armour for women – Bad Reputation A feminist pop culture adventure Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:15:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6 37601771 [Gamer Diary] Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City, or; The Bat and his Bitches /2012/01/30/gamer-diary-batman-arkham-asylum-arkham-city-or-the-bat-and-his-bitches/ /2012/01/30/gamer-diary-batman-arkham-asylum-arkham-city-or-the-bat-and-his-bitches/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:31 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9533 As is my tendency, this is another party I was late to.  I only got Arkham Asylum in late October last year as a gift in a Steam sale – it was only a fiver – and I had previously been rather sceptical about it.  Nevertheless, I played through it and found it very refreshing as a game – very noir, good combat, puzzles to solve and places to explore – and the storyline was interesting, as was the inclusion of so many Batman baddies.  Basically, in short, I loved it.

Mostly.

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy were the issues.  I don’t want to sound like a broken record but boobs on display in a high risk profession such as being a Gotham City criminal is not exactly clever – is it?  Harley was very nice to see as a significant part of the story that is out to scupper your plans, but her being called some less-than-charming things by the Joker’s own thugs was tedious to say the least, and when you actually fight Harley herself she is defeated ridiculously easily – in a cutscene no less.  Disappointing.

Poison Ivy in a lounging position, in a glass walled cell in Arkham Asylum. She wears a mid-length red top with one button done up over her bust, and ivy vines curling around her. Image from the game, used under Fair Use guidelines

“Please don’t punch me in the chest, Batman. It’d be terribly inconvenient and I might have to reconsider my outfit!”

Ivy, when you first meet her, is lounging about in her cell – apparently the only female inmate – not wearing prison issues but her own clothes displaying her sizeable bust.  Later, in her boss fight, for some reason she decides to float about attacking you in what – as our ed described to me in an email – “appears to be a giant laughing vulva-plant which flaps open periodically to reveal she still isn’t wearing a great deal…”.  Super.

I’m pretty sure she gets referred to as some less-than-charming things too by henchmen.

Fast forward to Arkham City, which I got in another sale (but it still cost me £20), and now you can play as Catwoman too!  However, she appears to have fallen foul of Rule 1 of Sensible Female Armour: her suit is only ever zipped up to just below her breasts, allowing for ample cleavage.  When you fight thugs as Catwoman, you get called a ‘bitch’ but for some reason, if you’re Batman, you don’t get called a prick, a wanker, a bastard or even a knobend.  Really, people?

The assassins of Rā’s al Ghūl’s order are all for some reason scantily clad sex icons – as is his daughter – and the concept art is mainly essentially the sort of softcore you might find in lads’ mags.  In fact the vast majority of the concept art involving any female character is pretty oversexualised and repugnant.  We get to meet Ivy again, too, but it seems she still hasn’t bothered to find any clothes since the laughing vulva-plant incident.  And Harley is wearing even more revealing kit than last time.

Harley Quinn, in a low-cut leather bustier with blonde pigtails, gestures at Batman

Great graphics, but do we really need to see that much breast?

Now, even if we leave aside all of this sexist nonsense, Arkham City is somewhat disappointing anyway.  I finished the storyline in less than a day; the ending snuck up on me and was rubbish.  I won’t say what happens, but… just… what?!  That’s even before I get to the complaint I have with the huge continuity hole left at the end.  I was so disheartened by it that I did a Ragequit of Disappoints and haven’t gone back on it since.  Even though I still have lots of side quests and puzzles to solve, I just haven’t found the heart to go back to it.

Arkham Asylum was worth the £5 but City was definitely not worth the £20 – let alone the standard retail price in the range of up to £39.99!  The first game offered something new and interesting with a gorgeous noir feel much akin to Nolan’s reimagining of Gotham on film, if not grittier.  The second game whizzed past all too quickly, with no real indication that one should slow down, do side quests, do the puzzles and so on, lest you face the atrocious storyline ending.

Benefits of the second game, however, do exist; the world is larger, you get more gadgets and there are no area transitions between outdoor locations.  Plus you do get to play as Catwoman, even if she is just eye candy to be abused by burly henchmen. (Are there really no female crims in Gotham?)

Both games do fall down woefully at the Treating Female Characters with Respect hurdle.  Would it truly be so hard to think logically about the design of these people?  Does Batman walk around without his Kevlar body armour, flexing his pectorals, with a big “SHOOT HERE” target on his chest?  No.  No, he does not.  So why should Catwoman, or Ivy, or Harley?  Basic boob-sense would say maybe a comfy sports bra would be better than leather basques and flimsy shirts with only one button done up.  At least then the breast tissue wouldn’t detach during all this acrobatic criminality.

Also, Catwoman has anti-gravity boobs.

]]> /2012/01/30/gamer-diary-batman-arkham-asylum-arkham-city-or-the-bat-and-his-bitches/feed/ 3 9533 Found Feminism: Armour for Women /2012/01/16/found-feminism-armour-for-women/ /2012/01/16/found-feminism-armour-for-women/#respond Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:00:27 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=9212 This is possibly a little niche, but it’s a niche I am happy to occupy, and following on from my writing on the subject, so are many others.

I am on a quest for some plate armour for my LARP habit. It is proving difficult.

We can all agree that Women Fighters In Reasonable Armour is an almighty source of inspiration, but this Found Feminism goes a bit farther.

Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I. She is wearing shining silver full plate armour with intricale gold designs and well-wrought fluted joints at the elbow. Her hair is loose and she is riding a white horse. Her expression is hardened and composed.

This is the ideal, let's be honest.

In this well thought out article over on group blog MadArtLab, an actual genuine armourer explains why most fantasy/sci-fi lady armour is wrong. I am especially taken with his clear arguments on why it’s silly to draw parallels with Conan-style characters (loincloths indicate no access to armour; chainmail bikinis indicate that armour is available but female characters have chosen not to wear it) and the way he highlights the distinction between a “breastplate” and a “boobplate” and how the latter is not only impractical but downright dangerous:

I worry constantly that she’s going to fall hard and it will crack her sternum, even with the padding. Note also that it seems almost perfectly designed to guide sword points and arrows into her heart.

I also really like Ryan’s “good armour / bad armour” parallels, and the very funny post he wrote later on about the mathematical relationship between female nakedness and armour protection in F&SF.

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