Jiggle Physics and Feminism

In many of today's video games, television shows, graphic novels, and other sources of media we find almost all female characters subjected to men's fantasies of fetishism. With the common theme of reduced clothes and overly buxom features, compared to their male counterpart, women are objectified in the most sexualform. Some of the prime examples would be Soul Caliber, Bayonetta, and the women of League of Legends.

Soul Caliber is one of the most racie game to date. With each level progression reducing the amount of coverage on the character, the women of Soul Caliber are nearly naked once they reach their full potential. And lets not forget the jiggle physics. In almost every video game today (especially fighting games) the Jiggle Physics , also known as Soft-Body Physics, or sometimes Cloth Physics, is the art and science of simulating the behavior of non-rigid objects and materials in a computer. In this respect, it's a sister trope to Ragdoll Physics, which deals with more rigid structures. This means that when a character attacks another character or makes any movement jiggling will occur, especially to the breasts and butt. 

Bayonetta is another prime example of a Japanese video game exposing women to a nearly uncomfortable manor. In the game the main character Bayonetta is adorned in a sexy catsuit created from her own hair. Every time Bayonetta is hit by an attack she briefly loses parts of her clothing, exposing her naked body to the player. By exposing the characters body she is being objectified and the woman is dehumanized. 

So these are video game characters. Who cares if they are dehumanized? They are not real and its not like this would affect us in the real world, right? Wrong!

We dehumanize countless people every day. Every person you walk past, who you do not know personally, is seen as a husk. We do not think of the affects we have on one another because we do not see their lives, and if we do not see their lives we subconsciously do not realize they have one. For example: When you go to a restaurant and have a server wait on you, you do not think about their life outside of their work. We just assume that at the end of the night the server goes to the back of the restaurant and gets in their box until it is time for them to work again. Same goes for students with teachers. This is why it is such a shock to us when we see someone outside of their profession. 

As for the effect of the reduction or removal of clothing in video games, that also causes us to dehumanize

and devalue women. Women are automatically tied to their physicality. For some if the woman does not meet their ideal (and usually unrealistic) standards then they will give no second thought to her. This means if her waist is not thin enough, her butt is not big enough, or her boobs are not gigantic and jiggling then that woman means nothing and does not deserve attention. They are not regarded socially or sometimes if they do meet the the standard they are considered to have lesser intelligence. Women are placed in a lose lose situation because women's treatment in media cause their physicality to be tied to both their psychology and sociology. 

In the American video game League of Legends, a newer version of DOTA, nearly every woman has excessive breast size, most of which are overly exposed. Here are three examples of the most exposed girls in League of Legends: (from left to right) Sona, Akali, and Elise.



As you can see the three women from this game have highly exposed breasts. The one on the left, Sona, holds record with the largest chest in the game. She can barely contain herself with the small piece of fabric used to hammock her large breasts. 

The lady in the center, Akali, also has large breasts which are only held in with the fabric down the center of her chest, exposing a large amount of side boob. Her costume is the most unrealistic of all, especially when you consider the fact that she is a ninja who jumps and spins when attacking. 

The last woman, Elise, has one of the most revealing costumes out of all the ladies of League. Her breasts are open nearly exposing her whole chest except the sides and right where the nipples would be. 

These are three examples of how video games expose women's bodies and how the reduction of clothes on a female character affects how we think today. With all this said I am not against how women are portrayed in video games, I would like to visually the enjoy the character I will spend the next few hours staring at. I am against the dehumanization we have been conditioned to subconsciously do. I as much as anyone am guilty of not considering the lives of others. But if we keep in mind that the beautiful yet overly sexualized and exposed women are not ideally what we should strive to be or look for, then we can learn not to objectify or subjectivity women.