this area. Taking hormones will encourage female fat distribution on your hips and thighs [depending on what age you started and genetics], or you can wear padding. You want to give yourself the loose, swaying motion of the hips without looking put on. Female's legs swing looser from the knees. Walking in the classic female gait of putting one foot in front of the other will move your hips more, but again don't over do it. Find a compromise between the stiffer male walk and being overly-effeminate. Practice in front of a mirror and find a gait that's feminine, but not overly effeminate.

 Biology, 'Nita!! Transwomen have to modify their biological male bodies to become women. They have to overcome biological MALE LIMITATIONS such as narrower pelvises and less fat on their hips in order for them to become more feminine. Biology is NOT a tool of the Patriarchy. Also, let's ignore that for over 20 years the MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC FOR VIDEOGAMES WAS YOUNG MALES... OF COURSE GAMES WILL APPEAL TO THE MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC. That's why Rom coms lack explosions and bouncing titties!

The male gaze manifests when the camera takes on the perspective of a stereotypical heterosexual man. An indisputable example of this is when the camera lingers, caresses, or pans across a woman’s body– although it’s not always that obvious. In games, it can be as simple as the in-game camera resting so that a character’s butt or breasts or both are centerline, it can be cutscenes that rest on a woman’s butt, it can be clothing that they are wearing or the way they talk, or it can be as basic as the way a female character moves around the game world.

Spike, just roll the other 'Nita clip!

Really, I LOVE IT how she broadens the scope of "male gaze" just to make sure that EVERYTHING IS SEXIST, RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, etc. It's just how everything is rape now.

The male gaze reinforces the notion that the man looks, and the woman is looked at. Or as art critic John Berger explains it in the 1972 book Ways of Seeing, “men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.”

 Well, it makes sense. That's how male-female relations work in our culture. The man has to jump through all the hoops, while women pretend that their part in selecting a mate is difficult. But it falls flat when these women are the ones who are ACTING. But let's move on... I mean it's not like men get sexualized in movies or games...

To be clear, the male gaze is not a hard and fast rule; it’s a theoretical concept that is meant to help us understand the sometimes subtle and nuanced ways in which our culture influences media, and the way that media, in turn, can shape and reinforce existing gender dynamics in our culture. The male gaze is also not in any way limited to men or heterosexual people. Almost all of us internalize and sometimes identify with the male gaze to some extent.

Translation: Now I'm hyper generalizing in order to cover my grounds and have enough room to squeeze buy like Nigel West Dickens running from an angry mob. With 'nita a banana is never just a banana. There is always something else. This is just a deflection to make it seem that her argument is irrefutable. First it is everything: Camera angles, clothing, cutscenes, then it's that men are subjects
 and women are acted upon, then it's subtle and everyone does it and internalize it... It's not that tangible, but it surrounds us and penetrates us... If it sounds like The Force, then that's the idea.

Eradicating the male gaze is not as simple as introducing an inversed female gaze that sexualizes men, either. Not just because equal opportunity sexual objectification isn’t the answer, but also, because it isn’t actually equal. One reinforces preexisting oppressive ideas about women that are real and damaging to women in their everyday lives, the other does not reinforce anything.

Because we already have equal opportunity ogling.

Oh wait, here comes the part about oppressed womyns in the Western world... So oppressed that they can't speak about this freely, nor collect 26 times the money needed to make 12 youtube rants. Or so oppressed that NOT HAVING FINISHED SAID RANTS after 3 1/2 years that they can ASK for $200K to play dress-up and do cultural appropriation WITHOUT ANY REPERCUSSION!!

Does anyone sees the double standards: It's OK to look at men as walking spermbanks with wallets, but seeing women as sperm receptacles is wrong...

Nor are the two interchangeable. For example, when the satirical website The Hawkeye Initiative reimagines male characters in sexualized poses that are common for female characters, it isn’t using the “female gaze.” This is just the male gaze, applied to men.

So, we're equal, except we're not... Good to know, 'Nita! The asshat within wants to say: Of course it's not "female gaze" they can't see his wallet, or his expensive sportscar/yacht/insert thing that can show that the man has a ton of money here. Also, wern't you the one that said that "the male gaze  is also not in any way limited to men or heterosexual people"? Then shouldn't it be called "human gaze"?

When male characters are depicted as shirtless or wearing little clothing–like the character sometimes dubbed “Hot Ryu” from Street Fighter V– their lack of clothing demonstrates their power and strength, rather than depicting them as erotic playthings or reducing them to sexualized body parts.

That Hot Ryu thing doesn't even have a page on you know meme... it's been mostly a kotaku and Mary Sue thing... and the HOT Moniker comes from the "Hot guy beard"... but do I need to bring back RAIDEN? scroll up! The video is there! Snake's Butt in most MGS games, Batman's Bat-Buttocks that she was dying to ogle at...

The same is true when it comes to movement. Male characters get to move in ways that emphasize all sorts of characteristics and personality traits, but there’s a whole world of untapped potential for representations of female characters who aren’t animated in ways that frame them as sex objects, but who get to just be as stealthy or strong, swift or imposing, clumsy or graceful.

So do women, but when you're so hung up on

well, it's kinda hard to see all those other aspects. Confidence like going into battle wearing high heels and pulling acrobatic stunts also show an incredible amount of grace and strength.

The way Ellie moves in The Last of Us communicates a sense of tension and danger, demonstrating what it’s like when female characters are animated in ways that emphasize their personality and emotional state rather than serving to sexually objectify them.

Funny that she ignores Ellie's hips swaying side to side. Seems like another 'Nita pass for developers she "likes" is in play. Ellie is somewhat sexualized in the game. The whole David being a pedo-cannibal who took a special liking to Ellie is what gives the gamers those hints. It's not as obvious compared to other games and their sexualized characters, but it's there. That's without touching the Left Behind kiss.

The path towards equality and liberation does not lie in equally reducing men and women to objectified parts, but by treating people of all genders and with all types of bodies as full and complete human beings.

I have to agree with her here, but that doesn't mean I'm not critical of her more pernicious aspects!
She basically is still slut-shaming fictional women, making men the villains, playing the oppressed card when pointing out the equality on what she is raving about... I just can't wait for this series to finally end!!