2261: Tracer’s Ass

In yet another disappointing example of developers caving in to the demands of a minority of players, it seems that World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has made changes to a character in its upcoming game Overwatch, apparently for little reason other than to placate one poster who played the “sexualisation!” card. Here’s an archive of the thread in question, in case it mysteriously disappears.

Now, normally I would say that everyone is perfectly welcome to give their opinions on character design and appropriateness and whatever. But what we have here is Blizzard explicitly stating that they’re going to change an animation for one character because a poster is worried about it sending the wrong message to their young daughter, who is already interested in the character through trailers. This goes a step beyond someone just stating their opinion, and it’s a dangerous road for any developer to embark on, because if you make changes for just one poor soul, where do you then draw the line when someone else claims to be offended by something you found to be quite innocuous and may even be proud of or happy with?

There’s an argument, of course, that there were people in Blizzard who already wanted to change the pose and this simply provided a convenient excuse, but I’m not sure I buy that. Even if true, it doesn’t send a great message to the community, and it has the potential to put Blizzard in a sticky situation down the line, as previously noted.

The pose in question, incidentally, can be seen in the picture here. There’s nothing particularly offensive about it; the only even vaguely sexualised thing about it is the fact that Tracer is wearing very tight trousers indeed, and that some people have chosen to interpret this as her “presenting” (you know, like baboons do when they’re in heat) rather than, you know, just doing a cool action hero pose.

I’m not going to argue about whether or not this is sexism or objectification or sexualised or whatever because I’m frankly really, really tired of that discussion happening over and over and over and never, ever going anywhere. Instead, what I wanted to do was share this response — and my own thoughts, too.

“Today, I feel like my voice no longer matters to Blizzard,” writes disappointed Blizzard fan and longtime World of Warcraft player Ginny Higerd, a 30 year old woman who goes by @mahoumelonball on Twitter. “I’m not attractive. I’m not skinny. I’ve been teased about my appearance since elementary school. […] I love being a sexy night elf character. I love being Tracer. I love being Nova. I LOVE these strong women that can be confident in their abilities and their appearance, because in the real world, I’m none of those things. These games were an escape for me. I channel myself into these characters, because I would give anything just to be like them.”

Higerd’s words resonated with me a great deal, because it kind of sums up how I feel about the whole thing with “sexualised” or “sexy” characters. When I play a game with an attractive female cast — or deliberately make my custom avatar, where available, to be an attractive woman — I am not doing so to get my rocks off. I’m doing so because I like the way the character looks, and I like feeling like I’m taking on the role of someone else — someone who’s not me, and someone I’d like to be, but will never get to be. Much like Higerd, I am none of the things that these characters represent, and I love having the opportunity, however limited it might be, to feel like I’m if not one of them, then certainly at least hanging out with them.

To take things a bit deeper, I’ve always been fascinated by what it would be like to be female, for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are sexual in nature, others are simple curiosity about the differences between the sexes — and the different ways people respond to men and women. I have recurring dreams and fantasies about having the ability to switch between being a man and a woman at will, and it’s sometimes frustrating that I can’t do that, even though it’s obviously an impossibility. This isn’t an indirect means of coming out and saying that I want to make any sort of transition, I might add — it’s just something that has fascinated me for a long time, and here’s the thing: video games have always provided me with a means to explore that fantasy in its most idealised form. Because what’s the point in getting to live out a fantasy if it’s not quite perfect? Assuming you can recognise the difference between fantasy and reality, of course, which all but the most deluded, mentally unstable have absolutely no problem with, what with the escape from reality into fantasy being one of the main reasons people like to game in the first place.

Games are, at their core, pure escapist fantasies of various descriptions. Like any other form of art, they can be autobiographical, realistic, fantastical, historical, abstract, stylised, childish, provocative, erotic and any number of other descriptors you might care to mention. I have an almost infinite amount of respect for the talented men and women who make these experiences come to life on my television and in the palm of my hand, and I would never, ever question how an artist has chosen to represent a character that they created, nor would I start demanding that there are more characters that look like me for the sake of that increasingly irritating buzzword “diversity”. Instead, I would look to understand the character in question through playing as them, and determining what I can learn about them — and about myself — through how they play and how they act. Over the years, I’ve found far more characters I can relate to that don’t look like me than those that do.

Characterisation is a great deal more than just physical appearance. And, ironically, it is the ones who judge characters like Tracer based solely on their physical appearance who are the ones indulging in objectification, not those who enjoy the designs of these characters for whatever reasons they might have. And I’m growing increasingly impatient with those who cry “sexualisation!” at every opportunity without 1) offering any “solutions” (to this non-existent problem) and 2) explaining exactly why it’s somehow bad to have characters that look nice in our interactive fantasies.